Mr. Speaker, may I detain the House for a minute to make a personal explanation? It has been brought to my notice this afternoon that I was unfair towards the hon. member for Klip River (Mr. Friend), and I want to offer my apology at once and to give him the assurance that, unfortunately, I misunderstood him, and I am glad that it came to my notice that I misunderstood the hon. member, as a result of which I unwittingly did him an injustice.

When my speech was interrupted last night I had not finished my sentence, and I want to amplify what I said before dealing with the next question. I said that in this case the shoe fitted Great Britain, because South Africa had always been its best client among all the colonies and dominions, and South Africa feels that it has been the milk-cow which was good enough to be milked but which was left to look after itself. I want to make a few observations after listening with great attention to the speech or lecture of the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. H. C. de Wet). He came to the conclusion that it was necessary for him to put a question to the House. We are faced with insurmountable difficulties as far as the farmers are concerned, he said. “What are we going to do?” I want to reply to that question at once, and I say that the reply can be found in the Budget speech of the hon. minister of Finance, and in the Budget submitted to the House. The Government has only one aim, and that is to see this war through. We find that the economic policy of the old South African Party is carried out and that in accordance with that policy things should be allowed to develop. It is all a question of carrying on with the war, and our people in South Africa are told that there are a number of palliatives in the Budget to cheer up our people who suffer under existing conditions. But the mining industry is treated very liberally and, therefore. I want to discuss that aspect of the matter in the limited time at my disposal. I want to say in the first place that state property is given to the mines, and nobody can gainsay that. That is what the Government is doing through the medium of the Minister of Finance. On the one hand they are carrying on with the war policy, and on the other hand he gives away state property to the mines. He is busy devaluating everything which has been built up in the past. I want to point out once more that the gold premium came into being as a result of the Minister of Finance’s action, and that the rest of the country is paying for the gold premium; for that reason our policy up to the 4th September was to see to it that a portion of that premium would be given back to those to whom it belongs, and that this state property would not be given away to the mines. All that is brushed aside to-day, and on top of all that the Minister of Finance comes along and levies taxes in order to carry on with the war. The Minister of Finance referred shortly to a speech made by me on a previous occasion, and in his reply to me he said the following, as it appears in Hansard—

Where I continue the arguments adduced at that time, I hope I will make myself perfectly clear now, but I also said on that occasion that I know that sometimes occasions arise which the Minister does not want to avail himself of in order to explain his attitude, because we are dealing with big problems which have to be solved but which he is afraid to tackle. What do we find in the Budget speech? Under the different headings we find expenditure to, an amount of no less than £44,505,203. That is not all. To this amount has to be added £14,000,000 for war purposes. We have been told that that amount will be expended this year. And even that is not the whole story, because in addition there is the other Budget, the Railway Budget, which also comes from the same people and the same taxpayers, amounting to £41,011,212. That gives us a grand total of £99,516,415. In view of further expenditure which will have to be incurred I predict that next year we will have to budget for an amount far over £100,000,000. How does the Minister propose to meet this expenditure? That question brings us to the taxation proposals and I want to deal for a moment with the tax on the gold mines. We find in the Budget speech that the Minister proposes to levy the ordinary taxes, but what does he do in respect of the mines? He informs us that he has come to the conclusion that the gold producers should be allowed to have the full market price for their products. That is to say that the 150-shilling basis disappears, and they can calculate on the basis which has been stable during the last six months, namely, 168s. per fine ounce. Whilst making this concession to the gold producers he adds, however, that according to his calculation they will have to pay £3,500,000 to the state. As far as the gold mining industry is concerned the state is fully entitled to take out of it what it can. It is state property, and in the past we had formulas to work on, but now we are going to subtract the cost of marketing from the £3,500,000, and that cost is calculated at 2s. per fine ounce. What does this full market price mean to the mines? In the 1938 Year Book, the latest edition available, we find that during the year 1938 the gold mines in the Union produced 12,161,392 fine ounces. Outside of the Transvaal only 17 ounces were produced. For an easy calculation I leave out the 161,375 fine ounces and base my calculations on 12,000,000 fine ounces. The market price having been fixed for the time being at 168s., 2s. has to be deducted for increased expenditure on the sale of the gold, leaving an extra 16s. to the mines. Multiply the 16s. by 12,000,000 and you arrive at the colossal amount of £9,600,000, of which the Minister intends to deduct £3,500,000. Now I want to point out that the tax, generally speaking, has been levied on the basis of 150s., and only when the figures for 1939 and later are availble, will we be able to see what the position is going to be under the new scheme and how the Minister plays with figures and formulas. But the most remarkable feature of the position is, and it is sometimes a matter which the people cannot understand, that this same Government which is meeting the mines and affording relief to the mines, is increasing the interest on advances to farmers, notwithstanding the fact that our money has been devaluated and may possibly be still further devaluated. Justice has not been done so far to the nation by big capital, the banks and the creditors of the country. We have left gold and the whole position has undergone a radical change, but justice has not been done to the people. Finally, I want to say that the Government dare not place this burden, in respect of the enormous expenditure, on future generations. After the war, whether it lasts one or two or three years, further taxes will be necessary to cover war expenditure, and we will have to face this enormous debt, whilst the people who, have to carry the burden will not be rehabilitated yet.

Mr. Speaker, more than one hon. member during the course of this debate, has referred to the position of the mines. In particular I am thinking of the speech made the other night by the hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. Wallach), in which he expressed great anxiety for the development of the mineral resources of the country, especially in reference to base minerals. I am sorry I was not in the House at the time he spoke, being unavoidably absent. I have, however, been furnished with a copy of his speech, and I desire to take this opportunity of saying a few words upon it, and upon kindred subjects. Let me say at once that I welcome, and the Government welcomes, the attention that has been paid by hon. members in this House during this debate, and at other times, to the development of the base metal resources of South Africa. What the hon. member has said in regard to the importance of this subject, in regard to the desirability of taking full advantage of present opportunities, I entirely endorse. But I do think this, if I may say so to the hon. member, that in his speech, at any rate, he did not show a quite sufficient recognition of what has already been done and is being done in this direction. The resources of the Mines Department are fairly extensive, and the staff is a very highly skilled one, well technically equipped, and its services have been, for many years past, and still are, at the disposal of anyone who has got a fair mining proposition and desires help, either by technical advice or in monetary assistance. The policy of the Government has been to develop particularly the small mining propositions which have offered from time to time. Assistance to these small mines has been freely given to those who are developing mines off the main reef series, gold, and base metals of all descriptions. This assistance has been freely given to anybody who has got a fair mining proposition in that direction, and a great deal has been done. A very considerable amount has been done, and many propositions have been carried to a successful issue and are still being worked and developed very successfully. But the trouble, the main trouble, in finding mines, is after you have found your mineral, to match the cost of production to the cost which the minerals will command. May I remind the House that there is this very broad distinction between the development and the marketing of gold and of base minerals. It is this: That whereas the market for gold is an unlimited one—everything that can be produced is readily and immediately sold—it is not so with’ base metals. You have to find a market for them. Our local markets are limited and the market overseas is limited too, but it is still a very large one, and it is limited by the cost of production and the facilities that there are for finding minerals in suitable quantities. Now the task which the Mines Department has set itself is this. First of all it is to assist in finding where these minerals are. The geological survey has been giving attention to this for a long time, and has been busy mapping the country, and the information at its disposal has been published from time to time and has been taken advantage of by those who have been prepared to exploit the discoveries which have been made. Then there is a laboratory where difficult problems connected with metallurgy and the extraction of base minerals and so on are dealt with by specialists and experts, and the resources of that laboratory are again at the disposal of anyone who is engaged in winning minerals. There is also a committee which is composed of specialists in certain directions who have been considering the methods and the opportunities of developing our mineral resources. Their advice, too, is freely at the disposal of anyone who is prepared to exploit minerals. I gather from the hon. member’s speech that he thinks this is not enough, that the department should take on itself a fresh field of employment and interest. He desires that we should work, that the mines department should prospect, or should work in certain cases the mineral resources themselves. That would be an entirely fresh departure. So far the mines department has not set itself to do that sort of work, and as a matter of fact it has not been equipped for that sort of work. But since the war has broken out I think there has been a change in conditions, and therefore a change in opportunity, and there has been considerable development in the activities of the mines department. Since the war broke out, that is since I took office, there has been a re-orientation of the activities of the department and of the geological survey, and what we have set ourselves to do is to see if we cannot take advantage of the opportunities which the war has given to us, of marketing what has hitherto been unmarketable, and of finding minerals which to-day may have a sale, while before they did not have any sale. And the work of that character has, I think, perhaps taken on something of the nature of prospecting, but if this side is to be developed, I want to tell the House at once, if the Government resources are to be used in the direction of prospecting for base metals, for base minerals on private lands, it may be necessary to come to this House for fresh legislative powers. Because there is this broad distinction between gold and base metals, that whereas the right to win the one belongs to the State, the right to win the other belongs to the private landowner, and if public expenditure is to be undertaken in the direction of prospecting, measures will have to be taken to see that the results of this do not go simply to the private individual. Measures will have to be taken to see that the results are placed at the public disposal in the sense that propositions shall not be closed down or held up, but shall be exploited on fair and reasonable terms. Since the last few months, since war began, there has been a re-examination of certain known occurrences, an examination to see if we could not find fresh occurrences of the following metals—lead, magnesium, manganese, mercury, molybdenum, nickel, tin, titanium, tungsten, vanadium, zinc, asbestos, barite, coal, oil, phosphate, sulphur and verniculite. The results have been of a mixed character; in certain cases they have been disappointing and in other cases they are full of promise. The hon. member, and I think the hon. member for Ermelo (Mr. Jackson) too, referred to the prospects of getting oil in South Africa. May I say that we have followed up the spoor of that particular commodity and the hunt is up, and without exaggerating at all I think there are prospects of our obtaining oil from shale at any rate. I do not think that the possibility of getting gusher oil should even be ruled out entirely. I have had some interesting information from time to time in regard to the discoveries of gusher oil. Some time ago information was brought to the Department that in a trench in the Transvaal, a comparatively shallow one, oil was oozing in, and it was found after some rather crude filtration, that it was sufficiently good even to make a motor car run. An officer of the department visited the spot, but I am sorry to say that he located the source of the supply at the end of a neighbouring garage. From another part of the country I have another very interesting piece of information. My correspondent told me that if only we would assist and put up money, a source of gusher oil would undoubtedly be found. We enquired what he wanted, and it transpired that his demand in money was moderate. He only wanted £5 to give to a native who knew where the gusher was to be found, and when I told him that the department could not supply this money, he again returned to the charge and told me that he had expected that reply, and that he thought the investment might appeal to me personally, and he would be pleased if I would send him the fiver. You will see that the investigations which we undertook are not without their romantic side. However, serious work is being done, has already begun in connection with exploring the possibility of getting oil from our shale, and I am hoping for good results in the near future. I have had a progress report on the work that is being done by the geographical survey up to the present time, but I am not prepared to put it on the table or to publish it. The work has only been half done, and what I feel is that we should be careful and guard against the launching or giving the impression that we are prepared to launch the flotation of wild cat schemes. We should see that the wild cat is fairly domesticated before we let it loose on the public, but I do feel that the prospects are sufficiently good in more than one direction for the exploitation of our base minerals in the near future. Well, now, I think I have said enough to indicate that we are alive to the necessity and the possibility of exploring the resources of our country in this respect. Now a word as to the information which is given. I doubt if hon. members, if I may say so with great respect, from the speeches which they have made at different times in this debate have entirely made themselves familiar with the literature published by the department. There is a very important document called “The Mineral Resources of South Africa” which in itself is a mine of information upon all these matters, and there has been a considerable demand for it; it is now out of print and a new edition brought up to date is going through the press at present. Then there is also a quarterly document which is issued about industrial minerals giving particulars from quarter to quarter of the actual working of base minerals in the country, of the amount sold openly, the amount sold overseas, destination, markets, etc., all of which is of a very encouraging nature, and the perusal of which will show that progress is being made. Now the hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. Wallach) stressed the subject of railway rates and he read a letter to the House in which it was made to appear that the railway department had been very harsh in raising railway rates on these commodities, and that the railway department had been particularly harsh on those people who were producing manganese. The letter was brought to my notice some months ago, and it is perfectly true that the production of manganese did receive a momentary check when the old sliding scale from Postmasburg was changed into a flat rate, on what was considered much too high a basis. But this gives a perfect illustration of the collaboration which is taking place between the Railway Department and the Department of Mines. In conjunction we set to work to examine the interests of the manganese industry, we looked into the whole position in regard to the difficulties of the application of the sliding scale rate to the carriage of that product. And I am very glad to be able to say that the Railway Department collaborated with the utmost cordiality in getting to a solution of the difficulty, and in a very short time a suitable modification of the railway rate was arrived at, and for a long time now the manganese production has been going on on a most satisfactory basis. I am confident that the Railway Department will deal on all suitable occasions with problems of this kind in exactly the same spirit. I do not think it is necessary for me to go into this matter in very much greater detail, but I would like to mention the possibility of producing phosphates, fertilisers, in South Africa. We have phosphate deposits in this country but I am sorry to say that up to the present they have not been found to be of an extensive character, but I am having them re-examined at present, and it is possible—I will not go any further than that—that we may find it to be feasible to make some fertilisers from our own phosphate deposits.

Would you care to tell us where they are found?

Yes, I do not mind a bit, it is all published — I can tell you. They are found in the Southern Karroo — in the Transvaal, and they are also found in Natal. Hon. members may laugh, but if I were to indicate the exact spots in which the investigations are going on, possibly some one might be wanting to pick up an option. Well, I think I have said enough on that subject. Now, before I sit down I want to say a word about the gold mining industry, and the taxation proposals in that respect which are embodied in this Budget.

I thought you were going to forget about that.

I have heard with astonishment suggestions made from the other side of the House that the change in the method of gold taxation is due to some pressure from mysterious sources having been brought to bear on the Minister of Finance.

Definite pressure.

Let me say at once that the collaboration in the Cabinet is such that I am able to give a categorical and emphatic denial to any such absurd and ridiculous rumour.

Not so ridiculous.

Oh, yes, very much so. There has been great pressure brought to bear, but the real pressure brought to bear is the pressure of irrefutable logic. And in the interest of the mining industry as a whole, and therefore in the interest of the country as a whole, this change has been made; a change which I convinced is of great advantage to all the classes of the community — which will prove of great benefit to all classes of the community, not only in the near future, but in the distant future as well.

That remains to be seen.

I should like to put the position in a very simple form. I should like to make myself intelligible on this point to the hon. member for Bethlehem, but in order to do so I must give a little illustration. Supposing you had a sheep and you wanted to get all you could out of your sheep. Would you not fatten that sheep up instead of keeping it skinny? If you wanted to get his fleece off his back, would you not see that the animal was properly nourished and got enough to eat? And similarly, if you want to get all you can out of your gold mining industry, or out of any other industry, you want to encourage it to the utmost to earn the maximum amount of profit?

Well, what about the farming industry?

If you have to feed your sheep too much it becomes an uneconomic proposition.

The essential fallacy which underlay the proposal made by the hon. member for Fauresmith was this, that he seemed to think, at any rate his proposal implied, that you would be doing something to the advantage of the country, you would be enriching the Treasury if you closed down the gold mining industry’s power to expand beyond a certain point.

Where do you get that from?

Now I find that he pushed his old gold standard policy, a policy which he adhered to for so many years — he pushed it to such an extent that it proved to be to the greatest disadvantage of the Union, and in fixing the 150s. limit he was in fact putting the gold mining industry back upon a gold standard.

To stop speculation.

At 150s. instead of 85s., it is true, but he was putting the gold mining industry upon a gold standard, and he was letting the rest of the country be off the gold standard.

The prices of the rest of the country’s products are controlled, only the gold mining industry’s prices are not controlled now.

What on earth has that to do with it— what bearing can that have on the problem which I am putting? What bearing can it possibly have?

It will encourage speculation.

If you want to develop the whole of your country, why should you think that you can develop one portion by putting it on one level and the rest on another level? One of the industries of the country on a gold standard, and another off the gold standard? It seems to me that such a lobsided state of affairs cannot be justified from any possible point of view. Develop your gold mining industry and allow it to develop freely. I know the hatred there is against the gold mining industry in the minds of many people.

Why hatred?

A hatred, fostered I am sorry to say, by most inaccurate statements propagated in the most irresponsible manner from time to time, but if you are prepared to overcome that and say: “I want to develop the gold mining industry, and use it for the benefit of the country,” for heaven’s sake let us develop it. Now I want to put the problem which I, as Minister of Mines, had to face when I came into office, and when I found this 150s. limit. First of all there were the small mines outside the Witwatersrand Main Reef series, and they said: “Well, our costs are going up,” and they were, we tested it and found that they were going up, and they said: “You have given us assistance and now we have come to a point where we are at a standstill, we are not paying our way, but if you will allow us to have gold at 168s, we shall be able to pay our way.”

What would have happened if there had been no depreciation of sterling?

If there had been no depreciation of sterling the costs would probably not have mounted up.

Oh!

No, they would not.

We had undertaken to deal with the costs in another way.

In what way were you going to deal with these costs? I know you were going to make an allowance. I went into that very carefully with the staff at my disposal and I found that the difficulties in the way of making a fair contribution towards these rising costs—the difficulties of calculating the position would have involved a very careful examination of accounts and it would have been so difficult, and so costly, that it would have been almost impossible. The real simple way was to allow these small mines to have their gold at the price they could get for it, and to put them on a paying basis. In that way we were relieving the position and financing them further. The case of these outside mines was an overwhelming one. Take the case of the developing mines. There were developing mines and mines which require large amounts of capital to bring them to the producing stage. They said: “Well, the investment does not attract, it is not attracting capital — how can you make it more attractive?” Suggestions were made from time to time—I have had suggestions put to me that the state should, out of its abounding financial resources, advance money to these mines—that we should lend money on terms, and I turned that down absolutely, and on every single occasion. I did so for this reason, if for no other, that it would place the Mines Department in a position of having to give judgment whether a certain investment, or a certain enterprise was sound or not, and no one in the Mines Department, more than outside the Mines Department, could say anything more than that it might be a pretty good proposition. These enterprises, these investments were made on that basis, and it is because of that that mining profits have to be greater than profits in other investments—there is always this margin of uncertainty. The only way in which developing mines could be helped to get the capital they required was to let them get their capital redeemed, if they did strike gold in payable quantities, to let them get their capital back in a short time, and that is why the Minister of Finance was so sound in saying: “You shall be allowed to do two things, obtain the full price for your gold in order to get your capital back quickly, and you will be allowed to get your capital back in five years, if you so desire, instead of in ten.” The latter method by itself would not have been sufficient, but the two combined are the great attraction indeed to the finding of the necessary capital. It has yet to be put to the test, but I am very hopeful that under the revised provisions of this Budget we shall find that most of those difficulties in finding the required capital will have disappeared. Of course, no legislation, no administration of any kind can make gold appear where there is no gold, or make it appear in sufficient quantities if it is present in insufficient quantities. But in that respect again I say that the proposals put forward by the Minister of Finance have removed what was an outstanding difficulty in the way of the development of the gold mining industry as a whole, and it was done without the loss of a single penny to the state.

What of the future?

On the contrary, if it succeeds in getting even one developing mine brought to the producing stage it will have made money out of that for the state, because without the proposals which are contained in this Budget that developing mine would have been abandoned, or it would not have been started, and it would never have come to the producing stage at all. And therefore the method which the Minister of Finance has adopted may be described as one of “heads we win, tails we win a bit more.”

No, both heads and tails you lose.

It is a very good business indeed, I only wish it could be applied to other enterprises besides the gold mining industry.

Now tell us about the rich mines.

I must thank the hon. member, that is what I was coming to. I must thank the hon. member for following my argument so closely. Now we come to the rich mines, which are the producing mines, and let me say that under the present proposals the state is taking more this year out of those mines than it would have taken out of those mines if the figure of 150s. had been left.

That is the whole point.

They will have to pay more. They are now having to pay under this Budget for the benefits given to the small mines, for the benefits given to the developing mines. The richer mines, therefore, have to bear a higher cost, they will have to bear a higher share of the taxation than they would have borne under the 150s. limit of the hon. member for Fauresmith.

Will that apply if there is a further break in sterling?

Who can say what the limit is going to be. Obviously there is a limit. All I can say is this, that this Budget is not being put before this House for the millennium or for a quinquennial period, or even for two years, it is put forward as a forecast as to what will be right and proper for the next twelve months, and for twelve months only. And it is for these twelve months that the proposals have been put forward.

We shall have you out of office before the twelve months are up.

The proposals put forward as a matter of fact do take from the rich mines a larger sum of money in taxation than would have been taken from those mines if the 150s. limit had remained.

The rich mines’ shares have gone up.

I should like to say a word or two on that point. If hon. members had taken the trouble to go through the share lists from day to day, from week to week, and from month to month, from the time war broke out, they would have found that there has not been a rise. You will find that there has not been a rise. There has not been a rise in many of the outstanding mines; many of the shares of the rich mines are standing at a lower figure now than in September last, and all this talk about speculation on the Rand and the rise on the share market is untrue, it simply is untrue, it is not there. Hon. members can satisfy themselves of that, anybody in the country can satisfy himself on that by a perusal of the price list over the period.

You mean that this is manipulated.

What do you mean by manipulation?

You manipulate the position by flooding the market with shares.

There has been no flooding of the market with shares. Has the hon. member been off-loading a bit himself?

I have never been fortunate enough.

The hon. member seems to claim some knowledge of the technique of rigging the share market.

I made a close study of your methods.

I shall be glad to apply to him for assistance.

We may collaborate then.

A perusal of the share lists through these past months shows absolutely clearly and definitely that there has been none of this speculation, none of the speculative rise of any sort or kind. What there has been has rather indicated a steady fall, not very much, but rather a steady fall. What the main advantage of the budget has been to those who have invested money in gold, and hope to invest money in gold, has been this, that it has removed once and for all, and I hope very definitely as far as this Government is concerned, the risk of expansion being stopped by an artificial gold standard being created, and it has given the indication that we are returning to the sound canons of taxation, that you should encourage the production of profit and then impose the requisite taxation on those profits when once they have been earned. Those are the simple elements of this mining taxation question.

It is too simple.

These are principles which are irrefutable and the conditions on which alone the gold-mining industry can flourish.

I am sorry that the Minister of Mines has spoilt a good speech by laying down this untenable proposition in connection with the gold mines, which has already in advance been answered by the Minister of Finance, and by many other speakers on this side of the House. I do not want to follow him in his argument, but only want to express my pleasure that there is at least one Minister who has used the six months since the 4th September to get on to a more intimate footing with his department, and who apparently knows what is going on. I want, however, in addition, to utter the warning that he must please not always accept the departmental view as the wisest view, and more especially in connection with phosphates. There are other difficulties facing him as well if he is just going to be satisfied with what the department suggests. Then I would like to congratulate the Minister of Railways and Harbours on his budget. There may possibly be criticism in connection with details, but I want to say that on the whole the budget is a sound one. I only hope his colleagues will forgive him for having introduced a budget which is the twin of the budget which I presented to the House for five years in succession. I would like, at this stage, to say that I would like to mention various things in connection with the attacks which have been made on the air service, but they can wait. While referring to the air service, I want to express my appreciation for the courtesy which the Minister showed when some of his backbenchers tried to imitate and concur with the hon. member, for Illovo (Mr. Marwick). It was aping in the true sense of the word. It may possibly be a good thing if he did not reserve the quality of courtesy to himself alone, but also passed it on to one or two of his colleagues. Then the Government will definitely improve. In the meantime I only just want to make this one general remark, that I am sorry that no allowance is made in the Railway Budget for the increased cost of living. That is to say, no provision for a war allowance in consequence of the increased cost of living, so far as the railway staff are concerned. The Minister cannot possibly get up and in his reply explain to us that there is no rise in the cost of living to be expected during the next twelve months, and that a considerable rise has not yet taken place. I leave the argument whether there has already been a rise or not, there, but I am certain that the Minister will not say that during the next twelve months he does not expect such a rise, and in the circumstances he ought now to be making provision for an allowance of that kind. What we on this side of the House fear is that after the cost of living has gone up, and the people are already in debt, that in consequence of the increased costs an allowance will be given later on, which will not be granted retrospectively, with the result that the railwayman will be in debt when the allowance is given. It will not assist him in paying his debt, but will only enable him, more or less, to cover his ordinary cost of living in the future. Then I would like to say a few words about defence. It came out during the budget debate from various sides of the House, that we could be happy if the expenditure on defence remained at £14,000,000. If I had to make a prophecy, I would say that at the end of the year it would probably be nearer to £20,000,000 than to £14,000,000. But be that as it may, we are dealing here with a budget which is eight, nine, possibly, ten times as large as the amount which is spent on defence in normal years. But we are given no explanation by the Minister of Defence. He has nothing to say. He has not even got a word of appreciation to say for his officers, especially the senior officers of all arms, and of all departments of defence, who have worked like slaves for six and a half years to build up a proper system of defence. Not only has there been no appreciation of what the people have done, but it is far worse still. I want to tell the Minister without Portfolio, who once filled such an important position on my staff, if he possibly got the impression that nothing was being done about defence, that he employed his time on my staff very badly. But I say that the Minister of Defence not only expressed not a word of appreciation of what his officers had done during that time, but on the contrary, he allows—I might almost say encourages—the making of the most unfair and malicious attacks on the department. They are attacks which are just as much reproaches against the officers as me personally. I would like to stress that certain facts are known to the Minister of Defence, and known, I think, to hon. members of this House. I want to emphasise, in the first place, that if we compare the results which we obtained in the 6½ years, and especially the money that we spent, if we compare those results we shall find that in comparison with most European countries we got 40s. value in the £. I have already said that during that period the senior officers, which term includes the permanent force and the citizen force, and even to a certain extent the commando officers, worked like slaves to bring something into existence, and I want here to add that the Minister of Defence is aware of the facts, aware of the fact that our state of preparation on the 4th September, bearing in mind our problems and our geographical position, was better than that of Great Britain, when we bear in mind the obligations of Great Britain to France and other parts of the Continent of Europe, and when we bear in mind her geographical position. If the Minister happens to differ from me in that respect I should be glad if he will rise for the first time in the House and will tell us who our possible enemy might be, and what extent of preparation for the possible enemy would be necessary. The Minister of Defence knows all these things, but he has nothing to say about them. He has no statement to make, no word of protection on behalf of his officers and his own department. Then he cannot blame us, nor can he blame the public if we put our own construction on his attitude and, if it amounts to that, me for saying that it suits his book for these attacks to be made, that it suits him that the position should be troubled and clouded by these attacks. Why does it suit his book? In the first place because they are personal attacks on me; in the second place because the alleged flaw in our defence system gives him the opportunity of recruiting men on a large scale and spending money on a still larger scale. He gave no explanation of the use which he wants to put the money to, and the reasons why he is recruiting men. He can simply shrug his shoulders and say: “You have heard in what a scandalous state the Department of Defence is, that everything that was wrong on the 4th September we had to put right.” He cannot blame the public, seeing that he says nothing, if the public places that interpretation on his silence, if the construction is put on his silence that he is engaged in recruiting and training men in order to spend money in connection with purposes which have no concern whatever with South Africa, but which concern Kenya, or possibly the Suez Canal, or still further north, Syria, where he has plans. As I am mentioning Kenya, I want to say in passing that I will deal with the alleged promises to Kenya on another occasion, but just now I would merely like to ask the Minister to inform the House as to what the actual relations of the Union were in regard to Kenya. I also want to ask the Minister of Defence to lay on the Table the report of the negotiations which I conducted with Col. Muirhead, Under-Secretary for Air in Great Britain, and Sir John Maffey and Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, then managing director of Imperial Railways. At the same time that I am supposed to have made those imaginary promises to Lord Francis Scott — who at that time had no official status, nor does he have any now—at the very time when I am supposed to have made those promises I was actually engaged in negotiating with those official persons, and discussing, with them, defence matters in Africa as well. Now I must ask the Minister to lay on the Table the minutes in connection with the negotiations. Then you will see precisely whether there is a scintilla or a grain of substance in the allegation that promises were made on the side of the Union of South. Africa. If the Minister will tell me that for some reason or other he cannot do it because they are secret, then I suggest that he should submit the minutes to you, Mr. Speaker, and I am quite prepared to be bound by your statement at a later stage, whether the minutes contain any such promise. Those are the official minutes in the matter of the negotiations which took place, not of vague promises and misunderstandings in regard to so-called promises, but they are the minutes of the official negotiations with the persons indicated, the only official persons who could negotiate about those matters. I said that this silence will be interpreted partly as an encouragement to continue the personal attack on me. Let me just say that I am not concerned about the personal attacks on me. It was said to me at the beginning of September, shortly after the 4th September, by an English-speaking friend, as a matter of fact a journalist—

That is what he said to me. I leave it to the House to judge whether the prophecy of my English-speaking friend has been realised or not. In any case I do not intend to advertise those kinds of persons any further, to give them any additional publicity by going into the details of what was said against me in connection with defence matters. I want to confine myself to general questions and to what I regard as fundamental facts in connection with the defence system. I must, unfortunately, confine myself to these facts, to general matters, because details may very easily lead me into making public things in connection with our defence force or the British defence force which should be regarded as secret. But let me add to that that if the Minister wants the details, and if Parliament wants to have them over the floor of the House, then they can come and obtain them from me. In connection with general matters in regard to defence, in regard to the fundamental facts, I want in the first place to stress what I am saying here. I am saying just as much for the sake of the officers with whom I have had the honour of co-operating for 6½ years as for the sake of myself. Now I want, in the first place, to emphasise that we had no defence policy before 1933. If the Prime Minister wants to know where the information comes from, then I want to refer him to his right hand, Gen. Collyer, He, on behalf of the Defence Board, stated to me and the officers, after we had drafted a defence policy for the first time, that he was glad finally to see that a defence policy was being created, and he said that there had been no defence policy before that time. But further than that, the whole of the defence policy up to and including its powers, up to and including its martial law regulations has been taken over holus bolus by the Prime Minister. My information may be wrong, but so far as I know he has not added a single new idea, not a single new departure to the policy we built up in those six and a half years. I want to say further on the authority, not of our experts but of experts overseas, that it is very probable that that policy laid down by us in the course of six and a half years will continue to be the policy for this country for the next 25 years. In those six and a half years we saw to it that not a single penny was spent without proper financial control. I said on a former occasion that when one has to deal with soldiers it is difficult to maintain financial control because from the very nature of things they are not as careful with money as people in the ordinary public service are. It was for that reason that we appointed Mr. Broeksma who carefully supervised everything; and in that connection I wish to draw the Prime Minister’s attention to the fact that money is being spent so lavishly to-day that the extravagance is such that, if my information is correct, he can prepare himself for one of the greatest fiancial scandals we have ever had. We are going to have the same condition of affairs as we had in 1914—18 when £1,000,000, I will not say was lost, but was not accounted for. I am referring to this because we are all interested in proper financial control and because I know how difficult it is to maintain such control when one is dealing with soldiers. I also want to say that during the whole of those six and a half years no order was placed for obsolete arms. We are asked to-day, or the question is being put, why we did not buy this or that. We could have bought anti-aircraft armament, as much as we wanted to, but all obsolete stuff, and we could also have bought other arms, as many as we wanted to, but everything obsolete. Overseas countries were only too willing to offload them on to us, and in this connection I wish to put another question to the Minister, I want to ask him whether he has placed ah order for aeroplanes in London and if so, whether it is for the same type of aeroplane which we had ordered before, and which were to have been delivered this year as obsolete aeroplanes at £200 each? If the Prime Minister is not in a position to answer, he will be able to enquire either here or overseas and to say whether it is the same type of aeroplane which was to have been delivered to us this year. My information is that the same type of aeroplane has been ordered in England as new for £1,400 to £1,800 each. I am not quite sure that my information is correct, but I shall make sure very quickly if the Prime Minister will tell me what sort of machines he is now buying. I do not want to mention the name of the machine because in Great Britain’s air force this particular aeroplane is still playing a part, and I do not wish to mention the name of the machine, as the public may still attach much importance to it. But if the Prime Minister tells me the name, I shall, on the authority of the chief of the general staff, not on my authority, be able to say whether this is the machine which we were able to obtain as obsolete for £200, and which is now to be imported as a new aeroplane. Then we laid down the principle in those days that we were not going to buy any equipment overseas which could be purchased or commandeered in this country. We even laid it down that boots and other materials would not be unnecessarily kept in stock if we were able to buy them locally. The question is also being put in connection with areoplanes: “How many modern aeroplanes have we got?” We laid it down as a policy— and that was the policy of the previous Government—in regard to modern aeroplanes costing from £9,000 to £20,000, that we should only secure sets of seven so that we would be able to train our pilots in the handling of those machines. Furthermore, we used obsolete types and we came to an agreement with England that they should build up a Dominion reserve there of modern aeroplanes which we would be able to claim in time of war. That is the reason why we did not spend £1,500,000 on aeroplanes to be kept in this country, knowing that those aeroplanes would probably become obsolete within eighteen months. For that reason it was our policy to buy obsolete aeroplanes cheaply and to leave our war reserves in England at no expense whatever to us. We also adopted the principle in those days that as an attack on our country was not likely to eventuate very suddenly and as we would have three months to prepare ourselves for an attack, we would have six months to arrange for complete mobilisation. It is foolish, therefore, to ask what the position was on the 4th September. So long as we were able to resist a raid and so long as we were in a position to prepare ourselves for an active campaign within three months, and so long as we were able to arrange for complete mobilisation within six months, it was quite adequate. That was the policy laid down after giving consideration to the possible strength, the potential strength, of any potential enemy of this country. That was the Government’s policy, and it was not only my policy. That policy was based on the assumption that the British Navy would keep the seas open and that in time of war England would also be ready and able to keep her word as regards supplying our defence requirements. It was assumed therefore that the seas would be kept open and that England would not break her word. I have made the position clear that, with the exception of the training, we were well on the way towards carrying out the five-year plan, and that only in respect of a subordinate portion of the scheme, a minor portion, the training of pilots and such, we had got into arrears, but those were only minor points. Having mentioned those fundamental facts with regard to our defence policy I want to point out that this was not only the Government’s policy, but this was actually agreed to by the House. I referred to this matter from time to time in the House and I explained the position, and I would be able to quote from Hansard to show that this policy was from time to time approved of by the House, and what is more I explained this from time to time to the Cabinet, and as my object in doing this was to attempt to get more money, the House will be able to realise that I did not put the position too favourably. In addition, we had a progress report every month, the chief of every division put up a report of the progress made, and if no progress was made the reasons were given. Let me say that if certain delays did occur, those delays did not necessarily take place in this country. I introduced those progress reports, and the progress made was shewn from month to month. Apart from that I had discussions with the Prime Minister from time to time as he took an interest in defence matters, and from time to time I also notified the Cabinet with a view to obtaining additional funds for my department. So the Prime Minister was kept fully informed. In regard to the accusation that there were shortages in the Defence Force, those charges are on the whole very vague, but if an investigation is instituted it will be found that there are four points in those charges. First of all it has been stated that there was no proper equipment, that we did not even have adequate supplies of boots, clothing etc., for one brigade. Let me say that what we had in stock plus what we would have been able to commandeer in the country—because that was our policy—was sufficient for all fighting purposes. There might not have been adequate supplies for parade purposes, perhaps, but let me add that the Boer Commándo’s at the beginning of the Anglo-Boer War would have been only too pleased if they had been equipped as well as we were. It is true there possibly was not sufficient for parade purposes, but the equipment was adequate for fighting purposes. But as the hon. member over here stated France and England were not ready either — people were even marching about as members of the Forces in private clothes as they were unable to obtain military equipment. That invariably happens on the occasion of every mobilisation, with this difference, that England and France had to mobilise immediately while we had two periods of three months each. It has further been stated that we did not have sufficient rifles, but what we had and what had been ordered was more than adequate for our requirements. But let me say in regard to all these matters, that if we had had to send an army immediately to Kenya. Syria and Palestine, the British authorities would probably not have been satisfied with our equipment, but I was not concerned with Kenya. Syria or Palestine, I was concerned with the interests of South Africa. The question has also been put whether we had a sufficiency of modern aeroplanes. As I said, our policy was to buy practice aeroplanes at the rate of £200 each, and our reserve of modern aeroplanes was kept in Great Britain. We did not want to invest large amounts of money in modern aeroplanes which would very rapidly become obsolete. It has also been said that we did not have sufficient artillery ammunition. Well, what does one regard as sufficient? If one has to base one’s requirements on the quantity which at the end of 1918 had been fired on the Western front, then certainly we had very little. But if one looks at it from the point of view of what we might require in South Africa, then the available quantity was adequate. If hon. members doubt my figures, or if they want to controvert my figures, let the Prime Minister say who is the potential enemy, what his strength is likely to be, and what his potential artillery is likely to be, and then let us see whether my figures were right or wrong. In regard to a large proportion of our armaments we deliberately laid down the policy that we would manufacture a large portion of our supplies here in South Africa—I am referring to anti-aircraft bombs and other ammunition, and we even considered the question of establishing a rifle factory here. Until shortly before the outbreak of war we were in negotiation with a certain firm for the establishment of a rifle factory, and in those circumstances we could not very well import large quantities of rifles which we might possibly have decided to manufacture ourselves in this country. For that reason we only bought what we absolutely needed. That was our policy in regard to rifles and that was the policy which the Government was fully conversant with. But there was one defect in regard to our defence, and it was a serious defect, though nobody has yet referred to it. It was a defect in connection with our coastal defence. Our coastal defence for various reasons which I do not want to go into now, as I do not desire to touch on any military secrets, was considered to be inadequate a few years ago. We introduced a new system of coastal defence which was to include Robben Island, which had never been thought of before, and the system introduced by us would have been an improvement on the system of coastal defence devised by the Imperial Conference and its committee of 1928. We knew that these things could not be carried out in time as a result of certain occurrences overseas, and that it would take more time than normally would have been the case. For that reason I arranged with the British Government that the Erebus, a flat warship, with 15 inch guns, was to be handed to South Africa for coastal defence purposes. Because, as the British experts told me, and I took it to be correct, and commonsense also told me that that was the case, a Monitor has this advantage that it can be moved from port to port and no hostile battleship knows where it is at a particular moment, and if a battleship is six, seven or eight thousand miles away from its base, it does not wish to run the risk of getting into conflict, or clashing with such a battleship carrying 15 inch guns. I do not know whether the Minister of Finance is laughing at what I am saying here, or whether he is having some private joke with the Minister of Railways. Should his humour be caused by what I am saying about the Monitor I wish to assure him that what I am saying here is supported by the British Admiralty. There was this defect in connection with our coastal defence, and in order to put this right, in order to correct this real defect in our coastal defence, we obtained the Erebus from the British Government. In the normal course of events the Erebus would have been here towards the third week of September and would to all intents and purposes have provided effective protection against any battleship which might have become dangerous to our harbours. Before the Erebus reached South Africa, however, the Prime Minister, for reasons which he has not mentioned, returned it to Great Britain. I do not know what his reasons were; there may have been good reasons, but the fact remains that he returned it to Great Britain, with the result that the only real defect in our defence system has not been corrected. Whether the Prime Minister was so anxious to do Great Britain a favour, that he returned this ship to her, I cannot say, but I do say that it was simply playing with the safety of South Africa to return this ship to Great Britain. As I have said there may have been a good reason for it. We do not know, however, what that reason was, because as usual the Prime Minister has not considered it worth while to take the public into his confidence. If, possibly, there is any other reason except that he wanted to do a favour to Great Britain, if possibly there is a good reason for his having done so, we should like to hear it. Let us understand what the position is. A pocket battleship like the Graf Spee which has 11-inch guns cannot very well stand up against such a Monitor with 15-inch guns, and if such a Monitor is lying a couple of miles outside the harbour it makes the harbour safe against an attack like that. I do not want to go into too much detail on the question of armaments. From the point of view of coastal defence, I only want to say that the danger from a ship such as the Graf Spee could easily have been dealt with by the Erebus. I have already stated that my explanation must necessarily be of a general nature as I do not wish to go into military details. If, however, the Government wishes to have the details and the figures in connection with artillery, ammunition, equipment and all the rest of it, we shall be able to go into the whole matter fully in this House. I shall do so with the greatest pleasure in this House if the Government wishes it to be done. I am not doing it here to-day, as I have no wish to commit a breach of faith in connection with matters which are not only confidential so far as South Africa is concerned, but which are also Great Britain’s secrets. I have made this statement solely with a view to seeing whether we are eventually going to get a declaration from the rt. hon. the Prime Minister, to which this House is entitled, to which the officers of the Defence Force are entitled, and to which I am entitled. If the rt. hon. the Prime Minister had made such a statement, and had followed the ordinary procedure of political decency by formulating his charge against me, I would have been able to have asked for a select committee which could have gone very carefully into the whole matter, into the whole question whether there had been any neglect on my part, and also whether there had been any neglect on the part of the officers assisting me. I have on a previous occasion asked the rt. hon. the Prime Minister to appoint such a select committee, and I hope he will now agree to my request, particularly after what the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. Pocock) has said. What that hon. member has said can only mean that in regard to certain parts of the Defence Force a “sniffing-out commission” has already been at work. That hon. member who in the past knew nothing about military matters, and very little about anything else, after the sniffing-out work of that commission suddenly felt that he was an expert. I have not had any notice of such a commission, and I am convinced that Adv. Broeksma, the former Secretary for Defence, did not have any knowledge of it either, nor was he invited to give evidence. I do not know what such a commission was appointed for, unless it was a sort of party political smelling-out business. I am not asking for a political sniffing out—for a political investigation, but I ask for a select committee on which members of both sides of the House shall serve, and where I and others shall have the opportunity to cross-examine Ministers and others. If that does not happen, if the Prime Minister does not formulate his complaint in such a manner as to enable me to ask for a select committee, or he fails to stop his henchmen when they come here with unfair charges, the public will form its own opinion, and it will come to the conclusion that I was fully entitled to say what I have said. One would almost think that it suited the Prime Minister’s purposes to keep the defence position under a cloud, because the greater the so-called defects were on the 4th September, the easier it is for him to recruit people on a large scale, and to spend money, apparently for the purpose of correcting those defects, but in reality to provide for Kenya, North Africa or Palestine—the easier it is for him to spend money although Parliament does not know what that money is being spent for, except this, that we know that that money which is being spent, or which is asked for, is not being spent and not being asked for in the interest of South Africa.

I really do not understand why the hon. member spoke with so much feeling and so much fire on this matter which could have been dealt with quietly, moderately and in a business like way. The hon. member throughout the major part of his speech defended himself, and he accused me of not having made a statement, of having kept silent, as a result of which he was being more and more suspected, was being more and more brought under suspicion. I want to point out….

Is it not so?

I want to point out that I have neither in this House, nor outside, made any specific charges against the hon. member. I have not done so anywhere. The hon. member is asking for a statement from me, because he is under suspicion, and he pretends that I have made charges against him in public.

Was he not entitled to to expect protection from you against those charges?

There is no doubt that neither here in this House, nor outside, have I on any occasion publicly or otherwise, made any specific charges against the hon. member.

Was it not your duty to protect a former colleague against false accusations?

It would appear to me that the hon. member spoke here with a guilty conscience. As I have said in this House before, the hon. member acts in a way which brings him under suspicion with the public. He uses expressions which make people suspicious about his plans, his purposes and his objects. He went from one part of the country to the other and told the people that he would give a lead if this or that circumstance should arise. People ask what that lead will be for, and what the hon. member is driving at. Now, he is saying very little about giving a lead, but we find that in his recent speeches he has taken a different line—and he is now saying that they must have a spearhead of storm troops, or that a guard should be set up in his party. One can realise that the public must become suspicious; one can quite appreciate their becoming suspicious when they hear a man who has occupied the post of Minister of Defence, as he has done, talking in that spirit, and telling the people that we must have storm troops belonging to one party in our country.

You know that there is no proof of that?

I must ask the hon. member to give me a chance to speak. I did not interrupt him. The hon. member for Gezina uses all sorts of expressions, he goes from one platform to the other, from the one side of the country to the other, in a way which creates the greatest suspicion against him. And then his conscience pricks him and he imagines charges have been made against him, and he tries to defend himself. He himself is the cause of all the suspicion that is felt against him. What does he mean by these storm troops? We know that storm troops are employed in Germany. The Nazi regime has been built up in Germany on the basis of storm troops, but why should we have that sort of thing here in South Africa? Why should our own institutions not be adequate for our purposes? No, the hon. member’s conscience is worrying him. He himself is the cause of the difficulties that are troubling him. Now I want to deal with the particulars of the remarks made by the hon. member this afternoon, and I want to deal with his complaints in detail. First of all, he says that I have remained silent; I have not yet discussed defence matters. Well, defence matters are dealt with when the defence vote is before the House, and it was my intention to go fully into the matter on that occasion, when there will be an opportunity for the discussion of all details in regard to defence in this House. I see no reason why the hon. member should challenge me on every possible occasion to make a statement, a statement which in the circumstances would be premature, seeing that the occasion for such a statement will present itself under our Constitution at the right time, when the whole matter can be fully gone into. That is the reason why I have remained silent, but my silence is not going to be maintained for ever. The hon. member further said that I had not spoken a word, not even to express appreciation of the work done by the officers of the Defence Force. There is no need for me to express such appreciation. The officials and officers of the Defence Force know from experience through our co-operation in the past six months, day and night, that there is no need for words of appreciation in public of their work. We have co-operation to-day. There is no suspicion in the defence department to-day. The officers know to-day what the policy is. They have no longer any doubt as to what the policy is, and as to where they stand in relation to the Minister. They know it now, and I may say that so far as I am concerned there is an appreciation which cannot be described or expressed in words; nor is it necessary for me to do so. They know where they stand.

Do the officers know where the borders are?

I am not this afternoon going to deal with the question raised in the statement made by the hon. member in connection with the Northern territories. It was discussed fully in this House and it will be discussed again when we are in committee on the Defence Vote. If there are any documents which should be laid on the Table of the House, if the hon. member considers that he requires those documents, I shall be prepared to lay them on the Table with his support. I do not believe, however, that it is necessary this afternoon to go into those questions. The hon. member further discussed the financial policy and he told us that he had heard rumours about the way in which the money was being spent. I do not know where the hon. member has been searching for information, nor do I know where he has obtained his information. Let me give him the assurance that so far as the financial policy is concerned, and so far as expenditure is concerned, and also the question of appointments in the Defence Department, those are all matters which are being controlled. In regard to the appointment of officials, control is being exercised by the Public Service Commission, and as regards expenditure control is exercised and supervision is being exercised by the Treasury over the Department’s financial policy, and where officials with the necessary experience were required to exercise control and supervision over expenditure they were appointed, and they are to-day to look after that part of the work. Every possible care is being exercised in that regard. I know of course, that where large sums of money are being spent, money which must necessarily be spent in connection with the development of our defence, there must be a danger, and there must be a suspicion of money being recklessly spent, and that is one of the things which I have been very careful about; I have seen to it that the financial administration is thoroughly sound and that everything is as far as possible in order, and I think the House and the Select Committee on Public Accounts will later on agree with me that everything possible has been done to keep that side of the matter in order. The hon. member further spoke about the ordering of obsolete weapons, especially aeroplanes. He stated that there was a rumour, that he had heard that aeroplanes were now being bought for £14,000, each of which, or something like that, he could have bought at the time for £200.

Which we were to have obtained during the course of this year under the arrangements which I had made. I discussed that.

Let me give him the assurance that there is not a word of truth in it.

Will you privately give me the name of the aeroplane which you have ordered?

Yes, you can have those names. My great care has been to do the very best to get the latest type of aeroplanes which would be most suitable for our purposes, to fight here and on the Continent of Africa, and along our coast, and there is no question of buying any aeroplanes for £14,000 which my predecessor could have bought for £200. The hon. member further told us that he had from time to time had progress reports from his department and that those progress reports fully set out the progress made in his department and I believe that he stated on a previous occasion that he had placed those documents as Cabinet’s memoranda before the Cabinet.

Their contents.

I have never seen them, and I know nothing about them, but I am informed that so far as the progress reports are concerned they had nothing to do with the preparation and equipment of the army, and the defence force, but that they only dealt with the work of the War Supplies Board.

Which includes everything.

The War Supplies Board had to deal with the preparations to obtain materials and such things in this country, but it had nothing to do with the bigger question of the preparation of our forces, the training of our staff, and the forces generally, the general provisions for our forces, transport matters, medical matters, plans of mobilisation and similar matters. The progress reports did not have anything to do with those questions at all, they only concerned the work of the War Supplies Board which was engaged on enquiring into our local resources.

But it did deal with the question of equipment in connection with which charges are now made.

I only want the House to understand that so far as the progress of the army is concerned, the equipment, the preparatory measures so far as the forces are concerned — those questions were never dealt with in any progress report, and so far as I am concerned those matters were never brought to my notice, and I believe that my colleagues will say the same. Now let me say a few words on the question of our coastal defence. The hon. member stated that there was still something left to be done, that we were badly equipped so far as our coastal defence was concerned, and in that connection he stated that he had obtained the Monitor Erebus to come to South Africa for coastal defence. The Monitor, of course, was an institution, an apparatus, equipped with 15 inch guns, and the position was that the Erebus would have to be moored somewhere here in Cape Town, in Table Bay, in the docks, otherwise it would be useless. It is an apparatus which would be rocked by the water to such an extent that it would be practically impossible to shoot with any effect from the Erebus with 15 inch guns, unless the ship was moored in the docks. My information when I had to go into the matter myself later on was that the Erebus, if she were moored in the docks of Cape Town, and if she had to be used, and if her guns had to be fired from, not only would cause great destruction in the docks themselves, but that she would cause half of Cape Town to collapse.

It was for that reason that the arrangement was made in connection with Robben Island, as you know very well.

Yes, then there was an arrangement made in regard to Robben Island so as to put the 15 inch guns on Robben Island.

No, to moor the Erebus there. The department knows it, if you do not know it.

The position was that it would have taken a long time to have made any use of the Erebus if we had wanted to use her services. It would have cost a tremendous lot of money and it was felt that in all probability the Erebus would never have been of any use in this war. One would never have been able to have got her into a position to have been of any use in the war. The British Government, shortly after the outbreak of war, told me that the Admiralty and the Committee of Imperial Defence still adhered to the report which they had originally made, that is to say that the 9.2 inch guns would be more than adequate for the defence of Cape Town, and I therefore fell back on that. They indicated to me that it was unnecessary to have these terrifically big guns of 15 inch here, and they needed the Erebus themselves, so they asked me whether I would be prepared to send her back, and to revert to the plan submitted by the Committee for Imperial Defence, to be satisfied with 9.2 inch guns, so that they themselves would be able to keep the Erebus.

Have you fired from the 9.2 inch guns. In my days they could not be fired. It would be news to me that they can be fired without breaking every window in Sea Point. Where are they now?

One battery is nearly completed near….

The Apostles.

But why does the hon. member ask then?

Because we have no defence at the moment.

Our defences with the 9.2 inch guns will be in order very much sooner than would have been possible with the Erebus. In all probability we would never have been able to have made any use of the Erebus in this war. I believe that our return to the original plan of these 9.2 inch guns for the defence of Cape Town was the right step. There is no danger of this place being attacked by a battleship, unless it is a fleet of battleships. To send one battleship to make an attack on Cape Town would be childish.

What about the Graf Spee then?

The Graf Spee is proof of that. She passed along this coast twice, but at a considerable distance.

Then why are you so afraid?

The report of the Imperial Defence Committee is that unless a fleet of battleships should come here no battleship on her own would risk an attack on this coast, and an attack on our 9.2 inch guns at Simonstown and elsewhere. Proof of that has been supplied. After the advice which we have had, we have had evidence of this fact, because a battleship passed here on two occasions, but did not risk making any attack. We are able to defend Cape Town and our other coastal towns effectively by means of the 9.2 inch guns, which are much cheaper and just as effective and more easily obtained.

Poor Cape Town.

Now I wish to say a few words about the boast of the hon. member. He says that he worked out a five year plan and that the ideas worked out by him still hold good, still control the position, and that no other idea has been devised by me and no new plan put forward…. his plan stands foursquare and will probably remain for the next twenty-five years. My objection is not to the hon. member’s plans, but my difficulty with the hon. member is that he has never got beyond the plans. One cannot fight enemies with plans and eloquent speeches. The question is whether one can actually raise a defence force able to defend the country. And if there is any charge as I am making it to-day for the first time against the member, then it is that all his grandiose, all his great plans, have remained in the air, and that after the six years that he has been Minister of Defence they have still remained plans, and they have not got beyond that. I now propose to deal with the five years plan which the hon. member for Gezina drafted in 1934. He became Minister of Defence in 1933 and a year later in 1934 he came forward with his five years plan. He had five years and more to carry out that plan. Now let us see what his plan was and what has been done in regard to it.

Were you not also a member of that same Ministry?

That is not the question. I am quoting here from Hansard, 1934, volume 23, page 3040, of the English edition, and in Afrikaans, page 3349—

Did you not approve of what he said at the time?

I shall now quote the plan—it is a good plan—

Everything is in order—

Look at my 1939 speech.

Let us see what he had done at the end of five years. Now let us take the next point—

Yes, such a squadron requires 26 planes, that is twenty-six bombers, twenty-six planes for general purposes, and sixty-two for practice. Of that total we had at the end of five years: of the highspeed bombers there were two.

You know well enough what the arrangements were which we had made with Great Britain.

Of the twenty-six planes for general purposes the whole lot was obsolete, so the result was nil. Of the sixty-two machines for practice there were forty, so there was a shortage of twenty-two.

What about the Hartebees-Hartz which we used for practice? We had three times as many.

Now that is the position so far as the air force is concerned which the hon. member boasted so much about. After five years the air force of which he boasted so much, and of which he said that it was outstanding among all the small nations, meant nothing — it means nothing at all, it had no significance.

Do you deny the agreement with Great Britain in connection with the fighting and bombing aeroplanes, which were an improvement on the older ones?

I am still waiting for that agreement.

Ask the chief of the general staff — he knows about it.

The hon. member undertook to carry out the plan and he had his opportunity.

He never undertook to do it himself.

He got sixty guns but I am sorry to say that the ammunition he had for those guns was insufficient for even one day’s work. Then the plan says—

Yes, specially trained, but there was a shortage of mortars to the extent of 548.

Because we make those ourselves in the country.

There was a shortage of anti-tank guns to the extent of 780.

Because the British Government could not supply us.

There was a shortage of Bren guns (machine guns) of 833.

Because the British Government was unable to supply us.

Yes, the hon. member does not like this accusation, and I would never have made it if he had not made this challenging speech of his.

But surely he was not responsible for those shortages.

There were further to have been 25,000 men similarly trained who had passed through the Special Service Battalion or the Active Citizen Force. The House will be astonished to know that after five years nothing had been done in that respect. Not a single step had been taken to organise reserves, and when after the fall of the government a survey was made by Gen. Collyer it was found that instead of 25,000 men similarly trained by the Special Service Battalion or the Active Citizen Force, there were hardly 12,000.

We were 10,000 men short.

There was to have been further an organisation capable of expanding these battalions and the reserves into full war-time requirements with a minimum of delay. Well, very well, I only want to say this, so far as that organisation is concerned. There was nothing for that reserve, and if we had called up the reserves at a time of war, it would have resulted in chaos. The same thing applies to the Citizen Forces. The commandos which naturally had to be the kernel of such a reserve — they were excluded from the survey made by Gen. Collyer. There was not the slightest organisation whatsoever.

What about the three-monthly and six-monthly mobilisation camps? They are being forgotten now.

That was the position of the five-year plan, and if he had had another six months it would not have been any better.

We have now been at war for six months.

Yes, the position of the Defence Force is very different now. Let us now look further at what we were to have had—

Yes, they were there; at the end of the year there were two obsolete tanks, two obsolete armoured cars and two armoured trains.

Were they there?

Oh yes, the two armoured trains were there.

You know that we decided subsequently to manufacture these things in the country and not to buy them in England. That was done with your consent.

After five years the major portion of what he had put forward as his plan was still a dream. And all the time the country had been thinking that this energetic Minister, who was making such beautiful speeches, would give effect to the plan. We were further to get—

The result, after five years, is absolutely nil—nothing. We have been busy these past six months, I could almost say busy day and night, to train these non-commissioned officers and officers which would make it possible to raise an army. Talk of three months and six months—we further were to have had—

But we have had not the slightest organisation. Everything on paper and everything contained in very fine speeches.

Will you take the facts of March, 1939, supplied by your department instead of coming here and ignoring what was done in the meantime?

Very well, now let us listen to the final point—

So we would have had a permanent force, fairly well disciplined, of 67,000 men, and a reserve force of 100,000 men. Now let us see what we really have. It appears that we would be able to put into the field 10,081 officers and 17,681 other men. That would be a shortage of about 38,000 trained men, and as regards our national reserve of 100,000 men there was not one man.

It was the commando system, as you know.

The hon. member must be aware of the fact that in 1914 the commando system was still such that one could go into the field with it, and when the war broke out we would have been able in September, October and November to have put a large fighting force into the field. But to-day, or I will not say to-day, but since the hon. member has been busy with his five-year plan, there is nothing, only beautiful speeches.

Except the 115,000 men who belonged to the commandos.

We were further to have had—

Now, Mr. Speaker, you will be surprised to hear that after five years, in May, 1939, such an organisation as the one mentioned here simply did not exist, and I feel that the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) was correct last year when he said that if we had gone into the field with that force it would have been plain murder. The hon. member himself came along with that plan, which he praised. I have nothing against the plan. The plan was a good one. I am going to carry it out, just as I am going to carry out other promises made by the hon. member. We are not busy devising other plans so that we may come forward with grandiose schemes. What we are looking to is that there shall be a defence force able to defend our country. That was the duty and the task of the hon. member in the five or six years he was Minister of Defence, and he has not done it. The excuse about the three and the six months time which he would have had does not hold. He is now taking refuge behind that, and he is taking refuge behind the British Government which was to have assisted him with this or that. He is simply trying to wriggle out of it, but the fact of the matter is that when the hon. member left the department our, defence system, even after his five-year plan was something on paper with which we could not go out to face any enemy, it was more of a danger than a protection to the country, and in those circumstances the hon. member has no reason for boasting of his achievements.

I shall later on, when we get to the Committee stage answer you with your own data, and I shall introduce you to your own department, so that you may know something about it.

His plans were great, but the execution took place in such a way that his work was more of a danger to the country and to-day we have to make and break, in order to get things put right and to do things which should have been done in those years past, but which were not done. There is another point I wish to touch upon. The hon. member speaks here of the amount of money that has to be spent. Has the hon. member ever in those five years made a calculation of what it would have cost us if we had to equip the force as set out in the five-year plan, if we had to equip it, properly organise it and raise it—has he ever calculated the expense that would have been involved, even in time of peace, even if we had remained neutral? Has the hon. member ever calculated that? If the hon. member had done so he would have found that the expense which is now being incurred, is the expense which he should have incurred even in time of peace, for the safety of the country, if he had organised that force mentioned in his five-year plan. If we have to raise a force such as mentioned in the five-year plan, the money which we are now spending would have been absolutely essential. [Time limit.]

The hon. the Minister of Defence started off so kindly and quietly this afternoon that one was almost reminded of Vondel’s poem about ignorant innocence. A little later on, however, he showed very clearly what he was getting at. I must say that it is not very edifying to hear a man in the position of the Minister of Defence, who at the same time is Prime Minister, attack a former colleague, a man with whom he has sat in the same Cabinet and whose policy he has always approved of, in the way that the Minister did. One asks oneself: “What was the Prime Minister’s object this afternoon, why did he attack his former colleague in this way to-day after his former colleague had stated that he had reported from month to month on the progress made in connection with his five-year plan?” Why did the Prime Minister remain perfectly silent, why did he agree with everything that was being done, and why is he now making this onslaught? I feel that the Prime Minister will agree that one cannot do all those things, and one cannot make all those preparations unless one is prepared to spend millions of extra pounds. The hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) made it clear here this afternoon that certain preparations were essential but that there was no necessity to spend the extra millions of pounds as the country was not on a war footing. That was the attitude adopted by him and now he is being accused of having failed in his duty because he organised us on a defence footing, and not on a war footing. The hon. member for Gezina made it clear that it was unnecessary to buy all these supplies and stocks and to leave them lying here unless we were prepared to spend millions of money for that purpose. There was no need to spend millions of money to leave these things lying here and becoming obsolete. He made it clear that so far as our aeroplanes are concerned—and the Minister of Defence made a great point of it that the hon. member for Gezina had stated that 62 aeroplanes would be in readiness, but that we only had 40 of them—the hon. member made it quite clear that certain arrangements had been made. In an interjection he also stated that we would also make use of other types of aeroplanes. But he made it particularly clear that the aeroplanes which would be required for war purposes could be obtained from England at short notice, so that it was unnecessary to purchase aeroplanes which would become obsolete here. The Prime Minister simply passes over that, and makes his charges. I believe he was in agreement at the time with that policy of the hon. member for Gezina.

He was pleased about it.

Yes, he was, as the hon. member states, grateful that South Africa did not have to spend millions of pounds to buy aeroplanes from year to year. I want to say this to the Minister of Defence, that we are going to watch him very carefully, and see how he spends money in this war, and we have every reason for doing so. We have the estimate before us, and we shall be dealing in detail with all these items later on. And when we look at the Defence Vote which from year to year takes up large numbers of pages of print to keep the House informed of all the details, and which contains all possible details, we find that this year the Vote only states that £2,500,000 is being spent, and then we find in the footnote that it is not possible to give all the details of this Vote and to make comparisons with the previous year. We give this as a first instalment without anything further, and in addition we have to give a blank cheque for £14,000,000 which at the end of the year possibly may amount to £20,000,000. And then the Prime Minister comes here this afternoon and holds forth against a former colleague for not having spent more money. He says that the Minister’s plans were good and in order. He admits it. He admits that the whole matter was in order but that all the money for the stocks and supplies which he now wants to go and shoot away in North Africa has not been spent, and because of that he criticises the former Minister.

No, these things are necessary here.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition has repeatedly in this House, in the course of interjections, said to the Prime Minister: “Were we not on a footing of neutrality?” We were on a footing of neutrality, and it was peace time, and now the Prime Minister comes along and accuses a former colleague because he had prepared plans for the future so that everything would be in order, but he had not organised everything on a war basis, and he had not purchased supplies and stocks on a war basis. That is the great charge. All those supplies had to be there, all the bombs, all the guns, all the rifles and all the ammunition—all those things had to be in readiness, so that they could simply be taken and used by our men in North Africa or in Palestine, when they go and fight there. That is the Prime Minister’s statement, and the public know that that is the Prime Minister’s complaint. Now I want to add this: It would appear from an interjection made by the hon. member for Gezina, and he knows all about these matters, that the Minister of Defence did not even supply the latest information in the little that he read out here. The hon. member says that he explained the whole position in March last. All the information has been supplied lately, but I only want to say this, if the Minister of Defence can make an accusation of that kind against a former colleague to-day, I want to know why he has been sitting still all that time? He, together with the former Minister of Defence, bore joint responsibility for that policy and he knows about the progress reports made in connection with those matters.

No, I did not know anything about them.

I was not a member of the Cabinet so I cannot say anything about that, but the hon. member for Gezina has told us that he had monthly reports prepared, and the Prime Minister was therefore in a position to make an investigation. But before going on I want to say this. I said at the beginning that the Minister of Defence commenced his speech very kindly and quietly, which made one think of a saying of the Holland poet, Father Katz, “When the fox starts preaching, farmer, watch your geese.” He did not continue his remarks in the same kindly quiet way. It did not take long before he took up a different attitude when he said this—

He was naturally referring to the so-called statements made by the hon. member for Gezina, and the Prime Minister said that he had not made any charges against him. But now I want to ask who was it who spoke first? Who was it who was first responsible for the raising of suspicions against the hon. member for Gezina? Was it the hon. member for Gezina, or the rt. hon. the Prime Minister, who is now trying to look so innocent? I want to ask the rt. hon. the Prime Minister whether the words which I am going to read are his words, and if not, whose are they?—

Are not these the Prime Minister’s words? Are not these his words in the first public speech made by him after the declaration of war? Are not these the words used by him at Bloemfontein to his own followers in the Bloemfontein City Hall? If these are his words, is he not the man who started this suspicion mongering? Is he not the man who on that occasion spoke about the suspicion felt by the whole of the people against the hon. member for Gezina? I further want to ask this, is it fair for a man of honour after that to get up here and say—

It is the Prime Minister of South Africa who has used those words, and those words have been followed up by his followers and by the khaki knights in the Press, in order to create suspicion against the hon. member for Gezina right throughout South Africa, as far as they could. And now he comes to this House and uses those words, and he spreads the flame even further by means of incorrect data by which he wants to create even further suspicion. He says that the conscience of the hon. member for Gezina is bad and is worrying him. Why should the hon. member’s conscience worry him on this matter? I say that we of the old Nationalist Party continually attacked him, and we said that he was carrying on too strongly, and going too far. And now we are told that he has done nothing at all. No, it is useless for the rt. hon. the Prime Minister to speak of statements made by the hon. member for Gezina himself. It is not the speeches made by the hon. member which are causing difficulties in South Africa. We want to know from the Prime Minister as the responsible person what the position is, and we want to know when he is going to make a full statement on this matter. We want to know from him what is going on when we find in the Press, for instance, as we did to-day, that General Sir Archibald Wavell is on his way to South Africa in a fast aeroplane. What is he coming here for? Instead of raising suspicions against the hon. member for Gezina the Minister of Defence should rather make a statement such as South Africa needs. Why is this English General coming here? What is going on? Why is he trying to keep the people of South Africa quiet by making a proposal in this House in which he states that no troops are to be sent overseas? It is not a matter of whether they are going overseas or over land, but the question is where have they to go and fight and why? If this British General is coming to South Africa at a critical time like the present in Asia Minor,’ then we want to know why he is coming here? Why does he not remain at his post? Why is he coming to see the Minister of Defence, who is also the Prime Minister of South Africa? Is there an idea possibly of a campaign against Turkey and Iraq, and have the British troops from Egypt and Palestine possibly to go a little farther North and North-East, and are we possibly to keep guard on the Suez Canal? Why does the Minister not get up and make a statement on the actual position of South Africa instead of coming and dishing up the sort of talk, such as we hear here? The hon. the Minister of Defence referred to talk on the part of the hon. member for Gezina. There is a rumour current that our troops are being sent North. I am not going to put the question in the way the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. Van Nierop) has put it, whether 2,000 men have actually gone North, but I want to ask whether troops are actually going North. It is quite easy to evade a question if one wishes to. Let the Minister get up and tell us what the position is. He comes here and asks for £2,500,000 as a “token” amount, but he makes no statement. What does he want the £14,000,000 for, which the Minister of Finance has spoken about? He must tell us something about that. Where are our people going to be sent? Is he sending people to the North now? We want to know whether the statement which has been made is correct, that for all practical purposes the borders of South Africa are at the Equator? Is he going to commandeer troops to go to the Equator? If the Equator is the border of South Africa it means that he has the right to commandeer troops to go anywhere up to the Equator. I want to ask him in all seriousness what the position is. I expect, and the people expect, the Minister to answer this question. I do not want to talk about clause 1 of the Defence Act, but I wish once again to quote clause 76 of the Defence Act. Clause 1 lays down the general principle, that the Defence Act may be used inside and outside the Union of South Africa, but in clause 76 we read—

This clause falls under chapter 5, the heading of which is “Service in time of war.” We are dealing here with active service, and we want to know from the Minister whether he is going to stand by that clause. That clause means that he cannot use our people for active service, he cannot use our permanent force unless an enemy is in South. Africa. He cannot send our people north of the Equator—if we accept his definition in regard to the borders of South Africa. If there are troubles in the North, he cannot use our men for active service there.

Then we are finished.

The point is not whether we are finished or not. I do not know whether the hon. member means that we are ready for that. The point is that the Minister of Defence stated that he was adhering to the Defence Act. Is he going to adhere to clause 76 of the Act which lays it down that the permanent force is not to be used before there is an enemy in South Africa, that is to say South of the Equator—according to his own words? When we notice that General Wavell is coming to the Union, we get uneasy. What is the Minister going to do with our people? We say that he is not entitled to use our Defence Force and to use our money in North Africa for Imperial purposes. We want to know what the position is, we ask for a statement, but all the Minister does is to hold forth against a former colleague who was a member of the same Cabinet as himself, and whom he knew all about. He spoke about the hon. member for Gezina’s bad conscience. I want to tell the rt. hon. the Prime Minister that this thing which he has created, this body of khaki knights, are nothing but the Russian Ogpu and that the people of South Africa are highly indignant at the attempt that is being made to make use of fellow Afrikaners to hang about and to listen and see whether they can catch a word here and there to carry to the authorities so as to get a fellow countryman into trouble. The country is highly indignant about the anonymous letters and slanders as a result of which people in South Africa have been put into the internment camps. It is a disgrace, and the people of South Africa are highly indignant about that sort of thing. That is the sort of work that is being done by the so-called knights of the truth, or rather khaki knights. These are nothing but Ogpu methods—they are even worse than Ogpu methods. The hon. the Minister spoke about his co-operation with the officers, and he told us that there was good co-operation in the Defence Force to-day. I wonder whether there is a good spirit among his officers seeing that he first of all has to put secret confidential questions to them as to what they are prepared to do, and what they are not prepared to do. I wonder whether there is really this beautiful cooperation which he speaks so glowingly about. I wonder. The hon. member for Gezina pointed out that the Minister of Defence had not even spoken a word of appreciation in regard to his officers, and the Minister tried to excuse himself and admitted it. I interjected with the remark that the Minister of Railways at any rate had the decency every year to express his appreciation of the work done by his staff, but the Minister of Defence had to admit that he had never yet expressed any appreciation. And then he speaks of a good spirit. The hon. the Minister also referred to Pirow talk and Pirow rumours. He should try to trace those rumours in Pretoria (Central), and not in Gezina. Let him look into the rumours emanating from his new expert on Defence matters, the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. Pocock). He is one of those who tries to create suspicion outside, but I do believe that the Minister has appointed the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) as a member of a special commission to enquire into our aeroplanes. I do not know exactly what his instructions are. We would like the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) to get up and give us some information about that— we should like him to give us some official information. It would be better if we were to do so rather than spread all sorts of loose rumours. Let him get up here in the presence of the hon. member for Gezina and let him come forward with his information and his accusations instead of all kinds of loose rumours. In regard to the aeroplanes to which the Minister of Defence also referred very briefly, I think he passed this question over very lightly. We want some further information. We want to know whether he is still getting some of those £200 aeroplanes which are supposed to be obsolete, but which we can make good use of for practice purposes. And what is the name of the aeroplanes which he is buying for war purposes? Surely that is not a war secret. Germany knows all about the English Spitfires. Let the Minister tell us straight out what is being bought and what the prices are. What is wrong with it? I have already stated that we are going to keep our eye on the Government in connection with this war expenditure and I believe we have good cause for doing so. If one reads Douglas Reid’s book “Disgrace Abounding” one will find that the Opposition in England had very good reason to keep a check on the English Government in connection with their preparations for the war. Douglas Reid being a prominent journalist surely knows something of what is going on in England, and he states that England did not receive value for their money. He states in his book that London has been supplied with obsolete anti-aircraft guns, and when we read a month ago that German aeroplanes flew over London and that the anti-aircraft guns were unable to touch them, it gave one the impression that there was some truth in what Douglas Reid stated. I think we should also find out what we are getting for our money. In passing I want to say that the Government should also keep its eve on what is going on in connection with the preparations. On the first page of the Johannesburg “Sunday Times.” a paper which supports the Government. I find something which I should like to read under the heading of “Check on profits.” This is what appears there—

That is because the previous Minister failed to see to it that there were the necessary stocks.

I thought there were some hon. members opposite falling among those people. I shall continue to quote—

The Minister is now busy with the necessary preparations for war, and people are being recruited in all haste. He should pay a little attention to this exploitation and he should also look into the question of money that is being wasted. These are matters of actual importance and they should receive his attention, but instead of dealing with those matters he makes an onslaught on a former colleague. I want to say this in addition. The Minister has told us again that he is giving effect to plans devised by the hon. member for Gezina. He has told us that the hon. member for Gezina had very good plans, but that he never got beyond those plans. Well, if the plans are good, we are pleased that he is giving effect to them. He added that he was also going to give effect to other plans of his. This clearly was an insinuation with reference to a matter which I thought had been disposed of. The hon. member for Gezina discussed this matter, and challenged the Minister to lay on the Table the Mombasa Agreement, the report of the discussions that took place. Let him come out with it. The hon. member for Gezina said that if he should think that there were any war secrets in it he was prepared to abide by Mr. Speaker’s ruling, if the documents could be submitted to Mr. Speaker for his perusal. Mr. Speaker would then be able to state whether there was anything in the documents about a promise to go and fight in North Africa. This again is a challenge to the Minister. I read to the House on a previous occasion what the former Minister of Defence had actually stated at the Imperial Press Conference in Cape Town in connection with giving assistance to territories in Africa. I clearly showed that he only spoke about a clash between white and black and not about an Imperial war in North Africa. And to-day the Minister comes along in his innocent way and states that he is going to give effect to this promise of his. But he knows that such a promise was never made. The hon. member for Gezina did not give such a promise, but possibly the Minister himself made such a promise because he and Gen. Botha as long ago as 1912 promised England that they would attack South-West Africa if war should break out. We have the British White Paper in confirmation of this. What promises he has again made now we do not know.

Has not the Minister of Native Affairs possibly made such a promise?

Then there is another matter to which I want to refer. The hon. member for Delarey (Mr. Labuschagne) put a question during the course of the debate; how is it the Minister of Defence has not replied to that question? I again want to refer to it, because this particular report is of considerable importance to South Africa. In large black letters so that hon. members on the other side of the House can read it, there is a report in the Rand Daily Mail to the effect that coloured people in England are being trained as officers. There is only talk of three of them here, but it makes no difference whether it is only one or 3,000. The Rand Daily Mail says that non-European officers are being trained for Great Britain’s Army, and stated clearly here that Dr. Moodie whose son is an officer in the British Army, is one of those being trained. This is what the paper says—

So that is to be done in England as well as overseas, and if we think of Basutoland, Swaziland and the Protectorates, does that mean that although we are independent we are to have the phenomenon on our borders of black officers being appointed and whites having to serve under them? And he goes on to say—

Hear, hear!

There we have it, that is what we expected. I should like the people of South Africa to hear the followers of the Prime Minister say “hear, hear” to a statement that black officers will command whites. That is what they want.

Childish!

Not only that. He goes on to say this in his report—

I expect that they will again say, “Hear, hear” now. This is a matter where we ask: “How do we stand with our Government?” Instead of those insinuations made by the Prime Minister, which amount to, nothing, we would rather he told us what his attitude is in regard to this report on England’s policy. As our people may possibly have to go and fight in Kenya and in view of the fact that the English and the French are co-operating very closely together, and in view of the fact that France even has generals who are black, our young men may possibly have to go and serve there under non-Europeans. I shall be very pleased if some of the hon. members over there will get up and tell us what their attitude is in connection with this question. Let them get up and repudiate the principle that has been adopted in Great Britain that black has to stand over white, let the Prime Minister repudiate it, and we shall appreciate it if he does so, but if they do not do so we shall be forced to the conclusion that they are in agreement with that policy, and they must inform England, because they are going to get no support from us if they pursue a policy like that.

You know quite well that this has nothing to do with South Africa.

I never said that it had anything to do with South Africa. The hon. member does not understand Afrikaans very well, and possibly we may at a later date go further into this matter in English at public meetings, and I am convinced that there are going to be English-speaking people among the public in South Africa who will take un a more satisfactory attitude on this matter than he is doing. Let me remind the House, not in a spirit of throwing mud, that he is the man who said that he was proud to be called a “kafferboetie.” An individual who says a thing like that will naturally have no objection to native officers, and he will have no objection to such an officer being in command of white men, but let me tell him that the public of South Africa is not prepared to put up with a policy like that. We are still awaiting a declaration from the Government to know how the Government stands in regard to such a policy.

I am afraid that I am going to talk of very much more commonplace things than the hon. member who has just sat down indulged in. There is one small point I would like to make. The hon. member emphasised that there was a good deal of profiteering in certain of the equipment for soldiers. He instanced the price of Sam Brown belts which cost 12s. and were sold at 42s. each. I wish the hon. member would inform anybody who has suffered in that way that in every town and in every dorp in the country we have instituted a committee, presided over by the magistrate, to go into any of these complaints which can be founded. The man that the hon. member talks of has only got to go to his own magistrate, and the whole thing will be investigated.

We suggest the Government should pay.

The hon. member said that these Sam Brown belts cost the Government 12s. and they were sold to the public, that is to officers and so on, at 42s. But to get back to the general debate. One or two things have been asked dealing with my department, and I should like to reply to them. As regards the Rural Industries Commission report I may say that that report has only just come to hand, and it is now being translated, and I have given instructions to see that this report is issued as soon as possible. As soon as it is issued the Government can go into the various recommendations and consider what steps to take with regard to them. The next point on which there was some criticism is question of the price of fruit boxes made out of South African timber. It was pointed out by an hon. member that under our emergency regulations we cannot touch any South African product so far as profiteering is concerned. That was done really in order to protect the farmer from being mulcted in a law case if he was getting a decent price for his product, for which for years bad got a very bad price. I thought it was quite right. I have gone into the Question of the processing of timber, that is of turning the timber from the raw state into the fruit boxes. I suggested to the Price Control Board that they should consider the issuing of a definite fixed price for these different boxes, and the fixed price will not permit of any profiteering on behalf of the people who process this timber from the raw timber to the made boxes. Now, as I say, we cannot deal with these people under what is called Regulation 5, but I think we may be able to deal with them under Regulation 3. The next point I might take up are the remarks of the hon. member for Ermelo (Mr. Jackson) and the hon. member for Pretoria (City) (Mr. Davis) regarding the extraction of petrol from torbanite. Well, Mr. Speaker, I had to deal with this question of torbanite from the very beginning, about six years ago. Then, one of my first jobs was to be the Acting Minister of Railways and Harbours, and I had to make arrangements with these people that they should have certain railway rates on the crude oil when it came in, to mix with the torbanite. The career of these torbanite works has been very chequered, very chequered indeed. I am of the opinion that the extraction of oil from torbanite is not going to help us as far as the economics of the Union are concerned. We are going to lose in revenue, owing to the fact of having to import all this crude oil, as much as they pay out in salaries and wages. Then the next suggestion was that we should adopt the Fischer-Tropsch process. That was investigated, and the committee reported that it could not be developed on a commercial basis in the Union in view of the very high cost of production, and further, that there were many improvements continually being made with regard to these processes of extracting oil from coal, and it would be very unwise for us to put several millions of money into it, and then find by the time we had got the outfit, we had taken not the best method but the least good method. After considering the whole matter I am of opinion that the first thing we have to do is really to test out whether we cannot find the matrix of this oil. I think my hon. colleague the Minister of Mines mentioned it to-day. What we have to do is to find out if we can get the source of flowing oil, and there is seemingly evidence that it would be possible to do that. I believe it is a very much better speculation to put your money into that, than to play round with all these various methods of trying to produce oil in some other way than simply to take it out of the well. That is my position regarding oil. Now I shall deal with the question of fertilisers. The question of fertilisers is a subject which has caused probably more anxiety in the last six months than any other commodity. In the first place we did our level best to keep the prices down to pre-war level. That we could not do, because you cannot make a man bring out a sovereign and then insist on his selling it for 15s. And the result was that the price of fertiliser had to go up, but all the time we have been controlling it so as to see that it goes up to the least possible extent. It is not only the complete fertiliser that goes up, but the raw material goes up. For instance, there are very big imports by the Cape Explosives Company, from which they make the fertiliser. There are huge quantities of rock phosphates imported from French Morocco and we can in no way get that raw material into this country at anything like the price we could before the war. And therefore these people must charge more for their fertiliser. But I think, and I hope, the agricultural department will consider it, I think there is a great deal in what the hon. member for Griqualand East (Mr. Gilson) said the other day, and that is this — let us try and reduce our demand for fertiliser. We all know, I know myself from personal experience, that in very many cases more fertiliser is used for certain objects than is necessary, or the wrong type of fertiliser is used, and I think if we can get an educational effort on the part of the Agricultural Department, that might possibly help. Now, another point was made by the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick). He complained of the enormous difference between the cash price of fertiliser and the price if one took twelve months credit, that is if one paid twelve months after buying the stuff. I have not enquired into this, but I am pretty certain that the reason of that huge difference in price is that the people who sell fertiliser do not want to give twelve months credit, and I agree with them. These people who sell fertiliser are merchants — they are not money lenders, and you cannot expect any merchant to do business on a basis where he has to have double capital to enable him to do that business.

Dealers give credit, and they charge 15 per cent. interest.

It is not the business of the supplier to go to the bank and get an overdraft; it is the job of a man who wants to buy the stuff to get an overdraft. If you consider the position in this light — say you take one of these firms selling £500,000 worth of goods for cash, and that firm’s competitor sells the same quantity on twelve months’ terms — it means that the man selling on twelve months’ credit must have double the amount of capital which the other man has. I cannot say that I criticise those people for saying no. A firm like that takes up the attitude that it cannot do business on that basis, and I should think that these people probably have a very good case for charging more if they have to give tong terms of credit. As I say, I have not gone into that, but I think that that is a reason.

These people have the cash and the farmers have not.

As regards the prospects, if we could only find the material in this country, the position would be entirely altered, but we have to import such vast quantities of stuff in order to provide our fertilisers that it is almost impossible to get the thing right. For instance, I notice that in rock phosphates alone we import about 100,000 tons in one year — that is one of the ingredients. We have tried other methods. We have suggested that we would be able to produce bone meal, and get the raw material from the protectorates, but then the Agricultural Department stepped in and said: “Oh, no, no, no — you are going to import anthrax,” so it is not at all a simple thing. But we are doing our best to see what we can do for the farmer in that respect. Now I want to say a few words about agricultural implements. I know that agricultural implements have gone up in price — everyone knows it. I may say to start with that I am having an enquiry made into the charge that the merchant is putting on an abnormal and ridiculous profit on the cost of implements. That investigation is being proceeded with, because that may possibly stop it — if it is proved that these men are charging these exorbitant prices. But you have to remember that the profit put on agricultural implements is very different from the profit put on, say, a pair of boots. If I sell a pair of boots, I sell it at a certain price, the man pays me cash, and takes the boots out of the shop, and that is the end of it, especially if I have the cash. But when you start selling a tractor, or even one of these fancy ploughs, the farmer expects the man to send the plough out to be looked at — sometimes ten miles or more. He expects the man to come and demonstrate it. If he does not like it he sends it back, and the man has done all his job for nothing, and when he has sold it, if he gets it sold, the man probably does not pay him for it on the spot, so he has the risk of a bad debt, and if any simple thing goes wrong with it, the farmer telephones to town and says: “Come and shew me what is wrong”, and out goes another motor car for the man to see what is wrong. So the expense of selling these things is very much greater than the expense of selling ordinary goods. That has to be borne in mind in favour of the merchant. If anything like the profits are made on these agricultural implements, as suggested at agricultural congresses and the like, we shall have to step in and put a stop to it.

In ordinary circumstances they are charging exorbitant prices for these things.

That is what we are examining. In order to obviate this difficulty, and these rising prices, of agricultural implements, I was fortunate in getting my hon. friend, the member for Vereeniging (Lt.-Col. Rood) to agree to establish a company at Vereeniging for making at any rate the more simple forms of implements. And he assures me that they can be made cheaper than they are to-day. In fact, they can be made practically at the price that these things were sold at just before the war. I may say that he is already getting the necessary machinery to do it. The articles which it is proposed to manufacture at Vereeniging are (1) Implements: (a) Single-furrow mouldboard ploughs; (b) Riding ploughs; (c) Multifurrow mouldboard ploughs with flat shares, including reversible ploughs; (d) Multifurrow mouldboard ploughs with angle shares; (e) Harrows; (f) Cultivators, including horse-hoes. (2) Parts: (a) Flat ploughshares and landsides; (b) Angle shares; (c) Mouldboards; (d) Harrow teeth. He is prepared to be satisfied with the prices which are set down in what they call the C.I.F. agreement, and I stipulated before he started that at no time would that company ever come to the Government for protection, other than protection against dumping. I am prepared to protect any factory against dumping. That is an unfair form of fighting. But the hon. member for Vereeniging assures me that under no consideration will he ever come to the Government for protection other than that. Now I think I have dealt with most of the points that have come up during this debate. But I must say that I am rather disappointed with the underlying criticism—with the criticism underlying some of the remarks made by the other side—underlying that criticism is the attitude that if we have not decided, as we did, on the 4th September last to become a belligerent, none of these things would have happened, the farmers would not have been worried and there would have been no trouble. I can assure the House that far from that, prices would have been a great deal more, and what is perhaps more important is that at any rate now the farmers are getting money for their products —and if they have the money to pay for these increased costs, it is far better than not to have any money at all. If we had not taken that stand on September 4th. they would not have had any money at all to pay for anything. It is better to have money to pay for things, even if these things are a little more expensive, than to have no money at all and not be able to buy anything. I was surprised at the hon. member for Faure-smith (Mr. Havenga) mentioning £14,000,000 going to defence, and taking up the position of saving that this was the result of the decision of Parliament on the 4th September. It is nothins of the kind. We are spending this £14,000,000 on defence because there is a world war, and there would have been a world war whatever our decision was, and there is no doubt whatever that if we had declared our neutrality and not become belligerents and gone in with the rest of the Commonwealth, this amount of £14,000,000 would have been a great deal bigger—the amount would have been very much larger, because we would have been thrown on our own resources to protect our own country, and I can suggest to hon. members on the other side with any imagination to think what our position would have been if we had not had the British Fleet here to protect us. I think I have answered all the criticism that affects my department. I am always happy to get any information from any member of Parliament in regard to any difficulties. They are great, they are constant, and the only thing we want in the interest of the country is to try and solve them.

There has been a considerable number of bouquets handed to the Minister of Finance during this debate, and I do not propose to join in the chorus of praise to him. Instead of being Public Hero No. 1, I am afraid before the war is over he will be Public Enemy No. 1. I was pleased to hear from the Minister of Commerce an explanation in regard to the suggestions that have been made in this House about profiteering, and I think it will be wise for any member of the House, if he has any information on the subject, to hand it over to the Minister, who will have it investigated. I think in that event they will find that there is very little profiteering going on in South Africa to-day. What little there is I venture to suggest is having a severe check kept upon it, and it will not be allowed to develop to a very serious extent. I am pleased that the present Government has seen fit to adopt a new method of mining taxation. For some years we have been endeavouring to persuade the Government to alter the method of mining taxation, but we have not been successful. I feel sure that time will prove that the Minister of Finance and the Government have been quite correct in altering their method of taxation. If it is now a real sensible method of taxation, then it must be the one advocated by the Dominion Party, and I must congratulate the hon. the Minister on taking that step, because it will eventually prove to be in the interests of my hon. friends on my right, the Opposition, who are chiefly concerned with the farming industry. The Minister of Finance will be troubled practically daily throughout the forthcoming year by the farming community wanting further assistance. That is inevitable because it is their daily plea. I would like to ask them how they propose to get that assistance if the industries of South Africa are not put in a position to earn revenue so that the farming community can come along and demand it. The only section which does produce revenue in outstanding amount is the goldmining industry. I think it has been demonstrated very, very clearly and emphatically that the Government is embarking on a sound taxation method as far as the mines are concerned, and if there were no other proof of this, it is to be found in the fact that they have been able to save a number of mines which would, undoubtedly, otherwise have gone out of existence. Moreover, the new method will enable more mines to be brought into existence and I think we are very lucky indeed, particularly during war time, to have a Government which is prepared to face up to the position, and to make some attempt to run the country on sound business lines, as applied to the mines. When we come to realise that South Africa is carried on the back of the mines, how foolish we would have been to continue with the policy which threatened the life of those mines. That, I suggest, should be elementary to anyone, particularly as there would have to be a very large amount of money found to carry on this war, and it is, therefore, absolutely essential that the mining industry should be developed to the greatest possible extent. I suggest that the whole weight of the Government and the people of South Africa should have been concentrated on our mining industry, and getting all that we possibly could out of it while the going was good. I hope there will be less criticism regarding the new method the Government has adopted. At least give them one year to try the experiment, and I feel perfectly certain we shall find that the Government has made a change for the better, and it will prove that instead of getting less revenue from the mines it will, undoubtedly, get more. It will undoubtedly be in the interests of everyone in South Africa if that happy position should arise. My time is limited, and I want to make a special appeal to the late Prime Minister, to the ex-Minister of Finance, and to a number of those on the opposite benches. I want to appeal to those members to make the same gesture to the Government that the present Minister of Mines made some time ago to the former Prime Minister, Gen. Hertzog. A considerable time before war broke out, when no one was in a position to judge whether war would break out or not, the present Minister of Mines offered the whole of his services, and the whole of the services of his party to the late Prime Minister during the severe time through which South Africa was passing. Although there was no surety that war would take place, he made that gesture. Now, I would like to ask the former Prime Minister, who has had a wonderful career in South Africa, and is held in respect by such a large number of people, I would like him to make a similar gesture to the present Prime Minister and to the Government. He has quite a considerable following, and he will be able to take that following with him if he is prepared to make that gesture. It is all very well for us to be discussing the war in this House; it is all very well to be saying, “We ought not to have decided to go into war”; that will not get us anywhere; that will not help us. South Africa, whether we like it or not, rightly or wrongly, is in the war against a very, very capable enemy, and it is going to be very difficult indeed in the future if South Africa should lose this war. Remember it is a South African war as much as it is the war of the Allies in Europe. The hon. the ex-Prime Minister introduced his notice of motion into this House that we should make a separate peace, and that we should not take any further part in the war. That motion was defeated, and I say that, as the war has to be prosecuted, nothing can prevent South Africa from continuing to take her place, to play her part in this war. What possible good can it be to be continually opposing the Government when they have such a very important and difficult task to perform? The hon. member for Smithfield has made sacrifices before, and I feel sure when he realises, as he must do to-day, what a terrible war this is going to be, and what the consequences to South Africa will be if the enemy should win this war, I tremble to think what would happen to our wonderful country of South Africa. There was a time, not very long ago, Mr. Speaker, when the hon. member for Smithfield was prepared to join with our present Prime Minister to help the country out of the depression in which we found ourselves. I am not going to say at the present moment that that was due to the late government, or to cast any reflections anywhere, but what I say is that those two hon. members realised the terrible state the country was in at the time we went off the gold standard, and it required all the energy and ability of every man in South Africa and of the Government to do what was possible to pull the country together again. These gentlemen were men enough in those days, a few years ago, to join hands and do what they could to bring prosperity back. May I make the same appeal to them again, because whatever we do here will not affect the issue as far as peace and war is concerned. We are now at war, and it is the duty of every South African to do all he possibly can to bring this war to a successful conclusion, and I do hope, that being the case, that we shall all realise we must play our part and do our share towards it. I go so far as to say that Germany herself will have very little respect for those people of South Africa who are prepared to side with her at the present moment. She can have nothing but contempt for them. She will be able to say, “Here is South Africa, a young partner in the Commonwealth of Nations, one who has had a lot of favours bestowed upon her, and one who has depended upon the British Fleet, now prepared to stab Britain in the back.” Germany can have nothing but contempt for people who adopt an attitude of that kind. Party politics are all very well in their way, but I think we have got beyond that stage, and I make that appeal. I hope that the Opposition will take serious consideration of it, realising that we have got a lot to lose, and our country has a lot to lose, like other countries in Europe, if the Allies should be defeated. There is a saying, “My country, right or wrong.” I say that our country is in danger to-day. South Africa is in daily danger, and it requires the assistance of everyone of us. Let us give that assistance and let us indulge in party politics afterwards. There will be an aftermath of this war, and it will bring the leaders together, if nothing else will. A depression will hit South Africa and it will be very difficult indeed for the present Government to make provision for that aftermath, whilst the war is on, even with the assistance of all parties. It is going to be a thousand times more difficult for the Government to do the job and make preparations for the slump that will come after the war so as to endeavour to ensure that there will not be such a heavy depression as there has been after all wars. In any case, the Government will certainly have to make that provision. I say that the Government will be working under a tremendous handicap and it is, therefore, up to the Opposition to do their share and to help the Government, and then, when the war is over let them play at party politics if they want to do so. My time has expired and before I sit down I make that suggestion. I hope that other hon. members will carry it forward and that, in the very near future, our ranks will be closed, and that we shall do all Shat we can to help the Government to bring the war to a successful conclusion.

It is apparently a somewhat difficult matter to satisfy the other side of the House in the way one criticises them. If one criticises them somewhat drastically they declare that one is fostering hatred and malice; if one criticises them moderately one is told sarcastically that one is dispirited. It would appear to me that they resent any kind of criticism, but that is understandable, because if one has a bad case it is difficult to satisfy one. Now I want to point to what the hon. member for Durban (Greyville) (Mr. Derbyshire) has said, namely that the farmers cannot claim the extra profit made by the gold mines.

He did not say it in that way.

Well, what did he say then? My impression was that he said that we had no right to claim the extra profits on gold. It is quite clear to me that the profits made on the gold mines are principally due to the stroke of the pen by the Minister of Finance. This money belongs to the State, and the State is entitled to use it for the welfare of the country. If there is one section of our community which requires assistance, it is the farmers of the country, and I feel that we are entitled to demand that that portion of that extra profit should be used for the purpose of aiding the farmers. Now, we heard what was said here by the Minister of Trade and Industries.

I rise to a point of personal explanation. May I explain to the hon. member that I did not say that the farmers were not entitled to get profits from the mines, or rather that the country was not entitled to get such profits. My point was that the farming industry will have to be assisted. We have to get money from somewhere, and we get it in the easiest way from the mines. Therefore, the more we develop those mines, the more we shall be able to help the farming industry, as they will require assistance. That is what I said.

In any case we are still entitled to that money, and that is the point I wanted to make. What I want to get to now is in connection with what the Minister of Commerce and Industries said, viz. that agricultural implements are different from ordinary clothing, and he made a comparison with the sale of boots. He said that farming implements were sold on a totally different basis. Firms had to send out a man, for instance, to a farm for the purpose of demonstrating a plough or some other article of machinery, and they had to incur other expenses justifying higher prices. But those extra costs were there before the war as well, those people used to do exactly the same kind of thing in regard to demonstrating machinery on the farms; so this argument does not hold water when the Minister quotes that as a reason for prices having gone up since the war. I wish to confine my remarks to the mealie industry in particular. After the 4th September it was said that there was every reason to expect good prices. After war was declared England would be prepared to take all our surplus output, the seas would be free, and we would get good prices and so on. Now let us see what happened since that time. We find that in September last British ships carried 280,000 tons of products from our country, while neutral ships took 14,000 tons. That was in September last. We find, however, that since that time the position has changed completely and in December a totally different situation prevailed. We find that in December 140,000 tons were carried by British ships and 144,000 tons by neutral ships. In other words the British ships are more and more leaving us in the lurch and we are becoming dependent on neutral ships for the transport of our products. I should like to explain in connection with the mealie question that we had a crop of 29,000,000 bags last year. We, as producers, consume more or less 10,000 000 bags, leaving 19,000,000 bags for sale, either for export or for local sale. I may say that we got a price averaging about 7s. 6d. per bag amounting to a total of about £7,000,000. That is the amount which the maize farmers obtained for their products. This year we are expecting a crop of round about 19,000,000 bags.

You are an optimist.

Very well, let us assume the crop to be 18,000,000 bags, that will make my assumption even stronger. But I took 19,000,000 bags for my calculations, and I take it that only 9,000,000 bags will be sold. In order to produce this amount of £7,000,000 those 9,000,000 bags will have to be sold at an average price of 15s. per bag. I am not going to suggest that the farmers are expecting to get 15s. per bag, but it has been urged from all sides that we should not get less than 10s. I feel it is a reasonable claim. It is being argued that as our crop is smaller, our expenses will be lower in respect of bags, transport and threshing, but that is balanced by higher production costs.

Last year when I said that the farmers had a larger crop and should therefore be satisfied with a lower price they said, “Oh, no!”

That is what I want to get at. When the Minister said that they had a larger crop and therefore were able to come out better on 7s. per bag than last year at 10s. per bag, I now come with the position that we got 7s. last year, and this year when we have a poorer crop than the year before we can say that 10s". is as good as 7s. the year before. I shall leave it to the Minister to fix any price above 10s. I hope the Minister of Agriculture will see his way to give us an assurance that the price is not going to be less than 10s. per bag. I, as a mealie farmer, have been feeling somewhat guilty during the last few years on account of the fact that we have been getting higher prices through the instrumentality of the local consumer, mainly the poor man, and even the native, who had to pay for it, who have to consume the mealies as their ordinary food. In the circumstances I consider that it is only fair that the Minister should put his hand into the Exchequer and come to the aid of the mealie farmers on behalf of the Government, so that the expense shall be borne by the country as a whole and not mainly by the poor man. There is a feeling of uncertainty whether we shall be able in future to get sufficient petrol, and there is also a feeling of uncertainty in respect of the possibilities of the export of our mealies. I want to suggest that it would be fair for the Minister to buy up the mealie surplus for the purpose of fostering the petrol industry in our country. There is a possibility of the price of petrol going up, and it may go up to such an extent that we shall be unable, to all intents and purposes, to obtain any. We had the experience in the late war, that we had to resort to all kinds of means in order to obtain petrol for our essential requirements. I think the time has now come to foster and expand that industry which is going to be of such great importance to us as a country.

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

When business was suspended at 6 o’clock I had already made it clear that a price of at least 10s. per bag was justified for mealies this year if we take into account the fact that our crop is going to be very small. In order to get support for my plea I want to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister of Agriculture and also to the hon. member for Kimberley (District) (Mr. Steytler) who unfortunately is not in his seat. He told us yesterday of the way he stood up in the old Nationalist Party on behalf of farmers’ interests and he told us that he had given certain good advice which the old Nationalist Party would not accept. Apparently the hon. member has more influence with the present Government, and in view of the fact that he looks upon himself as the farmers’ champion I want to recruit his support and also the support of the Minister of Agriculture in regard to this matter. There is another matter which struck me in connection with this Budget, and that is that apparently there is no provision whatsoever for the very poor people, the people who are completely indigent. I have in mind those unfortunate labourers earning a precarious livelihood of a few shillings a day, I have in mind the people drawing invalidity pensions and also those in receipt of old age pensions. Even in normal times those people could hardly keep body and soul together. We have to admit that costs of living have gone up, and anyone denying this fact must be considered to be talking nonsense. I feel that those people are really entitled to the Government’s consideration. Let us put ourselves in the place of these people for a moment, who are in this state of poverty and misery—what must they think when they find that £14,000,000 is being voted for a war which they must realise is not in the interest of the people, and not in the interest of the country, or in which they at least have no direct interest. They are in an extremely precarious condition and what they see going on gives rise to considerable dissatisfaction on their part. The soldiers are to-day drawing better pay than they drew in the last war. I do not begrudge them that, but my request is that a little more attention should in any case be paid to those other people who are suffering great hardships. The position in which they find themselves is in many cases attributable to former wars in which this country has been involved, and I consider that those people are entitled to receive consideration from the Government. In connection with this matter I also wish to claim the support of another member opposite, who is not in his seat either, the hon. member for Calvinia (Dr. Steenkamp). When this House met on the 4th September to decide in regard to the war, we happened to be sitting alongside each other on the same bench. He said to me: “I love Gen. Hertzog in my heart, but I also love my poor people, and I feel that I have to choose to-day between him and the poor people.” He meant that the Government which would be put into power would show the necessary consideration to those people, and I now appeal to him to prove to me that when he made that statement he was in earnest, and that having chosen as he did because he wanted to stand by them, he is now prepared to do something for them. I hope he will also plead their cause because those poor people are entitled to some relief.

When I was still the Party Whip I always used to look askance at Ministers who took part in the Budget debate, because the time available to other members is reduced if Ministers take part in the debate. If Ministers take up too much time the speeches of members are very often left in their drawers, and that being so I shall be as brief as I can this evening. If I should fail to reply to all the points raised here, I hope hon. members will not take it amiss and will not regard it as being due to any disrespect on my part so far as they are concerned. We have taken notes of everything that has been said here. My department has done so, and I have no doubt that we shall be able to deal with those matters when we are in Committee of Supply on my Vote. I want to say at once that although certain branches of farming are causing anxiety, and although many of the farmers are finding themselves in deep water to-day, the position of farming generally is in my modest opinion not as precarious and not as hopeless as some hon. members have tried to paint it here the last few days. Even if it is correct that the farmer and the Government should devote their best efforts to dealing with the problems which are before us, the position is not such as to cause us to give up courage and put up the white flag. Knowing the farmers of the country as I do, they have no intention of surrendering to despair. In order to prove what I am saving here I should like to deal with the various branches of farming one by one. First of all take the wool farmers. They have no reason to complain. They are satisfied, and they do not complain. They are laughing: I shall come back to the question of wool. Nor has the meat industry a great deal to complain about. The prices of cattle are better than they have been for years. The price of mutton is satisfactory, although I am prepared to admit that in all probability there are serious grievances in connection with the marketing of meat, but while admitting this fact I wish to express the bone that we shall be in a position in the near future to bring about changes and improvements. The dairy industry is generally speaking in a satisfactory position. Prices are not too bad, and the producers in that industry have no serious cause for complaint. Now what about the mealie industry of which we have heard such a lot in this House? If the price last year was worse than it was in years gone by, we have to remember that the crop was so much larger, and I think it will be readily admitted that the amount received by the mealie farmers jointly, the cheque received by the industry, has been larger than in previous years.

Because there was much more mealies.

Naturally, because there was much more mealies. I shall reply to that point later on, and I shall try to explain what the position is in regard to the complaints that have been made in respect of the allowances which have been delayed, so far as settlement is concerned. Hon. members, however, are asking me now to tell them what the position is in regard to the crop which is still on the lands. They ask me to tell them now what the scheme is in regard to the mealies, and what the prices should be. We cannot even make an estimate yet of what the crop is going to be this year. I do not believe there is an hon. member in this House, or that there is anyone in the country who is able to estimate what the crop is going to be this year. I received the latest reports this morning, but they are just as vague as they were months ago. We only know what has been planted, but beyond that we can say very little. We know that the crop is going to be a very poor one, and it would appear to me, in any case, that there is no chance of there being any mealies for export. That I think we can take for granted. The Mealie Control Board has, however, already discussed the matter with me. They are busy considering the matter, and as soon as they have come to an understanding, if there should be any new scheme to be placed before the Marketing Board, it will be passed on to the Government. I can assure the House that the Government is conscious of the seriousness of this position and that it will give its best attenton to the question when the time comes. The tobacco farmers have nothing to complain about. Their price, generally speaking, is excellent. So far as the wheat industry is concerned, in view of the fact that there has been a normal crop, their price is satisfactory. It is quite true that many of the farmers, especially in the Cape Province, have had a bad crop and a great many of them have done very little work, but I do rot think the price would have made any difference to them. If a man has no crop it is no use to him if there is a high price for the crop that is produced. The Government has, however, decided to grant assistance to those districts where help is needed, and the magistrates have been given instructions to assist the farmers with Joans where they require assistance. I wish to emphasise, however, that such loans can only be granted in the wheat districts and only to bona fide wheat farmers and, in parenthesis, I want to say to the hon. member for Senekal (Maj. Pieterse) that the magistrate in his district has received instructions to assist farmers who are in need of assistance, with seed wheat and fertilisers, up to a limited amount. I now come to the fresh fruit industry, and in the nature of things those farmers are perhaps worse off during a time of war —they are probably worse off than any other branch of farming. Their product, unfortunately, is not an essential foodstuff. Up to the present the British Government has refused to buy deciduous fruit or citrus fruit. The result is that the producers themselves are responsible for extra freight costs, extra insurance, etc. And their overseas market has naturally been completely dislocated. Other circumstances contribute to a reduction in their prices and their sales are also much smaller than they are in ordinary circumstances. Last year’s citrus crop had, however, been dispatched almost entirely when war broke out. By far the greater part had been dispatched and the prices obtained for the consignments which had been dispatched were reasonable and there is not very much reason for complaint. It is true that considerable losses have been incurred in respect of the last consignment of oranges. The Government asked for information some weeks ago about the losses incurred and who the persons were who had suffered thoses losses, and we are awaiting the information in order to ascertain what can be done in the matter. But what I should like to say is that the Government did not delay so, far as the fresh fruit industry was concerned, but that the Government immediately, months ago, provided an amount of £800,000 for the citrus industry, to get the crop off the trees and to find markets for that crop. Furthermore an amount of close on £500,000 has been allocated to the deciduous fruit farmers for the same purposes, and further steps have been taken to dispatch the fruit which cannot be exported through other channels.

Has the Government set up any scheme under which that fruit can be dried?

That is one of the reasons why I asked for this £500,000, so that fruit may be dried and canned. It is realised that the position of the producers of fresh fruit is not an enviable one, but everything possible has been done and is being done.

†Mr. Speaker, I wish to express my appreciation of the effort of the hon. member for Griqualand East (Mr. Gilson). He gave us a reason, and I think a fair sketch of the position. I don’t think he overstated his case, and I am pleased that he did not cry “Stinking fish.” The great trouble, of course, is to bring the cost of production down to the lowest possible level and obtain the highest possible prices for our products. My colleague, the hon. minister of Commerce and industries, dealt with some of the points that he brought up. I can only tell him that the position is receiving continuous attention, and I would mention particularly the newly appointed Industrial and Agricultural Requirements Commission, and I commend it to him that he should take some of his troubles to that commission. The Government will not hesitate to appoint further commissions and make any enquiry that will assist the position.

†*Now I wish to revert to the subject of wool. I had not intended saying any more on this question, but I wish to say a few words in consequence of certain remarks made by the hon. member for Fauresmith (Mr. Havenga). The hon. member complained that the British Government—that at any rate is what I understood him to say —had long before the war, or some time before the war, entered into an agreement with Australia and New Zealand. Now I want to ask the hon. member why it was, if that was so, that the Union did not hear anything about it?

I did not say so.

That is how I understood the hon. member and so did other hon. members. Anyhow, in that case I do not propose saying any more about it. What the hon. member did say, however, is that as soon as it became known that the British Government had bought the Australian clip, the buyers from neutral countries flocked to South Africa.

That is so.

We have kept our eyes very carefully on the whole position and that is not our information. Even on the first auction sales on the 28th September it was local buyers in South Africa who on behalf of their clients operated on the market.

On behalf of neutral countries.

Nobody denies that. I want to say at once that we had expected the first sales to realise high prices. We had received information that various buyers had received commissions to buy wool and we were aware of the fact that shipping space was available. The buyers did not know what was going to happen to South Africa’s wool, whether South Africa would possibly follow the same course as Australia and they naturally wanted to make sure of being able to obtain wool on behalf of their clients. The next wool sales were considerably lower and after that prices went still lower, but not for the reasons mentioned by the hon. member for Fauresmith, not for the reason that the British Government had said that they were going to take control.

The British Government bought up the wool.

Japan was offered 300,000 bales.

I do not know whether the hon. member for Fauresmith was in the House when I spoke last on this subject. I also heard the rumour that the British Government had sold 300,000 bales to Japan.

Offered.

I at once cabled to the High Commissioner in London and the answer was that the British Government denied that they had either sold or offered or intended selling.

Are they not selling to neutral countries out of the stocks which they have purchased?

The hon. member said that that was the reason why the market dropped.

Do you deny that 300,000 bales of the Australian clip were sold to Japan?

They did not sell and I told the hon. member so a few days after he had spoken on this subject. The British Government denies having placed any credits whatever at the disposal of Japan for the purpose of purchasing the Australian wool.

How did it get into the Press then?

Does the hon. member wish to say that he holds my department responsible for what appears in the Press?

But it had its effects.

That was weeks after that time, but that was not the reason which the hon. member mentioned for the drop in prices. The price was high but it was not yet what it should have been. The British Government, of course, exercised control over the wool and it will see to it that the price is not too high. I want to ask the hon. member in all modesty, if the British Government wanted to exercise control over the world’s wool, why is it then that when I asked them whether they would buy our wool, they said that they did not want it? Was it a case of leg-pulling? I have the prices since 24th February before me and there is no drop noticeable in the prices. Compare last season’s prices with the improvement in this year’s prices: On A.F. types 70 per cent., A.M. 74 per cent., A.S. 76 per cent., B.F. 67 per cent., B.M. 69 per cent., B.S. 72 per cent. I want to conclude by saying that if that is the effect of control then give me control, and I am sure that all the wool farmers in the Union will say so too.

Mr. Speaker, we have for many years heard the complaint that the Railways are not being administered according to business principles. We have heard that complaint largely from members of the commercial community. They have told us time and time again that the Railways are not being administered in accordance with Section 127 of the Act of Union, and they have stated that it is essential that a business man should be the Minister of Railways and Harbours. It is sixteen years since we last had a business man holding the portfolio of Minister of Railways and Harbours, and now after sixteen years we have the hon. gentleman from Turffontein taking over that portfolio. The commercial community, and very many other hon. members on that side of the House, had considerable expectations from this, the first Budget to be delivered by a business man. I can still remember when the hon. the Minister delivered his Budget the hush of expectancy with which hon. members sitting on both sides of the House waited for some spectacular announcement, something radical that would change the whole policy adopted by his predecessors; that he would announce a Budget based on business principles. But, Mr. Speaker, not only the commercial community, but hon. members on that side of the House, were grievously disappointed. They found that the hon. gentleman had merely adopted the policy of his predecessors in every detail. He represented a Budget, as the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) said, which is really a twin Budget of the Budget that that hon. member presented five years ago. But strangely enough, the Minister, by adopting the policy of his predecessors, has completely capitulated. He has completely repudiated the attitude he has always adopted in the past. In spite of all the criticisms he used to make on the Budgets of his predecessors, he has now accepted their policy in every detail. But the hon. gentleman has gone even further. In announcing a Budget based on business principles, be has gone further in granting those very concessions which he so consistently criticised in the past. I think that the presentation of this budget is certainly the greatest compliment that the hon. minister could have paid his predecessor. I, however, shall endeavour to be consistent in my criticism. There are certain aspects of railway policy which I criticised in the past, and which I intend to criticise to-night. The present year closed with a surplus of over £1,500,000. The hon. minister allocated it as follows: To the deficiency in the pensions and superannuation fund, £200,000; to the betterment fund, £300,000; and to the rates equalisation fund, £1,000,000. In regard to the rates equalisation fund, I want to say that I agree with the Minister that this is one of the most important of the Railway funds. The credit balance of this fund now stands at £4,000,000. I want, however, to make a suggestion to the hon. minister. At the present time this £4,000,000 is floating about in the working capital account, and the day might arrive when the Minister may want to put his hand on that money and then he cannot find it. I would suggest that he take this amount of £4,000,000 and invest it with the Public Debt Commissioners, and that all interest accruing be credited to this fund. If invested at 3 per cent. it will mean that an additional amount of £120,000 per annum will be placed to the credit of this fund. In regard to the coming year the Minister is very optimistic. He said that he had confidence in the future. The Minister even endeavoured to create the illusion that this expected prosperity was entirely due to the fact that we were at war. The Minister has budgeted for a gross surplus of £2,900,000, and he allocates this amount as follows: Betterment £1,000,000, deficiency in pension and superannuation £487,000, renewals fund for permanent way £800,000, and the writing out of capital account discount on pre-Union capital, £600,000. The first two items one cannot criticise. Section 127 of the Act of Union makes provision for the betterment fund, and as the five-yearly actuarial valuation of the pensions and superannuation fund has not yet been completed, one cannot criticise that allocation either. With regard to the other two accounts, renewals £800,000, and writing out of capital account discount and expense on pre-Union capital £600,000, I want to make some comments. First in regard to the renewals fund. The renewals fund, as hon. members are aware, is a fund mainly for the purpose of providing from revenue moneys for the replacement of certain classes of capital assets, which, owing to wear and tear and depreciation, ultimately need complete replacement. The moneys of this fund are obtained by an annual contribution of 60 per cent. of the aggregate amount of depreciation based on the estimated life of the assets, plus a lump sum of £80,000 for reballasting made from revenue in the case of permanent way and works, and rolling stock. Other items consist of contributions on certain buildings, plant and equipment calculated on an estimated life basis. The percentage rates vary from 2 per cent. to over 20 per cent. Theoretically this fund should only be utilised for the replacement of worn-out assets, but it has been the practice of the administration to purchase new assets up to the estimated amount of depreciation of existing assets, while they are still in service. It has been the practice of the Administration during the past sx years, to appropriate lump sums out of revenue, and to credit them to this account for the purchase of new assets, the cost of which should actually be charged to capital account. Rolling stock is lumped together for the purpose of estimating the amount of depreciation. It is stated that the amount of new assets purchased is based on the estimated amount of depreciation of existing assets. But my contention is this. If the rolling stock is lumped together, how is it possible for the administration to estimate the amount of depreciation? This fund is not being used for the purpose of replacing worn-out assets, but actually for the purchase of new assets. In other words, it has been utilised to purchase revenue earning assets, the cost of which should have been defrayed out of loan funds. I dealt with this fund in detail in my speech during last session, and I have not the time at my disposal to do it again now. I again maintain, however, that this renewals fund is definitely being abused, and that large sums are being appropriated from revenue to purchase new revenue earning assets, the cost of which should actually be defrayed from loan funds. We find that over and above the ordinary contributions during the past five years, on the percentage basis of the actual value of the assets, over £8,000,000 has been appropriated from revenue. Another £800,000 is being appropriated for the coming year. I think that the way this fund is being manipulated requires investigation. Then we have the £600,000 for writing out of capital account discount and expenses on pre-Union capital. This is a theoretical book entry. The money is actually being used to defray capital expenditure in the year in which it is appropriated. Up to now, for this particular account, a sum of £2,500,000 has been appropriated from revenue. This, I maintain, is definitely in conflict with the provisions of Section 127 of the Act of Union. Under the Act of Union no provision is made for the utilisation of revenue for any such purpose. There is, I admit provision made for capital derived from revenue, but I do not think it was the intention of the framers of the Act to allow for lump sums to be appropriated from revenue in this way and utilised for capital expenditure. We also have the position that in the past lump sums have been appropriated from revenue for the purpose of reducing the capital of non-paying branch lines. The Minister, fortunately, has this year made no provision for this. In the past, however, a sum of over £2.000.000 has been appropriated in that way for the same purpose, i.e. to defray capital expenditure in the year in which it is appropriated. If you take these three items together, after wiping out accrued depreciation which at the end of 1937 amounted to £786,000, we find that approximately £7,500,000 has been appropriated under these heads, renewals, reduction in branch line capital, and writing out of capital account discount and expenses on pre-Union capital. This large amount was actually utilised to defray capital expenditure, which should have been defrayed out of loan funds. The Railway Board has the audacity to state that over £12,000,000 of branch line capital must still be wiped out by appropriating sums from revenue before the finances of the Railway can be considered to be sound and in a healthy condition. In regard to these non-paying branch lines the Railway Board was directly responsible for the building of them. If they had conformed to the provisions of the Act of Union, and not recommended the building of non-paying branch lines, either the branch lines would not have been built, or if they had been built, the cost would have been defrayed out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund. If we consider this matter carefully we find that over £7,500,000 has been appropriated from revenue for the purpose of purchasing new revenue-earning assets, and one can only say that it is a case of the present users of the railway being called upon to pay for posterity. The Minister will probably state that this is a sound, conservative financial policy which is adopted for the purpose of strengthening the finances of the Railways. Well, Mr. Speaker, I disagree. Capital expenditure should be curtailed, and capital expenditure should be based on the ability of the Railways to carry the increased burden of interest and maintenance. Mr. Speaker, I am definitely of the opinion that in very many cases capital expenditure on large new works is not entirely justified. The Minister informed the House that the Administration had entered into many big schemes of development and improvement. I maintain, sir, that when a large scheme of improvement involving an expenditure of over half a million pounds is entered into merely for the purpose of cutting off half an hour or an hour in the running time of trains, or adding ten or twenty tons to trainloads, that that huge expenditure with its attendant burden of interest and cost of maintenance is not justified. It is essential that capital expenditure be curtailed, and that revenue should not be utilised to defray capital expenditure which should be defrayed from loan funds. There is another aspect of this fund manipulation. When a section of the line is regarded as relaid, we find that the expenditure is debited to three different accounts, namely, betterment, renewals and capital account. There is evidently no clear line of demarcation between these three accounts, and evidently the Administration is manipulating these three accounts to suit their own purposes.

They are complying with your requirements.

Yes, they are complying with our requirements, but I shall endeavour to show why it is disadvantageous to have a weak system of accounting. I now want to deal with the road motor accounts. The Minister announced in his speech that for the year ending December last the road motor services showed a profit of £162. At the same time he informed the House that a subsidy of over £52,000 was granted by the Railways to the road motor services for that year. This subsidy is based on an arbitrary rate of 8½ per cent., and 10 per cent. in one case, on the actual earnings of the road motor services. It was considered when these services were first inaugurated, that they would act as feeder services to the Railways, and consequently the Railways were in duty bound to pay a subsidy to the road motor services for the service rendered. This might have been the case when the services were first inaugurated, but they are to-day part and parcel of the whole railway system. The subsidy of over £52,000, based on a percentage, fixed in an arbitrary manner for so-called services rendered, is not any longer justified. If this subsidy is taken away and we have the accounts as they should be, we will find that instead of showing a profit of £162 on the year’s working, the road motor services were actually worked at a loss of over £51,000.

We would have to put up the rates on the farmers.

No, but what should be done is that instead of the Railway and Harbour Fund having to bear the cost of the rebates granted to the farmers, which amounted to £46.000 in the case of the road motor services last year, the Consolidated Revenue Fund should be debited with the cost in accordance with the provisions of Section 131 of the South Africa Act. We have the same position in regard to the elevator accounts. These elevators, ever since they have been constructed in 1924, have consistently shown a loss with the exception of three years. Again, I maintain that the elevator account is not a true reflection of the position as it actually is. We find that there was a sawing in haulage in 1937 of over 7,000,000 ton miles, but that this huge saving in haulage was not credited to the elevators. I admit that the amount of £ s. d. involved might be comparatively insignificant, but I contend that if the elevator account was, say, debited with the increased cost of constructing special elevator trucks, and credited with the saving in haulage, it would give a more accurate reflection of the actual position. Another matter that is repeatedly drawn attention to by the Auditor-General is departmental credits for released material. When a department releases material it is sold to the public, and you frequently find that while the selling price to the public is, say, £28 per ton, the particular department which releases that material is only credited with from £4 to £7 10s. per ton. It may be said that this is merely a book entry. But I maintain that this does not give a true reflection of the actual position of that department. It is most important that the accounting should be accurate in every detail. When there is a depression it is essential that an accurate view should be obtained of the working of each and every department of the Railways, otherwise how can the Minister place his finger on the weak spot for the purpose of economising or increasing efficiency? There is another department which I do not consider really answers its purpose; that is the department of the Controller of Disbursements and Financial Adviser. I have been informed that the members of the staff of that department, which consists almost solely of senior officers, and which involves an expenditure of nearly £10,000 per annum, on very many days do not know how to pass their time. I do not think it is necessary to go back to the original method of every system manager controlling his own expenditure, but I think it would be very much better if this particular department was placed under the direct control and supervision of the chief accountant. It should, in fact, be a branch of the chief accountant’s department. I think it is most advisable that the Minister should have a thorough investigation made into the whole system of Railway accounting. The Minister himself made complaints in the past that the accounting was not what it should be, and I contend that if an investigation were made there are distinct possibilities of the system being considerably improved. I now want to deal with the question of rebates. In spite of the Minister’s attitude last year, when he was one of the severest critics of this system of rebates to the agricultural community, he now, instead of insisting that the cost of these rebates be borne by the Consolidated Revenue Fund, merely announces in his speech that the granting of these rebates is going to be continued. I know that the Minister’s reply will probably be that there is no proof that the granting of rebates is in conflict with Section 131 of the Act. I know that the Administration maintains that they cannot definitely say whether these commodities are carried at a loss; they say it is impossible to determine whether any particular commodity is carried at a profit or at a loss. But when one bears the fact in mind that if the subsidy granted to the road motor services was withdrawn the road motor services would have operated at a loss of over £50,000 last year, and when one remembers that in spite of that loss an amount of £46,000 in rebates was granted, one can definitely say that this is a case where the provisions of Section 131 of the S.A. Act should be applied. I cannot understand how the Administration can possibly say that they cannot determine whether any particular commodity is carried at either a profit or a loss. I think that apart from the principle of charging what the traffic can bear, actually determining what the cost of conveying a particular commodity is, is one of the fundamental principles of rate making. If the Administration is able to determine whether any particular commodity is carried at a profit or a loss, then the provisions of Section 131 of the Act can be applied when the Railways are called upon to render gratuitous services, or services at reduced rates. Take the latest reduction of the rate on lucerne. The Administration will probably say that there is no proof that this commodity is being carried at a loss. I maintain, sir, that if the Administration was in the position of being able to determine what the cost was of conveying this particular commodity one would very soon find that it was being carried at a loss. But apart from continuing this rebate, the hon. the Minister is actually granting further facilities. He also announced that all sailors and soldiers travelling in uniform would do so at reduced rates. On the main line the fare would be half the excursion fare. An excursion fare is single fare plus 10 per cent., so that the fare that is now being charged to sailors and soldiers in uniform is little more than a quarter of the ordinary fare. Reductions are also given for travel on the suburban lines. I have no quarrel with the granting of these facilities but I do say that it entails a considerable potential loss of revenue to the Administration, and that the Administration should not be called upon to bear this potential loss of revenue, but that the Defence Vote should be debited with the amount. We have precisely the same position in regard to our Airways. The hon. minister has himself in the past taken exception to the fact that the Railways had to bear the loss involved in operating the Airways. I contend that the Airways are really part and parcel of our defence system, and I predict that if hostilities should break out on the African continent, the Airway users will be deprived of all their air services; but yet the Administration has to carry all the loss which has been growing larger year by year instead of being reduced. That also is a loss which the Administration should not be called upon to, bear but which should be borne by the Defence Vote. I want to say in conclusion that I admire the hon. minister’s optimism and confidence in the future, but in spite of that great optimism and confidence the Minister has not made one single concession either to the public or to the staff. We find that his predecessors every year made one or other improvement in the working conditions of the staff, but this year the Minister has done nothing. He has made no concessions to the public in spite of the fact that in the past he was one of the severest critics of the high rating policy of the railways, and in spite of the fact that he consistently told the House that essential commodities were unfairly being conveyed at the highest rates. Now that he has the opportunity, and has himself assumed responsibility, he does hot grant one single concession to the inland consumer in regard to the high rated traffic. The staff has had no concessions whatever. The Minister has made no provision for even a cost of living allowance, and he knows that if a cost of living allowance is granted, it will entail an expenditure of over £1,000,000, but he has made no provision in spite of the promises made on behalf of the Government by his predecessor. In the press it was said the other night that the Government was contemplating the granting of a cost of living allowance. It did not say when—probably in the distant future. They are relying on the figures of the department of statistics and we know how much reliance can be placed on these. Instead of making some concessions to the staff, the Minister merely makes this pious declaration at the end of his speech. He says: “The Railways by the humane and just treatment of their servants shall set an example to employers everywhere.” At the present time the Administration is not setting an example. One only has to remember the excessive hours of duty, and the crying need for long overdue reforms. We have our various forms of legislation under which it is laid down that employees shall not work more than 46 or 48 hours per week. As against that we have the railway servants working up to 60 hours per week. If we remember these things we cannot say that the Railway Administration is setting an example as the Minister so piously informed the House. The Minister’s predecessors made concessions and improvements in the working conditions of the staff. In suite of all his optimism and confidence in the future the Minister makes no concessions whatsoever. In conclusion I want to congratulate the Minister on his ability to undergo such a complete conversion overnight, so that he now supports a policy which he has so consistently criticised in the past. I trust, sir, that if I again have the privilege of addressing this House when next he introduces his Budget I shall have cause to congratulate him on achievement, whereas now I can only deprecate his lack of achievement.

The fourth day of the Budget debate is usually devoted to a discussion of the railway estimates. But we now have this unusual spectacle of having railway matters not referred to until this late hour which is by common consent set aside for a discussion of railway matters. We even have the unusual spectacle of seeing the former shadow Minister of Railways (the hon. member for Marico) addressing this House at length and not saying a word on railway matters but devoting his remarks almost entirely to a personal defence of the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow). I am merely stating a fact of the railway budget having been so little referred to this year, more especially if one bears in mind that its size approximates closely to the national income and expenditure of normal years. Before dealing with the Railway Budget I wish to say a few words with regard to the Budget of the Minister of Finance, and in the first place I wish to express my welcome to the change which he proposes to bring about in the mining taxation. It is a departure in my opinion from the principle of confiscation, to the principle of sound scientific taxation, a principle which in fact was followed from 1936 onwards by the hon. member for Fauresmith, and I want to say to those sections of the Opposition who still sometimes shudder at the mention of the name of the mythical Hoggenheimer that they can this time be completely reassured not only by the Minister of Finance, but also by the hon. member for Fauresmith, who admitted that under the present scheme the mines are not getting away with anything, but are paying at least as much as they would have paid under his own scheme. This change brought about by the Minister of Finance will be demonstrated in years to come, as having been in the wide national interest, and not only in the interest of the mining industry, or of the area of the Witwatersrand alone, and like the hon. member for Kensington, I too am glad that I was one of those who some weeks before he presented his Budget urged on him a change from the confiscatory principle which had been adopted by the hon. member for Fauresmith to the present basis of scientific taxation. And in referring in passing to the railway budget I want to refer to what the Minister of Railways said, namely that one of the difficulties which he had to face as Minister of Railways was that it would not be easy to find capital for new ventures. I want to say that in time to come it may turn out that the Minister of Railways himself may be more grateful than most other people that this change in mining taxation has been brought about, because it will certainly help towards the finding of capital for the opening of new mines, which, of course, as we know, will benefit railway traffic to a very great extent. I want to say something with regard to the short-lived mines, and to express the hope that the Minister will bear in mind the position of those mines on the Witwatersrand which have almost come to the end of their tether. The figures which have been supplied to me by the Germiston Chamber of Mines for the year 1938 show that there are certain mines such as the Geldenhuys Deep. Langlaagte Estate, Modderfontein, New Modders, Van Ryn Deep, Witwatersrand and Witwatersrand Deep in regard to which the figures are most imposing. The number of Europeans in service on those mines is 5,500 and the earnings are two and a quarter million pounds. The farm produce bought by those mines amounts to over half a million pounds, the value of all the stores bought is two and a quarter millions, and the miners’ phthisis contribution is £180,000, while the income tax and excess profits duty amounts to £1,210,000. I want to stress the fact, sir, that if any of those mines were allowed to go under it would be a minor calamity not only to the area where they are situated but also to the country as a whole. I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister not to touch those mines with equally as hard a hand as he touches the others that have a greater capacity to pay, but that he will be prepared to ease off on the taxation of those mines so as to increase their life for some time to come. The withdrawal of the 30 per cent. rebate on income tax has been criticised, perhaps mildly, but I would say that I feel that the Minister was quite justified in withdrawing that rebate as we should all be glad to make our contribution to the maintenance of our freedom, our democratic and our Christian institutions. It has been unfairly stated, in my opinion, that this budget gives nothing to the working man. Well, sir, I say that the working man should be grateful that the Minister was able to present a war budget which will go towards financing our share in helping to maintain those institutions to which I have referred without the working man having to pay a penny towards it. With this possible exception, sir, that I regard the withdrawal of the 30 per cent. with approval, but I think the Minister might well consider whether he could not allow the rebate to remain in relation to incomes of between £400 and £700 a year. That would not be surrendering much and it would help the smaller middleman. As far as the Minister of Finance is concerned the hon. minister has expressed himself as being very keen on the encouragement of thrift. I believe he said he was going to make further suggestions with regard to encouraging thrift among the population. I want to make a suggestion to him, sir, and that is that the best form of thrift is insurance. The adequately insured will never be a burden on the State, and I would, therefore, suggest to the Minister that he might increase the exemption in respect of insurance premiums. I now come, sir, to deal with the Railway Budget. On the Part Appropriation Bill the present Minister was congratulated on assuming the office of Minister of Railways upon being a businessman. To some extent I agree with my friend the member for Fordsburg (Mr. Schoeman), but in another respect J feel that by presenting this budget the Minister demonstrated two things: (a) he showed that he is a business man and (b) he has shown that he is Scotch! He has preferred businesslike safety to mere showy spectacularity, and Scotch caution to undue boldness and experimentation in the way he proposes to dispose of his present surplus of £1,500,000 and his anticipated surplus of nearly £3,000,000 without giving any direct benefit either to the users of the Railway or to the Railway staff! I can well imagine that there may be some people, somewhat foolishly perhaps, who may say that the price they have to pay for having a business man at the helm and a Scotchman at that is somewhat high! As far as the staff is concerned I only want to say that the White Paper which the Minister has presented to the House shows what substantial benefit the staff has had in the past seven years.

Both benefits came from the late government.

Well, it does not matter to the staff where the money comes from as long as they get it. My hon. friend knows that the staff is getting these benefits under the present Minister. This White Paper shows that the direct recurring benefit to the staff over the seven years amounts to £3,140,000 and the direct non-recurring benefits amount to over £4,500,000, a total sum of £7,750,000 to the staff. As against that the general public get in the form of direct benefit £460,000, of which £400,000 goes to the farmers. Other indirect benefits to the public amount to £2,300,000. Well, sir, as far as the staff is concerned I do not pretend to severely criticise the Minister, because he has done nothing further for the staff in view of what has been done and what is being done still. I know that the staff appreciates fully what has been done and what is being done for them, especially in other ways, such as the house ownership scheme, the rent rebate, and in ways like that. But I do want to say this with regard to the staff position and that, not only with regard to the Railway staff but the public service as well, I think the Government ought to make quite clear, sir, that if there is a rise in the cost of living, as it is inevitable that there will be, the Government should make good that rise in the cost of living to the public service and the Railway service. And, sir, the further point I want to make is this, that the Government should not leave any uncertainty about it. The Government should not wait till the rise has taken place and a case has been made out by the Railway and public service, but the Government should at this early stage say that they will do this, so as to remove any doubt and any anxiety that when such a rise takes place the Government would be prepared to make that rise in the cost of living good by a special allowance, a cost-of-living allowance, or a special war bonus. Going back for a moment to the disposal of the Minister’s surplus of approximately £1,500,000. it seems to me that one cannot soundly criticise that disposal, more especially if one bears in mind the unsound state of the Railway finances in spite of repeated surpluses by past and present Ministers of Railways. The position is set out on page 2 of the report of the Railways and Harbours Board. There it is stated that the following balances require to be liquidated before the finances of the Administration can be regarded as being in a sound position. The deficit on the pension fund in round figures is £1,000,000 and on the superannuation fund £4,000,000. Discount and expenses in connection with preUnion capital, £1,500,000; capital cost of nonpaying branch lines, £12,000,000; rates equalisation fund, £2,000,000, making, sir, the staggering total of £20,500,000. Well, sir, in view of that state of affairs I say that no one can justly blame the Minister if he proposes to pay into the betterment fund £300,000, into the superannuation and pension fund £200,000, and into the rates equalisation fund £1,000,000. It is perhaps, sir, in some way surprising that the Minister has not made any special contribution to the renewals fund, especially with regard to the two items of permanent way and rolling stock, which, in my opinion, are in a very depleted state. I shall give some figures in regard to these two headings. Under the two headings there has been an expenditure over the last few years of £20,000,000 in round figures, and, sir, if the commitments as they are stated at the 31st March, 1940, if all those commitments are met during 1939-1940, there will be a debit balance in the fund under these two headings of £20,590. It may well be, sir, that in view of the very heavy expenditure that has been made in the past five years it will not be necessary to make any great replacements in the near future under these two headings, and that may be the reason the Minister has not found it necessary to make any special contribution to the renewals fund under these two headings.

We have a special contribution of £800,000.

Yes; well this year that is with regard to the permanent way.

Yes.

But taking that into account on the figures that I have, there will be, if the commitments are all met, as they are stated, there will still be a small deficit in the fund as at March 31st, 1940. As far as the renewals fund as a whole is concerned, it appears that it is lower than it has ever been since the year 1928-1929. The lowest it has ever been is in 1930-1931 when it stood at about two and three-quarter million. In 1938-’39 it stood even lower than that. In the year 1935-’36 the fund stood as high as five and a half millions. I really want to deal with the point touched on by my friend, the member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman), and that is to express my concern at the extent to which there has been a departure from the principle laid down in Section 127 of the South Africa Act, namely, that our Railways should be run on business principles, due regard being had to the agricultural and industrial development of the Union. Now, sir, it is common knowledge that our rates, as far as agricultural products are concerned, are the lowest in the world, and they are the lowest in the world because a large section of the population is being made to pay very high rates.

Also because our produce fetches the lowest figure in the world.

My friend misses my point. I do not criticise the policy of carrying agricultural produce at non-payable rates on the Railways, but I say you should keep within the terms of Section 127, and if it is a matter of policy to carry this produce at a non-payable rate then the Central Government and not the Railways should pay for such carriage. I want to draw attention to the special rates given to farm products in the Auditor-General’s report. On page 14 of the report of the Controller and Auditor-General it is stated—

The rebates vary from 20 per cent. for certain items to 90 per cent. for others. In regard to an item such as wool, the railways allow a rebate of 90 per cent. Bearing in mind that our rate for the carriage of agricultural products is already the lowest in the world, it is apparent that this is a departure from the provisions of Section 127 of the Act of Union, and that it cannot by any stretch of the imagination, be termed the running of the railways in accordance with business principles. I make further specific criticisms of that policy by pointing out that the financial side of the railways, to which I have referred, namely, the amount of money required in the opinion of the Railway Board before railway finance can be considered to be on a sound footing— I can only say without fear of contradiction, that no private commercial concern would ever have been prepared to under take such a service as the Government is undertaking for the farming community in this instance. I say further, that if the Minister were to go into the amount surrendered by way of reduction in the past on such items as wool, mohair, export, citrus fruits, maize and maize meal, lucerne, fertilisers, agricultural machinery and implements, he will find that the figure amounts in the aggregate to something between £9,000,000 and £10,000,000. It is a very fine thing to be able to give that reduction to the farming community, but the fact remains that that reduction has been given at the cost of other sections of the community. That is where the unfairness of the thing comes in. If that reduction is to be given to the farming community, then I say it should be borne by the Central Government and not by the railways. In this connection I would point out that the Departmental Railway Tariffs Enquiry Committee, which reported in 1930, recommended that no further reduction in low-rated traffic should be brought about, and relief in respect of high-rated traffic should be made, if possible. That recommendation was endorsed by the Granet Commission, which said—

And that commission also found a deep-seated sense of grievance by that section of the community that paid for the high-rated traffic, and the commission found that that sense of grievance was entirely understandable. The Government accepted the recommendations of the departmental committee and the report of the Granet Commission. It is now clear that the Government has gone back on its acceptance of these two reports by going in for this policy, by making the railways bear a substantial proportion of this reduction for agricultural products. I want to say that the gravest concern is felt by the public about this policy of departing from the terms of Section 127 of the South Africa Act, and many sections of responsible opinion feel that the time has come for an enquiry, a full and searching enquiry, into the administration’s rating policy. I want to give one more example of how this departure has taken place. This time I want to show that the railways are really subsidising local industry to a certain extent. On page 55 of the Controller and Auditor-General’s report, it is pointed out that—

In other words, a tender which was £12,000 higher, in connection with which the articles were manufactured by the 100 per cent. European labour, was accepted over the quotation of an article manufactured by 85 per cent. native labour. In other words, a 50 per cent. increased price was paid by the railways in order to purchase an article merely because it was manufactured by 100 per cent. white labour. In this connection the report goes on to say—

On what page is that?

It is on page 55 of the Controller and Auditor-General’s report, sub-paragraph (9). I can only say that facts such as these fill one with the gravest concern, and call for an enquiry into the policy of the railways, to ascertain in how far there has been a departure from the requirements of Section 127. If one takes the position in regard to the airways services, one finds very much the same thing. One looks at the figures in regard to the loss on the airways over the past years, and we find that in 1936—37 the loss was £68,000. The next year it had doubled to £150,000. The year after that the loss again had been doubled and stood at £325,000. The Minister, in his Budget speech, referred in dealing with the airways expenditure, to it, as a subsidy which is being paid by the railways towards the running of an air service. I think it is at least refreshing to find that the Minister is wide awake to the situation that the railways cannot always be called upon to pay this enormous subsidy in the national interest, and not in the strictly railway interest. I hope that before the next Budget is introduced, the Minister will be able to persuade the Minister of Finance that this burden should rest upon his shoulders, where it rightly belongs. I do not know whether the proper remedy for these evils I have dealt with, namely, the departure from the terms of Section 127, is not to get away from governmental control of the railways altogether, and to place the running of our railways in a directorate such as is actually done with regard to state-owned railways in other parts of the world. The general manager says, in his annual report, on page 19, or rather he refers to the action taken in Canada whereby the management of the Canadian National Railways had been divorced from direct Government control and placed in the hands of a Board of Directors, and further in South Australia, in connection with transport, it is recommended that a directorate should be established there to control and manage the South Australian State Railways. Perhaps that is the only way to get away from the consistent breach of the provisions of Section 127. We should do with the railways what has been done with Iscor, and also with the Electricity Supply Commission. That could conveniently be combined with the formation of a Ministry of Transport. The general manager also points out, in his report, that at present there is a multiplicity of control with regard to transport, resulting in inefficiency, and waste, and overlapping and lack of initiative. I strongly support the idea of the Minister seriously considering the advisability of forming a Ministry of Transport, and if possible, to divest our railways from governmental control and bring it under a Board of Directors.

This afternoon the Minister of Defence brought to a head the whispering campaign which has been conducted against the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) ever since the outbreak of war. It is a whispering campaign which has been conducted by supporters of the right hon. gentleman outside the House, and by supporters of his inside the House, and by his Press. It is a matter for regret that the accusation that was made this afternoon was not made earlier. It is a matter for regret that it was not made before this debate took place, or at any rate early in the debate. Although it may have been in accordance with the rules of the House, it is certainly not in accordance with the rules of fair play. Having made the accusation at this late stage, it is now impossible for the hon. member for Gezina to reply during this debate. Hon. gentlemen will realise that it will be a matter of weeks before the hon. member for Gezina will get an opportunity to do so. Another point which must strike anybody who was here this afternoon, is the remarkable fact that the right hon. gentleman has remained silent all these months. In point of fact he and his followers have accused the hon. member for Gezina of an offence as grave as any Minister of the Crown could ever be accused of. They have accused him of being neglectful in the matter of the defence of his country, when that defence was his duty; and it has been said not inside the House, but outside the House, that that negligence on his part was intentional. It seems to me that by the manliness, the belated manliness it is true, on the part of the Minister of Defence this afternoon, that we can now put this matter to the acid test. He has made a categorical statement here, and it will be possible for us to weigh the value of what the right hon. gentleman has said. In considering this matter, one is struck by the sudden change that has come over some of the hon. members who have made these allegations. There is, first of all, the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell). He got up in his place this week and for a period of nearly 40 minutes attacked the hon. member for Gezina. Whereas I find as recently as 1938 in a book which gave so many of us pleasure in reading, the hon. member for Kensington described the hon. member for Gezina in the following way—

What is the reason for the sudden change? What is the reason for these belated accusations on the part of hon. gentlemen over there? Is it simply a matter of party politics? If that is so, I say that is the kind of thing that makes politics dirty.

[Inaudible.]

Well, well. Let Providence help the hon. member over there. When he is found out. He will need it; and if my information is correct, that day is not so very far off. Someone said to me: “Well, what of the accusations made by the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. Pocock).” Well, I propose to take very little notice of the hon. member for Pretoria (Central).

Do not run away from him.

I do not object to the Minister of Defence consulting the hon. member for Pretoria (Central), but I do object to his consulting him about defence. He knows nothing about defence. One must admire his sense of loyalty in coming forward with advice, but I would have respected him much more if he had shown his loyalty in the right way and had gone overseas to enlist. One would have admired him much more if he had done as he did in the last war, and had gone overseas and done his duty. But he stayed behind.

I was on active service before you were born.

The Minister of Defence told the House this afternoon that in 1934 the hon. member for Gezina had prepared a plan which had never been put into effect. But in making his charges the right hon. the Minister of Defence lost sight of the fact that as a co-member of the Cabinet to which the hon. member for Gezina belonged, he was equally liable for not carrying into effect that plan—he was just as liable as the hon. member. If I understand the position correctly, the liability is a Cabinet liability.

Who was the responsible Minister?

What is the use of having a Minister.

Do you suggest that the Prime Minister is an irresponsible Minister? If so, I agree with you, and I shall tell you why.

He was not directly responsible for the Portfolio.

He was indirectly responsible. He cannot get rid of that responsibility because it was indirect. I come back to the point that these accusations are trumped up for the purpose of party gain, and it is a sad reflection on this country that that should be possible. Now I want to come back to this plan. The Prime Minister told us that that plan had not been put into effect. I myself would have thought more of the Prime Minister when he quoted the speech of the hon. member for Gezina in 1934 if he had also quoted the speech made by the hon. member in this House in 1939, when that plan was fully discussed. I want to refer to that now. It was during the Defence Vote, and as a result of attacks made by the then Opposition that the hon. member for Gezina, who was then Minister of Defence, fully dealt with the defence position. That was on the 23rd March, 1939.

The Defence Vote was not discussed then.

Oh yes, it was.

There were no estimates in March, 1939.

I am now quoting from Hansard, column 2274, and this is what the Minister of Defence said there—

How many planes are there in a squadron?

The Minister of Defence: With reserves, 25. The number of pupil pilots in training when we took over was 22. The 1934 programme made provision for an annual fifty. In fact to-day we have got 432. I shall presently give the reason for this particular increase. At present I am comparing the position as it was to be at the end of five years and as it actually is to-day.

Are they fully trained?

Now. Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that the position which has now arisen is this. On the one hand we have the right hon. gentleman and his friends over there saying that in fact we have no Defence Force, and that what little we have is a menace to the country, whereas on the other hand on the authority of the former Minister of Defence, the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) made a particularised statement to the effect that this programme was carried out with the exception of one small item. Now I want to make a proposition to the right hon. minister of Defence; let us appoint a select committee of the House and let us refer to that committee the question whether or not this statement in 1939 was the truth or not. If the facts were as stated and as I have just quoted, then obviously the right hon. the Minister of Defence is talking through his hat. If it is not the truth then, sir, we need a serious explanation from the former Minister of Defence, and not only from him but from the whole of his staff, from the permanent staff. We know, sir, that when a Minister gets up in this House to give information he does so on facts based on what he gets from his department. Now I think that is a sporting offer. Let us appoint a select committee and then we will nail all these lies. I do not like using that word, sir, but there is no other word fit to describe these statements which have been going about. I think, sir, that if the right hon. gentleman who has it in his power to accept that proposition cannot accept it, then let him get up and say so, and let him give us an explanation why he can not. I want to deal with one more small matter in reply to an interjection. I think I made reference to incompetence on the part of the right hon. minister of Defence, and if I did not make that statement I do so now. I want to refer to the replies which the right hon. gentleman gave us this afternoon when he was asked why the Erebus had been given back to Great Britain. His explanation was that unfortunately the sea here wobbled too much, and the ship would be unable to fire accurately. Now I would like to know in what respect the Atlantic or the Indian Ocean differs from the North Sea. If my recollections serve me these monitors were used considerably during the last war and they were used to bombard enemy positions from miles out at sea.

Not to fight battleships.

Do you mean to suggest that they only wobble when they fight battleships? The fact of the matter is the right hon. gentleman knows that arrangements would have been made in our coastal area here for a proper refuge for the Erebus and I would just like to read what the true position was with regard to the Erebus. I am now going to quote from a speech of the hon. member for Gezina delivered on 23rd March, 1939, column 2280—

Of course, with this wobbling sea of ours, I don’t suppose she would hold together too long, but still we would have had some use out of her. We are now thrown back on these 9.2 guns, and although the right hon. the Minister was not quite clear this afternoon as to the locality of these guns, they are supposed to be on Signal Hill. It seems to me that these guns should not be on Signal Hill; they should be in the museum. Hon. members will be surprised to learn that these are not modern weapons at all, and I think they would be still more surprised to learn what their range is, if the hon. minister of Defence will tell us. We read in the papers that the guns of the Graf Spee had a range of 30,000 yards. I wonder whether these relics of a bygone age will be able to send a projectile for 20,000 yards. I very much doubt it.

They soon reduced that range.

Yes, but in that case the Navy had the initiative. In this case some raider might have the initiative, and then we would be faced with the fact that in a burst of generosity the right hon. the Minister of Defence has sent back the Erebus.

He didn’t send it back.

There is one more point and that is the slight which the right hon. the Minister of Defence has cast on his permanent officials. He told us that during a period of 6½ years the Defence Department-had been engaged in building up a Defence Force which is more a menace to South Africa than anything else. Now if that is true we should have, not a select committee enquiry into this matter, but a departmental enquiry or a judicial commisison to get to the bottom of it, because obviously these two conflicting stories cannot both be true; one must be out by miles, and there sits the man in whose hands it lies to rectify the whole position.

How about a court martial?

If there were a court martial I have no doubt that the first one court-martialled would be the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) for attempting an insurrection. This matter has got beyond a joke; we have now got to the end of the whispering campaign, to a point when the right hon. gentleman can no longer shelter behind his gallant supporters in the House who have levelled these accusations. He has now come into the open and we have got thus far, that he now states that all the information given to this House in March, 1939, is absolutely untrue. If that is so, we should know it, and if it is true then there is no doubt about it the hon. member for Gezina should be put up against a wall and shot. If it is not true then I think the public should know how far the other side is prepared to stoop in order to obtain some little party gain.

Mr. Speaker, I would not in the ordinary course have joined in this debate, but for the remarks of the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth). The matter cannot certainly be left as it is now and I propose to reply to some of the remarks made by him. I am sorry the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) has gone, because as usual I find he is always prepared to attack people in other places and when in this House he makes personal attacks, as also does the hon. member for Zoutpansberg, he runs away from the reply. The latter made some reference to my not fighting in the last war. As a matter of fact I don’t know where the hon. member was when I was in the Boer War.

I was in my cradle.

Then why should you throw it up to other people about not fighting?

Well, you are fighting for your Empire. I am not.

I feel from what the hon. member said he does not yet realise the attack is not upon the plans put forward but upon the amount of accomplishment in carrying out the plan approved by this House. The whole charge has been that the plan was not carried out. I am going to take up the reference to the number of troops we were supposed to be able to put in the’ field. The Prime Minister quoted from a speech made by the hon. member for Gezina here in 1934, when he said we had reserves of 25,000 capable of taking the field within 21 days, and he went on to say that the whole of these men would be equipped with arms, ammunition and all the rest of the paraphernalia. In 1939, in a speech quoted by the hon. member for Zoutpansberg, the member for Gezina again referred to exactly that same number of men, and stated that instead of 25,000 which was aimed at in the five-year plan to be put in the field in 21 days we now had 28,000. That is to say he stated definitely in this House that we had 28,000 troops that could be placed in the field, fully equipped to meet any enemy in 21 days, and Ī will ask anybody whether they did not understand that that was the position. Is that a fair reference or is it not? I would ask anybody in this House. I will ask anybody in the House whether they understood that these 28,000 troops could be placed fully equipped in the field or were they to form a nudist colony? I am sorry the hon. member for Gezina has gone out, because this is part of the charge against him. When war broke out we were supposed to be able to place 28,000 troops in the field fully equipped. Will the House be surprised to learn that there were not half that number of uniforms available to equip these men? There were not sufficient boots, waterbottles, haversacks or helmets to equip half the number.

You have forgotten there was a period of six months; that was the settled policy of the Government.

Then why did the hon. member for Gezina say that 28,000 could be put in the field in 21 days if he meant that they were not to be ready for six months?

In 1914 we put 5,000 men in the field in 24 hours. You don’t need uniforms to put men in the field.

He said that the total available after three months was 53,000. Does that not mean that we would be able to put 53,000 in the field after three months time?

Yes, for defence purposes. You don’t need uniforms to fight for your country. You may want them if you go fighting Turkey.

Apparently the hon. member for Gezina was prepared to send troops equipped as we know they are in the training camp, where the men have been using their own trousers, their own sports jackets and their own boots. Is it not an honest interpretation of what was said that it was possible to put that number of troops in the field in that time? And if that is so then the hon. member for Gezina grossly misled this House. I take another point in this matter of the state in which we were, a matter not yet dealt with by the hon. member for Gezina. After all, sir, if you are going to put an army in the field, presumably you are going to put in the necessary hospital and medical services. One of the greatest troubles in the last war was the state of the medical services and the lack of proper facilities for the sick and wounded. It was not until the war had advanced for some time that the facilities were obtained, and given, and the condition of the sick improved. I want to ask the hon. member, who has been put up to defend the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) with all his knowledge, what was the state of the medical service of the Union, in what sort of state did the hon. member for Gezina leave this on the day that war broke out?

You can lend medical men outside the Union.

One might be able to lend medical men. You always nave medical men who are willing to volunteer, but you cannot lend ambulances and other medical services you have not got.

We do not want to send them anywhere. We want them in this country.

If you want them to fight in this country, or on the boundaries of the Limpopo, you want ambulances to accompany the troops. There are war-time requirements for the forces which the hon. member referred to, namely, a mobile field force which could be placed in the field in 21 days or three months. Such a force would require no less than 382 ambulances, while one division would require one-third of that number. Are hon. members aware of the number of ambulances which were ready for active service when the war broke out? The number was nine, and most of them were obsolete, and it was absolutely impossible to place them in the field. In regard to the medical service, I suggest that hon. members should enquire in Cape Town into the army medical supplies to find out what the position of the medical supply stores was here. The whole position was so hopelessly inadequate that the Prime Minister was forced to appoint an expert committee to reorganise the position, so that the medical services could be put on such a basis that, if called out for active service, certain provision would be made for the sick and wounded. I ask if the hon. member considers that that is placing the Defence Force in a proper position to meet the difficulties that are coming to us? Our complaint against the hon. member is this. It is not a question of a plan. Let me say this, that in the criticisms I make, there is no criticism at all against the officers of that department, because the hon. member for Gezina was the person responsible for the carrying out of the policy.

The Minister does not carry out the policy.

No, that Minister did not.

The hon. gentleman’s technical advisers, as far back as 1935, made definite recommendations which were urgently necessary in the matter of equipment of the armed forces of this country.

The hon. member was definitely advised, advised by the British War Office, that in the event of trouble it would be impossible for them to send out adequate supplies in the time they hoped to get them out, and he was urged to get those supplies. The hon. member did not accept that advice, and did not tell the House either. When furthermore he came to the House in 1938 and put up to the House that we wanted £6,000,000 to put the Defence Force in a reasonable degree of safety, and asked the House to vote that money, he stated that the reason that he did not come to the House before was because the plan had only just been determined; further it was a good thing for them that they did not buy armaments before, because if they had they would have been obsolete if bought two or three years before. With the exception of machine guns and anti-aircraft guns, the munitions ordered in 1938 were almost identical with those recommended to be purchased in 1935. When the House was asked to vote the sum of ₤6,000,000, the then Minister stated it did not include any amount for aircraft, and the House was informed in March last year that when the hon. member went to London he then negotiated for huge purchases of aircraft running into many millions of money, of which the House had no Knowledge at all? I do not say that the hon. member was wrong, but the complaint is this, that when he did try to get armaments and equipment, he was too late. Our difficulty is now that through the then Minister not ordering the equipment when it should have been ordered, we have been placed in the position of which the hon. the Prime Minister has told us this afternoon. That is where the blame lies with the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow). fine hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth) talks about a whispering campaign, There is no question or a whispering campaign. When the Prime Minister assumed office and troops were being called out, and volunteers asked for to go all over the country, it was common Knowledge that when they got to the camp it was impossible to find clothing to equip them with. I can tell the House that all over this country the people who volunteered were using their own clothes and their own blankets, because it was impossible for the defence force to supply them. That is where the whispering campaign started. It is true that the forces, which were stated to be so adequately supplied, could not be equipped with the necessary clothes for them to wear. I would remind the House that the hon. member went through this country and the Transvaal from one end to the other, making speeches condemning the Government, the Prime Minister never replied to him. No criticism was made of his attitude, and no one else delivered any speeches in reply to the hon. member for Gezina until we came down to Parliament. When an hon. member talks, as the hon. member for Zoutpansberg taked, about a lying campaign going on, I say that it did not come from this side of the House. To-day the truth is going through the country of what the true position has been of the Defence Force, and of what we are striving for. That is one of the reasons why this party on this side of the House is slowly and surely gaining strength. I am sorry that in a matter which most of us have felt keenly about, in the matter of the defence of this country we, who for years past, have given wholehearted support to the hon. member—that when we now venture to criticise him, and I frankly admit that I have been placed in a fortunate position to find out the true facts, I am sorry that the hon. member should have found it necessary in reply to descend to personal abuse. After all, although perhaps the hon. member may not believe it, there are some of us here who also have an idea of what their duty is to their country. The hon. member has been beating the big drum in the Cabinet orchestra for many years, but after all he must realise that he was not the whole Cabinet orchestra. If we are to judge by the record of his achievements, I should say that he is only the penny whistler in that orchestra. I would point out, in conclusion, in dealing with the question of expenditure that has been criticised, that the money that was spent during the last three months has been required to equip the troops, with necessary uniforms, bedding, tents, and all the other requisite equipment which in the ordinary way ought to have been there in reserve before the war broke out. If, as the House has been informed, we had a reserve of 60,000 or 70,000 men there should have been equipment for that number. A division costs over £300.000 and three divisions cost £1,000,000. So hon. members will see that a great deal of money is required to put an army into the state that it is necessary to put it into before it takes the field. The money which has been used during the past six months, is money which should have been provided by the hon. member for Gezina during the previous six years of his regime.

Before touching on any other subject I wish to say a few brief words in regard to the reply given by the Minister of Agriculture here this evening to the hon. member for Fauresmith (Mr. Havenga). The Minister of Agriculture has contended that England had no wish to control our wool market. His first reason for saving so, he declared, was that if England had wanted to control our wool market, she would not have informed him by cable that she did not want to buy our wool. I have said before, and I do so again, that that is not the way of a business man—a business man is not animated by sentiment in his business dealing. Let me refresh the Minister’s memory somewhat. I pointed out on a previous occasion that England actually did want our wool, and it is not only I who say so, but let me quote again from what the representative of the Cane Times stated the day before the public wool sales took place—

Two days later the same correspondent of the Cape Times has the following remarks—

Here we have this statement, therefore, that England was quite prepared to buy all our wool, so that she might be able to control our wool market in the same way as she had done during the last war. The Minister further referred to the high prices obtained here and he stated: “Look at those high prices. How can you come and say that our agreement with England has detrimentally affected our market?” But it is very difficult now for England to control our market, because fortunately we have an open market here, but if figures prove anything at all they go to prove that the agreement under which this price level was fixed, fixed far too low a price level—that is quite clear; but now I wish to say a few words on another subject. We have been hearing a great deal in this House lately, about a whispering campaign. I am not going to take part in that whispering campaign. There is, however, something else which amounts to almost the same thing as a whispering campaign, and that is a matter which I wish to bring to the Prime Minister’s notice. I want to ask him whether what I am going to say is correct or not. This is a matter relating to the position of our English-speaking fellow citizens, and I want to ask him what our English-speaking fellow citizens would have done if we, in this country, had remained neutral. I remember only too well, that on the 4th September, Mr. Heaton Nicholls, the then member for Zululand, stated in this House that if South Africa had remained neutral “we would not have taken it lying down.” They would not have acquiesced in it. During this session we have heard from the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) that he contended that there would have been a revolt. But it is not only those two hon. members who say those things, possibly in a moment of carelessness, or at a time when they were excited. I have here in mind a pamphlet in which the hon. member for Calvinia (Dr. Steenkamp)—he was here just now, and I am sorry that he is not here now…

He must be scared.

I don’t want to inflict any wounds on him—it might be the same kind of wound as the one he is already suffering from. He needn’t be afraid. The hon. member for Calvinia circularised a pamphlet in his constituency. He had ample time to think it over and to write that pamphlet, because it is a long pamphlet which he sent out at the expense of the State. I say it was done at the expense of the State because the hon. member did not use his own stamps but the House of Assembly franking stamp. He wanted to explain to his constituents why he had voted in favour of the war motion, and this is what he said at the beginning of his pamphlet—

and then he enumerates nine or ten reasons why he had voted for that motion. I am not going to read them all, I only propose reading a few of them because I am anxious to have an explanation from the rt. hon. the Prime Minister. Now this was the hon. member’s fourth reason—

Who wrote that?

That is the hon. member for Calvinia who writes this. The fifth reason adduced by the hon. member links up with what the hon. member for Illovo said here, and also with what Mr. Heaton Nicholls said, and this is what he writes—

It is not an irresponsible person who writes these things. It is the hon. member for Calvinia, and yet we are reproached, members on this side of the House are being told that we are engaged in a campaign of inciting people—and the impression is created that a whispering campaign is being carried on by this side of the House. We observe what the hon. member for Illovo has said, what Mr. Heaton Nicholls has said, and what has been written by the hon. member for Calvinia, and we should like to know what all this means. But let me read the ninth reason adduced by the hon. member for Calvinia. This is a very important reason, and I would like the rt. hon. the Prime Minister to listen to it because it is of such a drastic nature that I should like him to explain it to us. The ninth reason of the hon. member is as follows—

That is the sort of thing which we have been told repeatedly, we all believed and accepted the statement that as a result of the Statute of Westminster we had become a free and independent country, we were told that we had the right to part from the British Commonwealth of Nations, and the Prime Minister himself told us that we ourselves would have to decide whether or not we were going to remain neutral, because we had the right to decide if we wanted to remain neutral. We have had negotiations with England in the past, and we had the word of honour of British statesmen given to us that we could cut away from the British Empire and remain neutral, but the hon. member for Calvinia states in his letter, in black and white, that he had it on irrefutable grounds that England would immediately have attacked us and destroyed us if we had remained neutral. If it had been an irresponsible member or an ordinary man in the street who had made a statement like that we could have treated it with contempt, but it is a member of Parliament who writes this, even though the hon. member when he speaks is sometimes irresponsible in his statements, here we have an instance where he has put it in black and white. We are dealing here with an agreement entered into between two countries, and if what the hon. member for Calvinia says is true, how can we ever again accept the word of a British statesman? I for one can never accept it again. We are accustomed to the hon. member for Calvinia being a mischief maker. Last year, when we were discussing the question of police being sent to South-West Africa he gave the following reason why he considered that the police should be sent. This is what he said—

He is well known as a mischief maker. He was trying here to put the two nations up against each other. He accused the Germans of importing machine-guns. The Prime Minister at the time said to me, although there is nothing about this in the Hansard Report, that I should not take any notice of it. But the hon. member for Calvinia does make statements of that kind. What I want now is this. If what the hon. member states in his pamphlet is incorrect, we are entitled to get a denial from the rt. hon. the Prime Minister. He should make a statement on the subject. If he remains silent I must take it that what the hon. member has stated is correct and so far as I am concerned I shall never again be able to accept the word of a British statesman.

It is a real pleasure to get back to the budget. During the last few weeks we have heard such a lot about Afrikaners and Afrikanderdom, about monuments and blood and tears, that I do not feel at home any longer in my own country. Members opposite have been statins during the last few days, or let me say that our friends opposite have alleged that on this side of the House there are no farmers. That sort of statement has often come from the other side, and I should like to remind hon. members over there that the judges who officiate at many of our big shows sit on this side of the House. Some of our most prominent farmers are on this side of the House.

Don’t start boasting now.

No, I am not boasting. One only has to look at the people on this side of the House. Hon. members opposite have the idea that if one has an English surname he cannot possibly be a farmer. The Friends, Abrahamsons, Bowkers, Deanes and so on cannot possibly be farmers because they have English surnames. That idea is wrong and hon. members opposite are trying to create a wrong impression in the country. On this side of the House we have some of the most progressive farmers in the country. I also want to remind hon. members opposite that if they cast their minds back to 1930 and 1933, and try to find out how many farmers were given assistance in the Free State, they will realise that the number was very large, and as against that they will find that very few in Natal were given any help. If they look at the figures for the Cape Province they will find that a large number of farmers in the Northern part of the Cape were given help.

That is a question of rains.

Yes, of course, one would get that sort of an excuse. But I want to say this, that they would find out how many farmers were given relief in the northern portions of the Cape and how very few in the Eastern Provinces. I am mentioning these facts because I want to controvert the idea which hon. members opposite are trying to impress on the country. They are trying to create a wrong impression. We have also heard a great deal of talk about the prices of products and about agricultural expenses, and we have heard a great many remarks about wheat farming. I should like to say that a fairly good case has been made out for the wheat farmers. The wheat farmers on an average get 18s. 6d. for their wheat. There are farmers who are satisfied with that, but there are others who are not satisfied. They say that their land is expensive and their production is too small. But I want to deal with those members who have told us that the farmer has to pay such a lot for his ploughs, his ploughshares, etc. That is a factor, no doubt, but it is a very minor factor. A farmer doesn’t wear out a plough every day of the week, nor does he wear out a set of ploughshares every day. He buys a new plough and if he keeps it under cover, that plough will last him from five to ten years. Farmers had ploughs when this war broke out — surely they weren’t without ploughs just then? Artificial fertiliser is another factor, but that, too, is a minor factor. Then we have been told that tractors are very expensive. I admit all that, but I personally would like to see the farmers go back to mules — if they did so there would be a chance for farmers breeding horses and mules to make a living. That would be most beneficial to all those people for a farmer can buy a mule for £15 to £20. He can use it for six or seven years and then sell it at a profit, but that doesn’t apply to a tractor.

Do you mean that the older á mule gets, the better it gets?

Yes, of course, up to a certain point. I should just like to say this in regard to the wheat farmers that the whole trouble is that their land is so expensive and their production too small. I have discussed the matter with wheat farmers and they have told me that they would rather see their land at £6 per morgen and that they would prefer their wheat to produce 12s. 6d. per bag, rather than have their land at its present price with wheat selling at 22s. That is a fact. The land is too expensive and the production of the wheat farmer is too small. The hon. member again discussed the question of wool. I don’t want to go into that matter again, but I only want to say that at to-day’s price the wool farmer can make a nice profit, and this is only our first clip. This bad British Government, which hon. members talk about all day long, will yet be for forcing the neutral countries to pay a still better price, and I believe that the wool farmers will flourish in the end. I know that we have been asking the last few years in what way we might come to the aid of farmers, to help them out of the difficulties in which they find themselves, and it was stated by the Minister of Finance then that we could not give them £4,000,000, and that we could not start playing about with the rate of exchange. We asked what we had to do then — what we could do for them, and here salvation has come out of the clouds, so to say. Last year this country’s wool produced £8,000,000, and this year we are going to get £12,000,000 — all of which means that the farmers will be able to live. Yet hon. members opposite want still higher prices. I do not want to see a condition of affairs again under which we shall get the prices which we got in 1918, after the last war, when mealies stood at 27s. a bag, and wheat went up to £3 and £4 per bag.

Why not?

Surely the hon. member passed through that period too. Has he no feeling for the poor? Has he no sympathy for the 400,000 poor whites in this country? If wheat is £4 per bag and mealies 27s. 6d., everything must go up in price. But I have not yet heard a single word of sympathy from that side of the House for the poor people. We only hear about higher prices — that is all our South African imperialists speak about. Hon. members opposite themselves tell us that they are South African imperialists. It is no longer a matter of principle, it has become a matter of speculation. They want higher prices, but I certainly do not want to see those terribly high prices here again. May the Lord preserve us against those terribly high prices coming back again, because one must remember that while the pendulum may swing one way —it is bound to swing the other way again. The higher the prices go at a time of war, the lower will they drop. I still hear the words of the hon. member for Fauresmith (Mr. Havenga) which he spoke to the farmers during all those years, when he said “when prices go up farmers loose their heads”; the farmer is not always a business man, and he goes along and buys his neighbour’s land at £6 a morgen if that land is only worth £3, and he buys merino sheep at 40s. and when the drought comes he sells them again at 4s. 6d., and he takes up bonds, with the result that when prices go down again after the war he has to go to the Government for help. But the Government cannot come to the aid of a man like that. He has made mistakes, and all the farmers throughout the country have made mistakes, and it would cost millions of money to, get them on to their feet again. The Government is unable to help those people unless it tells them that they shall not buy this and they shall not buy that, and only in that way will it be possible to get them out of their troubles. But surely it is impossible to grant them that type of relief every ten years. And that is the sort of thing that is going to happen again if prices go up like that. Then large bonds will again be taken up, and when prices drop after the war people will be asking the Government again to write off their bonds, or they will come along again with a Van der Horst scheme, and no government can possibly carry on in that way.

Is your argument this, that the lower prices are the better it is?

It is a good thing to have an economic price level. And the same thing applies to the mines. Hon. members referred to the rise in the price of shares this afternoon. It is a good thing for such a rise to occur, because it shows that the country is in a flourishing condition, but naturally there is a limit to everything. I would rather see the farmer getting 25s. for his sheep than 12s. 6d.

Then why do you oppose it?

I say that there must be a limit. It is a good thing for the farmer to obtain a price on which he can live decently.

That is all the farmers ask for.

The farmers are today getting a good price for their wool, and they can come out on that price. The wheat farmers can sell their wheat at 18s. 6d. I only want to say that the farmers who sell in the interior, and who sell on the Union’s early markets, are suffering great hardships, and I know that the Government will see what can be done for those farmers. I do not know whether the townsmen in this country realise that when they are buying on the markets they are sometimes paying 10s. for what it costs the farmer £1 to produce. Those farmers are suffering great hardships, and I should like them as well to be able to work at a profit. But I know that the Government will see to that. Now I should like to say a few words about irrigation. In this country we must have been engaged on irrigation matters for more than a century.

More than two centuries.

Yes, it is a matter on which this country has been engaged for many years, but during the last few years large schemes have been constructed, and among those schemes there is the biggest of all, which I think will also be the most successful, namely the Vaal-Hartz scheme. I want to ask the Government to continue with that policy. On the dry lands which we have here that is the policy which should be persisted in from year to year. If we look at other dry lands, such as those at Iraq, we find they carry out a policy of irrigation there. In the dry areas of India an irrigation policy is pursued, and in Egypt that has been the policy for centuries, and the same applies to America. In those countries they do not ask what you are going to produce and where you are going to sell it. The main point is that we want to place young farmers who will be able to make a living on those irrigation works. If one puts a farmer on the land and one helps him with a house and stock, and he is able to make a living, one turns that young man into a conservative, good citizen, but show him the railways and the pick and shovel and you turn him into a Communist. That is the kernel of the whole thing, as I see it. It is essential that we should carry on with our irrigation policy. Most of our large rivers have been dammed up, hut there are many small rivers left which should be dammed up, and I should like to see dozens of dams put up in those small rivers, so that later on hardly any water will run away to the sea. That is the only way to help the small farmer where there is dry land. I am sorry the Minister of Lands is not here, because I want to emphasise the fact that when irrigation works are constructed his department should see to it that they are Government schemes. Those enterprises should not be private undertakings. As soon as one has private schemes of that kind the speculator comes along and makes money out of the land. The small man does not know what the prices are and within a few years’ time he is bankrupt. The Government constructs the dams and the speculator makes the money and the small farmer farms at a loss. So long as it is possible for the land to get into the hands of speculators the farmers will get the worst of it and will in the end become bankrupt. I want the schemes to remain Government schemes. I know it is not a good thing from our point of view, because as soon as a man is put on Government land he votes against the Government. There is one other point I wish to raise — the question of boreholes. If one goes through the country today one finds Hundreds, even thousands of small farmers, farmers with 900 to 1,100 morgen of land, with 600 to 700 sheep, and if one asks them what they require most of all, their answer is “Water.” I want to ask the Minister to buy more drilling machines and to sink more bore-holes. In our dry areas drought is the normal condition of affairs, and it is an abnormal thing to get rain. The small farmers are unable to help themselves and the Government has to come to their aid. If they are unable to find water on their farms they drift into the towns and they become a burden on the state. The best thing is to help them on their farms. If the farmer has water he is able to carry on. He is unable to help himself, because it costs at least £100 to get water, if he is lucky, and if he is unlucky it may cost him £300 or £400. When he undertakes a project of that kind he incurs a debt which nulls him down all his life. I therefore want to ask the Government to purchase more drilling machines, We heard a great deal here this evening and yesterday about the war debt. It amused me to listen to hon. members opposite. We are only beginning to realise now what it costs to defend this country. We are not living in a desert. We have our gold mines and our diamond mines, and we have base minerals, and we have….

Poor whites.

They also need protection. And we have 100,000 farmers with their families on their farms, and they are also in need of protection. We have all these years been under the wings of Great Britain, and we have never yet realised what “protection” costs. We are not beginning to realise it. We see what it is costing Holland, and we see what it is costing America, and if we should one of these days have our own republic or if we should remain neutral, we shall find out that we cannot come out on £10,000,000 or £12,000,000 every 25 years, but we shall have to spend those large amounts every three or four years. Hon. members are now beginning to realise what it costs to defend one’s country, because during all those years we have enjoyed the protection of Great Britain and we have had no idea of the costs. There has also been some reference here to the rate of exchange and I know that hon. members opposite have it at the back of their heads that England is going to lose the war. There are a number of them who think England is going to lose the war. They are now asking what is going to become of our money? I am glad they realise these things. We are linked up with sterling, and whatever may happen, we are going to continue being linked to sterling. We cannot release ourselves from sterling. No matter whether sterling goes up as high as the skies or drops right down, we shall remain linked to it. If we release ourselves from sterling we shall be like a shell on the ocean. Nobody will know anything about us. America will buy our gold at 150s., but beyond that the world will know nothing about us. I am glad hon. members are beginning to realise what it will mean if we lose the war. If we lose the war it will not only be the people in England who will go under, but even if we should establish a republic and England loses the war, hon. members over there do not seem to realise that we shall all go under, we shall all become servants on our own farms.

The hon. member for Kimberley (City) (Mr. Humphreys) created the impression that he did not mind whether everything went up in price except the farmer’s product,_ because he does not want the price of mealies to go up again to £1 7s., as happened in the last war. But the hon. member forgets how prices went up on that occasion, he forgets that farmers had to pay £45 to £50 for a plough which they used to buy for £15. We are rather concerned to notice the attitude adopted by members opposite. The Minister of Finance stated that he would see to it that there was not going to be another rise in prices such as occurred during the last war, out prices have in the meantime been going up and that is what is worrying us, while the prices of farmers’products have not gone up. I now wish to touch on another point. While I was listening to the debate, a painting which I had seen once came into my mind—a picture of a lion with a lot of mongrel dogs around barking at it. When I heard the onslaught on the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow), that painting came into my mind, and I saw the lion on the picture displaying his contempt for those little mongrel dogs. What struck me was that those members who made the most noise here were the very ones who did least in the last war. We had the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. Pocock) for instance; he got up here several times, posing as a military expert. Since I have been in this House I should imagine that he must have posed as a military expert on at least ten occasions; that being so, and in view of the fact that he regards himself as a military expert, I hope he will now do his duty. I must say that I am surprised at the attitude of a man like the hon. member for Frankfort (Brig.-Gen. Botha). He tells us here that during the Anglo-Boer War the citizen forces went over the borders, and he told us that that was the right thing to do, and he asked why we should not do the same thing now? But he forgets that when our burghers went over the borders they did so knowing that the enemy had arrived and was going to attack them, because it was perfectly clear in 1899 that England was determined to conquer the Republics and it was, therefore, the right thing for the burghers to go over the borders and there meet the enemy. But to-day the sons of South Africa have to go over our borders to take part in a war with which we are not concerned. If anyone looks at this matter from a commonsense point of view, he will notice that the Allies are busy congregating their troops in the north near the Suez Canal. It must be clear to anyone looking at the position that it is the intention for the troops to go and fight somewhere else, and it is clear that our troops will then have to take up their positions. I notice from the Press that Sir Archibald Wavell is coming here to have a discussion, and when that discussion is over, it will be found that the young men of South Africa will not only have to go across our borders, but they will have to take up the position of the troops which are now on the Suez Canal. Let me tell the Prime Minister that if those young fellows go voluntarily or not, he should treat them fairly and should tell them what is expected of them, so that they shall not go over the borders in a spirit of adventure and then, when they are across the borders, find that they are being used for a purpose which they were not prepared to go for. Let me warn the Prime Minister that he will have to account to the mothers of South Africa if he sends them there. I was surprised that when the Minister of Agriculture was speaking about different branches of agriculture, he did not tell us what his plans were in regard to the mealie crop which is now on its way. We know that the speculators have bought up 3.000,000 bags. We know that the millers have 1,500,000 bags in store, and another 1.,000,000 bags are on hand. The Minister told us that the incoming crop will be just sufficient for the requirements of South Africa, but how does that help if we still have 5,500,000 bags of the previous crop in this country? It speaks for itself that if those mealies are in the country, together with the 5,500,000 bags of the last crop, the farmers will not be able to get a price which will pay them. If we bear in mind the rising costs, especially with reference to the crop still on the land which will have to be reaped in May, it must be clear that the farmers will have to get a minimum price of 12s. 6d. for their mealies. Why I say this is because everything needed for the planting of the mealies has to be obtained at very high prices. I am not speaking about power paraffin, but every spare part for a plough, all requirements, fertilisers and everything, must be bought at higher prices. The bags which the farmers now need have gone up by 100 per cent. For that reason I want to ask the Minister to go into this matter and to lay down a policy so that the farmers may know what they can expect, so that they may know what the Minister of Agriculture 4s going to do, and what prices they may expect. The Minister also told us that the citrus farmers had asked him to obtain information, and the Minister told us that he expects they will have to pay in another 1s. 5d. per box for the citrus sent overseas last year. I hope the Minister will go into the question and that he will compensate that 1s. 5d. to the citrus farmers

At 10.55 p.m. the business under consideration was interrupted by Mr. Speaker in accordance with Standing Order No. 102 (2), and, the debate was adjourned; to be resumed on 18th March.