Undoubtedly the most farreaching of all the regulations issued by this “Nazi Government” of South Africa (laughter) is that contained in No. 15. Hon. members laugh. They possibly prefer Stalin, especially the Minister of Labour, but it amounts to the same thing—this is a dictatorial government. This regulation provides for the arrest and the detention of dangerous persons. One can understand that in a time of great emergency, as defined in the verdict of an English judge to which I referred recently, it may possibly be necessary to have such regulations, but such is not the position in South Africa to-day. Let us study this regulation and see what it means. It means that the Minister of Defence may in the interest of the state order the arrest of any person and that he can have any person arrested without any writ. A regulation like that is not only an absolute negation of all democratic rights and of the liberty of the individual, but by the way it is enforced in South Africa it encourages a condition of private espionage and revenge on the part of some person or other who wants to get his own back on another person, and who wants to get somebody else into difficulties. The liberty of the individual is attacked and taken away — that liberty about which the hon. the Minister of Defence in his speech to the University of Aberdeen said, that it was a liberty which no good man would allow himself to be deprived of, except by force of arms. That is the liberty which is affected, which is taken away by this regulation. Let us compare the position here with that in England where there is a state of emergency. England is definitely at war, the enemy is at its gates. It appeared that England at the beginning of the war also issued very drastic regulations, and possibly the Minister of Defence of the Union followed in England’s footsteps with his regulations, but as a result of the difficulties raised and the protests made in England it was decided there that new regulations should be issued. I have here a copy of The Spectator. The hon. the Minister of Defence will admit that The Spectator is the most prominent weekly paper in England, and in this paper there is a reference to the changes brought about in the regulations in England, and this is what appears there—

The English Government was prepared to listen to criticism, but our Nazi Government is not prepared to listen to criticism. And the paper goes on to say this—

Now, let us go a little further and see what has happened. How are these regulations enforced in England? I have before me the next issue of The Spectator, in which this question is dealt with. It is interesting to note that the date of this Spectator is January 19th, 1940, the same date on which in this House a question was put to our Minister of Defence, namely, how many persons had been interned in South Africa up to the 19th January? Now listen to what the position is in England—

Now we have the position here on the same date, namely, January 19th, when in England 486 people had been interned, who first of all had been brought before special courts — there were 11.2 special courts—before they were interned. In South Africa, however, we have this position, according to the reply to a question put to the Prime Minister, that up till the 19th January 928 persons had been interned, almost twice as many as in England, which is actually involved in the war. I do not know whether hon. members realise this, but this regulation becomes part of a law of our country, and as this regulation takes away the liberty of the individual and allows the Government to put people in gaol without trial, and allows the Government to put people in gaol on false information — as for instance in the case of the brothers Arndt—I say that such a law is a blot on the statutes of South Africa. Before sitting down I want to say that not only is the liberty of the individual taken away in South Africa, out we see a tendency on the part of hon. members opposite and also on the part of their Press to deprive the Afrikaans-speaking section of the population of the right to commemorate their historical events, to pay tribute to their heroes and to celebrate their festive occasions. We remember what happened in this House last night, when the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) made his offensive speech here and when he stated, inter alia, that we were abusing religious occasions. If there is one section of the population in South Africa which has used religion for propaganda purposes, it is hon. members opposite and their Press. Ever since the beginning of the war they have done so. “We are fighting the fight of the Godly against the Godless;” that is what we have heard them say, and on every occasion they make use of religion. As regards the other part of his speech, I do not even propose taking notice of it, but I want to tell the hon. member that if he imagines that he will get into favour with the English-speaking section by crawling into their ranks and denouncing his own people in the way he is doing, he is not going to succeed. I want to tell him that I probably have more friends among the English than he has, and that I have been more in touch with the English than he, and I can tell him that the English have no time for a man who fouls his own nest. We also had a speech from the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside), who protested here against the Afrikaans people having dared to hold a meeting at Majuba, that historic place in the history of South Africa. There we have this self-righteousness which we get among our English friends. Yes, they are allowed every year on the 20th October to celebrate the battle of Trafalgar, they are allowed to celebrate the relief of Ladysmith, and although the world war lies twenty years behind us they are allowed every year on the 11th November to celebrate at the various monuments, but if we want to commemorate our own days of remembrance, we are not allowed to do so, we are not allowed to maintain these historic events. I do not know whether the attitude of the hon. member for Umbilo is shared by the English section, but if I am to judge from the articles in the English Press of recent days, such would appear to be the case. [Time limit.]

I want to say that these regulations wich we have before us now, create a very bad taste in the mouths of people outside, and I say so with all due respect. They feel that these regulations are unnecessary. There is no war going on here to-day, the war and the battlefields are thousands of miles away from us, and even there they are not fighting. These regulations are worse than martial law. I would prefer to have martial law here, because these regulations remind me of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. One has only to look at what is going on in the country. People are being persecuted and who is persecuting them? It is the poor type of individual, they crawl in, they make reports, carry news, in order to undermine the livelihood of some of our best men, and that is only the beginning. I want to tell the Minister that the country is at war, and the Government cannot afford to make so many enemies. That side of the House is engaged to-day in making more enemies than they imagine. What struck me yesterday was what happened to the hon. member for Ventersdorp (Col. Jacob Wilkens) — and I do not want to raise the point again—I only want to say this, that to me it is a very sore point that he was forced to leave the House. We were comrades-in-arms in the Anglo-Boer War, we were comrades-in-arms in the world war under Genl. Smuts, and we made great sacrifices. That hon. member was defied and challenged here last night.

Order, order! The hon. member must not discuss that question.

I am sorry, Mr. Chairman, but these regulations are the cause of everything. If these regulations had not been issued this incident would not have occurred.

Order, the hon. member must not refer to it.

What I want to say is that I feel so sore about it that if I were to say what I feel I would not just be put out of the House. I would be driven out. If we remember that an hon. member who has stood by the Prime Minister through thick and thin is ordered out of the House — and the Prime Minister knows it—if the Prime Minister comes here with all his bogeys he is imperilling the peace of South Africa. We have never looked for trouble; the troubles which we have had in the past were never of our making—we were driven into them. The hon. member for Kimberley (District) (Mr. Steytler) laughs, because he is regretting his past, but the rt. hon. the Prime Minister should bear in mind that when the days of trouble and anxiety arrive, very few of his present supporters will stand by him. If he has to rely on the people who are now sitting behind him, all I can say is “God Help the Prime Minister”; on this side of the House, however, there are many who would have stood by him and died for him….

The hon. member must come back to the clause.

I am coming back to this clause which is the rottenest clause imaginable — it irritates one when one thinks of the unnecessary time that is being spent over such absolutely unnecessary things. Let us adopt martial law if it is necessary to do so, let the people be governed by martial law, but to come here and make it appear as if the Government wants to maintain order, is all wrong. The whole position may be abused by elements which are only after money. It is quite clear to me that if danger should arise and South Africa has to be defended, we shall be ready to defend South Africa. Hon. members opposite look at this side of the House with contempt, but I can assure them that we shall defend South Africa much more effectively than they on that side of the House. We are getting tired of the reproaches that are cast at us. We are no longer allowed to remember our history, although any Nation should be proud of its history. Take the Englishman, the Scotsman, the German or the Italian — they are all proud of their history, but we are not even allowed to mention our history. If we mention anything that has occurred in South Africa’s history, we are told that we must not do so — we are called Nazis, and we are told that we are digging up the dead bones of the past, the dead bones of the children who died in the concentration camps, and that we are doing so to make political propaganda. Is it not a disgrace? I have always tried to maintain the dignity of this House, but now that my friend has been thrown out, I find things becoming very difficult for me. I respect the Chair, and the rulings of the Chair, but I feel that the guilty person, who should have been ordered out, is the hon. member who sits on the other side of the House. With all due respect for you, Mr. Chairman, you were not able to hear very clearly, and you were not able to hear all the remarks made by the hon. member. I want to tell the Prime Minister that I am not making any threats, but this is the thing which has hurt me more than anything since I have come into this House for a man to be put out of the House simply because he wanted to promote the interests of South Africa, and our interests. We do not want to promote Germany’s interests. I lived for years among the Germans and I fought for and against them, and, I do not want to be under them. The German only has time for himself — why should we not be allowed to only have time only for ourselves. I know there are many hon. members on the other side who feel exactly as I do, who also want to promote South Africa’s interests, and who, like myself, want to safeguard the future for generations to come. If hon. members opposite continually keep on calling us Nazis, there is a danger that we may eventually actually become Nazis; I have already been called a Malanazi, and now I am called a member of the “Of-Party” — and if that sort of thing continues, and if we are to have a repetition of what happened here last night, the time will come when we shall no longer laugh. Is the Government able to carry on this war if more than half of the people are against it? I want to warn the Prime Minister — he is such a diplomat that he has persuaded and induced hon. members who should be on this side to join him — and we know that he found it quite easy to do so, because we know him, but he cannot deceive the whole of the people. Now I want to say a few words to the hon. member for Krugersdorp and to his leader, the Minister of Labour. I proposed a motion in this House to help the poor people, the submerged section of the population, and that motion was talked out. I want to warn the hon. member that if he digs a hole for someone else he may fall into that hole himself. Those hon. members in the past always tried to defend the rights of minorities, but to-day they are trampling on those rights. I want to tell him this, I know the hon. member but I also know my English friends. I have a great many English friends myself, but the Englishman has no time for the man who tries to curry favour by running down his own people. The Englishman only has time for the man who can stand up for himself.

The Prime Minister has come here to ask for extensive powers in the Proclamations and we, as an Opposition, are not prepared to give him those powers because we are afraid to give the Prime Minister those powers which he is asking us to grant him. If we give these powers to the Prime Minister he will be the dictator; he will, if we approve of these proclamations, exercise full power and he will be able to use his own discretion as to the way in which he shall use his power. He will have unlimited control in the country and we as the Afrikaner people, have had experience of what he does when he uses those powers. He uses these powers not in an impartial manner against the enemies of the country, but he discriminates between the Afrikaans and English-speaking sections of the people. That is what he did in the past. I do not want to refer to his past again, but I only want to give a few instances to shew the manner in which during the last few months he has used his powers in order to discriminate against a section of the population. When he has to take action against the Imperialists he says that he shudders to do anything, then he has not the courage to act against the enemies of South Africa; then he is afraid of a rebellion, and for that reason he refrains from doing anything against that section of the people, but if he can do anything against the Afrikaans-speaking section, he does not hesitate to step in and to take action against that section of the population—he does not hesitate to trample on that section. I want to say this to the Prime Minister—he has shewn by his actions in the past in this country that if he has to do anything against the capitalists and the Imperialists he always hesitates; but he has never hesitated to act against the other section of the people. Against the capitalists and the Jingoes, however, he has never taken action. Since 1912 he has acted in their interests, and the South African Party has also done so. When he had to take action against the Afrikaner he never hesitated to humiliate the Afrikaner, to kick him down, to trample him under foot, to put him into gaol, and to do anything else against him. It is for that reason that outside South Africa he has become world famous as the greatest Imperialist, but he has certainly not become famous among that section of the Afrikaner people from which he hails. And as a result of the arbitrary manner in which he has always acted and continually taken steps to the detriment of the Afrikaans-speaking section of the country, the Afrikaner people in 1924 turned him down and he has never been able, since that time, at any election, to regain the confidence of the Afrikaner people. He had to get back into the Government of this country on the back of the present Leader of the Opposition; and he would not have occupied the Government benches to-day had he not got there on the back of the Leader of the Opposition. He is afraid of going to the country with these proclamations, because he knows that he has not got the confidence of the people. People like the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) and the “Loyal Dutch” will give him their support, but the Afrikaner people will not do so. For that reason he will, while he is sitting on those benches on that side of the House, force these proclamations through with the support of the Imperialists and the “Loyal Dutch” in this House. I wish to quote a few instances to show the way in which the Prime Minister and his Government have been acting in this country. I put a few questions to the Prime Minister which are published on page 25 of the Hansard Report of this year, and I should like to bring those to the notice of the House. I put this question:

1. (1) Whether it has been brought to his notice that the “Children’s Newspaper” of the 4th November, 1939, which circulates among the schools, contained an article, in which (a) the late President Kruger and Gen. Hertzog are described as headstrong autocrats, and Gen. Smuts and Col. Reitz are described as statesmen who are “always getting younger in spirit”? and (b) a neutrality policy for South Africa is described as a cowardly action; and
2. (2) whether he will have an enquiry made and take steps (a) to prevent reading material being spread in our schools belittling and insulting some Afrikaner leaders and praising others; and (b) to instruct the Union Information Offiicer in future to contradict over the wireless such false and unfounded articles.

To these questions the Prime Minister briefly replied “No.” But that same Government of the Prime Minister’s does not hesitate when the Jingo Press starts an agitation to have an immediate enquiry made into the Broadcasting Board, and to try and find out matters in connection with Afrikaners; and when they were unable to get sufficient evidence to kick out Afrikaners employed there, they even had one of these men interned and afterwards had to release him, with the result, however, that he lost his position. But when a great figure in the history of South Africa is involved, when he is stigmatised as I have shewn here, the Prime Minister fails to do anything. I pointed out that a great figure in our history, like President Kruger, was described as a headstrong autocrat, and an enemy of peace, but the Prime Minister refused to do anything in the matter. Am I not entitled therefore to say that the Prime Minister is asking for these powers so that he may discriminate against the Afrikaans-speaking people of South Africa? I want to mention another instance. For many years Mr. Christo Kriel shewed historic pictures dealing with the Second War of Independence. The Prime Minister and his party have now stopped him from doing so. Those pictures have a historic value and everyone of them is true. Why should that man now be prevented from shewing those pictures? The reply given by the Minister of Justice was, “Because it will create enmity.” That is the reason why these pictures were stopped from being shewn. Between 1914 and 1918 he was also stopped from shewing these pictures, and the present Minister of Justice at that time was his advocate. To-day he is the Minister responsible for the department which is stopping the display of these pictures. This shews the manner in which discrimination is being exercised against our people. I also put the following question to the Prime Minister—

In the course of the debate last night at the beginning of the speech by the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg), I made one or two notes on points which I wanted to contradict. You will understand my attitude, Mr. Chairman, if I pass over these remarks of the hon. member’s as though he were not a member of this House. I should like to refer to one or two of the remarks made by the hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. Wallach), as he quoted here from a letter by Dr. Leyds. I want to point out that that letter is evidence of the very thing which we on this side of the House want to prevent. It is because these regulations before us savour so strongly of Hitler that we oppose them. The hon. member quoted that letter in order to accuse this side of the House of being pro-Nazi. If that was not his object, why then did he read the letter? And why did it appear in this morning’s “Cape Times’? Let me warn the hon. member that during the last few weeks a prominent person was given a very rough handling because he, outside this House, said to somebody supporting this side of the House, that he was pro-Nazi. And if those methods are proceeded with in this House, if we are to be accused of being pro-Nazi, hon. members over there will have to stand the consequences. This side of the House is not pro-Nazi, and that is the reason why we oppose these regulations. With all due deference I want to warn the Prime Minister and I want to remind him of the old Afrikaans saying that the Afrikaner people can be led through fire if necessary, but they cannot be driven. The right hon. the Prime Minister has issued these proclamations, he is simply blocking up the safety valve, and in doing so he must realise that there must be an explosion. We do not know where it is going to happen, but we have to see to it that the country shall not be ruled in this manner. Before continuing I want to move the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper, as follows. I move—

1. (2) In respect of regulations promulgated by the proclamations hereunder set out, the following provisions shall apply:
   1. (i) The following regulations promulgated by Proclamation 201, 1939, shall, in respect of any act or omission after the commencement of this Act, be construed as if the words referred to had been omitted:
      1. (a) sub-regulation (1) of regulation 10, the words “published or conveyed in any manner which the chief control officer or the control officer concerned deems most suitable to inform the public in that area”;
      2. (b) paragraphs (a) and (e) of subregulation (1) of regulation 10, the words “imparted under any law” and the word “exclusively”;
      3. (c) sub-regulation (1) of regulation 11, the words “or any specified kind of intoxicating liquor” and the words “or during a specified period in every day of 24 hours”;
   2. (ii) Proclamation 201, 1939, shall, in respect of any act or omission after the commencement of this Act, be construed as if sub-regulation (2) of regulation 9, paragraph (c) of sub-regulation (1) and subregulation (2) of regulation 12, regulation 17, sub-regulation (2) of regulation 18 and sub-regulations (3) and (4) of regulation 20 had been omitted.

We find in the regulations that the chief control officer or any control officer has the power to prohibit certain things by issuing a notice, and there we have the words which I want to see deleted, namely “Published or conveyed in any manner which the chief control officer or the control officer concerned deems most suitable to inform the public in that area.” There is no doubt that it is very dangerous for that person to have the right to issue a notice as he thinks most suitable. He may even go to the extent of pasting that notice at the back of his door and then the public will be expected to know all about it. If we look at Act 27 of 1914 we find it laid down there in what way a notice has to be issued. We find that a magistrate gets certain powers. And then the clause goes on: “A prohibition in accordance with this sub-clause for the holding of a public gathering may be issued: (a) by notice in the Press circulating in the area where the prohibition will apply; (b) by notices distributed among the public and at public buildings, or in prominent public places in that area.” This shows bow notice has to be given and that method should be followed in this proclamation. That method of giving notice has answered well and we should follow it in regard to these regulations, and the publication of these regulations by means of notices of that kind. If that is not done the result may be that inadequate notice will be given and people will be liable to be punished without having had the slightest opportunity of knowing anything about the regulation. In regard to (a) “a gathering held exclusively for the purpose of divine worship in a building ordinarily used for such worship, or for the purpose of instruction imparted under any law” —we notice that such places and such functions are exempted. I assume that the words “instruction imparted under any law” are put there for a certain purpose, but I cannot see what their object is and I move the deletion. It is clear that in many cases instruction is not given under any law. Take my own case. I have often had special classes in the evenings when I have had from 20 to 30 pupils together. These classes were entirely personal and had nothing to do with the law, but under this regulation gatherings of that sort can be prohibited if it is a case of “instruction not being imparted under any law.” I really see no necessity for this, and it is only right that these words should be deleted. These words do not affect the regulation in any way. Then we come to (e) where “gatherings exclusively for the purpose of weddings” are mentioned. The word “exclusively” may have been inserted deliberately and may cause trouble, but I move its deletion. [Time limit.]

When an Afrikaner hears the word “concentration camp” he shudders. We know why. Imperialism and capitalism have created the concentration camps in South Africa. We cannot forget what happened in the Boer War. In that war hundreds and thousands of women and children were murdered on behalf of capitalism. Our present Prime Minister in those days was a great opponent of concentration camps, but in 1914 we find that that same old Boer hero—and I give him the credit that up to 1910 he deserved the gratitude of the Afrikaner people—but in 1914 that same old Boer hero dragged us into a bloody war assisted by Imperialism and Capitalism. The same man who in days gone by fought so hard against concentration camps, and against Imperialism and Capitalism, has now introduced the concentration camps here under the Imperialistic system. One would have imagined that the Prime Minister, after 1918, having got a little older, would again have stood by his Afrikaner people. For six years we really thought that he would do so, but what happened on the 4th September, 1939? On that date that same old Boer general stabbed his leader in the back, and brought about a coup d’etat and on that occasion he cast us back into the Imperialistic channels and now he comes along with his concentration camps. What are those concentrations camps to-day? He has already caught all the Germans and he has put them in the camps, and now our Afrikaners are also to be put into the camps. He has appointed his Gestapo, he sends out his spies to trap his own people, and to get them into the camps. But what do we find even further than that? This same Imperialist is now causing further aggression to take place. In 1914 we committed an act of aggression. It is no use our blaming others.

Who is it to-day who is responsible for this act of aggression? That same Boer general who fought so assiduously against it in the past. He is busy doing the same thing today as he did in 1914. I can see only one object in what he is doing—there has to be more looting and the Imperialists have to be made richer, and the poor man still poorer, and the poor man is to allow his children to be shot down so as to promote Imperialism. There is only one country here in Africa where we can be used for the purpose of waging war, and that is Abyssinia. I can see no other possibility. Our children are to be sent to the north to sacrifice themselves for the sake of Imperialism, for the sake of that godless ideal. And what we have placed before us now is a set of regulations for the new Gestapo. I said on a previous occasion that the hon. the Minister of Defence need not stand back for Stalin or any other dictator. Our dictator has now appointed his Gestapo and now he also wants to incorporate his followers on the other side of the House into his Gestapo. I must say that we are not really scared of that section of his Gestapo because the great majority of them are only weaklings and they will make a very poor show. Let us take, for instance, the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge). If the Minister of Defence is suddenly going to turn us all into Germans and if he sends the hon. member for Troyeville along, what is going to happen? The Minister of Defence may make a German of a farmer if he wants to catch him, and then he may send his Gestapo commandant, the hon. member for Troyeville, to the poor farmer’s farm. I am not nervous of the farmer getting scared, but I know that the dog will get scared and run away with his tail between his legs, or the cat will clear off and the bull will bellow. But I want to get back to Afrikaners who foul their own nests, like the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg). English-speaking members sat here with a smile on their faces while that so-called Afrikaner, that renegade Afrikaner, was busy dragging down all that is sacred to the Afrikaner. He spoke against our Churches, our monuments, our most sacred days, such as Dingaan’s Day. I know that the English-speaking section, among whom there are decent people, would never degrade themselves to do a thing like that, but they have to get an Afrikaner to do their dirty and foul work for them. Our friend here (Col. Jacob Wilkens) was ordered out of the House on account of that, but let me tell hon. members opposite that our friend here has the soul of the Afrikaner which they cannot take away. All the oppression and all the regulations and all these Gestapo methods are not going to change the soul of the Afrikaner. Of that I can assure hon. members. But now I want to say a word or two to the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Bumside). He tried to ridicule the 500,000 poor white Afrikaners. Who, is responsible for these 500,000 poor whites, who is responsible for their becoming poor whites? Were not these people the pioneers who made this a country fit to live in for the exploiters who came after them and who made them poor — the Imperialists and the Jingoes? Is it not the old pioneers who enabled these people to get into the positions in which they are to-day? And what gratitude is being shown to them? What thanks do they get from the Jewish population? The Jews must not forget that they came with their packs on their backs to the homesteads of the farmers. The old Boers used to say that they were God’s chosen people, so they received them hospitably. The Englishman said: “Let the dirty Jews sleep in the stable.” I warn them, with their Imperialism and their hatred of Germany, it will redound upon their own heads. The hon. member spoke sneeringly about the 500,000 poor white Afrikaners. We are not ashamed of them. While we want to uplift them hon. members opposite want them to deteriorate still further. But that will mean the end of Imperialism and capitalism. The Afrikaner has been a slave in his own country quite long enough. We talk of the slave days, but in the slave days a slave still had the chance of getting a decent master and he was allowed to be part of the home. But what are our people to-day? They have to work for the capitalists and the Imperialists. They have to sacrifice their health in the mines so that a rich man may get richer at the expense of the blood of the Afrikaners, of the 500,000 whom the hon. member spoke so sneeringly about to-day. This war is not going to continue for ever. Those 500,000 will rise like one man and they will declare that they are tired of Imperialism and capitalism and exploitationism, and they will say that this is their country, and they are going to see to it that it remains their country. Every attempt that is being made here to, hurt us is a nail in the coffin of Imperialism. [Time limit.]

We have heard a great many allegations and insinuations from the other side of the House. I listened, for instance, to the hon. member for Bloemfontein (South) (Mr. Haywood) who made insinuations against the honour and righteousness of the Prime Minister. Let me give a word of advice to the hon. member: He who lives in a glass house should not throw stones; and let me tell him that the Prime Minister has never yet been sentenced in a court of law of this country as the hon. member has been. I would not show my face in this House and make those insinuations if I were in his place. We have heard talk here of a dictatorship. I want to tell hon. members on the other side of the House that these regulations were brought before this House with the approval of the party. The Prime Minister, at least, had the decency to approach his party and consult them in respect of these regulations. As long ago as the 5th September, before we left the Cape, after the split which occurred last year, the Prime Minister consulted us in caucus and these regulations were brought before the House with the approval of the whole party and with our approval. Consequently there is no, question of a dictatorship; we have our leader and our diplomatic leader here. Comments were also made on the speech by the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg).

You want to defend him?

He is quite able to defend himself, but none the less I regard it as my duty to say a few words on that particular point. He is now called every name under the sun. Hon. members opposite accuse him of having exploited the Church, Dingaan’s Day and Afrikaans culture. Those insinuations are uncalled for. The hon. member for Krugersdorp said that cultural societies and Dingaan’s Day celebrations and the churches of the country were being exploited by individual members of the party sitting on the other side of the House, and I say the same. I want to ask hon. members to answer this question: What happened at the monument on the 9th September? What occurred there was no more sacred than the speeches made in this House by hon. members. Hon. members cannot deny that Prof. Van Rooy of Potchefstroom stated there, “Now is the time to proclaim a republic,” and he made that statement amid the applause of that side of the House.

Nonsense!

I should like to quote to the House what the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog) said last year….

You repudiate your past and now you are trying to blot your past.

I am pleased to hear the hon. member admit that I have a past, which is more than he has. Let me remind the House of what the hon. member for Smithfield said. The hon. member for Smithfield is a member for whom we all have the greatest respect, and this is what he said of the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan)—

The hon. member for Smithfield refers here to the hon. member for Piquetberg, and he goes on to say—

Your neck is almost red.

No, my neck is not red, but the neck of the hon. member for Wodehouse (Mr. S. Bekker) has no colour at all. His colour is still quite unknown to us. What I quoted here shews that the hon. member for Smithfield admits that certain persons and bodies belonging to the party to which hon. members opposite belong, have exploited cultural matters for political purposes. That sort of thing is a disgrace, and for that reason I consider hon. members opposite should refrain from making any insinuations against members on this side of the House, because they feel that they are also Afrikaners, and also have an interest in Afrikaner culture. We have also had some remarks made here about Jonkheer Van Lennep, the representative of the German race in this country.

No, he is the representative of Holland.

After having made an investigation Jonkheer Van Lennep declared himself to be completely satisfied with conditions prevailing in the camps, but I should like to point this out, that not only have hon. members individually abused our cultural festivities, but the same thing has also been done in some of the schools of this country. It has actually happened that a teacher has let the children vote on the question of neutrality.

What is wrong with that?

It is most reprehensible. Do hon. members agree to politics being dragged into the schools in that way?

At which school did that happen?

The Volkskool at Potchefstroom, and the teacher was a Mr. Roos. Is that clear enough now? But we need not go as far as that. Here in Cape Town in one of the Afrikaans medium schools on every second bench large swastikas were cut out.

What school was that?

If my information is correct, it was the Jan van Riebeeck school.

Nonsense! You should rather see to it, before you say a thing like that, that your information is correct.

hon. members cannot expect us to be satisfied if those sort of things are allowed to go on in this country, and I go further and I say that the son of one of the leaders on that side of the House who was with the Voortrekker procession, as part of his Voortrekker costume, wears a ring holding his tie together, and on that wooden ring swastikas are cut out all round.

[Inaudible.]

I did not have to grow a beard in order to show that I was an Afrikaner — and then shave it off again after the election. The hon. member over there (Mr. Olivier) grew a terrible beard at Kuruman, but there is no need for me to grow a beard to show that I am an Afrikaner. Now I want to come to another point. The hon. member for Pretoria (District) (Mr. Oost) made a great’ noise here about the appointments of officers in the Defence Force. He raised strong objections and said that the Prime Minister had admitted that before they joined they were asked whether they approved of the Government’s policy. I am quite in agreement with that being done, and so is the party. Are we to allow people, for instance, like the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Tom Naudé) to join up, people who say that they would rather be under Hitler than under the Prime Minister?

That is not correct.

That is what the hon. member stated.

Are you making those statements because you want a job?

I have my own job, and my job is not one of looking after inherited sheep.

I must ask the hon. member to show a greater sense of responsibility.

I am sorry you object, Mr. Chairman, but if my hon. friend says I want a job. I want to say that I do not need a job. My job is to look after the interests of South Africa, and I am doing so by supporting the Prime Minister in his war policy which I regard as the best policy for South Africa.

The hon. member for North East Rand (Mr. Heyns) stated here that the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Tom Naudé) had said that he would rather be under Hitler than under the Prime Minister, and despite the fact that the hon. member for Pietersburg denied having said so, the hon. member again repeated his assertion. If hon. members will look at Hansard, they will see that the statement made by the hon. member for North East Rand is not correct. Hon. members will see that the hon. member for Pietersburg said that if the Prime Minister persisted with the measures before the House he would rather be under a Hitler than under the Prime Minister. My hon. friend for North East Rand also made certain charges against the churches and the schools.

On a point of order, the hon. member says that I have made a charge against the church—that is not so.

The charge made by the hon. member was that the churches were being misused for propaganda purposes. I only want to tell the hon. member….

Order! There is so much noise that I cannot hear a word.

I want to tell the hon. member that our churches keep the conscience of the people awake; his protests are useless—the conscience of the people is not going to be smothered.

I think the hon. member should get back to the vote now.

It is strange that South Africa seems to be the only country in the world which has no borders. When I addressed the House on a previous occasion during this debate, I asked the Prime Minister to tell us how far I would have to go and fight to defend our country. I myself and other members here are prepared to shed the last drop of our blood in the defence of our country, but we have had the astounding statement here, made by the highest authority in the land, made by the Prime Minister, that South Africa has no boundaries. He has told us that our borders are elastic. But, surely, our people should know how far we have to go, how far our forces may be expected to go to defend our country? It is argued that we have territories here which have been stolen by Great Britain—territories like Rhodesia and other parts, and now we have to go and defend them. I am quite prepared to defend South Africa, but I am not prepared to take up arms as the defender of territories belonging to Great Britain. We have always been told that Great Britain protects us, but it now appears to me that the boot is on the other foot, and that we are now to be called upon to defend Great Britain’s territories. And now I want to put this question to the hon. member: Let us assume that Germany wins this war, and that in ten years time some other country comes along to attack Germany—do hon. members hold that they will then be expected to come to the aid of Germany? That, in fact, is what is expected of us. We are expected to do this impossible thing—we, we Afrikaners, are expected to go and guard England’s territories. No, Mr. Chairman, South Africa has not yet forgotten its sorrows. The poet rightly says, “Never can we forget our sorrows, the barren graves tell us to remember and not to forget.” And I want to put this question to the Prime Minister: Has he no feeling left for his people? Has he forgotten his history? Does he want the Afrikaner people once again to walk the Via Dolorosa? Are the Afrikaans mothers who, God knows, have had to bear many sorrows, to have their wounds open again, wounds which have not yet healed? Have those wounds to be reopened by their sons being killed for the sake of the British Empire? We know that the Prime Minister stated that he would not send anybody overseas, but in spite of his assurance we hear that 150 of our young men have now gone to join the British Navy, and the Prime Minister tells us that this was done without his consent. Did those young fellows, when they joined, know what they would have to do? I am astounded to hear the Prime Minister say that they went voluntarily, but that none the less we have to pay for them. Has the Prime Minister no sense of responsibility towards South Africa? South Africa will call him to account. I have a letter here from a mother in my constituency in which she tells me that an officer told her son that he was compelled to sign a certain form and that they would call the police in if he did not sign that form. When that mother went to town and tried to get her son away from the military forces, they threatened that they would put her into the camp. She tried in vain to get her son released, and then we are told that there is no compulsion. I am assured that three young fellows belonging to the other side of the House have been exempted. I must say that the Prime Minister has strayed rather far from the policy of the United Party. He has the Minister of Labour sitting by his side, and the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) is with him, and the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) is also on that side of the House. They are communists. The hon. member for Umbilo is a Red Communist, and the Communists preach the doctrine of the anti-Christ. I have here a book by Yeates Brown, an Englishman, who writes about Communism, and on page 310 of his book he says—

The hon. member for Umbilo is a Red Communist. The Minister of Labour praises Russia, and they are on the Government side —the Government which is supposed to be engaged in the defence of Christian principles. And they, the Minister of Labour and his followers, while they who are on the Government side, are out to undermine Christianity, and to put an end to it. I should like to make a further quotation from this book. The writer quotes the opinion here of a prominent and travelled American journalist, and this is what he says—

It was the Russians who took part in the Spanish War. The hon. member for Umbilo is an out and out anarchist, yet he gets up in this House and criticises us because of the fact that our people celebrate and have a procession to a place like Majuba. I say, “Thank God for Majuba,” and I want to tell hon. members over there that ahead of them there is a second Majuba. The hon. member for Krugersdorp rose here to speak, and as a champion of Christianity he supported the Government. Have we ever seen greater hypocrisy? Now I wish to revert to the disturber of the peace from Springs, and in this connection I wish to quote from Regulation No. 12, “Incitement to resist,” and this regulation says that a person shall be liable to punishment if he aggravates feelings of hostility among the public, or part of the public, or person, or a category of persons. [Time limit.]

I have not intervened in this debate up to the present time, but after listening to some of the remarks of my hon. friends on the opposite benches I do feel that it is time that some of us gave an expression of opinion on what we think about some of those remarks.

If that is all you have to say….

You know, Mr. Speaker, I was always taught that the first duty of an Opposition was constructive criticism to help and see that the Government made good laws.

Do you think there is any possibility of doing it?

Not from you. If there is anyone in this coutry who can say that the Opposition has this session attempted to carry out that duty they must be as mad as the gentlemen to whom the Minister of Labour referred last night.

What did he say?

When I think of the attitude of some of the hon. gentlemen and their remarks, particularly their remarks to the Prime Minister, I feel ashamed to think that men can come to this House and waste their time in such a manner as they are doing here.

You are wasting our time.

They attempt to try and show the country that the Prime Minister is leading the country to destruction.

Worse than that.

They know it is not true, and some of them in their hearts know that the Prime Minister is leading this country on the only road to safety.

Safety so far as you are concerned.

I say that deliberately. They know that in their hearts, and that accounts for some of the bitterness in their hearts. When I listened and heard some of the expressions and particularly the expressions coming from the hon. member for Bloemfontein (District) (Mr. Haywood), I felt ashamed. Those remarks reminded me of some of the stories which I heard of jackals howling at the lion. That is the only analogy I can make in regard to the situation which we have here. It is also very remarkable that a few days ago public enemy No. 1 as looked at from the eyes of the Opposition members was the Dominion Party, particularly the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick), but that seems to have died a sudden death.

Because he swallowed you.

Possibly they have exhausted the argument in the same way as they seem to have exhausted so many other things, except bitterness and vituperation, but strangly enough to-day public enemy No. 1 is the Labour Party, or as those people love to term them „die Kommuniste”.

Is, that the only Afrikaans you know?

What does it mean?

If it were not so nauseating, it would be very funny. But when a man hears things which make him feel that he wants to vomit, he cannot laugh.

That is how you make us feel.

And when we hear some of these remarks from that side of the House they give me that nauseating feeling.

What a nauseating speech.

The hon. member for Wodehouse said “what a nauseating speech”. I am quite prepared to accept that from him because if any member in this House knows anything at all about things that are nauseating he is an expert. He made one the other day when he spoke about Port Elizabeth, and had I been present I would given him something which would have made him feel nauseated. Now, the main opposition to these war measures is that the Opposition consider that the regulations are not necessary. They are not required. The ordinary laws of the country can deal with any contingency that comes along, even in such times as we are passing through at present.

Quite right.

Yes, they feel that the Prime Minister does not require any special regulations to enable him to control any particular contingency or situation which may arise in this country, although we are in a state of war.

Who says so?

That of course, some of my hon. friends over there cannot conceive — they cannot conceive of any state of war unless they see someone running round with a bloody nose.

Tut, tut, you should say sanguinary.

Well, it sounds nicer.

Just call it what you like, it does not matter.

As I was going to say, we are told that these regulations are not necessary, particularly those regulations which make it possible for people to be interned….

Like the brothers Arndt.

We have heard statements made in this House recently which I am not going to say they are absolutely untrue….

Of course not, you cannot say they are untrue.

But are not borne out by fact. They cannot be verified. We even had the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) make a comparison between our internment camps and the black hole of Calcutta. That might go down all right in the backveld.

What do you know about the backveld?

But when we have the Union Officer of Health of this country presenting a report which gives a totally different impression of the conditions of the internment camps to that conveyed by the hon. member for Piquetberg, I know whom I am going to believe. I am going to believe those people who occupy official positions, who made investigations, and who are in a position to verify the statements which we have heard here. I am prepared to believe them, and to place reliance upon their words rather than on the statements of people who only speak from hearsay, and who, if they have any evidence at all, only have the evidence which they have obtained from the internees. Now, another point I want to make about not requiring regulations is this: We see in the Press this morning that there has been an interference with members of the Defence Force at P.P. Rust. We find that several young men who unfortunately have listened to inciting language such as we hear here, from the Opposition benches. [Time limit.]

I have an amendment on the Order Paper in my name. I do not propose moving No. (1) but I should like to move the balance of my amendment now. I move—

1. (2) In respect of the regulations promulgated by the Proclamations hereunder set out, the following provisions shall apply:
   1. (i) Sub-regulation (5) of regulation 15 of Proclamation 201, 1939, shall, in respect of any act or omission after the commencement of this Act, be construed as if the words “or confinement in such a room, building or locality, in company with others or apart from any other person for a period not exceeding twenty-one days” had been omitted.
   2. (ii) Sub-regulation (2) of regulation 17 of Proclamation 201, 1939, shall, in respect of any act or omission after the commencement of this Act, be construed as if the words “or to both such fine and imprisonment” had been omitted.

In support of this amendment I wish to point out that in the preceding portion of sub-section (5) provision is made for fourteen days imprisonment with hard labour, or a fine of £10 0s. 0d., or confinement in a room in a building for ten days. That to my mind is sufficiently drastic. But now the Minister wants to go further and wants to impose an even more severe punishment. It appears to me that he wants to drive people mad because he wants to have the right to lock a man up in a room for twenty-one days. If a man is locked up in a room for twenty-one days, he will be a wreck and a lunatic when he comes out. I hope the Prime Minister, who himself knows what conditions were in the Boer War, and who knows the way in which people were persecuted, will realise that this is going too far, and I trust he will not insist on the twenty-one days, but will accept my amendment. Then I come to my next amendment, sub-regulation (2) of regulation 17 of Proclamation No. 201 of 1989. I here move the abolition of the double fine. I want to point out that here again drastic penalties are provided for offences under the sub-regulation, namely a fine not exceeding £200 or imprisonment for one year; but again the Minister is not satisfied with one of the two, both penalties may be imposed, imprisonment as well as a fine. These methods are beyond me, especially coming from the Minister of Defence. I think of the days when he, accompanied by a certain Wilkens, trekked through the districts of Ladismith and Oudtshoorn. I am quite convinced that on that occasion they had neither money nor food; they were dependent on the friendship and hospitality of the inhabitants of the district. On their heels were English colonels with their bastard commandoes, but he was too clever for them. So they were left behind, and they gave up the chase, but they thereupon imprisoned and put in gaol the civil population, and what did they do in addition? I remember my own neighbour, Dirk van Schalkwyk. They sent those people to Victoria West. Dirk van Schalkwyk was sent there and not only did he get six months in gaol, but he was also fined £300. The Prime Minister, knows that these things were done, and I cannot understand his now coming along after all these years and wanting to impose double punishment. In those days he fought like an Afrikaner, yet he is now coming along with these drastic proposals. I hope the hon. the Minister will withdraw the fine. It is quite enough to have a man locked up. And now I want to say a few words about the speech made by the member for North East Rand (Mr. Heyns). He talked about people digging up the past. My advice to him is to look into his own past — that will give him enough food for thought. It is no use calling each other names; I am quite convinced that all of us deeply deplore last night’s incident. Our feelings were running high at the time, but we are calmer now, and I believe that all of us regret what took place, and not the least among those who regret what took place are the Chairman and the Prime Minister. If they could undo what was done here yesterday they would be only too pleased. The hon. member for Krugersdorp last night tried to make an onslaught on the sacred things of the Afrikaner, and he tried by doing so to drag them through the mud. He started sneering at the Afrikaner’s religion and in doing so he cut off his own nose to spite his face. If one starts washing one’s dirty washing in public one must realise that one’s own misdeeds will also be shouted out from the housetops.

Some months ago the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog) from his then lofty position of Prime Minister of the Union delivered himself of the statement that there was nothing he despised more — and I want you to mark the terms, Mr. Chairman — there was nothing he despised more than the predikants turned politicians. At the time I imagined it was an exaggeration in the best hon. member’s style. Having listened to the speech of the hon. member for Potgietersrust (Rev. S. W. Naudé) I am satisfied that the hon. member for Smithfield was speaking no more than the truth, and that his stricture on predikants turned politicians was a correct one. I find it very difficult to-day to understand how the hon. member for Smithfield can ally himself with those selfsame predikants turned politicians whom he despised only a few short months ago. I think if the hon. member sat down and reviewed the position seriously to-day, he would find himself despising them a great deal more than ever he did. The hon. member for Potgietersrust was at great pains to show that the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Madeley) the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. Van den Berg) and myself were communists. That is not a criticism which worries us very much, although, in passing, I might say that we were not, and never have been, communists. But the most extraordinary thing is to find that this new party which goes under two different names at various times is allying itself with Herr Hitler who is allying himself with the communists. So that we have the unholy Trinity of Hitler, Stalin and Malan, a combination of Hitler, Stalin and Malan. It is enough to make the angels weep. I do not propose to follow the hon. member for Potgietersrust in his mental gymnastics, but I say this, and I want to emphasise it as often as possible, that the hon. member for Krugersdorp has spoken none too early. I am amazed to find that these apostles of the Christian religion who, at one time, held themselves up to be the spiritual leaders of the people, are to-day indulging in this fight, this bitter policy of hatred which, in the long run, can only bring this country into the turmoil of a civil war. I am sometimes persuaded to think that they have taken to politics because their congregations have turned them up. I want to emphasise again the point of view I spoke on yesterday. I was endeavouring to show yesterday in so far from these emergency regulations being unnecessary, they are in fact necessary and they have not been imposed in the manner that they should be imposed. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. Johnson) has drawn attention to the strictures passed on certain people in the Potgietersrust district who are, no doubt, suffering under the benign theological influence of the hon. member who has just spoken. I ask why not come out into the open and face the public, instead of adopting this low, mean and underhand method of threatening men who have joined the Active Citizens Force? I am glad that the magistrate made the outspoken comments on the matter that he did. I want to raise, apropos of the necessity for the regulations, the question of the action of the hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) at a meeting the other day in Malmesbury. Perhaps the House will remember that the Defence Force authorities had arranged for a march past in several of the country towns in an effort to recruit people in the country towns. The Malan Party decided to hold a meeting in Malmesbury the night before the march past took place, and the hon. member for Boshof, who is a member of this House, and a responsible individual, made it his business in Malmesbury to make a speech, in which he not only exhorted the young men not to join the Defence Force, but threatened them that their names would become known to the Nationalist Party and terrible things would happen to them if they did join.

Nonsense.

It is not nonsense. I say that here is a deliberate and traitorous act perpetrated by an hon. member of this House once his country is at war. Does the hon. member not realise that the armed forces of the state are the very foundation of the state, and when you tamper with the armed forces, and when you endeavour to preach sedition amongst the armed forces, and endeavour to bring the armed forces into a state whereby they are no longer any use, you are in effect tampering with the very foundations of the state itself. When such an action is embarked upon by an hon. member of this House, elected under the principles of democracy, and who ostensibly accepts the principles of democracy, and who comes to this House and swears an oath— never mind what his attitude is to the King—and swears an oath to stand by the state and at the same time indulges in deliberate and traitorous activities against the state, I contend it is time….

On a point of order, is the hon. member entitled to allege that another hon. member has committed high treason. I should like to have your ruling.

The hon. member must withdraw.

No, sir, I am sorry but I am speaking about facts.

Order, order.

There is only one chairman here.

The hon. member must withdraw that term in which he accuses an hon. member of this House of being a traitor.

I did not say “traitor.” I said he indulges in traitorous things.

That is the same thing.

That is my reading of it.

It has got under your skin, has it?

You have no skin. You have a hide, not a skin.

The hon. member must withdraw.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to have Mr. Speaker’s ruling on the subject.

The hon. member must withdraw, otherwise he must leave the Chamber.

Mr. Chairman….

Order.

Are you the Chairman? I want to ask you, sir, if I may have Mr. Speaker’s ruling as to my reference to traitorous activities, and the matter is on record that the hon. member did indulge in, and did make such suggestions to the people at Malmesbury. It is almost a matter of the privilege of this House.

I would point out that the Chairman is responsible for keeping order in the Committee, and the hon. member must submit to the Chairman’s ruling.

In the circumstances, sir, I will withdraw, but that is how it appeals to me.

Has it been unconditionally withdrawn? He states that that is what he meant.

Do not distort.

I shall be pleased if the hon. member will keep quiet. The hon. member said “that is how it appeals to me.” In other words, he said that is what he thinks.

That is a conditional withdrawal, and it must be an unconditional withdrawal.

I withdraw, sir, but that is how it appeals to everybody outside the precincts of this House. That is how it appeals to people who have spoken to me.

I only want to ask, whether it does not amount to this, that the hon. member is trifling with the Chair. That actually is what he is doing?

The hon. member must withdraw unconditionally.

I withdraw unconditionally, and I express regret that anything I have said has got under the tender skins of these people who go about from village to village spreading this poison. At one time I was inclined to take them seriously, and when they talked about fighting for a republic and about giving a lead and various other things, I thought they were men with a bit of guts. I find now when one has been trying to draw attention to the very things that they have been doing, they cut up rough. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Burnside) who has just spoken, has made insinuations against this side of the House. I only want to say this to him: we accept those insinuations as coming from someone who landed here as a stranger who had become undesirable in his own country. I want the hon. member to cast his mind back a little and remember his own attitude and actions only a few months ago on the Parade in the presence of natives and coloured people, when he made the most sandalous insinuations against the Government, and against the Prime Minister who is now sitting in front of him. I would be ashamed of myself if I were in his place to give expression to the views which he gave expression to this afternoon. I want to tell the Prime Minister that it is the type of man like the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) who so far has always been responsible for the troubles and difficulties which we have had in this country between the two races. We have a whole series of regulations before us now which have been proclaimed but which are not justified by the conditions prevailing in this country. The Prime Ministed has had no cause at all for anticipating any disorders to arise from the side of the Afrikaans-speaking section of the population. On the contrary, we have only had sneering insults and challenges from hon. members like the hon. member who has just spoken, and from those whom they represent. In this regulation new offences are being created which will simply be instigated by people of the mentality of the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) under the regulations, and I can give the Prime Minister the assurance that the Afrikaans section of the population, against whom these regulations have apparently been drafted, will not be responsible for any disorders. I want to warn him, however, that if imported people, like the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo), talk as the hon. member has been doing, he (the Prime Minister) will have to watch out lest they start causing difficulties. So far there has been no war in South Africa; we have had nothing beyond people playing at soldiers, and the public has had to pay for it. Until such time as conditions become so dangerous that it will be necessary to take action, regulations of this kind can only have one aim and object, namely to stir up strife in this country. I wish to conclude by saying that if there is one member in this House who deserves the contempt of every Afrikaner, it is the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo), who, has just spoken.

Like my hon. friend on my left, I have not taken any previous part in this debate, but I have listened very carefully to the various arguments put forward as to why the Prime Minister and the Government should not have brought forward these regulations which we are now asked to agree to. I have been very disappointed, because I expected that the Opposition, strengthened by men of the calibre of those who have been Ministers in the previous government, would show a higher degree of responsibility than the present Opposition has shown. Speaking as a younger member I realise that each and every one of us in this House has a very deep responsibility to our country, particularly at the present time. Everything we say in this House should be weighed carefully, and every thought we have should be examined, and we should not give voice to opinions without being Quite sure in our own minds that we are saying things which are really in the best interests of our country. I have tried to examine the speeches of the Opposition on that basis, and I must say I have failed to find any instance of real, genuine appreciation of the position as it is to-day, and a full sense of that responsibility which I feel, and the country feels, the Opposition should show.

You are talking with your tongue in your cheek.

Don’t be silly.

The hon. member who made that remark judges others by himself. Ï have never said anything in this House that I did not sincerely believe, and I can say that quite honestly.

Then you are more gullible than you look.

I have never made any statement which I am not prepared to back up at any time. We have heard from the last speaker and from the Opposition generally, that these measures were unnecessary, because nothing has happened in the immediate present to necessitate their being carried out. Surely the hon. member does not expect that we should first wait till the enemy is practically at our gates before we take the necessary steps to protect ourselves. Every regulation that has been put forward so far has been in the interests of the state.

Why have they never been used so far?

The hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow), if he were in the position of the Prime Minister to-day, would not only have passed similar regulations, but probably very much more stringent ones.

Much better ones, anyway.

I am also certain that if the same hon. gentlemen had been standing behind the hon. member for Gezina, they would have given him the support for his regulations which to-day they are denying to these. They know in their heart of hearts that these regulations are absolutely necessary. I go further and I say, speaking from my own point of view, that I think they do not go far enough. I am only sorry that I have not got some power to-day, because I can assure hon. members opposite that these regulations would have been very much more stringent than they are already. The first thing I would do would be to, have conscription in this country, and the first members I would send away to fight….

You would stay at home.

The first members I would send away would be some of the Opposition. What a wonderful force we should have! We might have the hon. member for Gezina leading that force, and with his wide knowledge of military affairs he would make a wonderful leader. Then we would have the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) to cover our retreat. He would be a very fine acquisition to that force. The Government has made it very clearly understood that South Africa will not send troops outside except they are volunteers, outside the actual boundaries of South Africa. I would not, however, send these volunteers away. These men are the cream of South Africa, the flower of South Africa: these are the real South Africans, the men who are prepared to sacrifice everything and volunteer for service in the defence of their country. It would be the others who would have to go, and we could very well afford to lose them. I feel that we are in duty bound, everyone of us, to face up to things as they are, and I say quite definitely that hon. members opposite are not doing that. I can see many directions in which the Opposition might show their real value to South, if they have any. One is by not trying to jettison every measure that this Government brings forward, by not coming here with obstructive criticism, but by pointing out to the Government in what way it is falling short of what is required to bring our efforts to a successful issue If I might make a suggestion to hon. members opposite, they might look into the question as to how South Africa, in the event of this war being a protracted one, how it is going to be successfully financed. I believe we are going to see a tremendous economic change throughout the world, a tremendous change in our present ideas of what constitutes the best economic system for the various countries in the world. There will have to be a tremendous readjustment, and I think even now is the time to start thinking about these things. Therefore, if a backbencher might venture to give them a little advice, I would ask them to start considering how they can best help to rebuild from the ruins which undoubtedly will be created during the present war. I have heard hon. members over there speaking about their freedom. To-day, under our democratic system they are permitted to voice their views freely throughout the country, and in this House, and I would remind those hon. gentlemen that that freedom was secured for them during the last war, that was secured for them by South Africans who went to fight in the last war. Those men were responsible for the recognition of South Africa, and her present status. Nobody can deny that. The hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. Bekker) says that the Prime Minister has dragged this country into the mud. The hon. member knows a lot about wool, and I am now forced to the conclusion that his head is full of wool.

You ought to be a judge of that.

I hope the time will come when we South Africans will again be able to volunteer for service overseas. I would like to see the flag of South Africa on the battlefields of Europe, and South Africans standing side by side with troops from Australia, New Zealand and Canada…

What is holding you back?

… doing their part to safeguard our freedom and to uphold the prestige and honour of our country.

I wish to associate myself with the protest against the insinuations made by the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) against the member for Mossel May (Dr. Van Nierop). The hon. member for Umbilo knows definitely that what he has stated in this House is completely devoid of all truth. He has been imagining these things himself, and I can assure hon. members that there is no vestige of truth in them. The hon. member for Umbilo last night made allegations against the Afrikaans-speaking section of the community, and we object most strongly to those allegations. Is he a stranger in Jerusalem, is he unaware of the cause of the poverty among the half million Afrikaners? Does he not know that those 500,000 Afrikaners are being exploited in the most scandalous manner, and have been robbed of their possessions? And not only has the Afrikaans section of the community been robbed of all its possession, but it has been robbed of its independence, of its land, the land belonging to it, the land for which it has shed its blood. And yet Afrikanerdom has to be content. I listened to what was being said here, when insinuations were being made against those peaceful and religious oudstryders who have met together at Majuba. I have the honour of being the son of a man who fought at Majuba, and he often told me of the honourable and just battle which had been fought there; so why should we not be entitled to celebrate the occasion? Do we in any way object to our English-speaking friends celebrating their great events? We have never raised any objections, we welcome their doing so; let them honour their victories, even if these victories were achieved at our expense. But give us the right, too, to celebrate the victories achieved by us in the past, give us the right to remember the occasions, and be proud of them. Unfortunately our English-speaking friends never want to be told, never want to hear, that they too have been defeated occasionally. They have been victorious everywhere in the last thousand years, and they hate the thought of having been defeated on the fields of battle sometimes. They have been beaten repeatedly here in South Africa. South Africa reached its highwater mark in the Boer War. A handful of Boers took up arms against a powerful country, just as Finland to-day is defending herself against the mighty Communist State of Russia, and Afrikanerdom achieved glory throughout the world by its great battle. Do not let us begrudge Finland its glory to-day, neither let us begrudge Afrikanerdom its glory, seeing that it kept England at bay and defeated England on many an occasion during the Boer War. Allegations have been made here, and an attack has been made here on our religion. The Afrikaner has a very soft spot in his heart for his religion, and it is most reprehensible for hon. members opposite to try and hurt the Afrikaner on the question of his religion. I am sorry to see the hon. member for Umbilo leave the House. If I think of Russia, which is busy burning down churches and murdering thousands of parsons, and committing untold atrocities, that hon. member cannot argue away the fact that he is a member of the party which rules Russia, and that he would be more at home in the councils of Stalin than in this House. He undoubtedly is a menace to our community and if there is one person who should have been interned, it is he and no one else. I now come to the regulations ad the proclamations which are before us. We are made to believe that a state of emergency prevails in this country and we hear the loud noise of the fire alarm, but we ask very coolly “where is the fire”? We know that these emergency measures are aimed at this side of the House; but where is the emergency and where is the fire? We have definitely decided not to lend ourselves to any rising or any disorder in this country. We have had experience of that sort of thing, and we are determined to achieve our object along constitutional lines. I fear that the right hon. the Prime Minister does not like the constitutional course and that he wants to try to drive this side to a course which may lead to very serious consequences. I shall be pleased and we shall greatly appreciate it if this amendment can be agreed to. If the Prime Minister could see his way to accept it it would meet our objections to a very great extent, and it would have a definite reassuring effect on our minds, not merely so far as this side of the House is concerned but it will also have a reassuring effect on the minds of the people outside. I say that discrimination is being exercised in this regulation against the Afrikaans-speaking section of the population. This is a proposal which we can definitely describe as autocratic and dictatorial. The Minister of Defence is really going further than even a Hitler would go — we could even compare him to a Stalin. No, I feel that the Minister of Defence in coming forward with a proposal of this kind could even teach a Stalin how to humiliate a people and how to degrade it. We feel deeply hurt at having regulations of this kind proposed at a time when we are living here peacefully, and at a time when we are trying to create a feeling of confidence in the heart of the Prime Minister. We know that he trusts the Afrikaner. He knows that we shall not resort to any rebellious acts, or to any revolt. May I say here that even the bodyguard of the Prime Minister in Pretoria, which consists of five men, has four Nationalists among those five. For tactical reasons the fifth is not prepared to say to which party he belongs. If the Prime Minister himself chooses Nationalists for his bodyguard, it shows that he trusts the Nationalists, but why should we have steps of this kind taken? This is nothing but a penal measure and it is degrading. A measure of this kind creates a convict camp in South Africa with a view to hurting the Afrikaner soul of freedom. The Prime Minister knows that the Afrikaner’s spirit is a spirit of freedom. That was the spirit which animated the pioneers.

Why, in Heaven’s name, hurt that spirit? Why this humiliation of the national soul, when there is no necessity for anything of the kind? [Time limit.]

I rise to reply to the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. Bekker), but I am sorry he is not in the House just now. I wrote to him to let him know that he should be here after the allegations which he had made against me. I am sorry that he is not here, but I shall say what I have to say in the presence of his colleagues.

We take no notice of what you say.

The hon. member probably takes a lot of notice of himself, and he is over-full of himself. But if he takes no notice of me, why did he, and his colleague, cut up so rough, and blame me for so many things which I did not deserve? He is animated by a spirit which I am not prepared to describe, but I am none the less very sorry for him that he should find himself in such a state of mind. I only want to express the hope that at the end of 1940 the hon. member will be quite normal again — because astrologists have told us that at the end of this year the whole world will be normal again. I have been informed that the hon. member for Cradock accused me here of being a renegade. I do not know whether you, Mr. Chairman, were in, the Chair when he used that term. Nor do I know what the hon. member had in his mind and what induced him to make such a remark, but this I do know, that he is unable to produce any evidence in support of his contention. I can only say this to him, that I think exactly the same of him as he thinks of me — whatever thought or ideas he has about me — I have exactly the same thoughts and ideas about him. However good or poor his idea of me may be, however elevated the hon. member’s thoughts of me may be, I return his thoughts one hundred per cent. I may have better grounds and better evidence to prove who is the renegade, and to prove to whom that word is more applicable, and I say it is more applicable to him. I wrote to the hon. member very clearly asking him to be in the House when I spoke, but he is not here. I want his colleagues who are present to take note of what I am saying. I asked him clearly to be here after the remark he had made about me. The hon. member is not here, and the fact of his being absent does not go to prove his courage, nor is it the best advertisement for his courage. I want to put this question to hon. members over there — if they want to attribute statements to us, they must be prepared to get their charges flung back at them, and the longer we wait in returning their charges, the bigger will the interest be together with the capital which we are going to pay back to them. Hon. members over there must be prepared to receive back what they give. I am not going to cry like hon. members over there about the names they have called me. The rt. hon. the Prime Minister and other members on this side of the House, and I myself, are being called all sorts of names. And those people who use this type of language against us, language which is not at all becoming, are people elected by the public to come and sit here to pass laws for the people in order to maintain the moral level of the people. Their mission is a very elevated one. We can only say that we are grateful that the public do not know the level to which hon. members over there have descended, when they use the epithets against us which they have done; because in doing so they certainly do not raise their own moral level, and their own moral standard. For that reason I am grateful that the public do not know everything that goes on here; if they did, this House would drop even lower in their esteem than it has done so far. With the new methods adopted by hon. members opposite, that is to, try and specialise in calling the Prime Minister, other members and myself names, they do not add to the honour of this House, and I can tell them this, that those epithets and those insinuations which they are continually casting at this side of the House will have the same result when the next elections come as the infamous “bastard poster” had in 1938. Nobody who loves the people and esteems the honour of the people, and has any respect for the honour of the Government, can tolerate a thing like that. There is another point in respect of which I wish to object to the tactics of hon. members opposite, and that is that they consistently distort every point one raises instead of contesting it in a decent manner. Hon. members say that we must not accuse them of making common cause with Nazism; but there is one thing where hon. members must be careful, and that is that they must not do things in this country where we may later on obtain evidence to prove that they are playing the same part as the Nazis played in the Reichstag fire in Germany. They should not bring charges against members on this side of the House — as was done in Germany — that we have set the House on fire while they themselves have been doing so all the time. Although hon. members are sitting on the other side of the House they should not forget that if they wreck the boat they will also drown just as we shall drown. Hon. members may be anxiously looking forward to the day when we shall be bending under the Nazi yoke and when we shall be in concentration camps, but their tactics are such that we are going in that direction, no matter whether they are adopting those tactics deliberately or otherwise. Those irresponsible speeches — as the hon. member for Smithfield once described the speeches by certain hon. members opposite — will not be allowed to be made if that should eventually happen. And now I wish to make an appeal to you as Deputy-Chairman to apply the ruling which you gave yesterday in respect of the hon. member for Kimberley (District) (Mr. Steytler) to all members of this House, on this side as well as the other side. I appeal to everyone who may occupy the Chair to make an effort to maintain the morale and the standard of the debate and not allow it to deteriorate in the way it has been deteriorating in the last few days.

When I returned home after the historic events of the 4th September last year, a few young men from my constituency called upon me, and they put this question to me: “Mr. Hugo, what are we to do now, to show our resistance against this resolution of Parliament? We are prepared to do anything, even to use force, to resist this resolution.” My reply to them was: “Look here, do not be small, do not be unwise, do not let South Africa’s history repeat itself, we do not want another rebellion in South Africa if it can in any way be avoided, we want to do all we can, so far as we are concerned, to avoid it.” I further told them that what they wanted to achieve by means of violence, we would be able to achieve, the future would bring it to us, not by means of force but along constitutional lines. I want to say here this afternoon that the day will come when England will again be engaged in a war, just as she is to-day and South Africa will then take resolution not to take part in that war, but to remain neutral, and primarily to look after the interests of South Africa.

What is your duty?

A resolution will be taken that this country shall remain neutral, and that resolution will be passed not by the Afrikaans-speaking section of the people alone, but by the great majority of the Afrikaans-speaking section, and the Africanised English-speaking people will support us in that resolution. On the other side we shall find the Imperialistically-minded English-speaking people, and the Anglicised Afrikaners. When that day comes we shall not be in the same miserable position in which we are to-day; the day will come when South Africa will decline to share in England’s difficulties and join her in her wars. We shall refuse to be drawn automatically into England’s troubles. South Africa has been passing through many difficult periods. On the 4th September it was not quite twenty years since the last Great War has ended, and in that Great War South Africa made great sacrifices in money and blood. And now, twenty years later, we have the same position again. It does not matter whether the majority of the people in this country are for or against the war, the fact remains and it must be perfectly clear to everybody that even if the majority of the population of South Africa is not opposed to the war, there is in any case a tremendously large minority, and a very influential minority which is definitely opposed to any participation in this war, and for that reason alone, if there are no other reasons, the steps that are being taken in connection with the war, and the regulations, if there have to be any regulations at all, should be as moderate as possible. We on this side of the House, and I trust the same applies to the other side, do not want South Africa once again to be plunged into a welter of blood, in which the one Afrikaner will be driving and chasing the other Afrikaner over the plains of South Africa, and the one Afrikaner will be shooting at his fellow-Afrikaner. We do not want a repetition of that, and for that reason we expect the right hon. the Prime Minister and his Cabinet to take measures of such a kind, and regulations of such a character, that they can be applied without the feelings of people being stirred up and roused; on the contrary these measures should have the effect of reassuring people. May I be allowed to refer to what the hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw) said here. He quoted figures to show that the number of internments in England was very much smaller than in South Africa, and that the policy followed there in regard to internments was very much milder than in South Africa. I have already asked the Minister of Justice to release people unless they have deliberately committed some hostile act, and I have also asked him, if impossible to release them entirely from the internment camps, at any rate to let them go out under certain conditions. I suggested, for instance, that they should report to the nearest police station every week, or every month, so that they would be able at least to provide for their families and earn a living for their families. I may say that the Minister of Justice has met this request in a most considerate manner, and I trust that something may still be done in that direction. Now may I be allowed to mention a few points to show that the feelings of the people are being gradually stirred up instead of efforts being made to reassure them and to maintain peace. I want first of all to mention the unnecessary and unjust internments which have occurred as a result of wrong information having been placed before the authorities. The internees, in such cases were released because it was clear that there was no need for them to be interned, and the charges on which these people had been interned were unfounded. We are grateful for the fact that these people were released; still, the fact remains that feelings have been aroused in consequence of these internments, as people are convinced that the persons concerned had been interned on false alarms and malicious stories carried to the Minister or some other person. That sort of thing added to feelings being aroused. Feelings were also worked up by the tremendous expense to the country as a result of our participation in the war, and when the unavoidable depression comes, as it must come after the war, we shall realise the extent to which feelings have been stirred up. It is not only the fact, however, that we have this huge expenditure in connection with the war; there are people, especially workers, who, as a result of the Union’s participation in the war, are suffering great hardships. As a result of our going into the war their earnings have gone, and now they have to join up because that is the only way in which they can hope to make a living. They suffer great hardships in consequence, and those who are not prepared to join up suffer even greater hardships together with their families. There is a feeling of unrest and dissatisfaction in this country over the question where our forces may have to go to fight for this country — we do not know where the borders of South Africa are. All this has been left vague, but most of all, more than anything else, there is a feeling of unrest in consequence of the speeches made by some hon. members in this House, especially in consequence of a speech such as that made by the hon. member for Krugersdorp last night. Speeches like that do a lot to arouse feelings and to cause trouble, in the country. I want to tell the hon. member if he continues to make the type of speech he made yesterday, if he continues to adopt the attitude which he did yesterday and makes speeches like he did in the bye-election at Hopetown — I do not know whether it was done deliberately — he will be inciting and stirring up feelings, and if that is his object I wish to congratulate him because he is succeeding most excellently. [Time limit.]

I have only got up to protest against what the hon. member for North-East Rand (Mr. Heyns) said about one of our largest Afrikaans schools in the Cape Peninsula. He was out to make the House believe that we on this side of the House were busy committing acts of high treason, just as the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Bumside) has been doing. He wanted to make the House believe that the Afrikaans section of the population was proGerman and he was unable to quote any other instance except one of the large schools in the Cape Peninsula. When I challenged him to say which school it was, he said the Jan van Riebeeck School and he stated that in the Jan van Riebeeck School swastikas had been carved out on the benches.

He said, “according to his information.”

When I told him that it was not so, he did not withdraw his allegation. The hon. member has never yet been in that school, nor do I believe that the children of the hon. member for North-East Rand would feel at home in that school. I have been a member of the school committee of that school for years and it is a school which the Afrikaners in the Cape are proud of. We started that school with fifteen children in a stable here in the Gardens and to-day it is one of the biggest schools in the Cape, which does not take second place to any other school in the Cape or to any other school in the Union. That school started with fifteen children and to-day there are over one thousand in the school, all Afrikaners who are being taught under the guidance of Afrikaans teachers who know no other country but South Africa. It is true that there is no double loyalty in that school, there is only one loyalty and that is loyalty to South Africa. There is no double loyalty and no Empire spirit is being fostered there; but, of course, when the hon. member sees children attending other schools and they carry a Union Jack on the front of their bicycles, he regards that as excellent. But if the Afrikaans child should have a Union Flag on his bicycle it often happens that the flag is tom off by the English-speaking children and trampled on, as I have often seen with my own eyes. What surprises me is that Afrikaans-speaking members on that side of the House remain silent and fail to say a word against the insinuations that are being made against their culture and against their own people. I am not referring now to the Anglicised Afrikaners like the hon. member for Cape Flats (Mr. R. J. du Toit) who is no longer able even to speak the language of his people. But I do want to say that we cast from us with contempt the allegations made against the Jan van Riebeeck School. All that is being fostered at that school is a love of our country, a love of our people and a love of our language. [Time limit.]

I am pleased the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Liebenberg) is here, because he said that I had misquoted the position of Ireland here as regards her obligations to England in connection with certain of her naval bases. I said that we had undertaken our obligations in time of peace and that we had to carry out those obligations in time of war and that we should not try to evade them. The hon. member contended that I was in error in my comparison with Ireland because I had stated that Ireland had made an agreement with England during peace time to cancel her obligations. I have looked it up now and I shall read it out to the House. In this agreement which was entered into in 1921 it is stated—

1. (a) In time of peace such harbour and other facilities as are indicated in the annexure hereto, or such other facilities as may from time to time be agreed between the British Government and the Government of the Irish Free State; and
2. (b) in time of war or of strained relations with a foreign power such harbour and other facilities as the British Government may require for the purposes of such defence as aforesaid.

And what happened in 1936?

Yes, two years after, in 1938 an agreement was entered into between England and Ireland in which it was agreed in respect of the previous agreement that that agreement was to be amended. I am making the position clear because I wish to place this information before the House. In 1938 another agreement was entered into between England and Ireland in which the following amendment was made—

1. 1. The provisions of Articles 6 and 7 of the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland signed on the 6th day of December, 1921, and of the annexure thereto shall cease to have effect.
2. 2. Thereafter the Government of the United Kingdom will transfer to the Government of Eire the Admiralty property and rights at Berehaven, and the harbour defences at Berehaven, Cobh (Queenstown) and Loch Swilly now occupied by care and maintenance parties furnished by the United Kingdom, together with buildings, magazines, emplacements, instruments and fixed armaments with ammunition therefor at present at the said ports.
3. 3. The transfer will take place not later than the 31st December, 1938.

I may say that the agreement was expedited in connection with the transfer of the harbours of Ireland in view of the world conditions existing at the time. I only wish to submit this to the House in order to show that I have now obtained this information and that I had no intention of misleading the House. It was thus laid down under this agreement that these naval bases were to be returned and it was because of that that no obligations rested on Ireland. The point I made still stands, however, that in regard to Simonstown if we had wanted to get rid of our obligations it would have been better to have done so in time of peace rather than at present in time of war.

Are you in favour of it being changed when we have peace again?

No, in the circumstances existing to-day I am not in favour of that. We are often told that we have one foot in this country and the other foot in England. I want to say that I stand nine-tenths in England and one-tenth here, and I shall explain my reasons for making that statement. I say so because I consider that our salvation and our future are dependent on our adherence to the British Commonwealth of Nations. I only quoted Ireland’s example from the moral aspect, not from a practical point of view. If we had desired to bring about a change in the situation we should have done so in time of peace; we should at a time when peace prevailed have tried to bring about a change in the position of Simonstown, but it would be neither manly nor fair towards England to try and bring about a change now when the war is on. In regard to the remarks made by the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. Loubser) I want to make an appeal to all Afrikaners, whether they are Nationalists or “Loyal Dutch”; surely we all believe in the honesty of our cause, even though we may differ from each other and there is no reason why we should indulge in the use of bad and insulting language to each other.

You should tell that to your own members on the other side of the House.

I am not excusing this side of the House, I am simply making an appeal to all hon. members; even though we differ from each other, there is no reason why we should resort to calling each other names. Why should we resort to epithets. The hon. member for Malmesbury in his remarks spoke of “Anglicised Afrikaners,” but if I truly believe that the salvation of my country lies in the British Commonwealth of Nations and in our taking part in the war, I should not be stigmatised as an “Anglicised Afrikaner.” Why should we indulge in belittling each other and calling each other names; it is only the Afrikaners who are at each other’s throats all day long, the English-speaking people do not do so.

No, they make use of you.

Surely we come from the same people and we have one history, and even though we may differ, there is no need to use language like that. There is just one other point I wish to touch upon. Hon. members over there have stated that it is impossible for us to build up a nation unless we respect the history and the traditions of our people. I want to say that the same thing applies to our great men; yet what has been going on here? Even though I may differ from the Leader of hon. members opposite, he is a man whom I have followed and loved for years and there is no reason why I should turn round to-day and call him names. Why should hon. members opposite try to besmirch the name of the Prime Minister? The same applies to all other members of the House. One hon. member used language about the hon. the Minister of Native Affairs which he himself would be ashamed of it he ever had to tell his own child what he had said about the Minister. I want to do everything I can, so far as I am concerned to put an end to this sort of thing, and I want to ask hon. members, even if they do not see eye to eye with us, to refrain from stirring up unnecessary feelings. Do you know, Mr. Chairman, that we are unable to get young men to join the Defence Force? Why not? They are being told that they will be sent overseas and they are being told that the Prime Minister is pursuing a policy which is aimed at causing trouble in this country. The people whom we are unable to get are not people who belong to our side but people who belong to the other side. Hon. members have been telling us that they are prepared to send their last drop of blood for this country if the country should be attacked —do hon. members want to tell me that if that day should come they would be prepared to have young meh in their ranks who have had no training at all? [Time limit.]

I want to move the amendment standing on the Order Paper in my name, but before doing so I wish to say a few words about the speeches made here this afternoon. I noticed that the hon. member of Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. Johnson) is in his seat. He complained so bitterly about feeling bilious and I would advise him to put his finger down his throat or to buy “Bile Beans.” He also spoke about the “backveld,” but I can assure him that the backveld has a greater knowledge of political conditions than he has. hon. members may laugh, but mad people will laugh at anything. I should also like to comment on the remarks made by the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. Pocock) and I should be pleased if he would give me his attention. It appears to me that it has become the practice, and I consider it a very reprehensible practice which is worrying me quite a lot, for private documents to be handed over by members of the Government to members, even to backbenchers. And after that those private documents are referred to in this House and quoted from. This practice gives me the impression that Ministers are ashamed to produce such documents themselves, so they leave it to other hon. members to do so. I do hope that if the hon. member happens one day to become a Minister himself—which to my mind is somewhat improbable—and he goes out of office, he will not want his private documents to be referred to by other people. I now come to the regulations, and I move that “Proclamation 201 of 1939 be deleted.” I want to move this because this clause aims at or gives the right to the chief control officer or the control officer entirely to prohibit the sale of liquor in a district or even in the whole of the Union. I take it that the control officer contemplated under this proclamation will be a magistrate in the district. I am going to read the clause and I should like the Minister to listen to its wording. The clause states that the chief control officer or a control officer in one district or other has the right to prohibit the consumption or the sale of intoxicating liquor and that he can do so by giving notice to that effect. He may prohibit the sale of a particular kind of intoxicating liquor, he may prohibit its sale to a certain class of person, in a certain area and during certain times. In other words the control officer is given the right—in all probability the control officer will be the magistrate—to declare total prohibition and he will be able to do so simply by issuing a notice. It cannot be held that this regulation is necessary for military purposes as Act No. 13 of 1912, to wit: clause 103, as amended by Act 22 of 1922, gives the right to the military authorities to make regulations-in regard to the sale of intoxicating liquor to persons in military service. This regulation is therefore not, necessary so far as they are concerned. The only thing which will be affected is ordinary social life. Let us assume that in a town like Cape Town we might have a magistrate who is a total abstainer. It may be said that that will never happen. I knew a magistrate— fortunately he has resigned by this time— who held that drunkenness was not a crime but a disease, and as a result of his attitude drunkenness increased by more than 100 per cent. A man like that is given the right here to prohibit a certain class of person from getting intoxicating liquor, and he can do so for the whole of the Union. Any of these officials or assistant officials are entitled by means of a notice to prevent the sale of intoxicating liquor throughout the whole Union. Imagine for a moment that we have an official like that who is a prohibitionist. Prohibitionists are probably decent people, and they are generally reasonable in other respects, but when it comes to the question of the consumption of intoxicating liquor they are the most unreasonable people in the world and they make all sorts of attempts to spread their doctrines as far as possible. Now, place the sale of intoxicating liquor under the control of a man like that, and see what damage may be done to the wine farmers, the wine trade and even to the Government, from the point of view of excise duties. If we look at the amount which the Government gets by way of excise duties we shudder if we think what may be the result of a regulation like that. I say that this regulation constitutes a violation of the rights of the wine farmer, particularly as all sorts of restrictions have already been imposed on the sale of his product. On top of that one man is now being given the right to do what to-day is being proposed by the prohibitionists, namely to prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquor simply by the issue of a notice. As I have shown, in view of the fact that the military authorities have the power under the Defence Act to control the sale of intoxicating liquor to people on military service there is no reason why these additional powers should now be given. Now I wish to deal with another point. The sale of intoxicating liquor to certain classes of people may be prohibited. I believe that the class of persons contemplated here is the coloured population. There are negrophilists among our magistrates as well as among other sections of the community. The magistrate is not called upon to account to anyone in the district, and he may by a notice in the paper, prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquor to the coloured community, and also to certain classes of Europeans. Among the magistrates, too, there are Imperialists, and they are also given the power to prohibit the sale of certain types of liquor. If a magistrate like that happens to be anxious to foster the sale of whisky he may prohibit the sale of brandy. He is not responsible to the Minister for what he does. He acts as an official and he acts without reference to the Minister. I notice that the Minister of Commerce and Industries is laughing. He himself is also a wine farmer, and he will not laugh if he cannot sell his wine.

It is only a hobby.

No, the drinking of the liquor may be a hobby, but its production is not a hobby. I therefore move—

1. (2) In respect of the regulations promulgated by the proclamations hereunder set out, the following provisions shall apply:
   Proclamation 201, 1939, shall, in respect of any act or omission after the commencement of this Act, be construed as if regulation 11 had been omitted.

I think it is a fairly good sample of the complete and utter lack of even an intelligent appreciation of what a House of Assembly should be, that in the discussion in the Committee stage, devoted to the consideration of emergency regulations issued, the hon. member who has just sat down should have given us a dissertation on the respective merits of whisky and brandy, and suggested that there are magistrates who are negrophilists, and that there are magistrates who are Imperialists; but he has omitted to tell us that there are magistrates who undoubtedly are Nationalists. One has a high regard for the intelligence of the magisterial service, and that being so, one may assume that there are a very few of them who are Nationalists. I think I am in a good position, as an English-speaking member of this House, to contest the repeated assertion of the Opposition that they stand for the whole of Afrikaans-speaking South Africa. Nothing could be farther from the truth and, as a matter of fact, only the other day in a typical Afrikaans-speaking constituency, namely Losberg, the Afrikaans-speaking people showed by a very considerable majority of their votes that they were in agreement with the policy being pursued by the present Government, and in faith of that vote….

Did you hear of the Kuruman result by any chance?

Yes, and also of the Hopetown result?

Oh yes, and I shall also hear of the constituency which the hon. member has by now probably been poisoning to the best of his ability in the usual well-known direction. I want to point out that here was a typical Afrikaans-speaking-constituency which, despite the wilful and deliberate distortion at which hon. members opposite are experts, amazing experts….

The hon. member should not use those terms.

Well, I withdraw that.

You do nothing but withdrawing.

Quite. I can hardly call them experts, but despite the wilful and deliberate distortion indulged in by and on behalf of the hybrid party which now forms the Opposition….

What do you call the party to which you belong?

That is beside the point. I am very doubtful if my hon. friend has ever belonged to any party. It seems to me that he is only the “o” part of Pirow, and a very small “c” at that. But these are the facts of the situation, and we are quite satisfied to-day that if a general election were held the policy which is being followed by the Prime Minister and the present Government would receive the blessing of the country generally. And there is another point to remember, and it is one which will probably come before this House in years to come, namely that in very many instances hon. members sitting on the Opposition side of the House are only sitting there because the electoral laws of this country give their particular supporters almost one and a half votes compared to one of ours.

You mean two votes to one of ours.

And I want to say clearly that they can hardly suggest, in many instances due to their fault too, that the intelligence of their voters is of the same standard as that of those who have elected members of this side of the House. I am not saying this in a jocular spirit. I say it when we witness that after thirty years of Union we should still be hearing hon. members in this House holding forth on the Afrikaner “volk” and people. I am satisfied that they do not care two hoots for the Afrikaner people. All they care for is their own personal ambition. The hon. member over there (Mr. Louw) has had a very brilliant career overseas, and he puts himself up as a representative of the Afrikaner volk and people. But he has been absent from this country while he might have had an opportunity of doing something for the people, and his contribution to the welfare of the Afrikaner people has been to draw a nice salary in a fat job overseas — where he did very little judging from the speeches he has made in this House — he has done nothing for South Africa to be proud of. But now let us get back to this question of regulations. I am in a particularly good position to speak about regulations, because I have for years objected to the policy of government by regulation.

You seem to have been converted now.

I have for years objected to the policy of passing a Bill and leaving regulations to be made by the Government.

Why do you not object now?

But who did I find supporting this policy of government by regulation in the past — the hon. member for Zoutpansberg and other members. You have your Marketing Act and your various Control Acts. Before the Marketing Act and these other Acts were passed by this House….

You cannot compare that system with this.

All these Bills were literally riddled with provisions under which the Minister may make regulations. Regulations have been made under these Acts more farreaching in character than anything issued by the Government since the outbreak of war. Regulations have been made under the Marketing and Control Acts now in force, and the hon. member for Cradock has been sent here by his constituents because probably he made his constituents believe that he had something to do with the Marketing and Control Acts — although we know that he has had nothing to do with them. Regulations have been made for the farming community which interfere with the right of the individual, regulations which close the individual’s business, which tell him that he can open a shop, that he can sell his goods, what he can sell, what kind of goods, and so on. In other words, South Africa is the most regulation-riddled country in the world, and that is the position at the instigation of the self same people who to-day are holding up their hands in holy horror, and who say: “We are the last exponents of democracy — under Hitler and Stalin incidentally — and we are going to die in the last ditch in our opposition to these regulations.” This is just so much bumkum and the fact of the matter is that the Opposition in cold sober thought have made up their minds that they are going to oppose any efforts made by the legally elected and legitimate Government of the Union of South Africa to prosecute the war as far as South Africa is concerned, to a satisfactory conclusion, and I say quite definitely that in so taking up that attitude they are proving themselves traitors to the state. They are engaged in political propaganda, and who knows it may be worse, if we have to listen to the vague threats of the hon. member for Gezina, there lies before us a great deal more than merely political propaganda. I do not know whether we can take the hon. member for Gezina seriously; I never have. Many people have. I believe even the Prime Minister at one time used to take him seriously.

He had him on a string.

He could never have been on a string, because if he had been on a string long before this someone would have pulled it tight. I repeat, sir, that long before now somebody would have pulled it tight. But we are not going to take into consideration these veiled threats. I think it is time the country realised these things, namely, that this new party we have in opposition is, fortunately, a minority party. It is not only a minority party in so far as their actual numbers in the House compare with the numbers of the people who support the Government are concerned, but they are in a very much greater minority in so far as one considers the actual number of constituents whom they represent. [Time limit.]

A great deal has been said about the necessity or otherwise for these regulations. I think there is at least one regulation concerning the necessity for which there can be no doubt. I refer to Regulation No. 5. That is the one dealing with profiteering. I venture to say that that regulation has not only now become necessary; it has been necessary all along in South Africa. The public in South Africa has been exposed to profiteering by many. A very large proportion of business men for years have been profiteering. We should not have waited until the year 1940 for the regulation, or to apply such regulation. As witness on this point I call to my side the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. Pocock). I feel certain that the hon. member will agree with me that these middlemen have taken an unreasonable profit from the public. I also call as a witness the hon. member who has just spoken. But he has changed his principles. He has swallowed his principles, but I suppose he still retains the same opinion so far as the capitalists are concerned.

He still wears the same coloured tie.

I suppose that is one reason why I support the Government.

This matter of preventing profiteering has become more necessary since the capitalists have taken control of the United Party, and it is now clear that the country is to be run by Hoggenheimer. In that connection I quote the speech of the hon. the Minister of Finance last week.

Give us something new.

No. I am certain that before this session is ended we shall convince people that what I have said is correct. The fact of the matter is that although regulations to limit profiteering are necessary, we require adequate regulations; not this type of regulation. The objection I have to this regulation is the fact that under sub-regulation 6 (2) it is not an offence to profiteer out of articles made exclusively of South African products. How it comes — one does not know, and I do not suggest that it is intentional, but the nett result is that the worst profiteering going on to-day is taking place in connection with the sale — by one particular firm — of a Government-grown product. I am referring to the sale of Government-grown timber. There you find in the Transvaal, at any rate, one firm, and it is a firm not unknown in this House, the firm of Canvacott Ltd. in this privileged position. This firm has got the almost exclusive control of this government-grown timber. It is used for the manufacture of boxes and for building purposes. In other words, it is soft wood—pine wood.

What is the name of the firm?

The name of the firm is Canvacott Ltd. You have heard it before in this House. In any case the Minister of Railways and Harbours will be able to give you all the particulars of the firm. The situation which has arisen there is this.

Is this timber not put up to tender?

Yes, it is put out to tender and the tenderer in each case is a small man, but the moment the tender has been closed or later on, the firm of Canvacott Ltd. takes it over and there is nothing in the contract to limit that. When these regulations were drawn up they were drawn in such a way that there is nothing to prevent a firm from profiteering in the grossest way with this timber which they buy from the Government at a comparatively negligible figure.

They sell the timber to the highest offerer.

No, they do not. In regard to this timber to-day this firm has an absolute monopoly over it. They make building timber out of it and they make agricultural boxes out of it, and no building timber and practically no agricultural boxes are being imported into this country to-day. This firm has the monopoly.

A monopoly by tender.

No. That remark is as weak as the defence which the hon. member put up the other day. Do hon. members suggest that, because this is a monopoly acquired by tender, these regulations, which are drawn up to prevent profiteering, should exclude that?

You cannot have a monopoly of timber.

I want to see the regulations so drawn up that no one will be excluded and no profiteering allowed.

Why did you not draw them up?

If the Minister of Defence had consulted me I would have been only too glad to assist him. I am trying to assist him now and hon. members on this side of the House are also trying to assist him. We are not like the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) making use of this opportunity to get up in the best parade style and to make speeches in the best soap-box orator style. If the hon. the Minister of Defence will accept no other amendment, he should accept the amendment I have moved on this clause and frame it in such a way that we shall prevent profiteering even when profiteering takes place in and about articles produced in South Africa. We should not tolerate profiteering because it is on such an article as South African timber.

What will the farmers say?

My amendment excludes the farmers. My amendment will touch a sore spot. It will allow the farmer to sell directly for what he can get. Hon. members over there laugh, but farmers are in a state of poverty in this country and the average farmer is living far below the bread line, yet the Prime Minister laughs. It is a subject of mirth to him. He thinks it is funny, but we do not think it is funny.

But you are very funny.

But there are timber farmers as well. I am a timber farmer myself.

Yes, but the timber farmer, unfortunately, is not reaping these very high prices. The man who is getting the high prices is the man who sells the manufactured article, not the farmer. If the Prime Minister is a timber farmer, and he does not know more about his subject then he appears to know, it will be a sorry day for him and he will be a poor farmer before he has finished.

Your argumnet is that a farmer can profiteer as much as he likes.

No, he cannot. He is getting competition. He is over-producing. He is not selling through one channel. I put it this way. I say if farmers ever do profiteer you should limit their profit too and no one would object to that. There is no farmer in South Africa who is profiteering. The farmer in South Africa to-day is hard put to it to remain on his land and there is no question of his profiteering. That is idle talk. There are no chances for him to profiteer. The reasonable thing to do would be to frame the regulations in such a way as to preclude these big firms with their monopolies of a government-produced article, from profiteering. If it is possible for the farmers to profiteer you should prevent them. The farmer has never taken up an unreasonable attitude. All that he has asked for is to be allowed to live and to remain on his land. The firm of Canvacott Ltd. is selling tomato boxes, which they previously sold at 8s. or 9s. per 1,000 shooks, at 17s. 6d. to-day, out of wood that is grown in government plantations, while the unfortunate farmer has to try and make a profit as best he can.

Cannot anyone else buy the wood?

No, they have sold it for a period of ten years.

They tendered for it.

Yes, tenders were called for, but in the case I have in mind only one man tendered. These people I may say work in rings. They do not compete with each other. One man tenders and then they cut it up afterwards. I am surprised that the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Sutter) approves of this kind of thing and tries to justify profiteering because, originally, public tenders were called for before the war.

I have listened with some interest to the remarks of the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth). It has really been remarkable to me to hear a member of this House, who is an old member of the House, getting up and making out the weak case he has made out. When he was cornered, he said he felt he could not advocate that the price of the farmers’ products should be controlled, but as the Prime Minister pointed out the very argument he put up was to control the farmers. He says also that the farmer has nobody to compete against at all and suggests that you should give the farmer as much profit as he likes. A thought passed through my mind when this matter came up for discussion, that the prices of farming products during the last war would be interesting. I have taken the trouble to get those prices and I think the House will possibly be interested to hear what the prices were appertaining to three major farm products of South Africa during the years 1914—1918. I will start first of all with maize. In 1914 the average price of maize was 12s. 3d. per bag. Hon. members can verify these figures. They will find them set out in the annual books which are laid on the Table. In 1915 the average price of a bag of maize was 12s. 7d. In 1916 the average price was 15s. 11d. In 1917 the average price was 16s. 1d., and in 1918 the average price was 15s. 11d. In 1919, the last year, the average price of maize was 18s. 1d. There was a rise from 12s. 3d. to 18s. 1d. per bag. I am not advocating the policy which the hon. member is apparently advocating that the farmer should be controlled. I am just giving the Committee some interesting figures. I would not for one minute not give the farmer his just due, for I am an industrialist myself. I would not invest my capital in my works if I could not get a fair profit on my investment, and I do not expect any farmer to do anything but the same thing. Now let us come to the pet product of my hon. friend, the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. Bekker), namely wool. In 1914 the average price of wool was 7.2d. In 1915 it was 7.1d. In 1916 the average price was 10.7d. In 1917 it was 16d. In 1918 it was 16d. and in 1919 it was 19.6d., that is practically three times higher than the 1914 average price. The hon. member does not want to listen to these figures but other hon. members find them interesting. The average price of wool started off in 1914 at 7.2d. and it finished up at the end of the war at 19.6d. Let us now come to wheat. In 1914 the average price was 24s. 6d. per bag. In 1915 it was 29s. 11d. per bag. In 1916 it was 33s. 2d. In 1917 it was 35s. 8d. In 1918 it was 35s., and in 1919 it was 35s. The hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. Bekker) wants to know what I am trying to show them. I am not trying to show this side of the House anything, but I am just trying to show the other side how foolish were the remarks made by the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth). Now let us look at the average price of production of a bag of mealies. There are a number of mealie farmers here, and I do not think they will cross swords with me when I say the average cost of production of a bag of mealies is 5s. 3d. In 1919 a farmer got 18s. 1d. Now, with regard to wheat in the Bredasdorp district, the hon. minister without Portfolio, I am sure, will bear me out when I say the average production price is 15s. per bag, and at the end of the war they got 35s. a bag, and that was after the control stepped in. Hon. members opposite will not deny that the production of a pound of wool works out at approximately 10d. a lb., and in 1919 they were getting 19.6d.

In 1914 we were getting 7d.

You are perfectly right, but don’t argue with me, argue with the hon. member for Zoutpansberg, it was he who threw the spanner in the wheel; he wants to control, not me. He should not come here with irresponsible statements such as he has made here this afternoon.

The hon. member who has just sat down has been telling us about the rise in the prices of products, and he has pointed to the tremendous profits made by the farmers. But what the hon. member failed to do was to tell the House about the tremendous increases in costs of production of mealies which in normal times amounted to 5s. 3d. He forgot to tell the House that while we used to pay about 6d. per bag for our grain bags in 1914, we paid 2s. 6d. in 1918. He did not tell the House anything about that, and yet he wants to say that the farmers have made great profits. The case made out by the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth) is absolutely correct, and cannot be controverted. What I am surprised at is that the so-called business brains of members of the Cabinet were unable to follow the argument put forward by the hon. member for Zoutpansberg, and even the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Sutter), who looks upon himself as a kind of business man, could not follow the point of the hon. member for Zoutpansberg. That is what I cannot understand. The hon. member for Zoutpansberg said that raw materials have been bought by several firms and they are now making tremendous profits on those raw materials, and there is nothing in the regulations to prevent them from doubling and more than doubling their profits. It is perfectly clear, however, and I do not know why hon. members over there cannot follow this argument. I am not going to waste any more time on this point; but I want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that I was busy last night explaining my amendments to the House. I want to make an appeal to the Prime Minister seriously to consider the first paragraph of my amendment. This is what I moved—

1. (i) The following regulations promulgated by Proclamation 201, 1939, shall, in respect of any act or omission after the commencement of this Act, be construed as if the words “or procession” in sub-regulation (1) of regulation 10 had been omitted;

What is the object of this amendment? It will be realised that the chief control officer is given power here to prohibit any procession. He may arbitrarily prohibit any procession and I want to warn the Prime Minister that there are numerous processions where people give expression to their feelings, which are arranged months in advance and yet when the time for such a procession arrives, this chief control officer has the power to prohibit such a procession. Now I want to ask the Minister if he does not agree with me that, if such a procession has been organised months in advance, and it is stopped at the last moment, it will give rise to a lot of trouble? If the Prime Minister wants to apply that regulation to the Afrikaner people, does it not mean, will it not be taken as a challenge to the Afrikaner people? Will it not mean defying and challenging the people in a way, the consequences of which we cannot anticipate today. Surely, there is no harm and no danger in such processions, and where there is any danger the Minister has the power under the existing law to take such action as would be necessary if such processions were intended to create acts of violence against the state. But if people want to hold processions, for instance, for the unveiling of the monument at Monumentkop, and they make their arrangements in advance, and the chief control officer steps in then and prevents such functions, it will mean looking for trouble. The Afrikaner puts up with a lot, he is patient, but he is not going to allow himself to be continually trampled upon by a man like Sir Theodore Truter. That is the amendment which I wanted to propose to that regulation. Then there is a further amendment which I move in paragraph 2, namely—

1. (ii) Proclamation 201, 1939, shall, in respect of any act or omission after the commencement of this Act, be construed as if the words “with the approval of the Union Tender Board” had been added to the end of sub-regulation (1) of regulation 73 and

The hon. member moved that last night.

Yes, but I did not have the time to explain it to the House.

Is not the hon. member moving it any more?

I only wish to explain it. If hon. members will look at this regulation they will see that it deals with commodities still to be manufactured. And now I want to ask while there is still time, why this manufacture cannot be done with the approval of the Union Tender Board? Is there no danger, if we pass over the Tender Board in this respect, of certain people making huge profits? In instances of this kind the opportunity may otherwise be deliberately provided by means of favouritism to enable people to make such profits. Why should the Tender Board be cut out here? We hear of instances every day where the Union Tender Board has been passed over and I ask why it is necessary to cut out the Tender Board, when the goods have still to be manufactured, so that there is adequate time for the Union Tender Board to be consulted? I think it is absolutely essential that we should not play about with the Union’s finances.

I am very sorry that the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Burnside) did not consider it necessary to remain in his seat for a little while after the attack he made on the platteland population as such, and more particularly on the control board. I hope the Minister of Agriculture has taken note of the remarks made by the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo). I cannot imagine that the Minister will allow his department, and the control boards which he administers and which, we take it, are in the interest of the country, to be criticised by the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) without his having something to say.

The control boards under the Marketing Act?

Exactly; that is what I am talking about.

But you criticised them yourself.

No; the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) made a hostile attack on the control boards falling under the department, and I look to the Minister of Agriculture to defend them. I want to give some information to the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo), information which he probably does not possess, and this information relates to mealies. Boards have been created where one has to deal with a product of which there is an over-production, a larger production than is needed for the requirements of the country, and those boards have to control that product. That is why it was found necessary to establish those boards. Even though we are in opposition I still say that we stand by the control boards, and that the farmer must try to control his market in the best manner possible by means of these boards as provided under the Marketing Act. It would be fatal if we were to pass the Marketing Act to-day and if the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) were to come along tomorrow to criticise and kill that Act. But we had another expert lecture from the other side, namely by the hon. member for Rosettenville (Mr. Howarth). I wonder what the Prime Minister thought of that hon. member’s apparently excited oration on the condition of the farmer in this war and in the last war. I am sorry he is not in his seat, but all the same I should like to comment on what he said. He stated that the price of mealies in 1914 was 12s. 3d. per bag, and that in 1919 it was 18s. 1d. What did he try to convey by that statement? All I could think was that he tried to prove that the farmers in 1919 made excess profits; he wanted the House to understand that it was necessary to bring farming production under the excess profit regulation. With all the ability and expert knowledge which the hon. member has of farming affairs he tells us that the production costs for a bag of mealies are 5s. 3d. By making a statement like that the hon. member showed how much he knows about it. If costs of production in normal times were 5s. 3d. what did the increase in the price of raw materials and other requirements needed by the mealie farmers in order to produce, amount to? Were not those increases in 1919 more than 100 per cent. in excess of what they were in 1914?

In some cases more than 500 per cent.

The hon. member corrects me. Yes, in some instances those increases were over 500 per cent. more. How does the hon. member for Rosettenville expect the farmers’ production costs to have been 5s. 3d. in 1919 as well? I think it is fatal for an hon. member to stand there and excite himself, and make statements as though he were an authority, while he knows nothing about the subject he is talking about. It is fatal for an hon. member in those circumstances to make an oration about farming production when he knows nothing at all about the situation. He knows nothing about it from beginning to end. He went to the department, where he got hold of a few figures and he said to himself: “Now I am going to show up the farmers by mentioning the price of mealies in 1914 as compared with the price of mealies in 1919.” Let me say that I have never heard a more ridiculous statement than that made here by the hon. member for Rosettenville. If that is the extent of his knowledge of the affairs which he discussed here yesterday and to-day, I should advise him to confine himself to the subject which he dealt with in his maiden speech. It was painful to me to have to listen to it; but he knows nothing about farming affairs. It would not have been necessary for me to have got up to make these remarks, but I do so in order to avoid a misunderstanding being created in the minds of people who know no more about these matters than the hon. member does. I again wish to plead with the right hon. the Prime Minister and to ask him to be very careful in connection with these regulations, because I find that more markets will be closed to our products. I shall mention one instance, mealies. We used to have a good market in Holland, but to-day, as the result of the regulations, we are prevented from exporting mealies to Holland unless Holland will give an assurance that those mealies shall not go over the German border. That does not seem to me so very unreasonable, but none the less it is a very difficult matter. Assuming we are able to sell our mealies at a profit to a mealie broker in Holland; he has to give an assurance that those mealies will not go into German territory. He sells the mealies to the farmers in Holland who uses them for cattle fodder.

They are sinking all the ships, and those mealies cannot get to Holland.

We hear a voice from the south, or is it possibly a voice out of the dark? The hon. member says that no mealies can get into Holland. The Minister knows that that is not the reason why this regulation was drafted. I say that the dealer who has to sell the mealies to the farmers in Holland cannot possibly give an assurance that those farmers will not sell a bag of mealies to a German across the border. The result is that that market is closed to the farmer. I have already said this on a previous occasion, but I hope the Prime Minister will give his attention to this question, that the Allies are pursuing the policy of buying up all the mealies in Central and Eastern Europe in order to prevent an enemy country obtaining those mealies. They are also buying the surplus mealies in the Argentine so as to prevent Italy from buying the mealies in order to avoid the possibility of those mealies getting into the hands of the enemy. Those may be good tactics so, far as the belligerent states are concerned, but I as a mealie farmer who finds that my market is being confiscated, and who in addition finds that regulations are being enforced closing the Holland market to me, am very much concerned about it. The price noted for future deliveries is 5s. 4d. per bag. The position is a very serious one, and I hope the Minister will take notice of it.

I rise to make some remarks on the proposal of the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth), but before doing so I want to say that it has become clear to me, while listening to the arguments concerning the position of farmers in the Union, that farming interests will be subjected to the interests of the middleman. There is no doubt about that. As soon as we talk of industries in our own country, those industries are compared with farming production. All members on the other side know perfectly well that farming in South Africa has never yet paid. They know that the previous Government was compelled to spend millions in order to save people from ruin. The Minister of Finance in those days made it clear that while other commodities had gone up in price the prices for the farmers’ products had not gone up, and the result was that farmers found themselves in difficulties, which almost prevented many of them making a living. For that reason the Government was obliged to come to the help of those people, as it did not wish to see them go under. Hon. members on the other side now want the farmers’ products to be placed on the same basis as manufactured goods produced in this country. They know perfectly well that no single article will be produced here if it does not pay the manufacturer to do so. The farmer, however, is compelled to produce, and we know that there is a surplus of practically all agricultural products, mealies, wool, wine, raisins, sultanas—there is a surplus of nearly everything, and as soon as there is a surplus we are unable to talk of an open market, because to put our products on the open market would unduly depress prices. But hon. members who have been discussing this matter should turn their attention to the price of wheat, and see what the position is there. The price of wheat has been fixed. Yet fourteen days after war broke out one man made a profit of £5,000 on bags only. It is the farmer who has to buy those bags, and nothing has been done to prevent this sort of thing going on. The regulations which are now before us are not going to save the situation, and excessive profits are going to be made in the same way as they were made in the last war, when some people got stone rich. But what is going to happen so far as the farmers are concerned? If prices are not properly regulated, and if farmers are not assisted in the right manner, they will go under. The farmer cannot export his goods. There is no market, and the market in Britain is restricted because the Allies are buying up the products of neutral countries. If the war goes on for a long time we are going to be stuck with a surplus of farmingproducts, which will create considerable difficulties. In the face of that an hon. member opposite has the temerity to come and tell us that if manufactured goods are manufactured in South Africa, they should not come under the Excess Profits Regulations. The hon. member for Zoutpansberg explained the position in regard to timber, and he made it clear that the farmers who produce timber are not in the same position as the man who buys up timber for the manufacture of boxes and furniture. Thousands of farmers produce timber, but there are only a few people who use timber for manufacturing purposes, and the farmers are in the hands of those few manufacturers. If this position is not controlled we shall get a situation whereby there will be a shortage of cases and other requirements produced in this country. If the excess profits made by these people are not properly controlled a condition of affairs will be created here under which those people will avail themselves of the opportunity to become stone rich out of the farmer. We are told that the wheat price to-day is 23s. But only very few farmers get that price, because that price depends on the quality. The average price is very much lower, and conditions have been created under which, while wheat prices have been fixed, the requirements of the farmers are getting more and more expensive, even if they are produced in this country. The profit which stands to be made on articles manufactured in this country is not reasonable. The manufacturer can make as much as he likes, and hon. members opposite want him to be at liberty to make excess profits, even if the commodities are manufactured in this country. The remarks which we have heard from hon. members opposite show clearly the direction in which things are going, because we have not heard one word to encourage the Government to look after the farmer better. I had not expected anything else from an hon. member like the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) with his pole-cat mentality. But all these remarks by hon. members opposite show the direction in which we are going. I want to ask the Prime Minister to go into the question again, with special reference to the profits which can be made on manufactured goods exclusively produced in South Africa, and I ask him there too, for the sake of the farming community, and for the sake of those other people requiring those goods, to be good enough to give his attention to this matter so that relief may be granted in respect of the goods manufactured in this country.

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

I am glad that the hon. member for Vereeniging (Lt.-Col. Rood) has once and for all ascertained the facts with regard to the question of Simonstown and the Irish harbours. I think the Minister of Justice gave him the wrong information, and the hon. member was still under a misunderstanding last night about the £10,000,000 which was paid. In the agreement apparently no mention is made of the £10,000,000.

That was a collective amount for all the things.

Possibly there was half-a-crown for the harbours included, for all the hon. member knows. In any case, it is an indication to us of what the Irish people did, and what this party is going to do when we get into office. We will have to follow the example of De Valera and get the position cleared up once and for all, so that Simonstown will no longer be able to be called a reason why we are to be linked up with England and all her wars. The hon. member also said this afternoon that as to nine-tenths of himself he belonged to South Africa, and one-tenth to England.

The other way round.

That makes the position still worse. Then he stands as to nine-tenths, may I say, in England, and as to one-tenth in South Africa, and he says that that is to a great extent due to the fact that he feels that we are so dependent economically on England. May I just point out to the hon. member that after this war it is possible that no funds may come any longer on account of the exhaustion of the European nations, and that we shall then probably have to look to other countries, such as America, for our money. That clearly shows that we cannot put all our eggs in one basket. It is very dangerous to do so. I want, however, also to point out that if it were not for America having bought the wool, then we would not have been in such a favourable position with our wool. We even noticed that the mouth of Australia waters when they think of the fact that America is buying so much wool in our country. If it were not for the Americans, then the price of wool would not have been so good. I also want to point out that last year it was due to the agreement with Germany that we continued to get the price for wool that we did, notwithstanding the fact that we were so closely connected with England. Consequently I think that the hon. member is making a big mistake if he wants to link up our economic interests in the international world with the interests of one country. We must look round the world for markets, and we shall also possibly have to look about in other countries in future for capital.

You are getting too big for your boots.

May I just point out what that meant in the past? The hon. member says that we need the capital from England for our industries. Now I just want to point out where he can get the money. The last war cost us at least £40,000,000 besides the pensions that we had to pay to the crippled men who came back from the war, and who have already cost us more than £10,000,000. That mounts up to over £50,000,000.

£13,000,000 have already been paid in pensions.

Yes, but I take £3,000,000 as being the amount which is approximately paid out for pensions to oudstryders, then that leaves £10,000,000 in connection with the Great War. There is an amount of £14,000,000 on the estimates for war expenditure, and if those expenses keep on for three years it will mean another £50,000,000 so that it will amount to close on £100,000,000 in all. If we had taken that and systematically used it for developing our industries, then we would have been independent of other countries, and not found it necessary to take part in another war—as the hon. member for Vereeniging says, in order to get capital.

That is where we differ. I think that we would have been bankrupt.

How can the hon. member say that? We shall now once more be saddled with an unproductive debt, but without the wars we would have had a productive debt. The hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) raised a point here—one prefers not to mention his name because he is the kind of type that comes into this country and then refers sneeringly to the poor whites —but I just want to point out that our poor white question is also connected with the wars which we are fighting systematically. If we were to take the amount which is spent on wars, we would practically have had no poor white question at all. The Anglo-Boer War gave a great impetus to the increase of poor whitism, and the wars which we waged since then have made the problem all the greater. The people have been sacrificed for the sake of wars. In support of the amendment of the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth), I want to refer to Regulation 6 (2). It deals with the commandeering of land or goods for public purposes, i.e., say, war purposes—

Now I want to point out that there is no machinery for protecting the man from whom the things have been taken. There is merely an appraisement made of the things, and they will possibly be valued by the official who damaged them, and the Government will accept his valuation. We notice that under Section 21, no court of law is entitled in any way, to intervene in things which have been done under the regulation, and the court does not even have the right of taking cognisance of acts done under the regulation. Consequently a person from whom the things have been taken has no remedy. He cannot go and ask for help, but has to subject himself to the caprice of an official who has taken the goods. Accordingly, I am pleading, together with the hon. member for Zoutpansberg, for arbitration. If an injustice is done to such a person there ought, in my opinion, to be an opportunity to submit his case to arbitration. Then there is another little point that I want to make in the time at my disposal, and it is in connection with clause 12 of the regulations, I mean 12 (d), which says that any person who—

And at the end it says—

Now I want to point out that there are different sections of the public. Let us just take the different political parties. If anyone said that the Labour Party would disappear at the next election, then it might cause panic or alarm, and then he could be convicted. Or if anybody said that the Dominion Party had swallowed up the United Party then panic might also arise amongst the members of the United Party, and then also he could be punished. [Time limit.]

Mr. Chairman, this afternoon the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren) referred to remarks I made yesterday in dealing with these regulations, and he stated that I was using a private document. Now, sir, the hon. member ought to know perfectly well that if I referred to the document as one given to me by a Minister, it was not a private document. I stated most definitely on a previous occasion, and also yesterday that the regulations which I quoted from were those which had been previously prepared by the then Minister of Defence. Those regulations would, in the ordinary course of events, no doubt have been published and been treated in the same manner as these. Let me say this, that it was very well known as far back as March last year that regulations were being prepared then to deal with what might be considered a state of emergency brought about by events happening overseas. Regulations were taken in hand as far back as March or April last year, and that fact was common knowledge certainly to many members on this side of the House, and to accuse me of having used a private document was altogether improper on the part of the hon. member. That document was given to me by the Minister of Justice, which is quite a sufficient guarantee that it was not a private document.

Why did he give it to you?

It was given to others, and has been equally open to any other member of the House who is wide awake to what is going on. There are certain other matters in this Bill which have been referred to, and in regard to one dealing with this question of profiteering, the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth) had some criticism to offer on these profiteering regulations. Now, sir, he stated that a good deal of profiteering has been going on for many years. I have no doubt it has been going on, and probably always will go on, and he wants to know why it has not been taken in hand before. I think that is a question which might fairly be addressed to the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog). After all, if this has been going on for the last ten years, as he stated, it is rather extraordinary to ask us why it has not been taken in hand before. I don’t admit that his question is justified, and that this has been going on to the extent he indicated, but what I do want to point out to the House is that the steps that the Government has taken to deal with this question constitute an attempt to deal fairly with the public, and as far as possible to protect the business of the country. First of all, they have set up under these regulations, a board which is a national supplies control board, and that board consists of the Chairman of the Board of Trade and Industries, the Secretary for Commerce and Indusries, the Chairman of the Union Tender Supply Board, the Secretary for Defence, the Secretary for Agriculture and Forestry, and any other person whom the Minister may appoint. Now, sir, everyone of those gentlemen who have been appointed to that board are held in the highest respect not only by the service, but by the public generally. I think I can say that these people command the universal respect of commerce, and the public feel that in this matter of dealing with the profiteering regulations they have, in that body, one which is efficient and will give them fair play. As the result of these regulations that have been promulgated, there is no doubt about it that they will have a very salutary effect on business and commerce generally throughout the country in regulating prices, and preventing what undoubtedly did take place before, namely, a very big increase in prices and profiteering that always takes place when goods are difficult to get. The board has gone most carefully into all matters of business, and I think I can say that on the whole they have treated commerce fairly, they have listened to the representations that have been made, and what is more important, they have treated the public equally fairly. Hon. members are always keen to criticise commerce, but commerce to-day is prepared to play its part, and share in the effort that this country is making. The business community has faced, without complaint, the impositions which have been proposed, and which undoubtedly do interfere with business, but it is prepared to accept those conditions, which it recognises is necessary in these days. I feel that at all events business generally in this country, whether commerce or industries, has nothing to fear under these regulations, because they have a certain elasticity, and they do make allowance for the difficulties which exist to-day. If you go right through these particular regulations there may here and there be matters for adjustment in the future, but taking them on the whole, they have been designed to meet a very difficult situation, which may arise, and they will, I think, operate to ease the troubles that may possibly come upon this country. I don’t propose to go into details of these regulations, because I have referred to them on a previous occasion, but I do feel that whilst one may criticise one or two points, one must realise that in times of emergency private lives and private business must be interfered with, and one has to face the fact that in abnormal times you have to have abnormal measures. I do feel that in carrying out these regulations, they will be enforced in the easiest possible manner, so as to treat fairly all concerned.

I listened attentively to this debate to find out what was actually the cause of, and the necessity for this regulation. The Prime Minister said that this regulation, or rather he said that he was only carrying out the regulations which were made by the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) when he was still Minister of Defence, and the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. Pocock) more or less used the same words, but this afternoon an hon. member who apparently can speak with more authority, namely, the hon. member for North-East Rand (Mr. Heyns), said clearly, and without any ambiguity that the Prime Minister held a caucus meeting on the 5th September with hon. members on that side, and on that day they discussed the necessity for certain regulations which are now before the House, and which we are now dealing with. I think that we must take it that what the hon. member for North-East Rand said is true, and that this kind of smokescreen is being thrown up for the benefit of this side of the House, and even the public outside of it, that we are told that these were the regulations made by the hon. member for Gezina when he was Minister of Defence, and that they are merely giving effect to the regulations, which were made by him. It is very clear to us now that these regulations which we are dealing with to-day, are regulations which, as the hon. member for North-East Rand said, were drawn up and discussed by them on the 5th September, 1939. I want honestly to admit in this House to-night, that I am not afraid of that kind of regulation. As I have said, and as we know, we are at war, war has been declared. But what worries me is the effect of the way in which the regulations are being applied, and we also object to the persons who are carrying them out. Those are the objections which we on this side have to the regulations. After the decision of this House to take part in the war, we warned the public in the country to behave quietly, that they should maintain law and order, and we calmed the people down. We told them that they should wait, and that order must be maintained in the country. But what hurts one now is the remark which has been made on the other side. The hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg), for instance, made sneering statements here last night, and he even made them about the sacred things and about the Churches of the Afrikaners. That causes trouble in the country, and those are the people for whom these regulations are required. They are the people to whom the regulations should be applied. My only objection is this, and we can speak with authority and from experience, that the regulations are causing very great unpleasantness among the public in the country. So far as the hon. member for Umbilo is concerned, you cannot regard him as anything else than a jack-in-the-box. He says that we on this side of the House represent more than 500,000 poor whites. My reply to that is this: Who is the cause of our having that colossal number of poor whites in South Africa to-day? Is it not the people who are engaged in exploiting us and grinding us down, the people of whom the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) is one. They are only obsessed by one ideal, and that is that imperialism should win the day in our country. But we are definitely opposed to that, and we will set our faces against it. That is why the hon. member for Gezina said that he would give the lead in a constitutional way, to see to it that that imperialistic ideal shall not be realised in our country.

The hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) this afternoon drew attention to the fact that members on the Opposition side of the House were storming against these regulations, although in the past they had been assisting the Government they supported to pass various Acts giving wide powers to Ministers to pass regulations under those Acts. He referred particularly to cases where these powers were given in relation to the control of foodstuffs, and in relation to the necessities of life. Now I want to refer to a different category. Hon. members who are objecting to these regulations to-day as undemocratic, passed legislation such as the Riotous Assemblies Act, under which men could be taken without trial in peace time, taken from one part of the country to another, and put into prison without trial. The only point of objection which hon. members on the Opposition benches have to the regulations is that these regulations are aimed at people whom they are in sympathy with, whereas the other type of legislation which they passed were aimed at people whom they were not in sympathy with. We all know that hon. members on the Opposition benches do not consider that the principles of justice applied to Europeans should also be applied to the native people, but the legislation passed by them applied to Europeans also, with whom they disagreed. As a matter of fact, one does not have to go as far back as the Riotous Assemblies Act to get instances of this kind. The hon. member for Stellenbosch (Mr. Fagan), when he occupied the position of Minister of Native Affairs, a few months before this war broke out, issued a proclamation by which anyone, even my colleagues and myself, were prohibited from addressing meetings in native reserves. People who are members of Parliament—elected by these people in the Native Reserves—were not allowed to go and address meetings there. It is true that on our protesting he made an exception in our case. But why did he pass that regulation? Why did he do it? He did it because he was afraid of Nazi propaganda among the natives, and that was in peace time. He made an exception so far as we were concerned, because he was satisfied that we would not be instruments of Nazi propaganda. But the fact of the matter is that the hon. member was sufficiently afraid of Nazi propaganda to limit freedom of speech among a certain section of the population. Yet to-day he comes forward and objects because regulations are made which are necessary to cope with possible Nazi propaganda and other evils. I am sorry not to see the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. Bekker) here this evening, because my main reason for rising was to make some remarks in reference to what we heard from him this afternoon. Not that the ’ hon. member for Cradock said anything very profound, or anything very important.

He never does.

In fact, in my opinion, quite the contrary. But I have to refer to him because the sort of speech he made this afternoon is so typical of the sort of technique of controversy that we have been hearing not only in this debate, but in previous debates from hon. members on Opposition benches. The hon. member for Cradock kept on hurling accusations across the House, using such words—political swear words as “Capitalism” and “Imperialism,” without apparently any thought of what they meant in the particular context in which he used these words. I think we should have a little explanation from him of what he meant by these words. Does the hon. member mean that he objects to the capitalist system? Do hon. members on the Opposition benches object to the capitalist system? If so, what system do they propose to substitute for it?

They do not want to substitute anything.

Was the hon. member for Cradock really serious in objecting to the capitalist system, because when we were discussing the price of wool he came forward apparently as one of the largest wool capitalists, and as a matter of fact I think he is generally referred to as the wool king. If the hon. member for Cradock accuses the Government side of the House of capitalism, what does he mean by it? My suggestion is, of course, that he does not for a moment object to the capitalist system. There is a racial implication in what he says. But what did he mean by a capitalist? He meant anyone not of his own race. Another favourite word of the hon. member for Cradock, which hon. members on the front Opposition benches also like to use, is the word “Imperialist.” Now what in the context of modern conditions does Imperialism mean? He says that these regulations are being passed for the sake of British Imperialism. Imperialism means taking away the independence of a certain country or people. I wish hon. members would tell us which nation is being threatened by British Imperialism in regard to its independence?

Germany.

Ah, there we have it.

Who declared war?

I should like the hon. member to elaborate that when he has an opportunity. But let me say this—if there is one Imperialistic nation in the world today it is Germany. The Czechoslovakian people, and the Polish people are victims of German Imperialism. The fact of the matter is that hon. members on the Opposition benches object to Imperialism when applied to themselves, but they are tolerant of it so far as others are concerned.

What about the Boer War—was not Imperialism responsible for that?

I quite agree about the Boer War, but that happened forty years ago. Apparently hon. members hope to influence public opinion when they shout out such words as imperialism and Capitalism, which have no relation to the controversy which we are dealing with now. And to make the situation even more ridiculous we have the hon. member for Potgietersrust (the Rev. S. W. Naudé) getting up and throwing accusations of Communism at the Government supporters. I should like the hon. member to explain to us, if he can, what he means by Communism.

Ask Burnside?

Does he mean anyone who accepts the principles of Carl Marx, or someone who is a member of the Russian Communist Party, or a supporter of the Stalin regime? If he means that then I may inform him that members of the Opposition benches of the House are very much nearer to that than members on the Government benches. I have the opportunity every now and then of hearing real Communists speak, and one thing which has struck me since the war broke out is the tremendous similarity between their arguments and those of hon. members on the Opposition benches which we hear almost every day.

The hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Bumside) has absented himself from this House for some considerable time. The House has missed him. Although the House has never been unduly impressed by his intelligene it has been most impressed by that peculiar ability of his to make the greatest follies sound plausible.

Well, that is something you must admire.

hon. members on this side of the House have never had the opportunity of visiting that famous place Billingsgate, but they have come to get a good idea of what Billingsgate is like from the speeches of the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo). Last night he arrived here flushed by the family victory at Durban (Umbilo), but instead of coming here to represent those misguided electors of his who still believe that there is such a thing as a Labour Party, he came here not to represent them, but to endeavour to undermine democracy — to undermine that which he has so fervently championed in the past— and to support autocracy.

What clause are you speaking on?

He used to speak strongly for the rights of the individual, the freedom of the Press; and how many tirades have we not heard against any attempt at domination? But this hon. gentleman has now become converted to the cause of Imperialism, and he is now prepared to repudiate all the principles he stood for in the past.

I speak as I do because I stand for those principles.

He now supports the autocratic Imperialism of the Prime Minister.

What is your definition of Imperialism?

Go to, a night school.

The hon. gentleman from South Coast (Mr. Neate), when one speaks in Afrikaans in this House, always has a most intelligent look on his face, although he does not understand one word of what is being said. When a member on this side of the House, however, speaks in English he immediately comes to life, fastens on the word Imperialism and in the most innocent manner pleads for a definition. I shall give him the definition of Imperialism. This is a definition given by an English writer, Watkins Davies, the biographer of Lloyd George. He is here disussing the Boer War….

We are getting tired of the Boer War.

Well, I shall just quote this for the edification of the hon. member—

That is a reference to the war of forty years ago.

Do you agree with that?

I am not going to pursue that enticing topic. I shall return to the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo). That hon. member made the astounding declaration that he has for many years objected to government by regulation, but at this particular stage, because there is a war on, he is in favour of government by regulation, and he has actually the audacity to compare this Act, the regulations framed under this Act, with the Marketing Act. Well, Mr. Chairman, the hon. member must find some excuse for the somersault that he has turned. But that is not the only somersault. During the first part of the session the hon. gentleman arrived here wearing not the customary red tie, but a blue tie. I attributed the change in ties to, the fact that in supporting the Prime Minister he could not so flagrantly sport a red tie when Russia was making war on Finland, and he being one of the champions of Russia not so very long ago. But I see he has returned to, his first love. He still sports a red tie, but a red tie with white spots on it. This hon. gentleman in the past was sent here to represent the workers. This hon. gentleman came here to fight for the underdog, but now he is a supporter of the party which really represents capitalism in this country. I wonder if he will still fight for the underdog and for the workers. His position in that party reminds me very much of the smile on the face of the tiger. The hon. gentleman accused hon. members on this side of the House of being a hybrid party. I wonder what this union of the fragment of the Labour Party and of the United Party is going to bring forth. When, in a physical sense, I regard the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) I think it will be the world’s curiosity. Mr. Chairman, it seems to be accepted as a fact that when this country is at war nobody should dare say a word against that war. Only this evening I read in the Cape Argus the result of a British election at which one of the candidates described himself as an anti-war candidate. So even in mother Britain they have candidates offering themselves for election who are definitely against the war. There are no regulations in Great Britain to prevent those people from standing. This hon. gentleman comes to this House prepared to support a Government that intends taking away the rights of the individual, freedom of speech and the freedom of the Press. Those hon. gentlemen on that side of the House are amazed. But if they have read the regulations, and having already seen what has happened in regard to the rights of the individual, they should not be so amazed. On a previous occasion I referred to the Minister of Labour making malicious accusations against public men in this country. I think, therefore, it follows that this Government will make use of these regulations to get their political opponents out of the way. They will use them to stop Press criticism, to stop freedom of speech, and to destroy the rights of the individual. They will, in fact, do everything that they are continually accusing Hitler of doing.

Might I first of all pay a tribute to the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. Schoeman). I do so because in the course of this very long and very vituperative debate, I doubt if there has been a finer speech delivered on both sides of the House than that which has just been delivered by the hon. member for Fordsburg. He obviously shows us that the people who tell us that they only stand for the Afrikaans-speaking people, at least have a sense of humour. I know that people generally have a sense of humour, and I have been waiting for many weary hours to find it in this House amongst members on the other side, and it has, at long last, come out by the hon. member for Fordsburg. I am sure that if I had five minutes’ conversation with the hon. member he would probably come over here. The trouble is that the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog) has probably had a quarter of an hour’s conversation with him and he has adopted the usual tactics and has said to the hon. member for Fordsburg, “look here” and he does so. I am satisfied, although the hon. member has mentioned me particularly, that he agrees with me most of the way. As a matter of fact, if I wanted to pride myself, I could almost say, judging from his speech, that I have taught him something, when he was saying, “There is the hon. member for Umbilo; he says things of great weight and moment, and if I could only understand him I am sure I would agree with him.” I want to suggest that the debate, so far as these particular regulations are concerned, is governed by the attitude of the hon. member for Smithfield and the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan). I think I am entitled to say, as a backbencher, an extreme backbencher, right at the back, that we are entitled to say…

It is a pity you are not through the wall.

I am not through the wall. As a matter of intelligence, it is unfortunate in this House that there are extreme backbenchers. If some hon. members opposite were to be judged by their intellectual achievements, and they were put where their intellectual achievements entitled them to be put, they would be put outside of this House altogetner. I want to suggest that the whole tone and the whole tenor of this debate in regard to these particular regulations have been more or less set by the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog). “The hon. member for Smithfield,” as a matter of fact, is a phrase that I love to turn round in my mouth, because for sixteen years, firstly, as a private citizen and, secondly, as a member of Parliament, I have had to suffer under what I call the intellectual disability of having to address the hon. member for Smithfield as Prime Minister. It does please me, although I do not know how it pleases the rest of South Africa, but it certainly pleases me nowadays not to call him the Prime Minister, but to refer to him in the language in which I think he should always have been referred to, namely, as the hon. member for Smithfield.

Loud cheers! They know you are impertinent.

I think the hon. gentleman’s intellectual attainments and his contribution to the history of South Africa should designate him always as the hon. member for a very insignificant constituency in the Free State—the hon. member for Smithfield. As to the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) he was dug out of obscurity by the late Mr. Tielman Roos. We should never have heard of the hon. member for Gezina had it not been for Mr. Tielman Roos. However, I am not the least bit worried.

You notice that your own side does not like you to be impertinent to your betters.

Impertinent to my hon. and German friend the hon. member for Gezina, that is impertinence. Can one be impertinent to the hon. and supremely inefficient ex-Minister of Defence? I, in this House, have had to stand under the lash of the hon. and supremely inefficient exMinister of Defence, when he was the darling of the English-speaking Press of this country, and when I was the black boy, the nigger in the woodpile. Now, to-day, I am in the position of being able to say, “I told you so.” I am to-day in the position of being able to say to the hon. member that, according to his own language, he speaks German and that he thinks German and that all his political inspiration is German, and that he is a German in the midst of a country which has declared war on Germany. I do not want any back talk from the hon. member, and I shall not take it from him. When it comes to a lead I may say that I will give another lead as an obscure backbencher, because I represent the feelings and the thoughts of a great many more people than the hon. gentleman does. I want to discuss these regulations in the line of general policy. We know perfectly well amidst the hundreds of amendments that have been moved to this regulation, there is a general policy concerned, and the general policy concerned is an objection to South Africa participating in the war on the side of Great Britain. When we are discussing these regulations we are not discussing them as a regulation which is effective or otherwise. If so we would take a pattern from the regulations drawn up by the hon. member for Gezina. They were drawn up by the hon. member under instigation of Hitler himself.

Who says so?

I say so and I challenge the hon. member to deny that. The hon. member for Gezina left this country and went overseas at our expense. At our expense, mark that, Mr. Chairman, at our expense he went and saw Hitler.

So did Chamberlain.

But we did not pay for him to go. My hon. and reverend friend says that Mr. Chamberlain went to see Herr Hitler. He did, but he did not go at your expense or at my expense, but when the hon. member for Gezina went, he went at our expense. I do not know who sent him, but I think the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog) sent him, but we paid for it, and we have asked him consistently what was the tenor of his conversation with Hitler and we have got no reply. Oh yes, he said he shot some rabbits. I understood that neither Hitler nor the hon. member for Gezina could shoot anything. The hon. member for Gezina talks about wars. Hitler at least was a corporal, but so far as I understand the hon. member for Gezina, like myself, has never been in any war.

I seem to remember that I dealt with a skunk last session.

But your nose is the kind of nose that is always digging into the mud, and if there were three gentlemen together, and you were one of them, your more would smell the skunk first. It is a meet point and a point which is lost sight of in this country, but here we have a responsible Minister of the Crown, the Minister of Defence, the Minister who knew about the entire dislocation and the complete rottenness, shall I say, of our defence force. [Time limit.]

I am glad to see that the hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. Wallach) is in his place, because I would like to bring a matter to the notice of the Committee. In to-night’s Argus you will find a portrait of Dr. W. J. Leyds, and in addition to that there is an article which reads as follows—

I would just like to explain that this is not a report of the proceedings of the House. It says—

Then the letter proceeds—

I shall be glad if the hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. Wallach) will say what the position is in regard to this letter, because I have received a message from Mrs. Steyn that she never received a letter of that kind, or passed such a letter on. As she is so highly respected by the people, as she is held in such honour, it is a scandal that she should be dragged into the matter here. That the widow of President Steyn should ever have handed over such a letter was also a thing which we never could have believed. She denies most emphatically that she ever handed over that letter. This is a serious matter, and I feel that it is my duty to bring it to the notice of the Committee and to ask for an explanation from the hon. member. I will not reply to the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside). When he makes a speech, especially after dinner, then we take still less notice of him, and I think, in any case, that no one in his sound senses would take any notice of what he said. The hon. member for North-East Rand (Mr. Heyns) is also in his place, and he said something here this afternoon about what I am supposed to have said. I am sorry that they are always repeating a thing over and over again, which they know is not a fact. He said once more that I am supposed to have said that I would rather stand under Hitler than under the Prime Minister. I have already explained it but I must do it again. I want to ask hon. members please not always to repeat my words incorrectly. The hon. member also said here this afternoon that the hon. member for Wodehouse (Mr. S. Bekker) had no party label—I think that the hon. member had much better not speak about that. He said that I am supposed to have said that I would rather stand under Hitler than under the Prime Minister. I want again to repeat, and I shall keep on repeating, that that is not correct, not because the hon. member said so, but because I see that the English paper in the district of Pietersburg, which always represented that it did not belong to any party, but which was now showing its colours, also quoted it. I want to quote here what I said, from column 1296 of Hansard. I said the following, with regard to what the hon. member for Ermelo (Mr. Jackson) had said—

Then you did actually say it?

I want again to say how it originally appeared, viz. [retranslation]—

I want to repeat it, and the reason why I am doing so is that a fuss is already being made in the north by supporters of the Government, and I see that they are now even getting the support of the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick). I now want to quote here from the little paper in my district, where a speech in support of a United Party meeting was quoted by Mr. Van Zyl Slabbert, the provincial councillor, who always pretended that he belonged to no party. In this newspaper it is said—

But where the joke comes, in is that he is a person who never belonged to the United Party. But we suspected at the last election, that he was not honest inasmuch as the number of votes by which I won the seat was less than what was expected. According to this report I further said that “they had lost” during the recent election, and here he proves that he was then already deceiving. The report then proceeds—

Just imagine, he speaks of freedom. Then he goes on—

Here again you have one of the strong supporters of the Government who feels that he must rebel. He did not speak like the hon. member for Illovo, who did not want to rebel, but who wanted to have a civil war. But this Mr. Van Zyl Slabbert only wanted to rebel, but let me set the mind of the Minister of Defence at rest, he will not need the defence force to act against that kind of rebel, he can send a few boys in the service batallion with sticks, and then they will run away. That man said that he was inclined to rebel, but that is not necessary either. I hope that he will do his duty, like hon. members opposite, as provision has now been made that they will get extra pay for their patriotism. We shall be glad to see who there are amongst the members of this House, and which of the members of the Provincial Council will take their places.

Mr. Chairman, in reply to the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Tom Naudé), I want to explain that I did not mention the name of Mrs. Steyn. I don’t want the House to be under any misapprehension. This letter that I hold was sent by Dr. Leyds to his nephew in Cape Town, Mr. G. Anton Leyds, who sent me a copy of the letter that Dr. Leyds sent to Mrs. Steyn. I don’t mind laying the letter on the Table.

Mr. Chairman, I would like the hon. member to lay the letter on the Table of the House.

I want to revert to regulation No. 12….

Mr. Chairman, can I oppose the letter being laid on the Table?

I have ruled that a private member cannot lay a letter on the Table. The hon. member will show it to the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog).

I think it is bad taste asking.

When my speech was interrupted this afternoon, I was discussing Regulation No. 12, where it says that if hostile feelings are aroused amongst the public, then any person who is guilty of it is committing an offence. I would like to say something about those disturbers of the peace, against whom the regulation is made. It is certainly not intended against the Afrikaans people, because in the whole of the world there is no people so orderly and so submissive as the Afrikaans people are, and that is probably due to the religious sense of the Afrikaans people, which protects them against licence and lawlessness. You must look for the disturbers of the peace amongst the anarchists, like the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) and the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg). You must look for them amongst the communists, and you must look for them amongst the flotsam and jetsam which come here from other countries. A person like the hon. member for Umbilo, who is not worthy to undo the shoe laces of the Leader of the Opposition, had the temerity to attack the Leader of the Opposition here. I think that what happened in the case of Jonah and the whale will hanpen to the hon. member, namely, that he could not tolerate Jonah and spat him out. I hope that hon. members opposite, who do not share my views, will also spit him out on to the sea shore of South Africa. These disturbers of the peace we must not look for amongst the farming section. I want to remind the Prime Minister of the fact that it is more than 36 years now since the honour of the Afrikaner nation was humbled, that its national pride was trodden underfoot, that its feelings were despised and its language ridiculed. We have always had to put up with that and it is still happening to-day. The Union Jack to us is like a red rag to a bull. We do not love it, and we will never love it. But to-day when feeling is running high, we notice a Union Jack on every little car. I wonder what would happen if you were to find a motor car in London with the Vierkleur? No, you will not find it there, but South Africa is just a subordinate country, it is just a colony, and here they can freely drive about with the Union Jack. But there is something else. I suppose that God Save the King is a sacred thing to hon. members on the other side, because it is a prayer, but it is sung on every suitable or unsuitable occasion, and if we patronise a bioscope then we have to stand up there also when God Save the King is sung. This causes bad feeling, and you must not take it amiss if breaches of the peace are caused by the action of that side of the House. Feeling is stirred up and regulations will have to be enforced. Against whom? Against the Afrikaner who will no longer be able to bear it. There is something else and it is the regulation which says that people can be arrested without a hearing and without the giving of any reasons and that they can be taken to a place to which they do not want to go and to be detained there and then subsequently released, all without a hearing. I fear that very few of us on this side are safe. If anyone has a political enemy then he will try to have him arrested just to get his way. This clause is a dangerous one, and I want to protest against it with all my force.

I almost caught an interjection by the hon. member for Witbank (Mr. Bezuidenhout). I do not know whether it was Witbank. If he wants to make any further interjections with regard to me, then he must do it in such a way that we can hear what he says. I am always prepared to meet him with arguments or otherwise. If anything has convinced me of the necessity for these regulations, then it is the arguments and the attitude of the Opposition in this House. There is not the least doubt — the Opposition are looking for an opportunity of licence. They want to have an opportunity of stirring up the people in the country to any evil they may possibly be able to do.

Are you afraid as well?

I do not think that the hon. member can accuse me of fear, and I am quite prepared to give him the opportunity to test it. We have beard a great deal as to why such regulations were intended to be applied by the former Minister of Defence, namely in order to maintain the white civilisation in Africa. That reminds me. Mr. Chairman, of one of the followers of the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow), who once took up the same attitude. He was a professor, and the question was put to him whether, if trouble possibly arose in Central Africa which might bring white civilisation into danger, whether he would go and help. His reply was that he would go and help. The further question was then put to him whether he would also go and help if there were possibly European nations concerned in those troubles, with the result that two European nations would be opposing each other. His answer was that he would go and help to maintain the white civilisation, but that he would not take any notice of the European nations who were fighting with each other there. That is the sermon which the hon. member for Gezina delivered to us here, and it is such an unpractical policy that no one dan take any notice of it.

“Ryperd” (Bravo!)

I am sorry that the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. Labuschagne) is so disturbed about the war regulations that he has become afraid, as he told us the other day, that he would lose his fowl-runs.

I am not a chicken farmer. Surely it is you who are the chicken farmer.

He told this House that he would lose his chicken-runs, and then he would not get sufficient compensation. He would prefer to see his country lost rather than his chicken-runs. We must not be frivolous about a serious matter, because our country is at war.

With whom?

Certainly not with that hon. member. It will not make any difference — the side he stands on. We on this side are charged with having departed from the policy of the United Party. If there is anyone who can judge impartially about this trouble, someone who was unconnected with us, then it was the previous Leader of the Opposition, and what did he say? After all the speeches which were made in this House about neutrality he neither accused the previous Prime Minister of having deviated from the old policy of the Nationalist Party and not being in favour of neutrality, nor of having become such a good friend of England that he wanted to take part in England’s wars.

Read it out.

I will do it next time. We are told that we made a promise, or at least that our leaders promised that a resolution such as the one passed on the 4th September should be passed with the greatest possible unanimity, and we are now blamed because that resolution was not passed with the greatest possible unanimity. Are we to understand by that that we did not take enough trouble to persuade hon. members opposite to vote with us? We thought that we had got the most possible support. So far as we know we did get the most possible support. But the hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen), who made that charge, most likely interprets unanimity by the words “almost unanimously.” If he refers to a dictionary — not his dictionary, but an ordinary dictionary — then he will find that that is not so.

Every schoolchild will tell you that that is the translation for the “greatest possible unanimity.”

The hon. member for Gezina found fault with us and said that an oath of fidelity had to be made to see what members of the Defence Force were loyal members of this party. I think that everybody in the country knows that that is not the intention, but that the country and the Government wanted to know who were the disloyal citizens of the country, not who were the loyal members of the party, but the unfaithful citizens, and we are entitled to know that.

Unfaithful to whom?

Any person who does not want to carry out the policy of the Government in time of war is unfaithful to the country, and the Government is entitled to know what officers and men are loyal to the country. We heard from the hon. member for Hoopstad (Mr. J. H. Viljoen) that he wanted to tell us why the regulations are being passed. He said that the Afrikaner people were not making themselves guilty of riots. Does he want to say seriously that these regulations were intended against the Afrikaans-speaking section of the population?

That has been the case up to the present.

The hon. member is not serious, and I have always hitherto considered him a serious member.

It looks so up to the present.

They want to come here and tell the country that the Afrikaner people are sitting on that side. That is a very big mistake. I will not deny that there is a section of the Afrikaner people sitting over there.

The greatest part.

The hon. member says that the greatest part are sitting on that side. Losberg certainly did not prove it, and other parts of the country will give still further proof that that is not the case.

Potchefstroom also?

Yes, Potchefstroom also will prove it, and I challenge anyone on that side to come and test the matter with me when the time comes.

Why then are you holding secret meetings?

The hon. member should not make charges about things he knows nothing about. When we read in Hansard his speeches made in the past, and we listen to what he says here now, then we come to the conclusion that it is not worth the trouble to listen to what he says. We have a great duty before us, and that is to do the best we can. The regulation which is being so much opposed here has already been in working for months. Where is the difficulty? Which people are greatly affected by it, and who have already lost their chicken-runs? The regulations have been in working for months and there is no trouble. No, the trouble is made in this House; they cultivate the troubles here by their speeches in this Parliament.

I should like to come to clause 9 of the regulations. Clause 9, as originally drawn, vested in the Minister of Defence the power to appoint the control officer, and I think everyone will agree that the appointment of the control officer is one of the most important parts of these regulations. But apparently not satisfied with that regulation an amendment was introduced by another proclamation and that was that now the Minister of Justice will make the appointment, and I presume the idea was to make sure that the appointment would really be a just appointment, and that someone would be appointed who would be able to exercise an impartial view over these matters. I have given notice of an amendment to the effect that no one will be appointed who is not bilingual, and no one will be appointed who is, or has been, a chairman of a political party, or a vice-chairman of a political party, or a secretary or an organiser of a political party. At first sight it might seem rather unnecessary to move an amendment like that, because one would infer that no Minister of Justice would think of appointing a person who had been prominent in a political party in that way. Obviously such an appointment would not be just, it would be unjust, but if you do think that, Mr. Chairman, you would be mistaken, because we find that the very first appointment made was that of an ex-chairman and an actual vice-chairman of the United Party, and I am now referring to the appointment of Sir Theodore Truter. I want to appeal to the Minister of Defence not as Minister of Justice, but as ex-Minister of Justice, and I want to ask him whether he agrees with me that the administration of justice should not only be impartial, but also appear to be impartial, and I want to ask him whether he considers that an appointment of that kind is fair and right. Now the control officer is vested with vast power. He is the man who has the say whether a Union citizen has to be interned or not. There is no trial, it all depends on the will of this one man, and I venture to suggest that when that one man is a chairman of a political party—one of the parties concerned in this unfortunate strife in which we are involved, he cannot exercise the necessary impartiality. I think that amendment is so reasonable that I am entitled not to ask it, but to demand it. There is another regulation which I should like to deal with now, and that is the regulation under which this corps is established. When this corps was originally established under the first proclamation it was established for the purpose of protecting buildings in urban areas. Well, the moment I read that it struck me “What has the platteland done; why should the platteland not be protected,” and I notice now, I am glad to see it, that by subsequent proclamation this corps is entitled also to protect buildings in non-urban areas. But I want to know why only buildings should be protected? Why should not the stock of a farmer be protected? Why should not irrigation schemes and dams be protected? It seems to me that this is a pretty broad hint to the platteland what they are to expect from this Government.

Nothing.

Not even protection. It seems that these regulations are couched in such a way as to definitely indicate to the platteland that the platteland will henceforth be considered to be a step-child. The Dominion Party ideals are now going to be imposed still further until we shall have a Government which is out to protect the town at the expense of the platteland. [Loud laughter.] The Minister of Commerce and Industries is laughing.

I apologise for laughing, but I could not help it. I tried to keep a sober face.

The hon. minister will protect his buildings, but he will not protect improvements on my farm, and that is all he is concerned about.

What about my farm?

I do not know from which danger we shall be protected, for at the present moment we are not in jeopardy. There is no enemy except in the imagination of the members of the United Party, and except in the imagination of the editors of the United Party press. This agitation is a necessary corollary to whát was said in this very Chamber on the 4th September. The public was warned of this grave danger which was stated to exist. It stands to reason that the next step, the necessary corollary, was to have some regulations of this kind in order to convince the public that a danger does actually exist, although in the six months since the regulation was first promulgated not in one instance, except the flinging of innocent people into concentration camps, has this regulation been invoked.

We have heard a lot in this debate, during the course of the last three days, a lot that most of us would rather not have heard, and if we had to wish, we would wish that it had never been uttered. The hon. member for Zoutpansberg has certainly given expression to criticism of these regulations. He has certainly picked them out one by one and offered his criticism. In doing so I think he has been actuated by a sense of duty rather than by the conviction that there is something wrong. It was a sense of duty to the party which is struggling to justify its existence to-day. The hon. member started by lodging a great complaint in regard to the personnel of the Shipping Board. His objection is that there are no farmers on the Board. The hon. member did not tell us of any farmers who had any experience in the control of shipping or in the organisation of freights or in regard to anything appertaining to ships.

You must read the regulations themselves. This Board is not only going to control shipping, but expropriate farmers’ land and farmers’ produce.

I think the hon. member made a mistake in attacking the Prime Minister. He should have attacked the hon. minister for Irrigation. He should have complained that he did not make a big lake on the Limpopo River and fit it out with a fleet so that we could guard the northern frontiers. That would have justified his claim and he could have satisfied the Zoutpansberg district by going to the bulk of the unfortunate farmers who support him in that district and fitting them out with jobs. It is absolute nonsense. Every man on the Shipping Board to-day is a man tried and trusted and with the necessary experience.

What does the Board know of farm values?

Probably a lot more than the hon. member does. The next item he criticised was these emergency regulations and he blamed the Prime Minister right through his career for introducing them on different occasions. He then turned round and said that during the 16 years under the late Prime Minister there had been peace in this country. Quite right, Mr. Chairman.

But what was the reason for that? During those 16 years the late Prime Minister had the benefit of an honest and an intelligent and a fair opposition. He had the benefit of an opposition that never sunk to stirring up the sentiments of the poor people, and never appealed to those unfortunate individuals who are unable to help themselves and cast before their noses all sorts of promises and all sorts of wonderful things that they had dreamt of but had never realised. Throughout those 16 years, criticism from this side of the House was genuine and fair and of such a nature as not to stir up any unrest in this country whatsoever. That is the reason why for 16 years you had peace in this country. I will tell the hon. member that the manner in which the Opposition in this House has carried on in the last three days may be calculated to stir up the greatest unrest among certain sections of the people in this country. If there is trouble in this country the hon. member amongst others has played his part in this House in causing it.

Who has?

The hon. member for Zoutpansberg and you have. The hon. member has just criticised the establishment of a control officer. He said it had to be some political individual: someone who was prominent in politics. He made that very clear.

I said just the reverse.

You mean the intention? You said it would be. It so happens that the control officer was a vice-chairman of the party of which he was a member. The hon. member for Zoutpansberg sat under that chairmanship and was perfectly satisfied and perfectly happy. He made that quite clear, but a half-truth is worse than a lie, and I accuse the hon. member of a half-truth.

Why?

Why? Did you not tell the House that there was no justice in the control officer unless there was a court of appeal?

You do not know the first thing about these regulations.

There is a court of appeal for a gentleman who has not dabbled in the politics of this country. The hon. member, however, also went so far as to dabble in profiteering, and he told us of a monopoly that existed in this country in government timber, a monopoly that had been obtained by fair tender.

I said the Transvaal.

All right, the Transvaal, a monopoly which had existed by tender.

You have misunderstood again.

The hon. member acknowledged, in reply to an interruption from this side of the House, that the people who got the timber had got it by tender.

You have missed the point. It was their profiteering.

Yes, why did somebody else not get it?

Profiteering is illegal except in this one case.

The company the hon. member mentioned is in control of that timber to-day as the successful tenderers amongst other people. Am I correct?

They are allowed to profiteer because the law is drawn in such a way.

They are the successful tenderers, and the hon. member is objecting to people making a profit. If the farmers make a profit, he is going to control them too. When the hon. member goes back again to Zoutpansberg, I hope he will tell the farmers there, “If you make a profit we shall control you.” We have a set of regulations before us here and the hon. gentleman knows as much about them as any member in this House, and he knew a lot about them before any member in this House. He knows by whom they were drawn up and he will not deny that he was consulted occasionally on certain visits to the bushveld.

Absolutely untrue.

I will go so far as to say that this denial is almost an echo of the voice of Ananias. He knew a lot more about these regulations, and had they been in the hands of a certain individual he would have been satisfied.

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, it is customary that in such a case an hon. member accepts another hon. member’s denial.

I am perfectly satisfied in my own mind that the hon. member knew a lot more about these regulations than any other member of this House. I have not the slightest doubt about that. The hon. member reminds me of a great pest in the Zoutpansberg—the mosquito. That is a pest that goes round collecting poison here and there and eventually finds a subject on which to belch it. I tell him as a Zoutpansberger he may be compared to the mosquito and when he attempts to sting the Prime Minister with poison that he has collected on his jaunts round the bushveld, he will have as much effect as if a Zoutpansberg mosquito was trying to sting a Zoutpansberg elephant. He will be absolutely futile. One can only admire him for the loyalty he has displayed to the party which is singing its swan song. I do not think there is much doubt about it.

What about Kuruman?

A moral victory for this side of the House. There have been thirteen by-elections in this country since September. Four victories have gone over there and nine over here. Do not talk to me about Kuruman. [Time limit.]

I would like to revert to what the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. H. van der Merwe) said in connection with my explanation a little while ago, in regard to the policy of the United Party before the 4th September. The House knows quite well that I tried two or three times that day to explain the policy of the party, but that the Chairman prevented me from doing it on that occasion. The hon. member for Potchefstroom made reference here to my translation of the word “unanimity.” I stated expressly here that there was a great distinction between “majority” and “unanimity”, and I then said in English that the hon. member for Gezina had said that we would only take part in the war if Parliament decided “with the greatest possible unanimity.” That surely means almost unanimity, and I want to refer the hon. member to Hansard of 1936, where a declaration of policy was made in conformity with a decision of the Cabinet. The declaration of policy was made by the then Minister of Defence (Mr. Pirow) and he said—

I hope that the hon. member now knows what the position is. Perhaps he does not know the distinction between “majority” and “unanimity,” but any schoolchild would be able to tell him that. He comes here and he also goes to his constituents, and makes the explanation that he is standing by the policy which was laid down. I referred to this point the other night, and I want to ask the hon. member to refer to Hansard. I hope that the hon. member will then not say again that that is the policy which we have followed during the last six-and-a-half years. Now I want to bring another matter to the notice of the Minister. It appears to me to be dangerous, and I am referring to the regulations about arresting and detention of dangerous persons. I have a circular here which was given to me by a simple but very zealous man who supports this side of the House. He received this circular, and it is a little card from the knights of truth, and this is what he was asked to sign—

The man studied that card, and he realised however he might try to stop it, he was caught in the trap. He felt that if he signed the card then he was a supporter of Gen. Smuts, and if he did not sign it then it would be said that he was in favour of Germany. Notice that it says at the bottom of the card—

If he does not send the card back, then he is a supporter of the Leader of the Opposition, and then he approves of the Nazi administration. If he does send it back then he is a supporter of the Prime Minister. It is that moral obligation which I was explaining the other night, which is laid on people in order to get them to volunteer. That person said to me: There is no other choice open to me except to sign, otherwise I shall be sent to the camp. I said that he should give it to me, but he felt that he ought actually to sign it. How many of those cards are not signed by those people under pressure of that kind, and then they become members of the truth legion. If these people are supporters of the Leader of the Opposition, then it is clearly said here that they are in favour of Nazi domination, and therefore they ought to sign it. That kind of propaganda which is going on in the country is an indirect threat to these people, and people have already told me that they must sign, because otherwise they would have to go to the camp. I say that if these regulations go through, this kind of unjust thing will be happening, and when a man does not sign then he will be in danger. Under paragraph 12 (1) we have also the case in regard to the prohibition of meetings. It is so surprising to me why the Government takes these extra powers because we have surely laid down under Act No. 27 of 1914, that any magistrate can prohibit any meeting which he fears will be riotous. The Act says—

In other words, he has the right to prohibit any meeting if it is necessary. Is this regulation not a trap set to prevent us informing the public as to what the truth really is, and what the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. H. van der Merwe) does not yet know? Is it not a fact that next year provincial council elections are to be held, and that the right of finding out the truth will then be taken away from the public? Why otherwise do they introduce these regulations, when the law gives the magistrate the power to prohibit riotous assemblies?

I think this Committee has shown a great deal of patience and forbearance in listening to the arguments that have been brought forward at such great length by members of the Opposition. We have been amazed, at the nature of some of the amendments, and I think the Opposition by sponsoring such amendments has branded itself as an Opposition whose main purpose in this House, in any case during this present session, has been to show their complete sympathy with Hitler and their unwillingness to allow any participation in the war on the part of the Union to be carried out effectively, and to do everything they possibly can even to the point of making themselves ridiculous, to hinder and prevent the prosecution of the war. There is no doubt, sir, that the mainspring of this effort is the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow), who is using for his own purposes, the personality of the ex-Prime Minister, the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog), and he really should forbear to go any further in what he is doing because there is no doubt he is subjecting the member for Smithfield to the very severe criticism of, the country at large, and in particular of that large class of English-speaking people who once professed a great respect for the member for Smithfield. So far as I am concerned, sir, I have never had any faith whatever in the member for Smithfield in regard to his attitude towards the constitution of this country, and towards his pledges, his repeated pledges to stand by his obligations to the British Empire.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member who enjoys the peculiar distinction of being the only English-speaking member who voted for neutrality, would now have us believe that he knows nothing about any obligations to which the hon. member for Smith-field was pledged.

What obligations are you talking about?

The express obligations which the Prime Minister bound himself by at the 1926 Imperial Conference and subsequent Imperial Conferences in the presence of every Prime Minister of the Empire.

Is that always to go to war when England is at war?

The hon. member should know that I clearly and fully stated those obligations in this House in the course of the neutrality debate in September, 1939, and in the peace debate in January, 1940. They are contained in the text of the records of the Imperial Conference which was subscribed to completely by the hon. the ex-Prime Minister. In so far as I am concerned, I have no doubt as to what the purpose of the hon. member for Gezina has been in this matter. Some little while ago, in a somewhat undignified attack which he made upon the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside), in this House, he sought to pride himself upon the fact that he was the first Minister of the Crown in a British Commonwealth who had taken up a definite attitude in regard to South-West Africa and Tanganyika. He wanted to claim there, sir, that he was the first Minister of the Crown to disapprove of the return of South-West Africa and Tanganyika to Germany, but as I pointed out on that occasion, he could claim a far greater distinction than that, because he was the first Minister of the Crown that demanded the return of Germany to this country as a colonial power. That is the real distinction which belongs to the hon. ex-Minister. Let me just examine the sort of conduct we have had on the part of the hon. member for Gezina when he was a Minister of the Crown. He has told us that he was the first Minister of the British Commonwealth to take up a definite attitude against the return of South-West Africa and Tanganyika. What was that definite attitude in regard to Germany? He said to the crew of the Emden:

Let us be under no mistake as to what he meant, he meant Hitler’s Germany, and he still means that. He went on—

That is the distinction which belongs to the hon. member for Gezina, and in pursuit of his object of bringing about the return of Germany as a colonial power he is now using the worn-out Personality of the hon. member for Smithfield to mislead the people, and to inflame their hatred against constituted authority in this land. He has employed every art he possesses to poison the minds of the people, to make it appear that the Prime Minister is engaged on some treacherous unworthy adventure, instead of standing up honourably to the obligations which belong to us, and he has endeavoured to spread this doctrine during every weekend, sir, doing so from platform to platform in terms which very closely approach sedition and treason in this land. He has gone as close to that as he dare, and he will continue to do that, inflaming the hatred of the people and misleading them to a point at which he himself would halt —that of risking his own skin. The hon. member for Gezina, long before this, sir, whilst he was a Minister of the Crown, had this further distinction. When the head of a department, the Prime Minister’s secretary, was busy endeavouring to advertise in Germany by means of an article contributed to a German review, that we were dis-united in the Empire, that in so far as South Africa is concerned, we stand on a different footing altogether from other portions of the British Empire, that we stood for the divisibility of the Crown and as good as intimating to Germany that they might expect us to refuse to contribute to the solidarity of the Empire in a state of war, the hon. member for Gezina was identified with that effort. Now who were the other people associated with the contribution of that article? I need not give you two guesses—you could almost tell me these names blindfolded. These names in the order of their importance were the hon. member for Smithfield, who, when asked in this House whether he had contributed a foreword to that article by Dr. Bodenstein made a most remarkable reply. He said, when asked whether he had contributed a foreword, “I think I did.” “I am hot sure.” “I am told I did not.” These were the three answers which the Prime Minister gave when he was asked whether the foreword which appeared at the head of that article was his.

You are quite wrong.

I am quoting from the Prime Minister’s statement published in the Press, which was made in my presence. [Time limit,]

I just want to make a small addition to what I said before about the letter which the hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. Wallach) quoted here, and it is this. After what took place here I got into communication again with Mrs. Steyn’s daughter, and she denies that Mrs. Steyn ever received the letter which was read out here from Dr. Leyds. She knows nothing about any such letter. I may add that from what we know of Mrs. Steyn, we know that she would not misuse a private letter which was addressed to her by Dr. Leyds or any person for political purposes, and I want again to protest against the use which newspapers like the Cape Argus have made of that letter. They published the letter in such a way as if Mrs. Steyn had something to do with the publication of it. Whether Dr. Leyds holds the view which is expressed in the letter I am not concerned with, but I want most strongly to object to the way in which it was suggested that Mrs. Steyn had some connection with it. Now I come back to the regulations. I would like to say that the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Sutter) apparently did not follow the argument of the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth) in connection with the timber which was bought in the Northern Transvaal. That timber is being sold by the Government under tender. We have no objection to its being sold by way of tender. The only thing is that it is being offered in large quantities, and the ordinary farming district cannot buy in such quantities. They, of course, cannot themselves manufacture the timber, and therefore they cannot participate in the tenders. We are not going into that now. When once the timber is sold then it gets into the hands of this company, and then they have a monopoly, so that they alone have a say. According to these regulations neither the Minister nor anyone else will be entitled to tell them that they may not make an excessive profit on those boxes, which are required for the marketing of tomatoes, grapes or such things which are being sent to the market. They may simply ask improper prices for the wood that they are handling, and there is no regulation to prohibit it. I point out that high prices are already being charged for those boxes, with the result that that company can make improper profits on the wood which they had obtained under tender. Those farmers have every reason to be dissatisfied. Then I want to move a further amendment. There are so many amendments left that we still want to move, but I now want to move this amendment which appears on page 242 of the Order Paper. It has reference to Regulation No. 3. This regulation reads as follows—

And then comes the following—

The objection that I and hon. members on this side have to that is that notwithstanding that we have control boards in connection with agricultural produce, which can control the prices, the power is here being given to the Minister of Commerce and Industries to fix a different price for these articles, and for that reason I am moving the following amendment, which appears on the page which I have already mentioned, and which reads as follows—

1. (2) In respect of the regulations promulgated by the proclamations hereunder set out, the following provisions shall apply:
   1. (i) Regulation 3 of Proclamation 201, 1939, shall, in respect of any act or omission after the commencement of this Act, be construed as if the following new sub-regulation had been added thereto:
      1. (3) For the purposes of this regulation the Minister of Commerce and Industries shall act in consultation with the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry where it concerns or applies to any agricultural products or agricultural requirements.

The reason for that is this, that the Minister of Commerce and Industries is fully aware of the prices of ordinary commercial goods, but when we come to agricultural produce then he has not got that capacity, and he has no department to give him information about the prices of agricultural produce. The board which is being appointed under this regulation consists of the following—

1. (a) The Chairman of the Board of Trade and Industries or his representative;
2. (b) the Secretary for Commerce and Industries or his representative;
3. (c) the Chairman of the Union Tender and Supply Board or his representative;
4. (d) the Secretary for Defence or his representative:
5. (e) the Secretary for Agriculture and Forestry or his representative;
6. (f) any other person whom the Minister aforesaid may appoint as a member of the board.

The person who is appointed under (f) will also probably be a business man, because it is the Minister of Commerce and Industries who is appointing him. No provision is being made for the produce of the farmers, and that is the reason why it is so necessary that something should be done to see that the farmer will obtain the best advantage out of any rise in prices that there may be. Provision ought to be made for him not to suffer under these regulations. I and other hon. members have already pointed out that provision can only be made for maximum prices. The man may not get mere. But there is no provision for minimum prices. They may offer any price. In yesterday’s Die Burger we saw that the following returns were made by the secretary of the Swellendam Cooperative Wheatgrowers’ Association, which show in what a parlous condition the wheat farmers of Swellendam and Heidelberg are at present. Then the returns are given—

Do you know that that was due to a bad harvest?

Precisely. I have already pointed out that our farmers are subject to so many bad harvests, and when they do happen to have an opportunity of getting a decent price, they ought not to be told that the costs of production are such and such, and that they should be satisfied with a lower price. It must be remembered as the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. H. C. de Wet) rightly said, that there are so many bad harvests, and that they should take a series of years. It is only when the Minister of Agriculture is also concerned in the matter, and can make the right information available, that we can expect justice to be done to the farmers. That also applies to the cattle farmers in the Northern Transvaal. The tendency will be towards a rise in the price of beef during the war. But there have also been years when the farmers could get no price at all for slaughter stock. Well, if a decent price can now be obtained in the circumstances, then these regulations must not be used to preventing the farmer from getting a proper price. We have the same difficulties in regard to mealies, ground nuts and the like. My motion is a very reasonable one, and it is only that the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry should be recognised in the matter, because then one can expect that the Minister of Agriculture, as a representative of the farmers, will see that the farmers get a proper price for their produce.

I was at the point of emphasising that certain articles were contributed not long before the war to a German magazine and in the light of subsequent events we must all come to the conclusion that the purpose of those who contributed to that magazine was a single one. It was to advertise to Germany the attitude of non-co-operation of this part of the Empire towards any common effort in defence of the British Empire. And I think it is a matter for regret that among those contributors will be found the name of the then Minister for Defence, the hon. member for Gezina. As I said before it will not be difficult to say who were associated with the hon. member in that matter. Leaving aside for the moment the hon. member for Smithfield and the misguided Dr. Bodenstein who was one of the foremost people in preaching doctrines that had no backing from any constitutional source, we had among others Dr. Thiel, the German Minister at Pretoria, the president of the German Overseas Club, a Dr. Westerman, and Professor Van den Heever. There could be no doubt that the purpose of these articles was to make Germany familiar with the idea that this part of the world was taking up an attitude of non-co-operation with other members of the Commonwealth. The tone of the articles shewed that—the tone of the articles right away from the foreword written by the hon. member for Smithfield. Now the articles in that German magazine were devoted to that end. They were devoted to shewing that this part of the Empire was a source of weakness, and that with proper pressure it was bound to succumb. It was all a preparation for the Hitler technique—it was an opening of arms to receive Hitler. The hon. member for Gezina, who was doing all this was preparing a place for Hitler. By that method they were preaching the doctrine of Hitler in this country, and endeavouring to acclaim Hitler even when he was afar off. The whole of the effort of the hon. member for Gezina against these regulations is nothing but an effort to impede the prosecution of the war. It is a definite and determined effort to thwart, to hinder, and to make difficult the successful prosecution of the war. From time to time it shows itself as an attempt to succour the declared enemies of South Africa and I am sorry that the impression is created upon the British people of this country that the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) is engaged in an adventure which will serve to brand members of his party as the enemies of South Africa. That is being definitely and firmly done.

Being an enemy of South Africa?

I am afraid I cannot hear the hon. member. If he will raise his resonant voice I may be able to hear him.

I will reply to you just now.

I have no doubt the hon. member will. We have in various parts of the world strong people working to the same end. We have the famous Fritz Kuhn in America, who for acts of sabotage has been dealt with in that country. He was quoted prominently as a man whose proud boast was that “Hitler would lick the world!” Can it be denied that that is the slogan which imbues some of the hon. members of the Opposition. It is the hope of some of these people that “Hitler will lick the world,” and they have founded their hopes upon such boasts as these. That is common among the friends of Hitler, and that is the spirit that animates them. It is just as well that those who see through those designs should state them plainly in this House, which is the avenue for the ventilation of opposite views. So far as I am concerned I have taken no previous part in this debate and I have listened attentively to what has gone on. You only need to read the amendments in their original form to see that, at the beginning, the effort of hon. members of the Opposition was to hold up Parliament to ridicule.

You have done it often.

I have not done it ever.

You are telling me.

Another HON. MEMBER [inaudible].

No amendment ever moved by me was a farcical one. I was imbued with the idea that I was right. At all events, I was not playing into the hands of the enemy of South Africa. The hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Liebenberg) whom I look upon as a responsible member, I am sorry to see engaged in such futile amendments, has committed himself to a party that has employed amendments that would make a cat laugh. He has not thought it incongruous in his position as a responsible member of the Free State where he has earned respect for himself on various notable occasions of hon. members of this House. Let us have done with that kind of amendment that this Party seriously introduces and places upon the order paper of this Parliament. There are amendments dealing with ridiculous things. I think there were seven printed foolscap pages of the Order Paper dealing with processions, the purpose of which was to make debates in this House ludicrous. It is absolutely unknown in any Parliament in the world for hon. members to take such advantage of parliamentary procedure as to expose themselves to ridicule in that manner. The hon. member for Heilbron is a responsible member of his party and I am sorry that he and the hon. member for Fauresmith (Mr. Havenga), who is a responsible man, have identified themselves with such ridiculous nonsense. Yet the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) has not hesitated to encourage this kind of thing. He was the prime force behind these amendments and he has exposed his party to ridicule. He has produced amendments which have not carried us any further but have merely served to show that he hates the idea of any opposition to Germany. He hates the idea of Hitler being opposed. [Time limit.]

The S.A.P. mentality on the other side of the House is starting to become a little interesting now. The hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. H. van der Merwe) is now making an open challenge to this side of the House. I did not know that that was permissible. I thought that we, as members of Parliament, had a higher calling, but if that is permissible, I just want to say that I am also prepared to accept the challenge, and I want to go further. I do not only want to challenge the hon. member for Potchefstroom, because that would only be a “breakfast.” If it is permissible, and if that is the way in which we are to be attacked to-day, then I say that I am prepared to meet any man on a platform or otherwise. He need only tell me the place and time. I want to move the amendment standing in my name on page 222—

1. (2) In respect of the regulations promulgated by the proclamations hereunder set out, the following provisions shall apply:
   1. (i) sub-regulation (1) of regulation 10 of Proclamation 201, 1939, shall, in respect of any act or omission after the commencement of this Act, be construed as if the following paragraphs had been added to follow paragraph (e):
      1. (f) a gathering held for the purpose of target-shooting; or
      2. (g) a gathering held in connection with a free state medical service; or
      3. (h) a procession held in connection with the opening of a university residence; or
      4. (i) a procession held in connection with the opening of a normal college boarding house; or
      5. (j) a procession held in connection with the opening of an agricultural exhibition building; or
      6. (k) a procession held in connection with the opening of an industrial exhibition building;
   2. (ii) the following regulations promulgated by Proclamation No. 201, 1939, shall, in respect of any act or omission after the commencement of this Act, be construed as if the words referred to had been omitted, viz.:
      1. (a) sub-regulation (5) of regulation 15, the words “by way of the imposition of the duty to perform certain specified work in the said place of detention and in connection therewith during a specified period not exceeding fourteen days or”;
      2. (b) paragraph (a) of sub-regulation (1) of regulation 17, the word “obliterates”; and
      3. (c) regulation 19, the words “or a commissioned officer in any one of the forces.”

Under this regulation meetings can be prohibited which are arranged for the purposes of target practice. I think that the Prime Minister will agree that in these times in which we live, and inasmuch as there is a state of war, it certainly is essential and necessary that one’s citizens should learn to shoot, that the art of shooting should be cultivated. But such meetings can be prohibited under the regulations. There are rifle associations. I am just thinking of the rifle range at Standerton. The Minister of Defence would surely be the last person who would handicap the art of shooting by regulation, and who would want to prevent us from meeting together and discussing how we should get practice. Allow me just to go further and say that the rifle associations are the cheapest methods of defence training in the world. There isn’t a better and cheaper and more effective way of training the citizens than by rifle associations and in burgher commandos. I do not want the Minister to prohibit such meetings. Consequently I say that the regulations should not be put into force. It would be a mistake, so far as your rifle associations and the shooting part is concerned. The Minister of Defence, who is an old war veteran, and an expert in military matters, knows what a soldier who is unable to shoot is worth. He is only a burden. He only gets in your way, and you can only use him to dig trenches in the camp and to eat your food, and allow you to lose the battle. That is the experience of the past. Then meetings will also be prohibited in connection with free medical services. There will now be a concentration of large bodies of troops in the country, and the Minister knows from experience that when you concentrate troops in that way, medical services must be supplied, because there is always a possibility of the outbreak of all kinds of diseases. I would like to make a comparison. The Minister of Defence will remember very well how during the Boer War or less than 70,000 of the British troops were affected by tick fever. Now I just want to quote something in connection with the diseases which may possibly arise. I am quoting it from “Notes on Field Sanitation” from the headquarters of the Defence Force, 1924—

As the Minister will understand, there will, owing to the large concentration of troops, be a danger of the outbreak of disease, and I am just quoting what happened in the past, and which may happen again in the future. In the same book Gen. Brink mentioned the following diseases—

and the rest I will not mention. The Minister of Defence knows what the position is, and now it will be possible to prohibit meetings of burghers where the supply of medical services is being discussed. I do not believe that that is the intention. Then, for instance, processions to university hostels could also be prohibited. That is the place where the young man or woman should go for their education. [Time limit.]

Mr. Chairman, I am sorry the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Tom Naudé) is not in his place, because I have to repeat that I did not mention Mrs. Steyn’s name, nor did I bring it into this discussion last night. I have carried out my promise, I have submitted the correspondence to the hon. member for Pietersburg, and he has submitted it to the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan), and I am prepared to submit it to the hon. members of the Opposition, so there is no objection on my part to any hon. member seeing it. But I want the hon. member for Pietersburg to admit that the letter I have quoted represents Dr. Leyds’s opinion.

I would like to put a question to the Prime Minister. Hon. members opposite want to make out that these regulations are for the protection of everybody in this country. I want to know from the Minister whether I, as an individual, can get certain protection from his Government in connection with certain tales that are being told by supporters of the Government. There is a certain Dr. Moller, the mayor of Germiston, and a great friend of the Prime Minister. He represents that he was visiting the Prime Minister’s farm “Irene” and that he heard there that they were constantly keeping their eye on me owing to my Nazi proclivities. I want to know whether that was said by the Prime Minister, whether there is any truth in that statement, and if it is not so, whether we are then to take it that Dr. Moller is one of the knights of truth, in other words, a fabricator, “that he had sucked the tale out of his thumb,” and that he had used the name of the Prime Minister of the country, and if that is untrue, whether the Minister will give us any protection under this regulation. I am not the only person here, all of us on this side of the House and all who have political views in the country, are constantly being accused of Nazism. But up to the present we did not know that the police were engaged in watching us. I also want to refer to Clause 12, which is in connection with meetings and movements in opposition to the Minister or the Government. May we now learn from the Prime Minister whether, after this Bill has passed through the House, whether we shall have any elections in South Africa? If it is so, is he then prepared to agree that this clause shall not be applied in a district where an election is taking place? If he does not do so then it exposes every candidate and every person who is not a supporter of the Government to prosecution under that clause. If the Prime Minister is not prepared to give that protection, then our elections will be a pure farce, because the people will be afraid to say what they feel, because they know that the Government is opposed to them, and the supporters of the Government can say anything they like. Those are the democratic rights which are being taken away from us, and it is going to have an astonishing effect on the country if the Prime Minister does not give us that assurance. These regulations applied under the circumstances that are prevailing in our country to-day, are simply to satisfy the Dominion Party. The Smutsites pretend that they are the head of that Government, and that those little men of the Dominion Party are the tail. But, Mr. Chairman, we know that the “Heinz” kind of dog are made up of 57 breeds. That describes that Government, but it is a strange dog, different to an ordinary dog. If you cut off its tail — that is the Dominion Party — then the dog dies. The hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman) charged the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) with representing Billingsgate, and that he came from that place. Mr. Chairman, you know that Billingsgate in the case of those from overseas, the foreigners, is regarded as the pigsty of Europe. I am very sorry that the hon. member for Fordsburg made that allegation, but the hon. member for Umbilo immediately rose and immediately gave proof that he did actually come from Billingsgate, owing to using the words which he did about the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog). But the hon. member for Umbilo did not tell the House that during the sixteen years that he felt that the hon. member for Smith-field should not be the Prime Minister of this country, that he had never proposed that the present Prime Minister should be Prime Minister, or that if he became Prime Minister the hon. member (Mr. Marwick) should be subordinate to him. We can therefore see that they were nothing but insults against a man who has for years been regarded in the world as one of the greatest statesmen. The hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) would not tell us to-night what our responsibility towards the Empire was. He spoke about obligations, but he would not tell us what the obligations were. We know the word “obligations” in the mouth of the hon. member for Illovo, and in the mouth of the Prime Minister means “honour and duty”. There then we have the same idea, the same meaning, and it is on account of those “obligations to the Empire” of the hon. member for Illovo and “the honour and duty” of the Prime Minister, that we have these regulations before us to-night. [Time limit.]

I should have preferred to have shared the light-hearted enjoyment of the humour provided for us by the hon. member for Germiston (North) (Mr. Quinlan), but I was unable to do so because I have been the victim, the whole afternoon, of that physiological difficulty to which the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. H. A. Johnson) referred when he explained this afternoon that when one listened ad nauseam to a long sequence of inflammatory speeches one found it difficult to laugh when one wanted to vomit. The hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth) raised a point this evening which appeared, on the face of it, to have in it some substance. He made the point which, as I say, was apparently sound, that a person vested with such authority as the chief control officer has, should not be a person so intimately associated with the United Party.

With any party.

I say associated with the United Party, as is the present holder of that office, because it is quite obvious that the objection of the hon. member is not that he should be identified with any party, but that he should be identified with the party led by the right hon. the Prime Minister. Now, sir, I think that is a point worthy of consideration and examination because it is an outstanding example of the plausibility, quite apart from the insincerity which has been invoked, not only by the hon. member concerned….

The hon. member should not use the word “insincerity” in regard to any hon. member of the House.

I am content, sir, to rely on the plausibility in the point raised. The hon. member objects to the present holder of this office being identified with any political party. I want to submit, Mr. Chairman, that far from it being an objection that the holder of this office should be identified with a political party, the proper fulfilment of that office by any holder would be impossible, in the circumstances, unless not only were he identified with a political party, but the political party led by the right hon. the Prime Minister, and I want to suggest why I say that. Let us examine the only possible alternatives. Is it suggested that the holder of this office should be a person whose political convictions are an unknown quantity. Or is the second alternative suggested, that he should be one whose political views are known, and are known to be identified with the Opposition party? Obviously these two alternatives are the only two alternatives.

Why not take someone who is not a member of a party? An ordinary member.

He would still hold the same views.

I shall explain why. The chief control officer is an officer vested with a good deal of authority, authority for the prosecution of certain aspects of our war policy in practice, and an officer who in terms of the regulations is subject to the direction of the Minister.

He has carte blanche.

The two alternatives suggested by the hon. member who raised the point are, as I indicated, that the control officer could either be altogether dissociated from party politics, or a member of his own party.

I did not say that; read the amendment.

These are the only alternatives. What would be the position if the chief control officer were some person known to share the views of the Opposition? You would have the iniquitous position arising that a man would be vested with the authority to give effect to the policy of the Government who at the same time might be its severest critic, a man identified with the attitude that the policy of the Government was not only wrong but absolutely unjustifiable, not the case of a man differing from the Government on some minor domestic issue, but a man differing from the Government on the most important issue— whether we should be at war at all or not. And the hon. member’s suggestion is that you should have in a position of control a man whose views and whose feelings are that we should not be at war, that we have no business to be at war, that there is no need for any regulations whatever, that there is no enemy as far as we are concerned— you are asked to give that man the authority to put into effect regulations which are only consistent and compatible with a state of war.

Where do you get all that from? I have never suggested that.

Picture, sir, as chief control officer one with the mentality, for instance, of the rotund and bucolic member for Cradock.

Order! I must request hon. members to be more respectful to each other.

I try, Mr. Chairman, to accord members the respect they have earned. I come now to the other alternative of the authority being vested in a person whose political views are an unknown quantity to the Prime Minister. In other words, to the suggestion that the Prime Minister should speculate on the loyalty or the possible disloyalty of the man he puts into that position. The Prime Minister is asked to take a chance that the officer subject to his direction may, or may not, carry out the regulations. That officer whom the Prime Minister is invited to engage in these services is to be engaged on speculation in the hope that he might prove loyal, although there is a possibility that he might equally be disloyal.

I never suggested anything of the kind.

But the implications are there. I say that in the circumstances there is only one course. The Prime Minister should have vested this authority in a man who, he knew, was in complete sympathy with the policy of the Government, and how could he be assured of that other than by appointing a man who had been closely and intimately identified with the Prime Minister over a number of years. I say that in the circumstances there was no alternative but to vest this authority in a man who was officially associated with the party of the Prime Minister. [Time limit.]

I waited for one of the hon. members to react to the important statement that was made by the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. H. van der Merwe). He is not an ordinary member of this House. He is a member of the head committee of his party, a man of authority in our province, one of whom we must take notice apart from his character and other qualities. And he made a statement here which is so comprehensive and so dangerous that I have never heard the like in my life. He said here that every citizen of the country was obliged to carry out the policy of the Government in war time, otherwise he was a disloyal burgher.

Hear, hear.

According to those hon. members opposite, the hon. member, therefore, did not only speak on his own behalf but on behalf of his entire party. Just think of it. We are living in a time of war; war has been declared against Germany, and every citizen of the country who does not want to carry out the policy of the Government is a disloyal citizen and he can be punished for it, which carried to extremes may mean that every citizen of the country who does not hold the political views of the Government can be shot. That is a terrible thing. I would like to know from the hon. member what his authority is for making that statement; what statute has he derived it from? I have the Defence Act before me, and in it I find this, that subject to the provisions of this Act every citizen between 17 years and 45 years shall be liable to military service—

But now the hon. member for Potchefstroom says: No, I am not concerned at all with the Defence Act of the Union, but every citizen of the country must carry out the policy of the Government. As I said, that is a terribly dangerous statement, a statement which I have never heard before in my life. The Prime Minister, in answer to a question said here that to officers who had joined up as volunteers, the question was being put whether they would carry out the policy of the Government, even if they had to cross the boundaries. They were asked whether they would stand by the policy of the Government. The pupil is excelling his master a hundred times. Here we are dealing not with officers who join as volunteers to go and fight. No, the pupil says not only officers, but every citizen of the country who is not prepared to carry out the policy of the Government loyally must, in consequence, be shot.

At 10.55 p.m., in accordance with paragraph (3) of the resolution adopted by the House on the 29th February, the business under consideration was interrupted by the Chairman and the amendments other than the amendments proposed by the Minister of Defence dropped.

The amendments proposed by the Minister of Defence were put and agreed to.

I move—

As was pointed out by the hon. member for Wodehouse (Mr. S. Bekker), there are a few words missing in the Afrikaans version.

Agreed to.

Clause as amended put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—71:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Baines, A. C. V.

Blackwell, L.

Botha, H. N. W.

Bowen, R. W.

Burnside, D. C.

Cadman, C. F. M.

Christopher. R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Collins, W. R.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

Deane, W. A.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, H. C.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Faure, P. A. B.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Hemming, G. K.

Henderson, R. H.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A

Klopper, L. B.

Lawrence, H. G.

Long, B. K.

Marwick, J. S.

Moll, A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Nel, O. R.

Pocock, P. V.

Reitz, D.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Rood, K.

Smuts, J. C.

Solomon, B.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Sonnenberg, M.

Stallard, C. F.

Steenkamp, W. P.

Steyn, C. F.

Steytler, L. J.

Strauss, J. G. N.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Sutter, G. J.

Tothill, H. A.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Merwe, H.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

Tellers: G. A. Friend and J. W. Higgerty

Noes—46:

Badenhorst, C. C. E.

Bekker, S.

Bezuidenhout, J. T.

Boltman, F. H.

Bosman, P. J.

Brits, G. P.

Conradie, J. H.

De Bruyn, D. A. S.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Erasmus, F. C.

Fagan, H. A.

Grobler, J. H.

Havenga, N. C.

Hertzog, J. B. M.

Hugo, P. J.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Liebenberg, J. L. V.

Lindhorst, B. H.

Loubser, S. M.

Malan, D. F.

Olivier, P. J.

Oost, H.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Pirow, O.

Quinlan, S. C.

Booth, E. A.

Schoeman, B. J.

Schoeman. N. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. P.

Theron, P.

Van den Berg, C. J.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Venter, J. A. P.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Viljoen, J. H.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Wilkens, Jan.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

Tellers: J. J. Haywood and J. F. T. Naudé.

Clause, as amended, accordingly agreed to.

On Clause 4,

I move—

Agreed to and the Clause omitted.

Clause 5 put, and the Committee divided:

Ayes—71:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Baines, A. C. V.

Blackwell, L.

Botha, H. N. W.

Bowen, R. W.

Bumside, D. C.

Cadman, C. F. M.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Collins W. R.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

Deane, W. A.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, H. C.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Faure, P. A. B.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Hemming, G. K.

Henderson, R. H.

Heyns G. C. S.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper. E. C.

Howarth F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Klopper, L. B.

Lawrence, H. G.

Long, B. K.

Marwick, J. S.

Moll, A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Nel, O. R.

Pocock, P. V.

Reitz, D.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Rood, K.

Smuts, J. C.

Solomon, B.

Solomon. V. G. F.

Sonnenberg, M.

Stallard, C. F.

Steenkamp, W. P.

Steyn, C. F.

Steytler, L. J.

Strauss, J. G. N.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Sutter, G. J.

Tothill, H. A.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Merwe, H.

Wallach. I.

Wares, A. P. J.

Tellers: G. A. Friend and J. W. Higgerty.

Noes—46:

Badenhorst, C. C. E.

Bekker, S.

Bezuidenhout, J. T.

Boltman, F. H.

Bosman, P. J.

Brits, G. P.

Conradie, J. H.

De Bruyn, D. A. S.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Erasmus, F. C.

Fagan, H. A.

Grobler, J. H.

Havenga, N. C.

Hertzog, J. B. M.

Hugo, P. J.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Liebenberg, J. L. V.

Lindhorst, B. H.

Loubser, S. M.

Malan, D. F.

Olivier, P. J.

Oost, H.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Pirow, O.

Quinlan, S. C.

Rooth, E. A.

Schoeman, B. J.

Schoeman. N. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart. A. P.

Theron, P.

Van den Berg, C. J.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Venter, J. A. P.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Viljoen, J. H.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Wilkens, Jan.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

Tellers: J. J. Haywood and J. F. T. Naudé.

Clause accordingly agreed to.

On Clause 6,

I move—

Agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put, and the Committee divided:

Ayes—71:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Baines. A. C. V.

Blackwell, L.

Botha, H. N. W.

Bowen. R. W.

Bumside, D. C.

Cadman, C. F. M.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Collins. W. R.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

Deane, W. A.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, H. C.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Faure, P. A. B.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander. A.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Hemming, G. K.

Henderson, R. H.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hofmeyr. J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Klopper, L. B.

Lawrence, H. G.

Long, B. K.

Marwick, J. S.

Moll, A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate. C Nel. O. R.

Pocock, P. V.

Reitz, D.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Rood, K.

Smuts, J. C.

Solomon, B.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Sonnenberg, M.

Stallard, C. F.

Steenkamp, W. P.

Steyn, C. F.

Steytler, L. J.

Strauss, J. G. N.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Sutter, G. J.

Tothill, H. A.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Merwe, H.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

Tellers: G. A. Friend and J. W. Higgerty.

Noes—46:

Badenhorst, C. C. E.

Bekker, S.

Bezuidenhout, J. T.

Boltman, F. H.

Bosman, P. J.

Brits, G. P.

Conradie, J. H.

De Bruyn, D. A. S.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Erasmus, F. C.

Fagan, H. A.

Grobler, J. H.

Havenga, N. C.

Hertzog, J. B. M.

Hugo, P. J.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Liebenberg, J. L. V.

Lindhorst, B. H.

Loubser, S. M.

Malan, D. F.

Olivier, P. J.

Oost, H.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Pirow, O.

Quinlan, S. C.

Rooth, E. A.

Schoeman, B. J.

Schoeman, N. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. P.

Theron, P.

Van den Berg, C. J.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Venter, J. A. P.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Viljoen, J. H.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Wilkens, Jan.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

Tellers: J. J. Haywood and J. F. T. Naudé.

Clause, as amended, accordingly agreed to.

On Clause 7,

I move—

I move—

House Resumed:

The CHAIRMAN reported the Bill with amendments and specially certain amendments in the Title.

Amendments to be considered on Monday, 18th March—(Minister of Defence).