I move as an unopposed motion and pursuant to notice—

I second.

Agreed to.

The petition is on the Table.

I move—

I second.

Agreed to.

I move—

This motion concerns the investigation of evils which result from the rapacity and inordinate greed of a certain land company which operates in the Germiston magisterial area, and operates, may I say, to the detriment of a great many of the poorer section of the community, and also to its own discredit. I propose to deal with the history of this company, a company known as the Klippoortje Estates Limited, which acquired and proclaimed the farm Klippoortjie which covers an area of upwards of twelve square miles. This land was purchased originally by Messrs. Harris and Abrahamson from P. Els for approximately £18,000. They formed a limited liability company with a capital of £300,000 in £1 shares. These shares were allotted to Harris and Abrahamson on the basis of 190,000 to the one and 110,000 to the other respectively. Mr. Abrahamson was a member of the Board of Directors of this company for some time, although I understand that at the present time he is no longer a director of this company. This company have been selling land in the Germiston area for a number of years, and it has now come to the position that it has sold practically all the land at its disposal. It sells land under two titles, namely, a freehold agricultural township title and a freehold surface right permit title. In regard to the second type of title, with which the Mines Department is intimately concerned, it used to sell these plots for agriculture under surface right permits in the rural areas of this part of the country. The use and control of the surface which remains vested in the estate can be withdrawn on twelve months notice without compensation should the land be required for mining. That condition was substituted by a condition which reads as follows—

So the position is that the company have nothing to lose so far as these surface right permit sales were concerned. Unfortunately, the purchaser was occupying the land at his peril, if in the public interests or for mining purposes it was found that the land was required. In such a case he would be pushed off in terms of the conditions which I have read out. The company also sold township stands. The position is that in the year 1909 the farm Klippoortjie, which was held under leasehold titles, automatically became a township, and in December, 1913, the Governor-General approved of this land being sold in freehold, under conditions set out in Executive Notice No. 1957, dated 12th December, 1913. The conditions are of some importance, and I propose to read out to the House what these conditions are. The first is—

1. (a) The lot hereby transferred or any portion of it shall not be transferred to any coloured person or Asiatic, etc.
2. (b) The owner of the said lot, from time to time, shall not have the right to make, or cause to be made any bricks or tiles, or earthenware pipes, or other articles on the said property, etc.
3. (c) Subject to the Precious Base Minerals Act, 1908, or any amendment thereof, all rights to precious metals, precious stones, fireclay, coal and other minerals in and under the said lot are hereby reserved to the township owner or other person entitled thereto.
4. (d) The owner of the said property from time to time shall not be entitled to carry on or permit to be carried on any trade or business whatsoever on the said property, or to erect any shop or place of business, without the written consent of the township owner.
5. (e) The lot may not be subdivided or transferred in portions or shares, whether divided or undivided, without the written consent of the township owner.
6. (f) The owner of this lot, from time to time, shall not, without the written consent of the township owners, have the right to erect more than one dwelling-house, with necessary outbuildings and, for the purpose of this clause, all subdivisions shall be considered as new lots.

Those conditions were imposed by the Government in the public interest. What does this company do? It sells its lots, subject to these conditions. It has sold by now, so I am informed, all the lots it holds in that area, but the company still retains this stranglehold on every individual owner of a plot, but if any of these plotholders were to come along to the company and ask for its written consent either for the sub-division of the plot or for the erection of a second dwelling-house with the necessary outbuildings, the company’s attitude is, “we have no objection to your sub-dividing the plot, but you must pay us £25 for each cut.” In other words, this company which has sold all its land, is in a position to say to these people, or if a man owns ten acres of land and he says to the company “I would like to sub-divide,” the company says, “all right, sub-divide, but you must pay us £25 for each cut.” In other words, that is ten times £25. In addition to that I want to say this, that as far as the township area is concerned, this company has never done a single thing that an ordinary township company usually does. It has made no provision for roads, or land for open spaces or public purposes, and in addition the cost of the surveys and of improvements has to be borne by the property owners themselves. This is truly a case of a company reaping where it did not sow anything at all. I may say, in addition, the people who are concerned at the hands of this rapacious company, are the poorer type of people, most pensioners, phthisis beneficiaries, and people like that, who have put their savings into a bit of land in all innocence, and have found afterwards that they have been sold a pig in a poke. In regard to the rural areas the position is very much the same. As far as the rural areas are concerned the conditions which I have read out were not imposed by the Government, but were imposed by the company itself. The company followed the idea which was given them by the Government. I do not blame the Government for, in my opinion, it is to a certain extent in the public interest, but I criticise very severly the use to which the company has put those conditions. In putting them to that use for the purpose of extracting this cut money — perhaps I should call it blood money — the company shields itself behind the Government. It says, “We are entitled to do this sort of thing as these rights have been reserved to us by the Government, and we are doing no more than using the rights which are reserved to us by the Government.” Now, with regard to the rural areas, the position is that the company has imposed much the same conditions, with the exception of the further condition which appears to be rather more complicated than the condition in respect of township land. Condition (c) says—

You then have the same two conditions as I have read out, namely, one dealing with the question of sub-division, and the necessity for having the consent, in writing, of the township owner, and a similar condition also with regard to permission to build more than one house, with the necessary outbuildings, on the plot. I may say that the land has been found to be unsuitable for agricultural purposes, although it has been sold as such. I want to say this. I was approached in 1938 by an association, by the Klippoortje Property Association, an association which is representative of about 90 per cent. of the holders of the land titles in that area. They came to me and asked me what I could do with regard to getting these evils put a stop to. This association of property owners was, in my opinion, quite reasonable, because they said, in the first instance, “Let us arrange to meet the directors of this company, and see if we cannot come to some agreement on this question.” They were, sir, at that time prepared to make some outright payment to the company for the purpose of having these restrictive conditions expunged from their titles, at least in so far as the charging of cut money was concerned. I went with the representatives of this association, together with a representative of the Germiston Town Council, to interview the Board of Directors of this company, and found them completely unreasonable. They were not prepared to do any deal at that stage, they were not prepared to say what the cut would be in future, they were not prepared to say to what extent they would allow sub-division, and their attitude is reflected in a letter which was written to this association by the company’s attorneys and this is what the letter says—

And may I say that the merits appear to be how many times the company can get a cutting fee out of this division. I do not think they are concerned with the general welfare or the tone of the suburb, more especially as they have sold all the lots in that particular area. If they look at their personal gain, as they seem to do, the guiding consideration seems to be the greatest amount of cut money they can get out of this area. Then the final paragraph of the letter says this—

That, I submit, is a mere subterfuge, and the company is not prepared to commit itself to say to what extent it would be prepared to go. You will see that the point which the company makes is that these conditions of title are registered in the Deeds Office and that anyone is entitled to see them, and is therefore deemed to know what the conditions are. But the evidence is that the large bulk of these people did not realise what exactly was implied in the purchases they made, and this appeared from further evidence which we have. Publicity was given by a Johannesburg paper known as Die Transvaler. In an interview with one of the plot-holders these remarks were made [translation]—

And then he goes on later to say this [translation]—

Showing, therefore, clearly that these people bought, as I have said, in all innocence without realising the restricted conditions on their ownership of these particular Plots. The matter has also been taken up in a leading article by the same paper, which appeared in its issue of the 17th February last year at a time when there was a notice of motion on the Order Paper here by me last year, which, however, was not reached. That leading article is in the following terms [translation]—

The case referred to came up before the valuation court. Certain of these stands came up for revision by the town valuer—

I have, in addition to the support of this paper, a resolution which was passed by the Municipality of Germiston, which was in the following terms—

I come now to the question, what is the possible remedy in a case like this? Of course, I am only asking for an investigation into this case, but when it comes to the steps to be taken, to a possible remedy, the question is whether, if Parliament should intervene, this would not be an interference with a private contract. Are you not violating the principle of the sacro sanctity of contractual relationships? Would it not be a case of stepping in between two contracting parties and varying the terms of the contract? If that is so, I would not lightly support a remedy like that, although there is a precedent which was adopted a few years ago by the previous Government, where it stepped in with regard to the variation of interest which was paid under the bonds to farmers. There the state violated that principle of the sacro sanctity of contractual relationships, and that in my opinion is a precedent which one should not lightly follow. But this case is entirely different. First of all there is no evidence that as far as the contracts in this case are concerned there was any mention at all of a charge of a cutting fee charging people money for giving consent to a sub-division of their land, and it, therefore, may be distinguished on that ground.

We have the same thing in Benoni.

Yes. I shall come to that, but a further point is that even if it were to be a question of varying the terms of contracts the circumstances are so exceptional, the iniquity is so great, in fact it seems to me that this was a case of a ramp, that there would be just cause for the state to step in. But I am only asking for an investigation at this stage. The Minister of Labour has just mentioned that there is a similar condition in Benoni.

I believe there is an even bigger fee being paid there.

I spent some time with the Registrar of Rand Townships, and I found that most of the older townships have this type of condition in their title deeds, but with this exception, that I do not know of any instance of their making the same iniquitous use of the conditions of title as this particular company has done. I do not know whether the company in the constituency of the Minister of Labour makes the same use of these conditions, but I know from a talk which I had with the Minister of Mines that he has come across a similar state of affairs with regard to one of the townships in the Johannesburg area. I find that a possible remedy for this state of affairs may be an alteration of the title — by the deletion or the amendment of this restrictive condition which now appears in the terms which I have read out to the House. In the conditions of the townships which have been laid out since those days there are different conditions, and I find that in the case of two townships, Fishers Hill in the Germiston Municipal area, and the township of Cassedale in the Springs Municipal area, the condition is that no sub-division of a plot shall take place without the consent in writing of the Administrator. There you have every safeguard which you want in the public interest, and in the interest of the occupiers of the particular township to see that there is no undue sub-division, and at the same time, there is no scope for the type of ramp which has taken place in this instance. Some of the later townships also contain a condition that no sub-division shall take place unless the consent is first obtained from the Municipality, and I understand that in such cases the Municipality charges an inspection fee which may be £1 1s. 0d. or £2 2s. 0d., just to cover the costs of inspection. No one can object to that, and it seems to me that that may be the remedy which may be found to be suitable on an investigation of this case. The terms of my motion only deal with the magisterial division of Germiston. It is possible that this evil may be found to exist elsewhere, and. I would suggest to the Minister of Mines, with whom I discussed this matter, that that should not be a reason for refusing the appointment of a select committee in the present case. Such a select committee might well investigate the evil which exists in the Germiston area, and if a case is made out and the Government will agree to the necessity of introducing legislation, it might consider it necessary to have a departmental enquiry with regard to other companies in other areas. I think the Minister’s department will be quite capable of doing that. In the meantime I would also say that the Minister has indicated to me that this motion of mine has his sympathy, and I hope it will also have the sympathy of the House, and that the House will in the circumstances agree to the appointment of a select committee to investigate fully and fairly the circumstances which I have sketched to the House.

I second.

When I first read this motion on the Order Paper, I confess that I was rather at a loss to know what the abuse was which the hon. member is trying to get at. But he came to see me and he gave me a personal explanation on the lines of the speech he has just made, and I think the House will agree that in respect of this particular township the hon. member has made out a case, a very cogently put and closely reasoned case for an investigation of what appears to be a very grave abuse indeed. The hon. member has quoted regulations which were apparently approved of by the Mines Department in years gone by in reference to this particular township. But from what he states, it appears that the power of exercising these rights by some process which I do not quite follow at the moment, have got into the hands of a township company, and that that company has been guilty of what appears to be a very flagrant abuse of these powers in respect of this township. I am unable to say what the actual motives were of the Department of Mines, when these regulations were approved of by some government of the day in years gone by, but I am perfectly confident that neither the government of the day, nor any subsequent government, nor any future government would have approved or contemplated for a moment the use of these powers in the way the hon. member has shewn this company to be using them. I am prepared on behalf of the Government to accent this motion, and to commend it to the House, but as I have some doubts as to the scone of this motion, as to its limitations, I think it is as well that I should explain to the House exactly what these limitations are. The select committee, if appointed, will be confined in its activities to the examination of the onerous conditions affecting the townships in the magisterial division of Germiston.

I shall have to move an amendment.

As the Minister of Labour points out, he at once wants the town of Benoni included in it. The hon. member for Germiston is quite right in saying that it has come to my own personal notice that similar powers have been, and are being similarly abused in the centre of Johannesburg, and I shrewdly suspect that this type of action is not confined to the Witwatersrand, but that it extends widely throughout the country. How far it extends I do not know, and perhaps a preliminary examination with regard to the magisterial division of Germiston may lead to a further examination and to a widening of the basis of enquiry. So that although I have doubts as to whether the actual recommendation of any select committee which is confined to the magisterial division of Germiston, or even if it were to include Benoni or Johannesburg, would place the Government in a position of being able to introduce remedial legislation, yet I think it is a desirable step in the right direction, and may lead to the collection of evidence which may enable us to go forward with the introduction of remedial legislation. I want to endorse what the hon. member has said, from my own personal point of view, as to the greediness which is indicated, where powers have been conferred upon any corporation, and where such a corporation by the adoption of a series of restrictive covenants can use these restrictive covenants for the purpose not of benefiting the plot holder in the township, or the Municipality, but simply as a means of imposing money contributions on the individual plot holders for the benefit of that company. That seems to me to be quite outside the original purpose for which the restrictive covenants were introduced, or at any rate if they were introduced for a further purpose which is going outside the actual use for which they could be justified. We all know that when townships are started it very often is necessary to give them a certain character, to prevent slum conditions, to prevent an alteration of the essential character of a township, to prevent what was intended as a residential site being used for other purposes. The insertion of restrictive covenants in the title deeds is very necessary, it is necessary in the interest of the public generally and in the interest also of the individual plot holders. I for one would set my face against any general legislation which would prevent the insertion and the enforcing of such restrictive covenants, but it is one thing to say that these may be usefully used and properly inserted, and to say that they may be used for any purpose however rapacious it may be. The quintessence of the question of the advantage and disadvantage of having restricted covenants in the title deeds of the township is whether these are necessary and are going to be used in the interest of the plot holders and of the Municipality, or not. If they are not, if they are simply going to be used as taxing machines, as machines by which you can extract sums of money in an arbitrary fashion for the enrichment of the township owner, and the impoverishment of the plot holder, then they are an unmitigated nuisance, and I hope that the Select Committee, when appointed, will be able to suggest some means by which we may steer a course between the two extremes, preserving on the one hand the continuance of the use of restrictive covenants when properly used, and doing away with them or limiting their use where the end is clearly to abuse them. The hon. member for Germiston recognises that in what he was forecasting or proposing there would perhaps be an interference with the freedom or contract. Well, that clearly is so. Under the common law one may contract as one pleases, as long as the contract is not an immoral one, or one which is made wrongfully, or illegally. But over and above these limitations it is quite clear from the illustration before the House at present that there is a class of case where freedom of contract accepted quite on its face value does involve injustice to those who have not been particularly alert. This sort of thing may involve great injury to the individual, injury to the whole of the community as a matter of fact. Usually, I think, one can depend upon the good sense, on the general standard of honesty and even on kindliness to prevent abuses of this kind. Certainly in the hands of any Government Department one can be confident that no abuse of power of this kind would be contemplated, and generally, too, in the hands of private individuals. But the experience in this case seems to show that this township of Klippoortje is an instance of how these powers may be abused. I say that with reserve, because doubtless the representatives of the township will appear before the Select Committee, and may be able to put quite a different picture before the Select Committee on the facts of the case, so I say that with all reserve, but it is a fact I myself have come across a case some years ago in which a large township company which was engaged in many other occupations, and vocations as well, a company which had a reputation for high standing, was using a power of this kind in exactly the same rapacious manner in which this company is alleged to have used its powers, and I was shocked at it. I did not see my way to take the matter any further at the time, but I am glad to be able to record that my own personal experience has been in that instance at any rate in support of the motion and the statements made by the hon. member for Germiston (South). I think therefore that the House may without very great difficulty perhaps come to the conclusion that a case for this enquiry has been made out. Then the question arises whether a Select Committee is the proper machine to investigate it. Here, as I have already told the hon. member, I must confess that I have some doubts, and I should not have felt justified to have introduced this motion myself on my own responsibility, although I am willing to accept it now that the hon. member has introduced it. But I am doubtful whether a Select Committee is the best machine for investigating this matter. I think it will require considerable investigation in the different registration offices of title deeds in regard to townships, not only on the Rand but elsewhere as well, and perhaps this type of investigation is not so easily done by a Select Committee as it may be by a departmental enquiry, or some other method of investigation. But as the hon. member takes the responsibility for it I am quite ready to assist him to the utmost and to help him to get the motion passed through the House. It is quite likely that the evidence collected by the Select Committee may put it on the track, may facilitate the collection of evidence, and may lead to the termination of a course of conduct, or to the eradication or to the modification of abuses of this character. With these few words I only wish to say that on behalf of the Government I accept the motion.

I had intended to content myself, from behind the scenes, so to speak, handing over to my friend the Minister of Mines, the case of Benoni, which is almost on all fours with that of Germiston with this difference, that they demand an increased amount. In Benoni, sir, the township company wishes to mulct plotholders, there are not many of them, I may say, to the tune of £300 for subdivision, and Mr. Speaker, when you come to remember that so far from the extent of the area being twelve square miles, Benoni is tremendously restricted in its opportunities for expansion, which makes it infinitely worse in the case of Benoni. Well, they want £300, and that makes it a sheer impossibility for these small plot holders there to even contemplate subdivision, quite apart from the merits or demerits of the case against the company which originally inserted the conditions having the right to bleed plot holders in their efforts to subdivide. I had intended merely to bite my hon. friend and colleague’s ear on this question, but in view of the doubts expressed by him that the Select Committee would be confined in its examination to the case put by my hon. friend here, I fear that is a possibility and that they will only investigate the particular area that he has cited. Therefore I have got up in order to move a definite amendment, to secure at all events, that Benoni which made representations long before my hon. friend, through myself, shall not be debarred from putting its case before the Select Committee.

You might add Brakpan as well.

Oh well, now you see, I will move definitely that Benoni be added, and on behalf of my hon. friend I will add Brakpan and the Witwatersrand generally.

What about Durban?

Well, Durban is pretty vocal on its own behalf, and in all probability will be able to adopt its own methods of demonstrating its requirements. I hope my Durban friend will second me.

Shall I be in order, sir, in making a suggestion. I think it will meet my hon. colleague if we delete the words “magisterial division of Germiston” and insert the words “Witwatersrand area”.

I will move that in that form, if I may. I move—

I will second that, though I hate to see Johannesburg getting something which Durban has not.

I would like to support the amendment of the Minister of Labour, and as I fully agree with it I want to express my gratitude and that of a big part of the Rand for the motion which the hon. member for Germiston (Mr. J. G. N. Strauss) has introduced. The matter is of very great concern, and the position on the Rand is particularly difficult. I would just like the House to understand that people who are usually taken in in that way, and who buy under those conditions, are the poorer section of the Rand population. They cannot pay cash, and the result is that fairly good terms are given. Then the people think that they fall outside of the muncipalities, and are not affected by the municipal fees and facilities, but subsequently they find out that the position is different. The case which the Minister of Labour referred to in Benoni I am personally acquainted with. The Minister said that the sub-division in Benoni cost £300, and in connection with that I want to explain that if a person buys a five-acre plot and he wants to sub-divide into five plots, then he must, after having probably paid a good price for the land, pay £1500 for the sub-division. That is a scandalous and unprecedented state of affairs. I have myself had experience in this connection. The transaction is practically not legal, and the people do not know the conditions under which they are buying. I am not now referring to the original buyer, but it is often the second or third buyer, who, after he has bought and paid the deposit, finds out that there are conditions which he did not know of. The people buy in ignorance, and subsequently learn that they have been misled. There is also another direction in which an enquiry is necessary on the Far East Rand. I am thinking of the village which is now being surveyed by private owners, namely Fairfield. That village is also subject to certain limitations, because it falls within the municipality of Benoni. The people, however, did not know that that was the position, and in many cases they, to their astonishment only found out after eighteen months that the plots which were regarded as agricultural plots, were subject to limitations. The people with slender means put up primitive buildings, because they could not afford, better ones, and after the buildings were erected it was brought to their notice by the municipality and the Health Department that the buildings had to be pulled down because they did come within the municipality. In the deeds of sale that was not mentioned, and they did not know about it. Only after I had had a meeting with the people, and had made representations to the municipality were they given additional time to fulfil their obligations. There is another case in the Springs magisterial district. There also people bought agricultural plots of a similar kind. Those plots were first of all sold by a mining company to the last Government, and then they were again sold to settlers. A clause was, however, attached by the previous owners of the land to the deed of sale that if the previous owners required the land for mining purposes at any time, they could redeem the land at the agricultural valuation. We can well understand that many of the people have made considerable improvements, and the result is that when a man has possibly made improvements valued at £2,000, then he may some day have to give the land back for the agricultural valuation. That also is a thing which does not at all coincide with the conditions under which the people thought they were buying the land. They only found out subsequently that that condition was attached to the contract. They were practically deceived. I am glad that the Minister has promised an enquiry, of whatever kind it may happen to be, because it is the poorer section of the population who has saved a little money, and who thought they would be able to live cheaply out of town, who have been deceived in that way, and held bound under conditions of which they knew nothing at all.

Mr. Speaker, I am very loth to interfere with contracts, because I am a great believer in and upholder of the sanctity of contracts, and it would require something extraordinary to make me use any endeavour to interfere with private contracts; but I think along the Reef to-day a position of uncertainty has arisen within recent years in regard to the question of sub-division of land. I may say since 1919, when under the Agricultural Small Holdings Act certain small holdings were established right along the Reef, and particularly in the Brakpan and Springs areas, there have been difficulties. Under that Act certain small holdings were laid out, and it was a condition of the title that there was to be no sub-division of the plots which were generally in extent from five to ten acres. The idea was that mine workers particularly would be able to live on these plots, and carry on limited farming operations at the same time. It was found, after a few years, that these plots were neither one thing nor the other, that is, the occupiers could not make a living from agricultural operations, neither did they have the amenities of town life, so that the original purpose of the holdings was never carried into effect. Gradually these small holdings have become thickly populated and grave questions of health, water and electricity supply have arisen, and municipalities, within whose jurisdiction these holdings were established, have been called upon to supply these amenities. So that we find, in actual fact, these small holdings to-day have become urban settlements. These restrictive conditions against sub-division to which my hon. friend has referred, are inserted in the title of these small holdings, which cannot therefore be sub-divided. The result has been that you have huge distances over which to carry water and lighting reticulation at enormous expense. I know of my own knowledge and also from what my friend the member for North-East Rand (Mr. Heyns) has said, that an agitation has been going on for the past four or five years by the plotholders in regard to this particular question, and I feel very pleased that the Minister of Mines has agreed to extend the jurisdiction of this Select Committee which it is proposed to set up. I hope special attention will be paid to the requirements and the difficulties of these small holdings.

May I briefly express my thanks to the Minister of Mines for being so reasonable in connection with the matter, and for his being willing to accept the motion, which I have moved, on behalf of the Government. The greatest danger my motion runs is that of becoming too popular. There is a great deal of demand for the motion to be made wide enough to include all constituencies on the Rand. That has been moved as an amendment. The danger is that if such a wide area has to be investigated, then it may perhaps become possible that the work of the Select Committee will not be finished during this session. But I cannot refuse to accept the amendment in the circumstances, and I am therefore willing to agree to it.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Motion, as amended, put and agreed to, viz.—

I beg to move the motion standing in my name as follows—

The purpose of the motion is to draw attention to the unwelcome reappearance of rinderpest in South Africa, and to enlist throughout this country the interest and cooperation with the Veterinary Department of every stockowner in a united effort to prevent the spread of rinderpest to the herds of the Union. It is not my purpose to sound an alarmist note by means of this afternoon’s debate, but rather to rally a nationwide effort and a nationwide drive against the introduction of the disease within our borders. On the 5th February. 1940, we had a preliminary discussion on the matter in this House on the Estimates of Additional Expenditure, when the Minister of Agriculture courteously afforded us such information as he was able to supply with reference to the outbreak of rinderpest at Mbeya in Tanganyika during October. 1939. A period of over 40 years has passed since there was a visitation of rinderpest in this country, or since we were threatened by a visitation of rinderpest. At that time it was a disease, which though often the subject of investigation, had known no check during recorded history. Governments throughout the world had offered rewards for the discovery of a cure—the then Russian Government having offered a reward of one million roubles, about £50,000, for the prevention and cure of the disease. To deal with our own country, the most recent census figures show that we have 11,500,000 head of horned cattle in the Union. Various types of cattle are included in that total. Some years ago Dr. Romyn, one of our agricultural experts, drew us a cattle chart of the Union which I shall show to the House. This chart shows a black section which serves to indicate the area in which there are 75 per cent. improved stock. Dr. Romyn graded them in that fashion and indicated that Natal and East Griqualand and some surrounding territory could be graded as having 75 per cent. improved stock. The next darkest area he graded is 51 per cent. to 74 per cent. That includes a very large area of the Union. So, by gradations he came down to 10 per cent., which would be equivalent to the scrub stock which, unfortunately, preponderates in the Union as a whole. It am prepared to say that if we take the value of the cattle in the Union at the present moment at the lowest level, at the scrub stock level, of £3 per head, the value of the 11½ million cattle in the Union to-day is not less than £34,000,000. Their value as a means of subsistence to the poorer people of the country, including the natives, is incalculable. Many of us know from experience how dependent the poorer Europeans in the rural areas are, and always have been, upon their possessions or use of a few head of cattle. We all realise what a calamity it would mean if a cattle scourge were to decimate the herds of the Union. That the loss of horned stock in the South African visitation of rinderpest in 1896 amounted to many millions was shown by official statistics. This figure is, of course, but a small fraction of the past toll exacted from animal life in other parts of the world. Happily, rinderpest is now no longer the most malignant of animal scourges. It has become a manageable disease whose ravages belong to past history. The use of an immune serum—so obvious a line of thought to us nowadays—was then in its infancy and was restricted to the cure of diphtheria and tetanus only. The system of serum prevention discovered in South Africa in 1896 is now with hardly any modification, the recognised method for the control of this disease throughout the world, the herds of which it had previously scourged since the time of Moses. When the outbreak of rinderpest occurred in South Africa, the four then colonies had their separate organisations for dealing with the scourge. Scientists of the first rank such as Professor Koch of Berlin and others, visited South Africa for the purpose of investigating the disease and devising remedies. Among the remedies devised by Professor Koch was that of inoculation of bile from infected animals. This was followed by the Morgendal system of the injection of bile mixed with glycerine. The gravest drawback to the bile system of inoculation was its liability to start rinderpest infection instead of preventing its development. It is true that was the cause of a good deal of controversy at the time, and many papers were written upon it, but on the whole I think that the scientists and the veterinarians came to the conclusion that the bile system was attended by risks which did not attach to the subsequent remedies which were discovered. On that point it is interesting for us to get away from the purely South African view of the subject. I want to quote what is said by a Russian scienist, Mr. Neucki, of wide European rinderpest experience. He states—

That is testimony considered to be free from any bias which may occur in South Africa, where the controversy was raging at that particular time. That shows that as far afield as Russia the system of bile inoculation was found to give an immunity so frail that it was not worth while. The subject of finding a better system of inoculation occupied the minds of the best veterinarians of that day. Colonel Watkins-Pitchford, then principal veterinary surgeon in Natal, applied himself to the problem of discovering a system of serum prevention, and after months of tense application to the subject, working part of the time with Dr. Theiler, in the northern and western Transvaal, Colonel Pitchford evolved and placed on a working basis the system of serum therapy, by which a mild form of the disease could be conferred by an admixture of immune serum with infectious blood. This discovery was made at Rustenburg after Dr. Theiler had been withdrawn to work with two French scientists engaged by the Transvaal Government from the Pasteur Institute. Thus two systems for the treatment of the disease came into use—(a) the serum virus system and (b) the bile system. The advantage of the serum system was that it could be used to cure sick beasts and also to produce either a temporary passive immunity or a permanent immunity, by inducing a mild attack of the disease. The only drawback to the method was the period of time required for the production of the immune serum. Some years after the rinderpest visitation of 1896, there was some disputation as to the person who was entitled to claim priority and originality in discovering rinderpest prevention. Semmer in Russia appeared at this juncture as a claimant of the Russian reward of a million roubles, and in Natal a commission was appointed to investigate the relative claim that were being put forward in South Africa. The findings of this enquiry established the prior claim of Colonel Watkins-Pitchford, and recorded the commission’s conviction that “the greatest praise was due to the investigator for his brilliant work, conducted often in circumstances of much hardship and difficulty—work the value of which was so great as to merit public recognition.” The system then devised is, with slight modification, the present system of rinderpest suppression throughout the world, a system in which the passive immunising principles of the immune serum are made use of to sterilise or render refractory all the cattle in a zone or belt of country and so oppose the spread of the disease. This was the original policy adopted by the Natal Government of 1896, but the farmer—unwilling to risk waiting until serum could be prepared—preferred to take the risk of the bile system if he could get the bile from diseased cattle, with result disastrous to himself in many cases. I hope, sir, the Minister’s policy will be to ensure that serum inoculation only will be adopted if unfortunately there should be another visitation of rinderpest—otherwise the indiscriminate use of bile inoculation would repeat the mistake which brought about disastrous results in 1896. Our present Minister of Agriculture told us recently of the methods that are being followed to establish immune zones to prevent the spread of the disease from Tanganyika to the Union, and I think we all derived a measure of confidence from what the Minister told us. In connection with the manufacture of serum he told us that the Veterinary Department had been very fortunate in obtaining the services of probably the best man we could have got in South Africa, an official who had had experience in Burma. If this official is Mr. Mitchell, who was formerly in charge of the Allerton Research Station, Natal, I agree, sir, that his experience in that department is probably unrivalled in South Africa. The aim of the department should be to gain the confidence of the stock-owners in the system of inoculation which is to, be adopted, and to ensure that no other system is used, which may expose the Union to the spread of the disease. Moreover, plans should be made in advance for the manufacture of serum, and its delivery in the Union in such quantity and condition as will admit of its being effective to immunise all infected cattle in the event of an outbreak occurring within our borders. It is true that one of the hon. members of this House on the 5th February last complained of our expending £25,000 in measures beyond the borders of the Union, aimed at preventing the progress of the disease towards the Union, but I can assure the Minister of Agriculture that the stock-owners of South Africa will fully endorse any measures he may adopt to combat the disease before it crosses our border. There is some uneasiness with respect to the possibility of the disease being brought through Portuguese territory to the Union, and I trust that our officers who are employed in the already infected area will endeavour to promote a system of intelligence which will serve to discover the presence of the disease should it make its way through Portuguese territory. It will be observed that my notice of motion condemns the policy of compulsory slaughter or the fencing off of infected herds or of game. In 1896 these methods were adopted without success, and I hope the Minister may be able to assure us that we shall not on this occasion place our faith in the efficacy of such antiquated methods of prevention.

I second the motion. The hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) will forgive me if I tell him that it is not often that I can associate myself with a motion which he introduces into the House. But to-day it certainly is a pleasure to me to second the motion which he has moved. The hon. member has certainly considerably livened up the Department of Agriculture and the Government to the necessity of this vitally important question to South Africa being carefully considered. This question of rinderpest is of so much importance that we cannot but send our minds back to the experience which the farmers have already had in the past, when the great disaster came on South Africa by which great distress and losses were caused. It was a great disaster to South Africa when rinderpest made its appearance here last time. Experience has taught us that we must be particularly on our guard against that disease, and I believe that it is scarcely necessary to say this to the department and to the Minister of Agriculture. We also know that they commenced taking steps when an outbreak took place in Rhodesia, to try and stop it there by taking precautionary measures. But when we remember that this disease, when it previously made its appearance here, if I may say so, established an historical milepost in South Africa, then we can see how important it is. We know that it was of so much importance that, when we talk with aborigines and other old inhabitants of the country of an event, the date of which cannot be fixed, they say that it was at the time of or before of after the rinderpest. It was simply at that time the ruination of many farmers, and when we think now of the progress which cattle farming has made in our country, then we cannot be otherwise than extremely concerned if there is merely the slightest possibility of having another outbreak of that disease. Cattle farming has become of so much importance that parts of the country are absolutely dependent on it, and this will all the more enable the Minitser to realise that it is necessary to accept this motion. There are to-day parts of our country which devote themselves more particularly to the export of beef. The Government has encouraged this, and I make bold to say that the districts which I represent, if they are not the greatest exporters of beef, then certainly must be reckoned amongst the chief parts of the country which export beef. So far as milk is concerned, and dairy produce, and the export of butter and the like, we find that great progress has also been made in our country, and I feel that we cannot be sufficiently uneasy about any threat connected with this disease. The Minister will find that the governments of the different colonies which were still in existence at that time, incurred great expense and took endless trouble to ward off this disease, and we also know that various administrations had to pay large amounts in compensation to the farmers who had suffered loss. I need not remind the Government of to-day of the fact that they have already incurred great expense to assist the farmers in developing cattle farming. They have at various centres in the country put up cold storage accommodation to promote the industry. I believe it exists in Durban and also in Johannesburg. Recently another establishment — it should really have been at Vryburg — was put up at Kimberley. We hope that it will be a success. I am only mentioning these things to show that the Government has incurred great expense to promote cattle farming in the country, and it would be a pity if the industry were to get a set-back owing to rinderpest coming into the country. I also want to call the Minister’s attention to the fact that the time has come to make provision at once now for the contingency of the disease coming over the borders which we, of course, all hope will not happen. I am thinking, for instance, of an experimental station like Armoedsvlakte, which should be properly equipped, because it practically lies on the border between the Union and other territories, where the disease will probably make its first appearance if it is to enter our country. We can never be sufficiently on our guard so far as it is concerned. With these few words I want to second the motion, and I have no doubt that the Minister will receive it favourably.

I am quite at one with the hon. member for Vryburg (Mr. Du Plessis) who has just sat down, when he stated what the results would be if this disease invaded the Union. I would first like to say what a good augury for the future it is when we find the hon. member seconding the motion of the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick). It reminds me of the old adage about the lion lying down with the lamb. I am not saying which is the lion and which is the lamb in this instance. First of all, I want to say that one cannot ignore the tremendous importance for South Africa of the situation with which we are faced. I don’t think, for a moment, that we shall see the disease down here. I am confident that with the scientific knowledge we have at our disposal to-day, and the excellent staff we have operating at the seat of the disease, that we shall not see it here. But I would like to take the opportunity now offered of getting a little more information from the Minister in regard to a matter of such tremendous importance to the farmers. I would like to deal with an aspect of this matter which has been brought before this House on a previous occasion, when I think it was the hon. member for Wodehouse (Mr. S. Bekker) who rather took exception to any money being spent outside the Union in the investigation which is going on. To me, sir, that is essential, it is useless to wait till the enemy is within our gates, and the damage is done. The obvious course is to make these investigations, these actual experiments to check the disease where it is at present, and not wait till the battle is being fought in our own country. As the hon. member who moved this motion said, it was over 40 years now since this disease was last in South Africa. There was a suspicion some time ago, I think it was at the time of the rebellion, that there was an outbreak. I do not think, however, it was rinderpest, but some other disease, or otherwise it would never have died out in the way it did. I suppose there are few of us in this House to-day who were actually sufferers by that disease in 1896 and 1897. Those of us who were farming can remember the tremendous, the terrific losses caused to cattle farmers and natives and to the whole country generally, caused by that devastating outbreak. The cattle, in 1896, as far as the records go, numbered rather less than 6,000,000, and the first real census of cattle that was taken in 1904 showed that there were only about 3,500,000. I know that in between we had the Anglo-Boer war, which accounted for a considerable diminution, but the huge decrease was very largely due to rinderpest. I have here a very interesting book to which the Secretary for Agriculture has courteously drawn my attention. This book deals generally with diseases of animals, and one chapter is devoted to rinderpest, tracing the history of the disease through the ages. In 1897, 980.000 head of cattle were lost in the Transvaal alone, and in 1897-’98 in the Cape Province, 1,300,000 head died from this disease. These are almost incredible figures, but they do serve to bring home to us the possible danger which threatens the cattle industry in the future. The cattle in those days could not compare in value with the cattle of today, and a loss of that nature occurring now would cripple the cattle farmers of the Union. It conveys some idea of the devastating nature of the disease when one looks back to the native areas, where I have lived all my life. They were swept clean, the Transkei was practically sweet clean, and there was scarcely a beast left, except about two per cent. or three per cent. which recovered, and the condition of the natives was very serious for many years after that outbreak. Our European losses were enormous, and transport was disorganised. As you know, the whole of the road transport of the Union was done with ox-waggons at that time, and I can recall instances where whole spans of cattle died two or three days after they were stricken, and it was a common sight along the transport roads of the country to see waggons abandoned with their loads, and the carcases of the transport animals lying about. That was a common sight. The position would not be so serious to-day with our mechanical transport, but it would be quite serious enough if the disease should break out in the Union. Wherever the disease struck, and it missed very few herds, the whole cattle population was wiped out. The mortality was from 95 per cent. to 98 per cent. My own experience of the disease is interesting as showing the absolute lack of knowledge on the part of the then Agricultural and Veterinary Department in coping with the disease. It struck like a bolt from the blue in the Transvaal first. In those days Rhodesia was almost an unknown country, and possibly the outbreak of rinderpest did not attract the attention there which it would have done in later years. The first we knew was that the disease struck the Transvaal, and from there it spread like wildfire. All sorts of methods were adopted to try and check it, and when one looks back some of those methods almost appear comic. I remember the Cape and Natal Governments at a loss what to do, decided to fence the top of the Drakensberg from Northern Natal to the Zululand border. They fenced Zululand off first, and then the northern borders of Natal, right along the Drakensberg to the borders of the Free State and Basutoland. When you look at those towering crags pointing right up to the heavens, you can imagine what the work of fencing the top was like. I was one living close under the Drakensberg, and we had to turn out to guard the Border whilst the fencing was being erected, and they paid us 10s. a day. We were served with rifles and instructed to shoot every living thing bar human beings, that crossed the border from Basutoland into the Cape Province. There we were kept, and you can imagine the hardships we endured; we had no tents, to start with. There we were, an armed force, guarding that border until the fence was erected. There were no roads, and it was almost impossible to get fencing material up to the top of the Drakensberg. Strings of native women with greased wood poles on their heads and coils of wire, climbed up on to the top of the Drakensberg to this fence. That fence exists to-day, and it did no more to stop the disease than if we had all staved at home. Very fortunately for us, before the disease struck the province, Sir Arnold Theiler, Koch and others, had evolved a system of bile inoculation as a preventative. I don’t entirely go the whole length that my hon. friend the member for Illovo did in condemning bile inoculation, which undoubtedly saved a very large percentage of cattle, and enabled us to ward off the disease until other measures were adopted. It is interesting to realise to-day that in the opinion of experts no medicinal treatment is of any use. Such treatment had no influence on the disease during the last outbreak in England and Holland. That happened many years ago, but that experience bears out that no medicines or treatment, isolation or slaughtering, had any effect on the disease, except this bile inoculation. The first outbreak in the Cape Province, as far as I remember it, occurred at the lower end of the Transkei. Where it came from nobody knows. It appeared to be so infectious that it would jump 20, 40 or 50 miles and appear in a centre that had been regarded as clean. The Cape Government collected a number of farmers, of whom I was one, and we were all sent down to learn how to inoculate the cattle with bile. It was perfectly impossible to supply a special staff, and farmers themselves had to be taught how to inoculate, and then they were sent out to teach others in the infected districts. I can well remember the first bile that we were told to take. May I say that one of the effects of this disease is to enormously swell the gall bladder. You can only get about 10 c.c. of liquid out of a normal gall bladder, but from a beast affected with rinderpest you would get a gall bladder as big as a football, and you could get enough to inoculate 50 or 60 head of cattle. And I remember how careful we had to be. Only bile of a pale green colour was of any use, and when you shook it up it must foam and cream in the bottle. If we got thick or turgid bile or any other colour except pale green, we had to throw it away. With that bile cattle were inoculated and the result was it was the only thing that eventually saved a large portion of the stock in the Union. A little later, I think, came the Koch bile. We were told that the discoloured bile, apart from the green bile, should be mixed with about 50 per cent. of glycerine, and that killed any of the germs of decomposition, or prevented blood-poisoning in the use of discoloured bile, and that greatly increased the amount of bile that we were able to use. At that time everything had to be used fresh, for the bile would not keep. I remember that I had often to ride 30 miles or more to get bile from herds where the disease had broken out, and then get back to the infected within a few hours in case the bile was decomposed. I had to go flat out in order to get to those places with the bile in a good state of preservation. I am not so certain about the claim of Colonel Watkins-Pitchford and other scientists to be the first to originate the system of inoculation with serum. In those days we used to do exactly the same thing, but it was not exactly a serum process. We would first get a recovered animal. We would bleed a sick animal which was practically dying of rinderpest and get the blood. We would take out a fruit bottle full, and with this we injected the recovered animal in order to fortify and maintain the immunity. I am inclined to think that the farmers of South Africa were the real inventors of the serum system. We got the blood of an animal drained into a cup or jug and stirred it with a stick and drew out the thick portion of the blood, the coagulated portion, and with the defibrinated blood that remained, we injected the animal, and in that way the animals were immunised for life. Bile immunity only lasts for a matter of a few months, or it may be a few weeks. When we inoculated with blood from the animal mentioned, we could give other cattle immunity. These immunised animals became the transport animals on the roads. The only animal which could be used for transport purposes then was an immunised animal, otherwise it was certain death to go on the road. I should like to emphasise what the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) also made a point of. In our experience in those days quarantine, slaughtering and any other method of dealing with the disease was absolutely useless, and quarantining to-day, except by immunising a belt of cattle, will, I am certain, be equally useless, and the danger will still be there if you rely only on any form of quarantine. I must apologise to the House for having so stressed the seriousness of the disease, and for dealing at length with the history of the disease as I know it. But I have done so intentionally in order to make it abundantly clear that the policy of the Government is absolutely right in spending the thousands of pounds it is spending far outside our borders, up in Tanganyika, where the disease exists, in the attempt to check it there. It is far better to spend that money than to wait until the disease is actually in our midst, until the scourge is amongst us, when we should have to fight it in our own country. If the disease was in our own country, the loss would be increased a thousandfold. The £20.000 or the £30.000 that we are spending outside our borders, even if it were multiplied a hundredfold, is money well spent. We shall be extraordinarily fortunate if by that expenditure and with the good work of the Veterinary Department, we can isolate that disease where it is. I think it is undoubted that the disease is endemic in South Africa. It has been proved by veterinary surgeons that when an outbreak becomes well-established, and that if the disease remains long enough in a district, the loss of cattle becomes smaller and smaller and even goes down to 10 per cent. of the cattle. It is then endemic in that sense, and from that centre it blazes up and spreads again to the surrounding districts. I say, therefore, that I do not think there is any doubt that the disease is endemic in Central Africa and our danger will always be there of a recrudescence of an outbreak of the disease which might spread to non-immune cattle, and possibly in that way it will reach the Union. There are one or two points which the Minister might be able to enlighten us upon. The trouble in those parts referred to, is the presence of game. I think that as the disease gets to the more closely-settled districts, towards Southern Rhodesia, and possibly near our own northern border, we shall find it easier to immunise a belt, because there we have practically only domestic cattle to deal with. These can be more or less controlled and do not present the same menace that wild game does. I should like to know if in Southern Tanganyika, where the immunising of all the cattle in a belt of country is going on, if there are large numbers of game in that country, or if it is more or less a cattle country that we are dealing with. If it is a game country I can understand that our difficulties will be increased a hundredfold. It is through the game, I am afraid, that the possibilities of infection are existent in Portuguese East Africa. That, I think, is the danger point. There, I think, is the possibility that we might see the disease approaching our own borders through the game from Southern Tanganyika, entering Portuguese East Africa and then coming through country where cattle are few and the game are many. That is a possibility that we shall have to guard against very carefully. I am wondering if the Minister or his department have any definite information as to how long the disease has existed up north. It is possible that it is endemic there, or has it appeared still further north? I should like to ask what is the information in the hands of the department in regard to this matter as to whether this outbreak has suddenly occurred in Tanganyika, or whether it is a gradual march southwards from possibly very much farther north. This has not a tremendous bearing on the actual checking of the disease or of the danger it constitutes. It is more or less an academic question. There is a suggestion that the disease has crossed the immunised belt or has outflanked it and has gone into the Luanga Valley in Northern Rhodesia. I understand that there are a considerable number of deaths among the buffalo in the Luangwa Valley. Our veterinary staff are investigating that particular outbreak and perhaps the Minister can give us some information as to whether the disease has been definitely diagnosed as rinderpest or not. I believe conditions there are very difficult. I believe that it is very broken country with deep valleys. It is rough country full of game and buffalo and the position may be very difficult if the disease has broken out in the Luangwa Valley. There is another point on which I want some information. When the cattle in this belt have to be immunised I should like to know how many cattle we shall have to deal with. I should like to know what numbers we shall have to immunise in order to get a complete belt established across the path of the disease. The numbers, no doubt, will run into big figures. We in the settled parts of the Union I do not think can conceive the enormous amount of work that will need to be done to immunise the cattle in the country, such as I imagine we shall have to deal with. I believe large numbers of cattle will have to be treated before we can say that there is any safety for us in this part of the Continent. It is interesting to realise how, since the outbreak in 1896-97, the methods that were adopted then—and we were fortunate to have them—have since been adopted right throughout the world. The methods of inoculating by serum have broken the back of the disease where it has broken out. The terrors which attached even to the very name of rinderpest have been very largely dissipitated by these methods, which were actually evolved here in the Union. I should be very interested if the Minister would care to divulge at the present time what is being done so far as the preparation of a serum in the Union is concerned. As I have already indicated, in the olden days everything had to be used fresh, whether it was defibrated blood or bile it had to be used within a few hours. I should like to know whether the scientists can give us a serum that can be stored away like the serum for quarter evil, anthrax and other animal diseases. Of course, I am referring to animal diseases. In the case of these diseases we have serums at our disposal which will check an ordinary outbreak of the various diseases I have mentioned. These can be dealt with by a method of inoculation. It would be a tremendous assistance in the combating of rinderpest if we could manufacture a serum and store it, say, at Onderstepoort, or at other veterinary centres, where it could be drawn on immediately should the necessity arise. If we could get such a serum, I think it will be a big factor in dealing with a sudden outbreak in the future, if we could inoculate all round with a serum at our disposal. That is a point on which the Minister might give us some information. There is just one further matter which I want to ask the Minister if he can do. Naturally the cattle farmers of South Africa are vitally interested in the progress that has been made in the north, and with the steps that are being taken to check the disease; also the result of those checks, and generally with the position as it alters from day to day and week to week. I wonder if the Minister would be able, perhaps, through a departmental publication or through “Farming in South Africa” to issue a regular monthly bulletin as to the actual steps that have been taken and the actual results of what has been done in Tanganyika where our veterinary staff are working. But I do say this, one cannot over-estimate the seriousness of the threat; one can understand the fear of farmers with this threat hanging over the Union. I have big investments in cattle myself, but I feel that we can confidently look forward with all these scientific means at our disposal, to protection being afforded to the herds of the Union by the methods adopted by the Agricultural Department to-day.

I would like to associate myself with the motion of the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick). I think that he has rendered the country a service by drawing attention to this matter. When South Africa remembers the destructive results of the previous appearance of rinderpest here, then so far as the farming community is concerned, they are filled with shudders. That previous appearance of the plague in South Africa caused an economic setback here from which individuals have not yet recovered, and the State at that time got a blow in the different colonies which put them back for years. It is therefore perfectly natural that when any reference is made to the appearance of the disease in the far north, the attention of the farmers should be fixed on it. Our cattle farming is one of the strongest supports of the agricultural industry, and if our cattle industry is to be injured, as was the case in the Union in 1896-’97, then the country will bitterly deplore it. I just want to show that while I am supporting the motion of the hon. member for Illovo, I feel that we are to-day in a much better position than we were before by virtue of our experience of 1896— 97. We have fortunately since that time, succeeded in building up our world-famed laboratory at Onderstepcort. Only recently when I had the honour of personally making a journey together with my colleagues, to the far northern parts of Africa, it was a pleasant surprise to me to find how far and wide the good name and fame of Onderstepoort was being preached, and was known in the north of Africa. I make bold to say, Mr. Speaker, that when we got into touch with big cattle farmers in the north, for instance at the show at Kafue, the hope of all of them was fixed on Onderstepoort in regard to the difficulties with which they had to deal as cattle farmers. Everybody to whom we were introduced, as soon as he found out that we were interested in farming, immediately joined in the chorus in singing the praise of Onderstepoort. I think that it would be an impertinence on our part to prescribe, over the floor of this House, to Onderstepoort what the best methods are which should be followed and what the best methods are which should be employed in order to fight that disease. Seeing that Onderstepoort has already achieved so much, I am convinced that the authorities will realise that the object of this motion and the object with which it has been brought before the House, is only intended to doubly arouse our alert Agricultural Department and our alert officials to see to it that we are not caught napping with regard to this disease. Timely action may mean the exemption of the Union. If we do not act timeously it would most surely be a criminal offence in regard to that disease. The hon. member for Illovo states in the last part of his motion, or rather it looks as if he is going a little too far in wanting to indicate to a certain extent to Onderstepoort what the way is that should be adopted. I can fully associate myself with the first part of his motion, but the second part we, as farmers, may confidently leave to the Department of Agriculture and to its alert and scientific officials at Onderstepoort.

I wish to associate myself with this motion and at the same time to take the opportunity on behalf of the cattle farmers in my area to thank the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) for having brought forward this motion, if for no other reason than to give the Minister of Agriculture the opportunity to make some reassuring statement to the cattle farmers as to what steps have been taken and what co-operation there is, and what measure of success has been obtained by the investigations that have been made. I am sure that the cattle owners will be grateful to the hon. members for Illovo for having directed public attention to this matter. Many of us who lived in those parts can remember the days of 1896-97 when the rinderpest scourge was decimating our herds. We can remember what the rinderpest scourge meant, not only to the Europeans, but to practically all natives in the Eastern Province. Herds were decimated right and left, and to-day still if an old native has to go into the witness box in a court of law to give evidence, and he is asked his age, he will tell you that he was born two or three years before, or two or three years after the rinderpest. That goes to show that it played a very important part in the economic life of the natives. Both the hon. member for Illovo and the hon. member for Griqualand East have dealt fairly fully with the history and the incidence of the disease, and it is not my purpose to deal with that aspect of the question. I have sufficient confidence in our Veterinary Department to know that every possible step and every possible measure will be taken to prevent the disease entering this country, and coping with it if it should unfortunately find its way over our borders. I want to endorse what the hon. member for Hoopstad (Mr. J. H. Viljoen) has said. One of the very pleasant recollections I have of our tour through the Rhodesias and Nyasaland, where we made contact with the actual farmers there, was the very high praise they gave to our veterinary officers and to our institution at Onderstepoort. I hope that co-operation between the Rhodesias and ourselves, even if it only happens to be in regard to animal diseases, will continue. We want them to feel that we are truly brothers in South Africa, that we are faced with similar difficulties and similar diseases. They were very loud in their praise of the work done by Onderstepoort, and I just want to say this, that I have sufficient confidence in our department to know that they will not take the slightest chance in dealing with this disease, and that they will not wait until it enters the Union, but that they will tackle it at its source. My purpose in rising here to-day is to confine myself to a few remarks on the question of what the cattle industry means to South Africa. The hon. member for Illovo has already quoted a figure and has said that the Union has approximately 11½ million head of cattle. Approximately half of those cattle belong to Europeans and the other half to natives. He put a rather low value on those cattle when he gave an average of about £3 per head. I prefer to put it at an average of about £5 per head, in which case it would mean that the cattle population of this country would be worth between £50,000,000 and £60,000,000. The policy of the Government for years past has been to improve the cattle of this country. Ever since the Cattle Improvement Act was passed, efforts have been made, and large sums of money have been spent in this country with the idea of raising the standard and the grade of our cattle. As a result we have already in this country a hundred and fifty-three areas which have been proclaimed as cattle improvement areas. The Cape Province has fifty-seven, the Free State thirty-five, Transvaal thirty and Natal eleven. I am very pleased to think that in my part of the country we realised immediately that Act was passed the necessity for proclaiming cattle improvement areas, and in the particular area I represent, I believe one of the first cattle improvement areas in this country was actually proclaimed. As a result of proclaiming these areas as cattle improvement areas, it was necessary for better types of bulls to be imported. The Government has on the estimates an amount of £75,000 for subsidies to farmers for the purchase of bulls in cattle improvement areas, which shows that the Government is realising the need for improving our stock. And that being the position, there is all the more reason why when that money is being spent every possible care should be taken to keep rinderpest away— because rinderpest is a disease which might decimate our herds, and it would mean wasting all that money. I notice that in the very valuable annual report of the Secretary for Agriculture he deals with this aspect of the matter, when he says—

So important has it become in our part of the country that we have established an association for the export of baby beef from the Eastern Province, which is doing a considerable amount of work, and, of course, if the disease should enter the Union it would mean a grave danger to our cattle farmers. And then the Secretary for Agriculture goes on to say this—

And then he deals with the progress made with the inspection work under the cattle improvement scheme. He says that 28,000 bulls were inspected since the inauguration of the scheme, bringing the total up to approximately 125,000 bulls which had been inspected. The preliminary inspection had, now been completed in all districts, and this year too more than half the inspected bulls had been rejected. This clearly shows that we still have a very long way to go before we can be satisfied with the general standard of our cattle herds.

My object in quoting this is to show that the Government realises how very important this industry is to the country, and it will mean a tremendous loss if rinderpest finds its way here. For that reason it is necessary that the fullest investigation should be made, and no expense spared to prevent that from happening. I just want the House to realise the importance of this from the point of view of the dairy industry. Tremendous progress has been made in the development of that industry, and I should like to give the House the figures relating to the distribution of milk and cheese amongst the children of this country—

Sir, no one can say that that money has been wasted, or that it will not help to build up the stamina of our people in this country—

Well, sir, if our cattle in this country are threatened as the result of this disease, all this important social work that is done amongst our poorer people and the children of the country, will undoubtedly suffer. As far as export is concerned, I notice in the same report from July, 1938, to June, 1939, 6,015,000 lbs. of butter and 5,043,201 lbs. of cheese were exported, and the value of that runs into approximately £700,000, getting on towards £1,000,000, so that the industry is one of the most important in the country, and merits every step that the Government can take for its protection. I have sufficient confidence in our Veterinary Department and our Agricultural Department that every step that should be taken will be taken to prevent the disease from spreading to this country. An opportunity should be given to the Minister to give some reassuring statement to the cattle owners in the country, that they will be protected to the utmost from this threat.

I do not want to add much to what has already been said in connection with this matter. I only want to declare myself a supporter of the motion of the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick). It is a useful motion, and I hope it will achieve the object which the hon. member is aiming at, namely, to draw the attention of the Government and of the country to a matter which requires our most serious attention. The hon. member who spoke before me has in a clear and practical way, described how rinderpest denuded the country in 1896, like a veld fire, of cattle. I only want to say that the rinderpest not only did the harm which has been specified here, but infinitely more, because it was also one of the great causes of the origin of the poor white question, with which we are still saddled to-day. A great part of our population consisted of cattle farmers, and owing to circumstances, it could not be anything else. All of a sudden, owing to the plague, they immediately lost everything that they possessed to make a livelihood with, and the people di-opped into poverty, out of which they could not recover themselves again. Accordingly, this country, of all countries in the world, ought to do everything in its power not to allow a recrudescence of the plague. The hon. member over there made mention of the fact that one of the hon. members on this side, in a previous debate when the question was discussed of spending £25,000 for the purpose, objected to the money being spent for that purpose. Let me, in defence of the hon. member, say that he did not intend that we should do nothing to fight it in those areas, but he was not satisfied with the method in which it was proposed to spend the money. I immediately felt that the attitude might possibly be open to a wrong construction, and I rose and said to the. Minister that we not only desired that £25,000 should be spent for the purpose, but as much as was necessary to protect cattle farming against the dreaded disease. We have heard it said in a capable way this afternoon what great confidence the whole of South Africa, and even the world, has in the competency of our pharmacologists at Onderstepoort. I want to go a little further and say that apart from all that capacity, it is nevertheless the Government which must give a lead. I want the Minister to try and get South Africa clean of rinderpest. We must attack rinderpest where it is to be found, and not sit here and wait until it comes.

Where are the boundaries?

I am fond of a sense of humour, but the fact is that we must use the capable department we possess to stop the disease. We shall have to tackle it in the territories where there are only subordinate administrations, or where practically the Colonial Office of London governs, which has not got an appreciation of the actual position. We must send men who bear in mind the 11.500.000 cattle in the Union, and who represent the cattle farmers here. The infected zones must be quarantined, and inoculated, and when the rinderpest is under control the areas must be salted against rinderpest. It does not seem to me the right attitude for us to sit and wait. I understand as a matter of fact, that we will have to deal with other governments, such as the Portuguese Government. All the territories do not come under British control. In all the territories which come under British control, when you point out the danger to them and offer to help, they will assist us in every respect, but with regard to the Portuguese territories, they also will welcome our assistance. I had the opportunity some time ago to be the guest of the Portuguese Government, and I cannot speak highly enough of the hospitality and goodwill — which I experienced — shown by the Portuguese to the Union of South Africa. I am convinced that if we can persuade them that we are coming to assist them to solve the problem, that we shall experience no difficulties on their part. We must fight the thing, and eradicate it where it is commencing to develop, and we must smother it in the germ. I, therefore, support the motion with all my heart.

In the first place I want to congratulate the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. Labuschagne) who has just sat down, for having gone the length of daring to tackle a national danger beyond the boundaries of the Union. As a representative of the district which adjoins the boundary of the native protectorate I want heartily to support the motion. I represent a constituency which is to a great extent dependent on cattle farming, and therefore we realise the danger that is threatening. But we, as the previous speaker has said, have veterinary scientists who have become known throughout the world, and as we also know that the Minister and his department are fully aware of the seriousness of the matter, and as they have already taken protective measures, we are thankful, and although we have the fullest confidence in their action, we are thinking with anxiety of the possibility of our having a repetition of rinderpest such as we had in 1896. When we think of the aftermath of rinderpest then we realise the danger. As I child I remember that it certainly was the first case in the history of the old republics where the state had to come to the assistance of the burghers with emergency relief. I remember how my father was to receive a loan to buy donkeys in order to be able to make a livelihood again. When I think of the danger of the cattle of the Union being exterminated then it fills me with fear. We know that the Minister is aware of the seriousness of the matter, and I hope that he will watch it closely and not wait until it has come within our boundaries.

I listened attentively to the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. Labuschagne) who said that we should attack rinderpest in the territories it existed in. I was in Tanganyika last year, and I went right through it and found that rinderpest was endemic there, i.e. that it was always there. That is grist to the hon. member’s mill in wanting to attack it there. But what is the position in connection with the game? I stayed on the edge of a crater there on one occasion, and as far as the eve could see I was looking at wildebeeste like flies. Hunters there said that it was calculated that there were 100,000 wildebeeste there, at N’goro, N’goro. I was also in Portuguese Africa, and there saw a troop of buffalo 2,000 strong, and another one 800 strong.

Where was that?

Eleven miles from Beira, on the Nyasa railway on the Zambesi.

What is the use of inoculating cattle when you have thousands and hundreds of thousands of head of game? It is an impossibility. You might just as well try to touch the sky with your hand. Then what is the method now? Do what is done with human beings. When smallpox exercised its devastating influence on the world they vaccinated the people; vaccination was used against typhus fever, vaccination was used against diphtheria and other diseases. Inoculate, but you cannot do that where there is game. Therefore the only other method is to follow what is being done in the Bushveld, and that is what the Minister of Agriculture is constantly doing with fire paths. Make fire paths; but we cannot exterminate all the game in the Transvaal. They make our country famous, and the game attracts thousands of tourists from all over the world, who spend much money here. Therefore the only thing the Minister can do is to make a fire path along the game reserve, across the Transvaal and through Bechuanaland, and let all the cattle on the near side of the fire path be made immune. If you do that then the rinderpest cannot come here.

I want to congratulate the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) on this motion, by which he draws the attention of the Government to the danger which probably exists owing to this plague which has broken out in the north. Now I would like to know from the Minister whether the officials whom he sent went voluntarily, or whether they went on the order of his department. I would also like to know why he did not wait until the plague came to our borders, to the Zambesi, or did he realise that there was such a great danger to our country that the best way to tackle it was to go and fight it in Tanganyika?

Must you again drag in politics?

I just want to tell my hon. friend that we did not wait until the pest came to the Zambesi, because then there would have been very great danger to all parts of the country.

The plague is not in Germany or in Russia.

I just want to point out that the Government did the right thing by tackling the plague in the north, where it broke out. We have seen that there is great danger if we do not send our officials to help in eradicating the plague, as then it, would come down to our country. We are grateful for the steps which the Government took, but I just want to know from the Minister whether these officials went and did the work voluntarily, or whether they went under the orders of his department. I remember quite well how, when I was a boy, rinderpest broke cut in Natal, and how we struggled to combat the disease, and how impossible it was. The Government drew wires along the boundaries of Natal, but the plague went right through the country. It was as if the plague was in the air.

That cannot be.

But it looked like it, as if the plague went through the air for sixty miles. I still remember how there was a quarrel between the Cape and Natal. Someone in Natal had discovered the blood serum, and in the Cape they used Koch’s gall remedy. The experience in Natal was that the use of blood serum was much more effective, and that there was not the danger which existed in the use of gall. If the Minister can give us a little information about the plans which his department has drawn up as to whether the plague does spread, in order to make blood serum available in this country, I shall be glad. How are we to get the blood serum here, because you know that to get serum you must have a salted animal. Is it the intention of the department to send along salted cattle, to transport them from the north here, and then to make the serum available for the farmers, or what is the intention? I say that it was absolutely necessary to take steps to combat this disease, this plague, up in the north, and I hope that the steps which are being taken will be successful, and that the plague will not extend, because we know from our experience what a terrible disaster it was when rinderpest passed through our country in 1897. In the case of my late father, we lost all our cattle, and when we had to buy cattle we had to pay £25 to £30 for an animal of a very inferior quality. I hope that at this time, with the experience we have, the department can take steps, if the plague breaks out, to banish it from the country altogether.

There has been a very interesting discussion on this subject this afternoon. I am afraid, however, that I cannot add much to what I said on the last occasion as to what is actually taking place in the north, because I have not had reports of anything fresh. I will give what I have got to hon. members as I go along. I think this motion may be divided into four parts. The mover, in the first place, points to the danger of this outbreak of rinderpest as a grave menace to the Union. He also wishes to know what precautionary measures we have taken, and then he wishes to know what vaccine, or what methods of inoculation are used, and fourthly he thinks that we should not use methods that were used against some diseases, such as slaughtering and fencing. Generally speaking, I quite agree with all the hon. member says in this motion, and I have no trouble in accepting the motion. Of course, I need not add anything to prove the gravity of this terrible disease. We are not in the same position as we were in in 1896. To-day we are in a very much better position to fight this disease, if it should cross our borders. Our transport methods have, of course, improved beyond recognition. We have the staff, we have the knowledge, and we have the materials that we did not have at all in 1896. So if the worst should happen to us I think we can look forward to fighting the disease much more effectively than we were able to do some 40 years ago. Still, sir, it must be clear that if this disease crosses our boundaries it will probably cost this country millions of pounds, and it must be very good business if we can achieve any unity and stave it off as long as we can by spending thousands instead of millions, which we would have to spend otherwise. That is why the Government had no hesitation in saying to its neighbours that we were willing to face the expenditure and pay our share and, if necessary, even to pay a little bit more than our share in order to fight this disease in the most effective manner. So that was agreed upon. As I told hon. members on a former occasion, we held different conferences at different times, and all the territories were represented there. Our people had to put up a certain amount of fight in order to tackle the matter in the way we thought it should be tackled. Broadly speaking, our representatives, together with the Rhodesians, I think, took the view that we should have a definite immunised belt, a belt that should be as broad as possible and that there we should, by immunising the cattle, make sure that there is no disease in that belt. As I said on a former occasion this belt was found, and an effective belt, between the two lakes, Tanganyika and Nyasa, a matter of about 70 or 75 miles. On both sides of these lakes there was a fair amount of fly country which in this case assists us, the fly killing the game and that, naturally, stops the rinderpest. What we suggested was to have this immune belt and from there to work northwards. That is what is being done at the present time. Then, of course, we got the report about this possible outbreak in the Luanga Valley which was some hundreds of miles south of this belt. That gave us cause for perturbation. This also answers the Question of the hon. member for East Griqualand (Mr. Gilson). It is most difficult country. There is sleeping sickness; there are no roads; there is blackwater, and it was most difficult country to go through. Three of our men went up, and I am sorry I cannot tell the hon. member for Newcastle (Mr. Nel), whether they actually volunteered. Anyway they made no objection when they were sent. They are loyal officers and I think they were even glad of the experience. They had to be inoculated against sleeping sickness, blackwater and malaria. Southern Rhodesia sent one representative and Northern Rhodesia one. They worked through this valley. When last I spoke I told the House that they were halfway through and had not found any signs of rinderpest. Now I can tell the House that they have finished their inspection. Of course, they may have missed something for it is rather rough country, but they are pretty certain there is no rinderpest beyond the southern borders of Tanganyika. They are pretty well satisfied about that. It was a strange occurrence, this death of buffalo. They found 44 buffalo lying dead, the one a little distance from the other, and the natives told people that it was a custom of the buffalo, some sort of natural instinct, that when they noticed death among the herds they fled. It seems strange that these buffalo should all be lying dead within the space of a few miles. When this was noticed people were almost certain that it was rinderpest, but fortunately it was proved that it was not so.

What was it due to?

We do not know, but it means that we need not have revised our former plans. If it had been rinderpest we would have had to revise our plans.

Could they not find any reason for it?

Well, of course, all that was found by the time they got there were bones, and the cause of death could not be established.

It might have been anthrax.

At one time they said it was fish poisoning, but they did not establish that either.

Fish poisoning?

Yes, that was the report I got. The hon. member for East Griqualand asked me about the numbers of cattle that have been vaccinated. We have now vaccinated the cattle in this proposed belt—we have vaccinated them three times. This number runs into over 100,000 head of cattle. They have been inoculated three times, and properly inoculated. Then there are four to five hundred thousand head of cattle to the north of that, which are now being inoculated with Virus No. 2.

You are making a thorough job of it.

Yes, the idea is to clean it up higher up, and although possibly Tanganyika may be getting the better of the bargrain, and we may be clearing up rinderpest for them to a certain extent, after careful investigations our representatives have no doubt that that is the proper way to do it. There were very scant facilities, laboratory facilities, and as the hon. member for Griqualand East pointed out you could not carry your serum too far, and carry it, over too long a time. You certainly dare not try and make your serum in Pretoria at Onderstepoort, it would be too dangerous— we would be bringing rinderpest down here to make a serum. Of course, the question of time would not matter so much. We could, of course, fly the serum there, but we could not think of going to Pretoria for the purpose of making the serum—it is too far from that particular area. They then found a place named Mbosi, a farm which has been evacuated. I think, as a matter of fact, the gentleman was interned.

What is the joke?

It was a farm which suited their purpose very well, and there we have established a unit and Mr. Mitchell, who was referred to by the hon. member for Illovo, is in charge there. He has three veterinary officers, three stock inspectors, six veterinary assistants and sixty natives working with him there. The vaccine is being prepared there. It is a research station, and good work is being done there. There was also some doubt in the minds of our friends in Tanganyika about this vaccine, but our people through experiments were able to prove that it was effective, and I think we have satisfied even those authorities. As the hon. member for Illovo has said, we were fortunate in having been able to get the services of Mr. Mitchell who was an old South African official; he went to Burma where the disease was endemic and he has had more experience of this disease than anyone else in the country. So we were sure of our efficiency there. Generally, therefore, the campaign as far as the cattle were concerned, is being carried out very satisfactorily, and we are quite happy about it. My last information is that there are no new outbreaks. Therefore, as far as cattle is concerned, we are not unduly worried. Of course, game is always a great menace. At the same time it is true that game alone do not carry infection in such a large measure, or so quickly as cattle do. It seems that with game alone, without cattle, there is not so much danger of spreading the disease as there is with cattle alone, and that is why we are doing what we can and why we are concentrating on inoculating the cattle. A meeting is to be held at Blantyre very soon. I think it will possibly be held next month and at that meeting all our neighbours have promised to attend, including our Portuguese friends. One of the special subjects to be discussed at that conference is this particular aspect of game —how the spreading of the disease by game is to be dealt with. At present we are fairly satisfied that we have the cattle position in hand, and we are scouting—regular scouting parties are being sent out, regular investigations are taking place all along the boundaries, as far as possible. Members know, however, the enormous extent of that country—an almost uncivilised country, so it is not an easy matter. The hon. member for Delarey (Mr. Labuschagne) said that he expected us to go in there and do the job. Well, it sounds very nice, but it is a delicate matter. After all, governments do not want you to ride roughshod over them, and the negotiations have sometimes had to be carried out with a fair amount of tact. We have had our differences already, but so far there does not seem to be any reason to worry and to imagine that people will not give us the necessary assistance. At the same time you can hardly expect our neighbours to tell us, “Well, you can walk into our country and do what you think necessary.” They have perhaps not that amount of confidence in us and in Onderstepoort, that we have in our officers and in our institution. And at the same time people are just as we are apt to say, “Do not forget we are an independent people, and we do not want to be told what we must do— we know ourselves what to do.” Now the hon. member for Griqualand East has also asked me how long this disease has been known. Well, it has been known for many years. It has been known to prevail north of the Dodoma—Dar-es-Salaam railway line; we have known about it before 1937. Of course, in that area it is endemic, and it is endemic in certain portions of Kenya, but we have always thought that the position was fairly safe if it could be kept north of that line. But when it began to worry us was when it began to escape South, and at the end of last year it had come much further South. I do not wish to go over the same ground again that I covered last time. The officer who was in charge and who attended most of these conferences, reports to me as follows—

He also reports that it has now been definitely shown that the mortality of buffalo in the Luangwa Valley of Northern Rhodesia was not due to rinderpest, so that the disease has not spread beyond the southern border of Tanganyika. Then he goes on to deal with the inoculation of the cattle along the northern borders of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and he says that a commencement has been made with the vaccination of all Tanganyika cattle south of the Central Railway. The vaccine and research station at Mbosi in South Tanganyika has been established, fully equipped and staffed, to expedite the production of the most effective vaccine and the inoculation of some half a million Tanganyika cattle. At the beginning of March most of the field staff to carry out the inoculation and intelligence service had been posted and moved into position. I have already said that arrangements are being made for a representative conference to be held at Blantyre at an early date in order to review the whole position, especially the part played by game in the spread of the disease. Members will understand that it has already been considered whether an attempt should be made to exterminate all the game. The wholesale slaughter of game may have the very opposite effect—it may result in chasing the game into areas where they have not been before. It does seem that we must deal with the immune belt as Southern boundary and work up and try to drive the game northwards. Now I come to this question of the serum. The serum that is being used in this immunised belt is the triple vaccination. It is so called because to obtain proper immunity the susceptible animal has to be inoculated three times at intervals of ten days. This is the least dangerous of the serums. It produces immunity lasting a year, but it does not bring the disease into cattle. It does not produce rinderpest in cattle. That is the advantage. Of course, the disadvantage is that the cattle must be inoculated three times. The other method is the vaccine and virus method. This virus is prepared by passing the rinderpest virus from cattle through goats, the effect being that the cattle virus becomes less toxic for cattle. Inoculated cattle can, however, still contract rinderpest. The vaccine used is the same as that used in the first method, and the animal is inoculated first with the vaccince, followed ten days later by the goat virus. In this case an immunity is produced which will last for at least three years, and only two inoculations are necessary. The disadvantage is that rinderpest may still be produced in susceptible cattle. Then there is a third method, the virus and serum method, which is very expensive and so far it does not seem as effective as the other methods which I have mentioned. The advantage of this method is the same as that mentioned under the second method, while the disadvantage is that cattle may still become infected with rinderpest, while the serum is very expensive. I think I have covered most of the points raised. I have just been informed that the vaccine will not keep longer than three weeks. It is, however, desirable to use it within ten days. It does not matter so much now as it did formerly. We can reach nearly any part of South Africa within a day, so that would not give us the same amount of trouble as it did in the days when my hon. friend had to run his horses’ legs off to get to his cattle quickly. I think I have covered all the points that have been raised, and I think we might leave it at that.

I don’t want to delay the House at this hour. I think the stock-owners of the Union will be gratified at the manner in which the House has received this motion.