I move—

Before I move the third reading of this Bill I wish at this stage to revert to a few points which were raised and discussed in the course of the discussions which we had here, and I particularly wish to revert to certain charges which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, made against my colleagues and more especially against me during the debate which on the 12th February commenced on the second reading of this Bill. It was impossible for me at that stage to reply to those charges because, as hon. members know, the debate on the second reading extended over a long period, so that in the end it had to be terminated by means of the closure, with the result that I was prevented from replying to the discussion, and from answering those charges. I feel, however, that it would not be proper if I were to allow those charges to pass without replying to them, and that being so, I feel that I should refer very briefly to them to-day. These charges do not affect the merits of the case. The charges do not touch the question whether we acted correctly or otherwise in passing the resolution which this House adopted on the 1st September. The question at issue is really more of a personal nature; it is a question of the honour of Ministers— which naturally touches them very closely, and I regard it as essential that I should say a few words on that point this afternoon. The charge made was of a two-fold nature. First of all the hon. the Leader of the Opposition contended that in the beginning of September, 1938, the year before last, I arrived at an understanding with him in regard to a policy of neutrality for the future, and that by my action on the 4th September last year I did not carry out that understanding, but that I broke it. Secondly, the charge was that later in September, that is on the 28th September, the Leader of the Opposition, in his capacity of Prime Minister, at a Cabinet Meeting, proposed the policy of neutrality to the Cabinet, and that he read out to the Cabinet the statement which he had placed before me, and on which we had agreed, and that that statement, after discussion, was adopted by the Cabinet, that the policy of neutrality was agreed to by the Cabinet as a whole, and that consequently the members of the Cabinet, who on the 4th September voted with me, did not carry out that resolution of the Cabinet, but broke it. Those were the two charges which were made. Now, in support of those charges, the Hon. the Leader of the Opposition read out two documents and afterwards handed them to the Press for publication, and I wish very shortly now to revert to those two documents. First of all, I want to point out—not as an excuse for something that has been done or has happened, but as a matter of Cabinet practice—that the Hon. the Leader of the Opposition adopted a most extraordinary, and I can say, improper course by publishing in that way matters relating to the Cabinet without consulting his colleagues or my colleagues. That is a breach of the practice in regard to the Cabinet system.

What are you referring to when you say that I adopted an improper course—what is it that I should not have made public?

Those two documents which you read out, the one of the 1st September and the one of the 28th September, which were published afterwards. I am only pointing out that this was an unusual and improper breach of the Cabinet practice, which had prevailed so far. I do not wish to pursue it any further, but I do not think it would be correct for me to allow anything like that to pass without to a degree expressing my condemnation of it. Now I come to the documents themselves. The first document, that is the one which was drafted on the 1st September, reads as follows. It was introduced by the following words—

hon. members will see that this is an introduction which is quite general in its terms, and which refers to any case of war which may break out in Europe in which England may be one of the belligerent parties. Let me say that of this introduction, of these opening words I know nothing whatsoever, and I heard them for the first time when they were read out by the Hon. the Leader of the Opposition. I want to put this question to the Hon. the Leader of the Opposition, whether be admits that the whole discussion which took place in connection with his policy was confined to and only referred to the quarrel between Czechoslovakia and Germany about the Sudeten? The whole matter which he submitted to me and to some of his other colleagues, and which he discussed with them at the beginning of September, 1938, referred exclusively to that question, and only referred to that, namely the dispute between Germany and Czecho-Slovakia. This general introduction which is attached to the document, that is to say that it is a statement of the attitude to be adoped in the event of war in Europe, as if it refers to all contingencies, is an introduction of which I know nothing. What we discussed was only the dispute about Sudetenland, and there was no question of a general declaration of policy. When that introduction was attached to the document I do not know. I never saw it. I never read it; I never heard of it, and the declaration of policy to which the Hon. the Leader of the Opposition refers only concerned the one special case which we discussed, that is to say the case of the Sudeten Germans, the dispute between Czechoslovakia and Germany. I may also say that it is explained in the other document which was read out here, and which commences as follows—

I say therefore that the whole issue was in regard to the dispute between Germany and Czechoslovakia, and I am very anxious to clear up the position. There was no general declaration of policy concerning future incidents and future wars. I want to deny emphatically that in the Cabinet either at the beginning of September, or again on the 28th September, a definite policy in favour of neutrality was laid down for the future.

When did I ever say so?

But that is the point in dispute.

No, pardon me.

The contention is that in September, 1938, a policy of neutrality was laid down which was to apply not only to the Czechoslovakia incident, but later on also to Poland and so on.

You are setting up a skittle to knock it down yourself.

No, that is the whole charge, that is the nature and the tendency of the charge made by the Leader of the Opposition, and I want to say that I emphatically and absolutely deny that such a policy was ever laid down either on the one date or any other date. The question which was discussed with me at the beginning of September was solely that of a possible war between Germany and Czechoslovakia in which England might be involved. It only referred to the Sudeten question, and I deny once and for all that a general policy of neutrality was ever laid down which would cover subsequent developments, or subsequent incidents. That is the whole question which is in dispute and has been in dispute for the past seven months.

What is the difference between the case of Czechoslovakia and that of Poland?

I shall come to that. There was no question of our laying down a policy of neutrality which would apply to the future, and which was not to be confined to the case of Czechoslovakia. I want to say that if ever an attempt had been made to take a decision, or to apply any resolution to future happenings, and it had been raised in the Cabinet and proposed there, it would have led to a flare up and to a split. If it is correct that a definite policy of neutrality was decided on in September, 1938, the question arises in my mind, how that corresponds with the statements made by the Leader of the Opposition himself months afterwards. I should like to read a statement made by the Leader of the Opposition. He was Prime Minister at the time, and on the 12th April he was attacked by the then Leader of the Opposition (Dr. Malan) who defied him and challenged him to state what was the policy of the Government on this matter, why the Government remained silent, and the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) asked whether the Government had a policy, or whether it was without a policy. To this the then Prime Minister who is now Leader of the Opposition answered as follows—

The Prime Minister of those days, to-day the Leader of the Opposition, refused to make such a statement as the hon. member for Piquetberg demanded of him. Did he refuse to make such a statement while all the time he had a declaration in his pocket in regard to the Government’s policy? If there was such a policy, then in my humble opinion it was misleading Parliament and the country not to publish it immediately, and to take notice of it. What were the reasons for keeping it secret? Other cormtries which wanted to remain neutral announced it to the world, all the small countries of Europe which wanted to remain neutral announced their intention. The world knew it. If we in South Africa had passed a resolution in favour of neutrality, if a definite policy of that kind had been laid down by the Government, why should we not have announced it to the people, why should the people have been kept in the dark, and not have known the real condition of affairs? Why did not the then Prime Minister at once say in reply to what the hon. member for Piquetberg had asked: “It is so, we are going to remain neutral if war should break out in those circumstances.”

What are you fighting against now, and whom are you fighting?

I say that the refusal of the Leader of the Opposition, of the then Prime Minister, to acquaint the House of such a resolution is ample evidence of the fact that such a neutrality resolution had never been taken, and for that reason the whole argument drops. It is now argued that the Polish incident was similar to the Sudeten incident, and that if we as a Cabinet were prepared, or if I was prepared, and my colleagues were prepared to take such a resolution in the case of Sudetenland, we should also have been prepared to take such a resolution in the case of Poland. This matter has been discussed very fully in the House and in the country, but the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is always hammering on that point, and is always coming back to it, and for that reason I again wish to say a few words about it, so as to show that there was a very wide difference between the two cases. In the case of the Sudeten trouble Hitler declared that that was the final territorial question he was going to raise, and that he was not going to make any further claims.

That was not the position when we took our decision.

Let me say that Hitler stated that if that matter was settled he would be satisfied and there was a feeling in many countries that there was a certain amount of justice on Hitler’s side, that to a certain extent he had a case, and that it could not be set aside without any further ado. Countries such as France and Great Britain were prepared at any rate to give him the benefit of the doubt, and they were not prepared in regard to Sudetenland to look upon the incident as an unavoidable sten leading to violence and domination which might possibly threaten the peace of the world. That was the attitude adopted by them. The Sudetens themselves were Germans, and there had been certain difficulties which had become fairly acute. As the House knows, the British Government at the time sent an Ambassador to conduct an enquiry into those particular troubles, and Lord Runciman reported that to his mind the agreement with the Sudetens had not been observed and carried out by the Czechoslovakian Government, and that they were to be blamed for the condition which had arisen owing to the arrangement not having been carried out. In the circumstances it was felt, as I say, that people hesitated to regard Hitler’s conduct as a breach of the peace, as an effort at violence, or as something endangering the peace of the world. It is perfectly obvious that if an incident, however small it might be, should endanger the peace of the world, the greatest care has to be exercised. There was a feeling not only in South Africa, not only in Cabinet circles, but there was a feeling in England and France, also in Government circles, that there was no cause of war against Germany. What happened after that? What happened afterwards in connection with the position in Czechoslovakia? What was the position six months later in March, 1939? The position had completely changed by that time. Hitler had broken his promise that he would regard the Sudeten question as a final solution, as the end of all territorial claims which he had. As Mr. Chamberlain said, Hitler had stated three times, stated it in black on white, that he was satisfied with the solution of the Sudeten question. On three occasions he reiterated his promise and he broke that promise, and he attacked Czechoslovakia and swallowed it, and put an end to that country as a self-governing country. This, of course, had a tremendous effect on public opinion throughout the world. It became clear then that there could no longer be any doubt and that the benefit of the doubt could not be given — here was a country, here Hitler and Germany were busy swallowing up the one country after the other. Not only had he annexed Sudetenland, but he had also overwhelmed the remaining part of Czechoslovakia, and he had annexed it. Here was a systematic attempt on the part of a country to overwhelm the one country after the other, and in that way to secure a position of domination in Europe. This had a tremendous effect on the whole world. Hon. members know that we were disposed to praise Mr. Chamberlain for his peace efforts, and all sides, and not the least of all the then Prime Minister lauded Mr. Chamberlain’s attempts to maintain peace. Our High Commissioner in London, Mr. Te Water, on resigning his post, publicly stated that nothing more could have been done than what Mr. Chamberlain had done to preserve the peace of the world. After the overwhelming of Czechoslovakia matters took a totally different turn. It was clear that Germany was on the road to force and violence, and England and France considered it necessary to take special steps, and they thereupon gave a guarantee to Poland in respect of its territorial rights that if Poland should be attacked, if its territory should be violated France and England would help. It was not intended to be a provocation, it was not the intention of England and France to take up an aggressive attitude, but the whole object was to secure peace, to preserve peace and nothing else. It was necessary to give that guarantee because step by step Germany was busy conquering other countries. They even had a nonaggression treaty with Poland which Hitler tore up, and the two Allies in the circumstances considered it necessary to take that step in order to preserve the peace of Europe. What happened? Hitler entered into an agreement with Russia, he felt that he was adequately protected in his rear to proceed with his policy. He ignored the attempts made by France and England to preserve peace and he attacked Poland. To say that the position was similar to that of Czechoslovakia, of Sudetenland, is pure nonsense. The Czechoslovakian dispute was looked upon as a minor matter possibly the rights and wrongs of which were not clear. We as well as others were of opinion that Hitler possibly did was not serious in his intentions; it was thought that he might be anxious to restore the rights of his German fellow countrymen. But while that was the feeling in regard to the Czecho dispute, that was not the position in regard to Poland.

Tell us also about Danzig?

The position in the world became so serious, and I want to point to what the Leader of the Opposition said with regard to it; this was shortly after the speech which I have already quoted. This was a description of the world condition as he described it on the 20th April, and this was in connection with the previous attack on Czechoslovakia.

You should also read the sentence where he said “What have we to do with Poland?”

I want the hon. member to hear what the position was after the dispute about the Sudeten territory, and what the position was in the days after the attack on Czechoslovakia—

The Leader of the Opposition then went on to say this—

These remarks were addressed to my hon. friend who is sitting next to him.

Read where he said “What have we to do with Poland?”

I am reading this to show the House the seriousness of the position which prevailed in the world, and to show that even the Leader of the Opposition himself regarded it as extremely critical after the annexation, after the overwhelming of Czechoslovakia.

I do not consider it to be any less important to-day.

Yes, he looks upon it in the same light to-day. That is the position; there is no doubt that after the attack on Czechoslovakia there is no longer any doubt; it was as clear as daylight not only to us in South Africa, but to all countries in the world, to the European powers and others, that Hitler was out to overrun the one country after the other, and to clear the way to world domination. What the British Government did at the time, whatever criticism there may be of the Polish guarantee, was to act for the purpose of preserving peace; there was no intention to get Germany into trouble, the object was to maintain peace.

What was our attitude as a Government on that matter?

Yes, after Poland—South-West Africa. Step by step, Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, Poland and what was to be the next chapter? The Colonies. It is perfectly obvious, if the conquest of Poland was to be proceeded with, and the small countries were to be overwhelmed, the one after the other, it would not take long before South Africa’s turn would come. We are the mandatory power over South-West Africa, and we know that the claim for the return of the old German colonies was one of the principal points in Hitler’s programme. If we had allowed the one country after the other to be overwhelmed and if we had acted like cowards and said, “It does not concern us, what have we to do with Poland”? our day also have come. We would have got what we deserved if we in the hour of danger had light-heartedly and frivously said, “No, we are neutral.” We would have jeopardised our own existence and our own freedom. It is all very well for us to talk about our independent status, about our freedom and our sovereignty in this world. In the world as it exists to-day, with perils menacing the peace of the world, I ask, “What guarantees our independence?” It is the British Navy. Every one of us who uses his common sense, must realise what would have happened to us if we had remained neutral and if we had been attacked at an opportune time after Sudetenland, and if England had adopted an attitude of neutrality towards us.

Does that not apply to the Congo as well?

It would not have taken long before South Africa’s turn would have come. I cannot conceive what happened to the Leader of the Opposition after the developments in the beginning of 1939. I cannot conceive what caused him to turn back after he had seen the light. I can appreciate his state of mind, and I can realise it, and to a certain extent I can sympathise with it. But we cannot shut our eyes to the development and the course of events after the troubles of Sudetenland, and the troubles of September, 1938, and judging by the then Prime Minister’s words, which I read out a little while ago, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition himself fully realised the change which had come about and the dangers which threatened the world.

There was no change.

If that is so, I can only say that the Leader of the Opposition remains the same mystery to me that he always was, and he must become an even greater mystery to the people of South Africa. If, after everything that has happened since September, 1938, he still imagines that there is no danger to the world, and if he still adopts that sympathetic attitude towards Hitler which he expressed so clearly the other day, and if he still allows himself to be guided by that conception of Hitler, to think that South Africa is in no danger, then to me he is a mystery just as he is a mystery to the people of South Africa. I say that the difference between position in September, 1938, and April, 1939, and September. 1939 is as wide as the heavens and to discuss the one subject in the light of the other means that we are totally confining the issue and that we are completely deceiving the public outside. I emphatically reject the assertion that because this side of the House in September, 1938, was prepared to regard conditions of those days as being such that they did not justify South Africa taking any action, we were bound thereby to adopt the same attitude six months or a year later towards conditions prevailing then. A complete change had come about in the course of events, and in the conditions of the world, and so far as I am personally concerned I allowed myself to be guided by circumstances, and while in September, 1938, I was convinced that it was the correct thing for us to pursue the course of peace, it was just as clear to me twelve months later that the interests of South Africa, the most far-reaching interests of South Africa were at stake, and that we had to take our share.

Why did you not say so to me?

Why should I have said so to the hon. member. Why did he not inform me? Why did he wait until the Saturday after Parliament had met before he threw his bomb among us? No, to me it is perfectly clear that the danger of our position in September last, not only so far as the British Empire was concerned, but so far as South Africa was concerned, was totally different from what it was in the days of the Sudeten troubles, and in the circumstances I reject most definitely and emphatically the charge that I changed my policy, and that I should have followed the policy which I had been prepared to follow twelve months before—that I should have continued to pursue that policy twelve months later. Neutrality to my mind would have been a fatal step in September last, a step which might possibly have settled the fate of South Africa, and in the circumstances it was my view and the view of my other colleagues sitting here with me, that although in September, 1938, we had been prepared to give Hitler the benefit of the doubt, it was unthinkable for us to do so twelve months later, and I am convinced that in the interest of South Africa only one course was possible, and that was to act, and thereby to safeguard our country against the perils which very clearly were ahead of us.

I feel the House and all of us should be heartily grateful to have been told at long last by the Prime Minister that at a particular stage we approved of and pursued a certain policy of neutrality, even though later on we had to abandon that policy again. I want to thank the Prime Minister for having made this statement, because after what had happened during the past month, I considered it necessary again to revert to this matter to-day. You, Mr. Speaker, and hon. members must, I am sure, have read the statement issued by some of my previous colleagues and I am sure you must also have seen a certain speech recently made by the hon. member for Salt River (Mr. Lawrence) —also one of my former Ministers. All of them say that they are not aware of anything of the kind having occurred at the Cabinet meeting of the 2th September, 1938. The hon. member for Salt River in his speech, inter alia, said—

I repeat that statement.

The Prime Minister does not say so.

But now I want to remind the House of this. On the occasion of the first reading of this Bill on the 12th February last, I read out to the House a certain declaration containing the Government’s war policy until the 4th September, 1939, to which certain Ministers including to-day’s Prime Minister had already agreed early in September, 1938, and to which on the 28th September, 1938, all Ministers in the Cabinet tacitly acquiesced. I repeat this emphatically, that that policy on which the Prime Minister and I had agreed at the beginning of September, 1938, together with my two friends on my left here, that is to say the policy as to what would be the attitude of the Union in the event of war as the result of the occurrences in Czechoslovakia, and which I submitted to the Cabinet on the 28th September, that that was the policy which was tacitly adopted by every Minister sitting on the other side of the House to-day, and who in those days were within my Government. I read out that statement of policy, and on the occasion of the first reading of this Bill I also quoted a memorandum drafted by me on the same date, the 28th September, 1938, in which was set out briefly what had taken place at that Cabinet meeting in regard to that declaration of policy. Three days later, namely on the 15th February, after I had referred to that statement and that memorandum in this House—there is no need for me to read it again, because the Prime Minister has done so—I had facsimiles of those documents published in Die Burger together with a list of all the names of the Ministers who had attended this Cabinet meeting on the 28th September, 1938, as their names were recorded by my secretary and signed by him on the same date. I also had a facsimile of that document published on the same day. On the 19th February, four days later, a declaration appeared in the Cape Times in regard to the publication of those facsimiles, stated to emanate from “members of the Government who were also in the Hertzog Cabinet.” Who they are, I do not know. That declaration in the main was a repudiation of my memorandum and of what is recorded there as to what took place in the Cabinet on the 28th September, 1938. The inference, so those Ministers state, Mr. Speaker, which one has to draw from my memorandum is the following: (1) That in September, 1938, those Ministers knew about documents A and B; (2) that they were shewn to the Cabinet, and (3) that those Ministers had taken part in a Cabinet decision at that time in favour of neutrality. My former colleagues then proceed to say this: “This inference they deny emphatically.” I can imagine how they put out their chests when they said: “This inference we deny emphatically.”

We deny it absolutely and definitely.

I can quite understand the Minister of Native Affairs denying it. If he tells me that he does not know about certain things, I accept his statement. No wonder they deny these inferences, or inference—as they put it in the singular— most emphatically. They first of all put up this “inference skittle” so as to knock it down. I only want to remind my hon. friends that it is their skittle and not mine. Now let us analyse this matter a little further. I, therefore, want to start at once with this counter-statement by saying that it is untrue that that inference drawn by my colleagues is either necessary or correct; but what is both necessary and correct, as is clearly indicated in the memorandum, is that I, as Prime Minister, and as Minister of Foreign Affairs, notified all the Ministers including my previous colleagues on the 28th September, 1938—

That, Mr. Speaker, and not the “bogus” inference, assumed by my former Colleagues, can be read in the memorandum of the 28th September, 1938, drafted by me and quoted by me in the House on the 12th February last. Now, in passing, I want to refer to the charge made by the Prime Minister that it was improper on my part to have had this published, together with the other document, and I want to ask why? I had two documents here which had been drafted by me. They were not Cabinet documents. One of them had been drafted even before the Cabinet meeting of the 28th September. It never came before the Cabinet. The other one, although its contents were communicated, and discussed on that day, was drafted immediately after the Cabinet meeting. Why was it improper on my part to publish those documents? The Prime Minister has adopted a most reprehensible habit, namely every time he gets hold of anything with which he fancies he may spread poison among the public he immediately takes up an attitude and sounds a note as though the future of the world depended upon it, while in actual fact he is only raising some triviality. This emanates most clearly from the fact that on the 28th September, 1938, I had already notified my Ministers that in the event of war between Germany and Great Britain on the question of Czechoslovakia, the Union in my opinion should follow a policy of standing aside, or of neutrality, as it has been styled by the Ministers themselves since the 4th September; and that not one of my colleagues raised his voice against this, so that all of them gave the impression of being in agreement with me; and further, that the policy of neutrality, as set out by me definitely had the tacit approval of all Ministers without any exception. So it is definitely untrue what my ex-colleagues in their declaration of the 19th February stated in the Cape Times—“They were not parties to a decision on neutrality in September, 1938”. It is true that that resolution contained a suspensive condition, namely if war should break out between England and Germany, but the resolution was there; and if war had broken out over Czechoslovakia it would have been my duty to have seen to it that the Union’s declaration of neutrality was properly issued. Or do those hon. gentlemen, my former colleagues, also wish to pretend that their silence on the declaration and the explanation I made to them, namely that in my opinion in the event of war the policy of the Union should be one of neutrality, is to be taken as meaning that they did not agree with me? If that is so, I want to point out to them that in that event it was their duty not to have sat still and remained silent, but to have said so openly; and I want to point out that the majority of the Cabinet, as became apparent on the 4th September, was not in agreement with them but was definitely in favour of a policy of neutrality. Or did those hon. members desire the Cabinet to have come to a decision by voting on the matter? That would be so ridiculous that I would prefer not to answer my colleagues. But, Mr. Speaker, what must one think of men—Ministers—who when summoned to a Cabinet meeting at which among other questions the question of war or no war was discussed, preferred to remain silent without expressing their opinion, and who later on, when it suited them, tried to excuse their neglect of duty by saying that they had never voted on the matter, or that no Cabinet resolution had ever been taken? As though Cabinet resolutions were ever passed by a majority of votes! As though in the proceedings of the Cabinet, Ministers who failed to say that they did not agree to particular proposals were ever considered not to have agreed with what was submitted to them! In this instance the protesting Ministers, one and all, by their silence, acquiesced in what I submitted to them as our policy. And now to come and excuse their silence by the assertion “that they were not parties to a decision on neutrality” is unworthy both of themselves and their position. When, therefore, Mr. Speaker, the Ministers concerned declare that—

Then I once and for all deny this so-called inference with the exception of the last three lines; and I say in turn that the only inference which can be drawn from the memorandum must read as follows—

They have been busy ever since trying to misrepresent the position in the same way as the Prime Minister did here this afternoon. When those Ministers further say that before the 2nd September, 1939—

that has nothing to do with the matter at issue; and I have no objection whatsoever to that statement. But when they go on to say that from my memorandum it must be inferred that those documents “were disclosed to the Cabinet”, that is definitely untrue. I have never said anything of the kind or never intimated anything of the kind. Hon. Ministers, my former colleagues, Mr. Speaker, are evidently so afraid to let the public—principally their electors— know that on the 28th September, 1938, they gave their consent to a policy of neutrality, that they are now even trying to take refuge behind a hollow inference as to their knowledge or otherwise of documents, while my statement has never been anything except—

At the end of their statement, Mr. Speaker, my former colleagues say this—

It is satisfactory to a degree that they have at last admitted, as the Prime Minister himself has also admitted now, that they were aware of these facts since the beginning of September.

Yes, as the Prime Minister said here this afternoon, I have always objected to our laying down a policy of neutrality for the “future”, whatever· the circumstances might be. I still say to-day that we cannot do so. But, so far as the first portion is concerned, of what I have read out from the statement made by the Ministers in regard to the acceptance by Gen. Smuts of the policy of neutrality as contained in documents A and B — that may be. What he accepted for himself or what he did not accept, I do not know. The decision in favour of neutrality to which Gen. Smuts gave his consent certainly was one “relating simply to the condition of affairs existing at the time”, at the time of the crisis over Sudetenland, “and not laying down a general policy of neutrality for the future”; it was not a policy of “neutrality in any case”, which has always been contested by me. It should not be forgotten, however, that even before 1938 and up to the 4th September, 1939, it was the declared policy of the Union in regard to a war in Europe that the Union would not take part, in it excent in the event of the State or its interests being menaced by such a war: and secondly, that up to the present time, in spite of what the Prime Minister has tried to make us believe this afternoon, the condition of affairs as it existed in connection with Czechoslovakia in September, 1938, has not undergone any notable change of such a nature that the interests of the Union can be said to be threatened. There has not been a single change. Has he shown us anything? After all the Prime Minister has said here this afternoon. I ask whether he has produced anything to scare us, to show us that in one particular aspect our interests have been menaced? No, every reason adduced by him this afternoon was just as applicable to the position in Czechoslovakia at the time….for instance, that Hitler was out for world domination, and that we would also come under that domination. The condition of affairs in regard to Poland in September,· 1939, was exactly the same as what it was with regard to Czechoslovakia on the 28th September, 1938. Neither in the one instance, nor the other, was there any threat to the safety or the interests of the Union. What the Minister said here and what he referred to were a few of these things which we can read in the papers; and that is all he told us; but all other points affecting the other side of the case he carefully omitted to mention. But I say again: he in this House, together with me, made the promise that the Union would not be dragged into a war, unless the interests and the safety of the State were menaced. Where were the threats, where was the menace in 1939 in connection with Poland, which did not exist in connection with Czechoslovakia in 1938? Are we to take it that all the excuses and pretences raised by other countries which are deeply involved, and are interested, also apply to us? And are we to believe all these things? No, I have never yet gone so far as to a thing like that. I therefore have to persist in my former assertion that the Prime Minister of to-day, and those of my former colleagues who followed him on the 4th September, 1939, by their support and by their carrying out the policy of participation in the war, acted disloyally towards me, as well as towards this House, and towards the people of the Union whom they had repeatedly and solemnly promised that they would not plunge this country into a European war, except if it should be necessary to do so in the interest of the protection of the safety and the interest of the State. That is my charge, whatever the Prime Minister may have said about the matter here. There was no reason; our country without any reason has been plunged in a war, and for that reason I say that they were disloyal to the country and to me. The Prime Minister told us that it was true that in 1938 an understanding was arrived at regarding a policy of neutrality; but be goes on to say quite lightheartedly. “But I need not adhere to that.” Imagine! The Prime Minister who was my trusted deputy, acted in the way be acknowledged a little while ago: he acted as he stated in this House in September, 1939, when he said. “Well, I could have broken with Hertzog earlier on, but the breach would have been over minor matters, and I kent quiet and waited for larger issues to crop up.” And he showed us then what the larger issue was which crooned up. What am I to think, what is the House to think, what are the people outside to think of a Leader of this country who thus admits that so far as he was concerned it was only a joke to break his word? For that reason I say that apart from the excuses and pretences made by the Government and Ministers, not a solitary reason has been adduced why on the 4th September, 1939, in the same way as on the 28th September, 1938, a policy of neutrality should not have been pursued. The statement that Germany or Hitler were out to subject us to world domination was contested by me on the 4th September, and with the exception of people in a mad house there is nobody seriously making such a statement to-day. If that was really to be accepted as the cause of war—if that in all earnestness and good faith were to be accepted as a reason for war, then I can conceive it being accepted as a cause of war, but even then we should have had peace now, there should have been peace immediately after Germany had conquered Poland and Hitler had offered to discuss peace terms. Then was the time to make peace. But what did they do then? They ran away then. You cannot make us believe everything you want us to believe. We are not such fatheads that we are unable to see what is going on. The issue to-day is what has always been the issue in Europe, the balance of power. In Europe they are out to achieve a position to break Germany; Germany is to be torn apart; Germany is to be prevented from becoming strong. We are not so ignorant of the history of the past. What I have just mentioned is the cause of the war — everbody knows it. And then I come to another point, and it is this,· that the Prime Minister and his followers would like people to believe that the products of the Union would have had to “lie and rot”, and that other material interests of the Union would have been detrimentally affected if we had not decided to take part in the war, and if we had remained neutral. These statements are so much imaginary nonsense to impress an ignorant public. If in September of the previous year war had broken out over Czechoslovakia, our products would just as much have had to “lie and rot”, and our other material interests would in all likelihood have been just as detrimentally affected, yet all of us, including the Prime Minister and the other Ministers, my colleagues of those days—all of us decided that we should remain neutral. You see, Mr. Speaker, it fits in so nicely: in both instances our neutrality would have had to be announced in September; but in September, 1938, as we are now to believe, there were no commodities to lie and rot, and in 1938 there were no other interests at stake either. I think the Prime Minister arrived at this conviction of “honour and duty” only later on. We are sometimes rather inclined to forget these things. I take it that the Prime Minister must have slept; his conscience must have been asleep, and was only aroused later on. I would be able to show, Mr. Speaker, how ridiculous all these excuses and pretences are if we look at them from the point of view of our international obligations as laid down in the Kellogg Pact, Finally, I only want to point out that if we are to accept in all seriousness these imagined arguments together with the “lie and rot” and other reasons, there can never be a great war in which Great Britain is involved into which we are not going to be dragged. Because our interests will always be affected and our products will always have to lie and rot.

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but his time has expired.

I move that the hon. member be granted an extension of time.

Is there any objection?

I object.

Oh no!

I withdraw my objection,

I am particularly sorry, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition did not have the opportunity of finishing what he was going to say. I must say, Mr. Speaker, that I was astounded when I was told in the Lobby, after the hon. gentleman’s speech on the second reading, what he had said. I am still more astounded to-day when he more or less repeats what he said then. Unfortunately, I was not present when the speech was being made, but I was told that the hon. member had said, that at a Cabinet meeting at the end of September, 1938, he had read us a paper setting forth that we should remain neutral with regard to the differences between Germany and Czechoslovakia.

When did I say that?

I am stating what I was told the hon. member had said.

I never said anything of the kind.

And that we Ministers had accepted that policy. And the hon. member went further and said it was the general policy to be followed in any war between the United Kingdom and any European country.

Where did you get that from?

Those were statements not only made in the Lobby but in the news-papers. I hope the hon. member will allow me to speak, for I did not interrupt him when he was speaking. I want to tell the hon. member that I absolutely deny all those statements—I absolutely deny them.

He never made them.

Then the hon. member asks why we did not repudiate this policy of his. Mr. Speaker, how can we repudiate something that we did not even know existed? How can we repudiate something that we did not even know was intended? It is absolutely ridiculous.

Were you sleeping?

I have never seen either of these papers.

Who said you ever did?

That was a statement made in the Lobby, and I will deal with that.

I shall not stay here and listen to this. I am not responsible for what was said in the Lobby.

I am sorry that the hon. member has lost his temper, but I am going to make this perfectly clear, because it has been repeated several times. I have never seen either of these documents. At the meeting referred to I deny that we were ever asked to come to any decision on any matter whatever, and the subsequent suggestion that the alleged decision applied to the Sudeten trouble, and also generally to any war between the United Kingdom and Germany, is absolutely disproved by the words and statements of the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog) subsequent to September, 1938. I say this too, that my colleagues the Minister of Native Affairs, the Minister of Public Works and the Minister of the Interior, all will bear me out in this, everyone of them will bear me out. Then, Mr. Speaker, one of the most curious things is that the hon. member for Fauresmith (Mr. Havenga) has agreed that I have never seen the paper.

Yes, nobody ever said so.

The most curious thing is this, that after this meeting the hon. member brought a paper—this is the statement of the hon. member for Smithfield—that he brought a paper to his secretary and said, "The members who were present agreed to this; please enter their names on it.” I want to know why he did that. What I want to know is this, if there was this paper in existence, and according to the hon. member there must have been a paper in existence, why were we not shown it, or asked to agree to it, and if we agreed to it, why did we not put our names to it? I say it is the most astounding thing that has ever happened to any cabinet in the world.

The reason is obvious.

A trap.

Manufacturing evidence.

In referring to the verbatim report of the hon. member’s speech, he only says in the report that he mentioned his views on the matter, and we apparently agreed with him. He does not say that he showed us the document.

Quite right. The other was just Lobby talk.

He did not show us the document, and the hon. member for Fauresmith agrees with that, and he explained his views with which we evidently all agreed. The only thing I can say is that neither I nor my colleagues had the remotest intention of agreeing to anything of the kind. It is only the imagination of the hon. member that suggested we ever agreed to such a thing. The whole matter never came up again. The reason why the matter did not come up again for any decision was that that afternoon Mr. Hitler invited Mr. Chamberlain to Munich, and the whole matter dropped. That was the position. Now as regards the statement that the proposed policy applies generally. Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Smithfield, months after this in the House, as the right hon. the Prime Minister has said here, and elsewhere, has allowed everybody to believe that he thought exactly the opposite. On the 23rd March, 1939, in this House, he said, talking about neutrality or war, that here and here alone the decision will have to be given, by the interests of South Africa and not by the interests of a party representative. That was in reply to the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan). Again on the same day he said—

What is the House, and what is the country to infer from these words? Not that we had already made up our minds to be neutral, but that we should come to a decision, and the only qualification was that the interests of the Union should also be considered. Mr. Speaker, can any man of intelligence to-day ask whether the interests of the Union are concerned in this matter after Czecho-Slovakia, after Poland, after Finland, when to-day at this moment perhaps—and here I appeal to the hon. member for Fauresmith—Holland may have to choose between slavery and massacre? Do we suggest, can any man suggest, that we are not interested?

Holland has not gone into the war, anyway.

Poor Holland! It is a country with a great people, with a magnificent history behind it. Is it to be dominated by Germany? God help Holland! I hope that Holland will stand fast, as in the past she did against the Spaniards and Napoleon. Now, Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt at this time, when the hon. the former Prime Minister was speaking, that as far as this House was concerned, and so far as the country was concerned, it was quite clear that we should go in with Great Britain and our friends in the Commonwealth, and France, if such a state of affairs as is now taking place, should come about. Another thing, in 1939 the hon. member for Smithfield knew that the Minister of Native Affairs and the Minister of Public Works were going round this country saying that we should stand side by side with the other members of the Commonwealth. They were saying exactly the opposite of what the hon. member now reiterates. Does the hon. member really suggest that he was conniving with these two Ministers in misleading the people? I know the hon. member for Smithfield too well to believe he would be guilty of such dishonesty, and at the time these gentlemen were speaking he knew thoroughly well that there was no general application of this neutrality idea of his. The only thing I can say, Mr. Speaker, is as I said when I opened my remarks, that I am simply astounded. The hon. gentleman seems to be in a dream. He does not seem to know what did happen, or what he said. Then be threatens us by saying that the reason why we have kicked up all this fuss is because we shall be afraid of what our constituents say, I can assure the House and the hon. member that our constituents simply laugh when it is suggested that we should agree to such a proposal as he has made. Then I am told that it was a breach of faith on our part, a breach of faith in September. 1939, when we broke from the Government and brought forward the amendment moved by the right hon. the Prime Minister. It was not a breach of faith on our nart: it was a breach of faith on the part of the hon. member for Smithfield.

The fact that the Minister who has just sat down spoke with a great degree of indignation should not blind us to the issue which we have before us. The question is, whether apart from the present Prime Minister other Ministers, whose names have been mentioned, knew about, and agreed to our remaining neutral in connection with the difficulties which were expected in September, 1938. To that question there can be only one answer. I do not know whether the Minister who has just sat down wants to tell us that the document which the ex-Prime Minister quoted from is a forgery. Surely he does not mean to say that?

I do not say that the document has been forged.

Of course not. He dare not go as far as that. He has to admit that the document was drafted at the time, and that the Ministers whose names are mentioned were Ministers in the previous Cabinet who were present at that particular meeting of the Cabinet. If the hon. the Minister of Commerce and Industries wants to know what happened—I can hardly imagine his having forgotten it—then I want to refer him to what the Prime Minister said to-day when he admitted: “We decided on neutrality.” That is to say the Government, the Cabinet did. The Prime Minister’s only difficulty is that he contends the resolution did not go beyond the facts and circumstances of September, 1938. We are, therefore, in the peculiar position that the Minister of Commerce and Industries rejects with contempt the assertion that he should ever have agreed to remain neutral in September, 1938. Apparently, those ideas of honour and duty, and of products which will lie and rot and of Simonstown preventing us from remaining neutral, weigh so heavily with him that he would in no circumstances have agreed to our remaining neutral. But what position does that place him in with the Prime Minister, who himself admitted that he was in agreement with the neutrality policy, and who only says that since those days conditions have changed? I do not want to rub it in, but I imagine that the public outside are quite satisfied that this matter was discussed in the way indicated, and explained by the Leader of the Opposition—that it was discussed at a meeting of the Cabinet. The Leader of the Opposition never contented that he had submitted those documents to the Cabinet, but the contents of those documents were discussed and were afterwards tacitly agreed to.

No.

The Minister cannot get away from it. He may stand on his feet or on his head, or on any other part of his body, but he cannot get away from it. Does the Minister wish to tell us that the former Prime Minister is imagining all this? His own leader does not say so. His own leader, Gen. Smuts, admits (1) that the document was originally handed to him. He is now beginning to find out that the wording has been changed, but if he thinks it over, he is sure to find that that argument does not hold. He approved of it. He further admits (2) that at a Cabinet meeting, where certain Ministers were present, the matter was discussed and tacitly approved of.

Why have we never seen it on paper before?

Because it was unnecessary. The policy was discussed and approved of. The value does not depend on the piece of paper containing it, but it depends on what is contained in the policy. Now they want to take refuge behind their statement that this bit of paper was never shewn to them. Surely that is not going to carry any weight. It is, therefore, clear, first of all, that it was explained at a meeting of the Cabinet what the policy was. We were on the verge of war, and war might break out any day, or at any time. We met together in the most difficult conditions. So it was quite natural that the then Prime Minister should have said, “Look here, this is what we are faced with, what is our attitude going to be?” And then he would have said, “I propose that we shall act so and so.” The Cabinet agreed to that. If it had been necessary for any Minister to say that he was not in agreement with that policy he should have told the Prime Minister so. It is not the Prime Minister’s duty to go from the one Minister to the other to find out whether he might have changed his opinion. And then I come to the second question; did we decide thereupon that that policy was to be applied in all circumstances? The Leader of the Opposition does not say so. He takes up the attitude that it would have been stupid to say that in all circumstances we would have nothing to do with the war, and he consistently refused to say anything of the kind. But what we did lay down was that we would in no circumstances take part in a European war unless South Africa’s interests were threatened. I go further and I say that what we tacitly agreed to and what many of us stated as well, was that in no circumstances were we going to be influenced by disputes in Central Europe. That was the background against which the statement of the former Prime Minister was made. The cause was the Sudetan crisis, and the reason for the statement was the fact that the disputes in Central Europe were not going to affect us in South Africa. And that is exactly what the present Prime Minister has also said. During the by-election at Marico he stated on one platform after the other, “I shall advise the Government to assist Great Britain if Great Britain is attacked, but not if she gets involved in a war in consequence of the troubles of Central Europe.” These words of his have been quoted repeatedly in this House and outside. He said that he would recommend that we should assist Great Britain if Great Britain were attacked, but not if Great Britain should be involved in a war in consequence of the quarrels in Central Europe. It must therefore be perfectly clear to everyone in this House and outside that the disputes of Central Europe would not affect us. How does the right hon. the Prime Minister try to get away from that? He tries to get away from it by saying that the former Prime Minister at a later period declared that we would not remain neutral in all circumstances. We know that; that was the policy and it would have been stupid to have declared that we would remain neutral under all conditions. But he further goes on to say that the former Prime Minister had also stated that if a country was out for world domination, this might also affect South Africa. With that we agree. But what the Prime Minister has failed to quote from that same portion of Hansard is that the present Leader of the Opposition declared on the same occasion, “What have we to do with Albania, what have we to do with Poland?” The words are there, they appear in the same Hansard, and I believe they are on the same page which the Prime Minister quoted from. And let us remember that this was after the attack on Czechoslovakia. I believe it was fourteen or fifteen days afterwards, when the Prime Minister exclaimed, “What have we to do with Albania, and what have we to do with Poland?” To say that the then Government and the then Prime Minister were under the impression at that time that Hitler was out to dominate the world, and that the policy which we had adopted in general lines in September, 1938, no longer applied, does not hold water. The Sudeten had been the cause of that resolution, the reason for that resolution was the position in Central Europe, and the disputes with which we did not want to have anything to do, and that was confirmed by the then Prime Minister after the attack on Prague—it was repeated over and over again in this House and outside by the then Prime Minister. It is so striking that one asks how about Simonstown in 1938? What about the “lie and rot” story in 1938? What about the call of honour and duty in those days? Do hon. members really believe the people of the country to be so simple that they will accept a statement that if England should have gone to war against Germany in September, 1938, there would have been no question of honour and duty, while a year later it had become a matter of honour and duty for us to take part? Do hon. members opposite really want to say that if we had not taken part in September, 1938—in accordance with the Cabinet’s resolution—our products would not have lain here and rotted, but that they would have been lying here and rotting if we had remained a neutral a year afterwards? The Minister of Justice and other Ministers made it clear that we could not remain neutral because, so they said, the Simonstown agreement would have prevented it—but did not that agreement exist in September, 1938? The right hon. the Prime Minister himself is an international jurist of great repute, yet there was no difficulty about the position so far as he was concerned in September, 1938. It is very clear, however, that after September, 1938, certain pressure was brought to bear on the present Prime Minister, certain people got a terrible shock at the idea that we should fail to pursue the so-called course of “honour and duty” and the Prime Minister thereupon changed his attitude. But he has not said a word about that change of attitude, that change in his outlook. He sat alongside the then Prime Minister when the then Prime Minister asked “what have we to do with Poland?” The present Prime Minister did not go to his Leader and to his colleagues, and he did not say, “What the Prime Minister has said about Poland is wrong; since Czechoslovakia has been swallowed up, conditions have changed, and we now have to take part in any war which may result.” Well, I leave that point because I feel that the Leader of the Opposition has sufficiently dealt with our former colleagues in previous government. Now I should like to deal with another matter in connection with which it would have been very fitting for the Prime Minister to have said a few words. This is a matter which is causing a great deal of anxiety among the public, namely, the question of the new oath to be sworn by members of the Defence Force. I do not know whether the Prime Minister realises that by his silence, by his half answers, he is busy confirming and strengthening the impression of the public—which I am not anxious to see, and which I am sure he himself does not want to see—namely, that the Prime Minister on the 4th September succeeded in inducing this House to vote for war because everybody knew, and because he had given an assurance to everyone, that we were not going to take any part in the war; we were not going to take any active part, and since that time he has done his utmost in every possible way to get away from the undertaking which he had given at that time. That is the impression which his attitude creates among the public. And for that reason I regret that he has not availed himself of this opportunity to say a few words on what the public again regards as being one of the means used to deceive it. What has happened since the 4th September to create the impression among the public that although the Prime Minister has given the assurance that we shall not take part in the war he is now busy dragging the country and particularly the Defence Force into war?. First of all there is this matter raised by the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus), namely the question of the Royal Marine Reserve. Hon. members will remember that the Prime Minister was asked how it was possible for members of the Royal Marine Reserve, who are part of the Active Citizen Force of the Union, to have landed in England, what are they doing there, and with whose consent are they there? During the debate on this same Bill the Prime Minister gave us the assurance that they were there in accordance with an agreement with Great Britain, and that Great Britain under clause 22 of our Defence Act had the right to commandeer them. He quoted that Act, but when I drew his attention to the fact that there had to be a Governor-General’s Minute, he stated that as far back as 1913 there had been such a Minute. When I made it clear that since that time there had been a change in our status and that since that time we had made an agreement with Great Britain he emphatically denied it. But not long after that, I believe it was a week after, he had to come along and to lay on the Table of the House the Minute of 1913, and at the same time he had to admit that the regulations had been very considerably amended, and that the Royal Marine Reserve could not be commandeered except by him himself. It thereupon became a totally different story; he then told us that those people had left, the one after the other, with his personal consent. Well, they either went overseas because they went in accordance with Clause 22 of the Defence Act, or because the Prime Minister had given them special permission. Both these premises cannot be correct. The Prime Minister has no reason to be surprised at the public asking themselves whether the Department of Defence is honest in the attitude it has adopted or whether we are being deceived, whether the people are being grossly misled so that he may get away from the undertaking he gave in September, 1939. But that is not all. That was surprise No. 1. This Royal Marine Reserve which suddenly finds itself in England, on English ships, was surprise No. 1. No. 2 was the letter to the Commandants, sent by the Prime Minister, in which it was stated they could be sent right up to the equator. I have two such original letters here, one of which I have quoted, but we have had no statement on this point from the Prime Minister. Now there are two possibilities— either it is a stupidity, and if it is a stupidity then it cannot come from the Prime Minister’s office, or it is a case of deliberate deception. If anyone can state with any semblance of truth that South Africa goes right up to the equator, that statement would be so ridiculous that we need not even answer it. It would mean that South Africa would include Somaliland; the equator crosses Lake Victoria; it would leave two thirds of the Congo on this side of the equator, and it would cut off portion of French Equitorial Africa, so that it would also be included in South Africa. Now the public want to know who wrote that letter. If the Prime Minister is unable to answer, the public must come to the conclusion that it is a fraud, the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the public of South Africa. We have been doing our best for months to ascertain from the Prime Minister what the position is in regard to the sending of troops to the North, where he is supposed to go and carry out my promises. In parenthesis I am still waiting for the Minutes of my interview with the Governor in Mombasa. But we cannot get a word from him, the Prime Minister. The reason is that he has informed the commandants that they may be commandeered to go as far as the equator. That being so, he does not need any volunteers, and once they get to the equator, they may have to go even further, because once we have stretched the borders of South Africa as far as the equator, it does not make much difference if we go another 1,000 miles beyond the equator. He also said that he had 60,000 volunteers. That is untrue. Those people joined up under the Defence Act by signing the form which is always sent out by the Defence Force. Now, however, he has brought them under the impression that they will have to go as far as the equator if they are commandeered. This has caused considerable anxiety and we have now got to the next stage so that a new form of oath has been introduced. I would suggest that the honest way to recruit volunteers is to say: “Here is a list and whoever wants to go voluntarily may sign.” That, however, is not being done. No, the oath is being made compulsory for everyone in the Defence Force. The question is now being asked whether members of the Defence Force want to sign “yes” or “no”, but everyone knows that if anyone refuses to sign he will be lucky if he is allowed to remain in the Defence Force, but he certainly cannot depend on any promotion in the future because he is a marked man, and he is going to be victimised. It is not the usual course to say that there is a list which may be signed; those people are not volunteers if you tell them that if they do not sign they will be marked men, and that the man who stands out will be victimised. Then, in regard to these young fellows, the young men of seventeen years of age who have to join up for service in the normal way; they have this oath submitted to them, and if they refuse, they are allowed to sign the other oath. But now they are given to understand that it is the ordinary oath in accordance with the law. But it is not in terms of the Defence Act to have an oath like that taken, because that oath has not been issued in accordance with the Defence Act. It is hoped, naturally, that these young fellows who are in a state of total confusion for the first day or two, will sign the oath as submitted to them. They will sign it then; the majority of them are minors and they are then to be compelled to go and fight outside the Union, beyond the boundaries of the Union. For that reason I say that I deplore the fact that the Prime Minister, having had an opportunity of explaining his policy in regard to this oath, having had an opportunity of explaining to the public that people can refuse to take that oath, and that there is going to be no victimisation, has said nothing. He said nothing and he does not want to say anything, which is quite in harmony with his policy in regard to the Royal Marine Reserve, with the letter to the commandants, and with his 60,000 volunteers—all this is quite in accordance with his whole policy. First of all he wants these young fellows to take the oath, and he then creates the impression among the public that these people are quite willing to go and fight beyond the borders of South Africa. I want to assure the Minister that unless he clearly tells the public that they are at liberty to sign, or not to sign, he must not be surprised if large numbers of the so-called volunteers later on say that they have been deceived, and that they are not going to fight.

The Prime Minister made a long statement here about the meeting of the Cabinet. It would appear to me, and I am under the impression, that the Leader of the Opposition contended that those documents had been submitted to us at the time. I accept his statement, but I recall that discussion very clearly.

Hear, hear!

I do not know why hon. members should laugh like that. In any case the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) said it would have made no difference if this matter had not been raised at the time. I remember that there was a general discussion and the spirit in general was that it would be a pity to have a war over that particular matter. But there was no semblance of a resolution. The matter was discussed but it stopped at that.

Do you think that a vote should have been taken on it?

That is a ridiculous idea which emanates from the Leader of the Opposition. There was no question of a resolution or a vote being taken. Now the Leader of the Opposition says that he never shewed the documents, and the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) asked why he should have shewn them. But the matter was of sufficient importance to have the documents signed by his private secretary and not by us. Why did the Prime Minister do this? Did he not trust us? Why did he have this memorandum drafted and paraphrased by his private secretary? Why was nothing said about it to us on any occasion, because the first I heard of it was at Groote Schuur on the 2nd September, and I only read about it in the Press. I have never yet seen the document. But if the Prime Minister says now that he never submitted it to us, and if he does not want to contend that we ever saw it, that is the end of the matter.

But the Prime Minister saw it.

Yes, and if I had seen it, I would probably have done the same thing, that is to say I would also have said that I did not consider it desirable to make war over Czechoslovakia. But the manner in which the exPrime Minister put the case here has given the impression in the country that we had all seen it and that it was a resolution of the Cabinet.

Who said so?

I do not say that that was stated, but I got the impression that you wanted to say that it was a decision of the Cabinet, that it was something which was agreed to by the Cabinet. That is the impression which is being created, and we explained the position because we were being accused of having committed a breach of faith. I said repeatedly in my constituency that if war should break out I expected South Africa to go in with England. I served for many years under the hon. member, and he always treated us as friends, and I am not going to attack him now, but he has accused us of a breach of faith. I am not accusing him of breach of faith, but I do feel that he should have told us in 1938 and 1939 what his intentions were, what he was going to do. I want to say that the first I heard of the Prime Minister’s neutrality plans was on the Saturday afternoon at Groote Schuur. I feel that if there was any breach of faith, it was committed by the hon. member to his party, and if he had consulted his party he would never have come here with his neutrality proposition, because the great majority would have voted against it. When he came to the House with his neutrality proposal a large number of the hon. members who are now sitting on the other side of the House were flabbergasted. If the Leader of the Opposition had done what he should have done, that is to say if he had consulted not only his colleagues, but his party as well, the country would not have been in the difficult position in which it is to-day. If the hon. member had said that South Africa was in danger and he was going to war he would have promoted national unity for a hundred years. Even if he had introduced his neutrality motion, and if, after it had been negatived, he had said that he, as an Afrikaner, stood by the Government, he would have promoted national unity for a hundred years. But my hon. friends over there, those hon. members over there are a kind of “model de luxe” Afrikaners, and they want to besmirch everybody who does not agree with them. I was not surprised to hear the hon. member for Gezina putting up a plea, such as we have heard so often here, praising and justifying Herr Hitler and the Germans.

But you know that that is not so.

He did so.

What did I say?

He put up a plea here to justify the attitude of the Germans.

I definitely deny it. I have no concern with the Germans.

Just like his leader, he has continually tried to justify Germany and the Germans here.

But what did he say?

We are continually hearing from the other side that it is wrong to have a divided loyalty in South Africa. We are told that some of us have one foot in South Africa and the other foot in England. Well, all I can say is that the hon. member for Gezina, and a number of hon. members on the other side too, have one foot in South Africa and the other foot in Germany.

But mention one thing I said. I spoke about South Africa and not about Germany.

I have never worried very much about those stories of a divided loyalty, or a double loyalty. I see no harm in a subject of this country thinking with love and with sentiment of the country whence his forefathers have come. What is the harm? To my mind it makes an Afrikaner a better Afrikaner if he can cast his mind back, have a love for his former fatherland, or a love for the land of his ancestors. That story of a double loyalty and of it being wrong to think back with love and sentiment of the country of the past, carries no weight with me, and it does not make any one any the worse as an Afrikaner.

I regret having to interrupt the hon. the Minister, but I think he is getting somewhat far away from the subject.

I am only mentioning it because I want to show. Mr. Speaker, that that same party which is always complaining of double loyalty does not complain to-day of the hon. member for Gezina standing with one foot in South Africa and with the other foot in Germany; it does not complain of the hon. member trying in that way to justify Germany’s actions.

But tell me what I said?

It is not only what the hon. member has said, it is what he has done.

But what have I done?

It is not what you have done either, but what you have not yet done. The hon. member for Gezina is a man to-day without any friends in the world. Even members opposite look upon him as an uitlander.

Order, order!

I apologise, Mr. Speaker. The Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Gezina have always insisted that our promise to the country was that we would only go to war if the interests of South Africa were at stake. I am not going to stand here and talk about Poland, about Warsaw, about Danzig or about Czecho-Slovakia.

You are only going to talk about the British Empire.

No, I am going to talk about the interests of South Africa.

But none the less you did declare war.

No, we declared war, because it was in the interest of South Africa, because if Hitler wins this war it means the end of us, and hon. members over there know it just as well as I do. If Hitler gets his way, or if the wishes of the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) are fulfilled so that Hitler obtains world domination, where will South Africa be? And what is going to become of us?

What about Russia?

What has Russia to do with it? Russia is not going to attack us. Russia is not going to annex us. But Germany definitely wants to annex us. Ask yourself what the position is going to be. We are not children, and we know what will happen. If Hitler wins this war and secures world domination, and secures control of the seas, do you imagine that he will come here and ask us whether he can have South-West Africa? He will say that he does not only want South-West Africa, but that he wants South Africa as well. He will say to us, “You were too rotten to fight for your own country, so you are too rotten to be a nation, and I am simply going to take you over as a German colony.”

If that is so, why do you not go and fight?

I fought in the last war, and if necessary I shall also fight in this war. We won the last war without the Nationalists, and we are going to win this war too without the Nationalists. If members of the Nationalist Party want to be stoep sitters while other people go and fight for them, very well. We are told that they are also going to fight. I wonder where they are going to fight. When we are attacked? There are great events facing the world to-day, and it seems strange to me that a party which says that its members are par excellence the true Afrikaners should leave its country in the lurch in a time like the present.

We are not leaving the country in the lurch, but we do not want to be the henchmen of other people.

We have never been anybody’s henchmen (agterryers). We are nobody’s supine followers. We are in this war because it is in our interests. The facts are perfectly clear, but nobody opposite wants to realise those facts. Or are they too stupid to appreciate their real significance? On the 4th September of last year I voted in favour of the resolution for South Africa to go into this war, and I am proud of that fact. We voted in favour of our taking part in this war, for the reasons which I have mentioned, namely because our freedom and our future are at stake, and we feel responsible to the people for the protection of that freedom in days to come. We are not cowards like hon. members opposite, who want to sit on the stoep while other people go and fight for their freedom and their future. The members of the Nationalist Party know as well as I do that our freedom and our future are at stake, but just as they did in the last war they now allow other people to go and fight their battles for them.

But you are still sitting here yourselves.

We do not sit on the stoep; we stand. The attitude adopted by hon. members opposite reminds me of the Nationalists who at a public meeting in South-West said, “Our Nationalists are not going to allow themselves to be beaten like women; we shall run away like men”. I want to conclude….

Why do you not go and fight?

The hon. member for Aliwal (Capt. G. H. F. Strydom) said that he would join up if we had to fight. Now he sits over there and is nothing but a wind bag. He will not go and fight.

May I ask, on a point of order, whether an hon. member is allowed to call another member a wind bag, and if he is not allowed to do so, I want to ask that he should withdraw what he has said.

I am prepared to withdraw it without your ordering me to do so, Mr. Speaker, but then I also want to ask the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) to withdraw what he called me the other day.

May I ask whether an hon. member is allowed to try and negotiate across the floor of this House with another member, and to say that he will withdraw something if the other member will also withdraw something?

The hon. the Minister may proceed.

I have already withdrawn. The hon. member for Gezina drafted certain regulations. His regulations were intended for times of peace, yet they are much more drastic than these regulations of ours. He told us that he had intended those regulations for times of peace, and when he gets his Republic in South Africa he is going to use those regulations to intern his political opponents, to suppress papers, and to establish storm troops. Hitler will be very sore that even he is going to be eclipsed.

Why further distort distorted newspaper talk?

Hitler is his model. He wants storm troops, and people who differ from him have to be put into concentration camps! Newspapers have to be suppressed! That is the sort of Republic he wants in this country.

That is exactly what you are doing now.

We are not busy doing that, we are busy with an enemy. We are busy maintaining South Africa’s reputation in spite of the Opposition. In any case we have some idea of what the hon. member for Gezina wants for his new Republic, and I wonder whether the hon. member for Smithfield (Genl. Hertzog) agrees with that. We have lately seen a great many congresses being held and I wonder what the hon. member for Smithfield thinks of all this, and what he thinks of the Afrikaner bloc which the hon. member for Gezina talks about?

If you ask me what I think of you I shall tell you at once.

The hon. member for Smithfield always told us in the past that he did not want to have anything to do with an Afrikaner bloc—but he seems to stand for an Afrikaner bloc now together with the hon. member for Gezina.

And you stand for an Empire bloc.

No, we stand for South Africa. If I look at members of the United Party opposite, I can see that they have all been swallowed up by the Malanites, and all those Free Staters are going to lose their seats at the next election. I wonder how many of those poor Hertzogites will be returned to Parliament next time.

Do not behave like a clown.

Joey, you are not going to come back either.

I only said that you were a Minister, and that it does not become you to become a clown.

Anyhow, I have finished and I have said what I thought.

You have said nothing at all.

If I said nothing, then I wonder why hon. members opposite got so upset.

The hon. the Minister who has just sat down is, I believe, the Deputy-Prime Minister. Well, what South Africa thinks of a Cabinet such as we have at the moment when on an occasion when an important Bill such as this War Measures Bill is being discussed, we have to listen to the jokes made by the Deputy-Prime Minister of South Africa, is something we can hardly conceive. The people can come to only one conclusion. The hon. the Minister said absolutely nothing on this important matter. He tried to joke about serious subjects such as the question of war and peace, but he did not get beyond that. I wish to carry on the debate and to talk about this very serious question which is before the House. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition made a statement on a previous occasion and he repeated it this afternoon, that his English-speaking friends with whom he had tried to co-operate here in South Africa had left him in the lurch so far as this war was concerned. The position is this, that some of our English-speaking members—I am not referring to all of them, but I am referring to some pro-British, or imperialistically-minded members sitting on the other side of the House to-day—I say the position is that we have English-speaking members in this House, and also English-speaking people outside, who are pro-British, they are British-minded citizens of South Africa, and they have not only left the former Prime Minister as well as South Africa in the lurch, in connection with this policy of neutrality, but they are actually opposing us and they are persecuting us. When I talk of “we” I talk of Afrikaners who are not Nazis, who are not German, not French and not English. Unfortunately we get very little from them except persecution, and I am going to prove my contention. First of all, we get this sort of thing from their Press. I am going to deal with a special subject and I am going to try and prove the truth of what I am saying. I am referring particularly to the English Press of the Witwatersrand, and especially to the Sunday Times, and I also intend referring to Mr. George Heard. Mr. George Heard is the cause of our having had a special commission of investigation into the Broadcasting Corporation, owing to his having made charges of so-called Nazi activities on the part of the broadcasting staff. It is that same George Heard who to-day abuses the hospitality of South Africa, of his own country. He was not imported into this country. He was born in the Free State. His country is South Africa and he speaks Afrikaans just as well as I do, but that George Heard to-day is nothing but the instrument of British Imperialism in South Africa, to have Afrikaners persecuted as far as he is able to do so.

Nonsense.

He is a man who no longer observes journalistic etiquette as he indulges in “fast and loose” statements in a responsible newspaper in South Africa, statements which he cannot possibly prove. But he uses, or rather he abuses his position, for the purpose of creating cheap sensations for the sake of Imperialism and British propaganda. George Heard now tries to make us believe that he is an independent thinker. I am afraid that he is only a poor henchman (agterryer) of Wilson’s. I am saying this about George Heard because he is the instigator of these serious occurrences which I want to speak about. I contend that he is a moral coward. The position to-day is no longer that only the pulpit, as he himself said, is the “coward’s castle,” but it is also the editorial chair which has become a coward’s castle. From the editorial chair George Heard has cast all sorts of insinuations at the head of the Afrikaans-speaking population; he is able from the editorial chair to make charges against the staff of the Radio Board; from the editorial chair he disclosed Budget secrets as a result of which he was summoned to appear before court, but like a coward he failed to appear. He was sentenced for contempt of court, and I wonder why that sentence was never carried out. He also made serious charges against the staff of the Radio Corporation, and those charges were taken seriously by a portion of the British people in South Africa. The Radio Corporation thereupon appointed a special commission to enquire into the charges made by George Heard in the Sunday Times of the 3rd December and the 10th December. What did the commission report—

Not only is he a coward who runs away, but when he was challenged to give evidence he refused to do so. That is why I talk of the “coward’s castle.” I call him a moral coward who is casting serious reflections on the Afrikaners in these times of war, and when he was challenged by the commission of the Radio Corporation to prove his charges he refused to do so. He came along with allegations of so-called Nazi activities. I contend that George Heard knew, as the Government knows to-day, and as South Africa knows, that he was writing nonsense. He is the man who did not hesitate to belittle the sufferings and the tears of the Afrikaner mothers and their children. He is to-day the foreman of the Government and their Press, to trample on our South African citizens and to persecute them as far as he is able to.

What has that to do with the War Measures Bill?

I am busy telling the hon. member what the type of journalist is that he wants to make use of to besmirch and to persecute the Afrikaners as so-called Nazis. He is the same man who yesterday again in the Sunday Times had a lengthy article against the Volksbank which has been established in the Union. Why? Because he knows that we are in the hands of foreign capital and because we realise the position to be serious, and for that reason that moral coward comes along to scare the Afrikaner people by suspicion mongering, and by making people believe that they are going to lose their money. He also came along with his allegations against the Radio Corporation in his two articles in the Sunday Times. What did the Radio Corporation do? They appointed a commission to investigate the charges.

What has this got to do with the Bill?

Don’t let the hon. member get nervous; he will get more than he bargains for. I can assure the hon. member that he is going to hear more about this business of the Radio Corporation than he expects. Whom did the corporation thereupon appoint to make an enquiry into the so-called Nazi activities? They actually appointed the following four people. Let me say in passing that a large portion of the staff of the Radio Corporation are Afrikaans-speaking. They thereupon appointed the following people: Col. Deane, Sir Curruthers Beattie, the man who here in Cape Town told the young people that their highest religion should be to go and fight for the British Empire; Col, Molyneux and Mr. Briggs, four English-speaking members, one of whom understands a few words of Afrikaans, and the others not a syllable. That was the type of person who had to make an enquiry into George Heard’s insinuations against the staff of the Radio Corporation, insinuations that they were engaged in Nazi activities. That was the kind of commission that was appointed to investigate the case of those young Afrikaners against whom those accusations were directed. What was the result of the enquiry? A justification of the corporation as such? Yes? It was a white-wash commission, as it was called. Furthermore, the director of the corporation, Mr. Caprara, was absolved by the commission, but two members of the Afrikaans-speaking staff were accused and besmirched and one of them even landed in the camp after the enquiry. Now I should like to say a few words about the inside history of this enquiry, and what took place further. That commission was appointed specially in consequence of the accusations made by Heard.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I am informed that a summons has been issued by the very person of whom the hon. member is speaking, viz.: a servant of the Broadcasting Corporation, for libel against Mr. George Heard, and the action is now pending. The summons has actually been issued.

If it is a fact that a court case is pending we cannot discuss this matter.

May I say that there has been nothing published about a court case, there has been no report of such a case being pending.

A summons has been issued. I sent out to get the information while the hon. member was speaking, and I am informed that the summons has been issued, and proceedings are now pending by Mr. De Waal on the one hand and Mr. George Heard of the Sunday Times on the other.

Can the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) give me the assurance that that is so, and that the case is pending?

Yes, I can.

Against whom is this case pending? I am speaking about different people.

The hon. member for Kensington has stated that De Waal has brought an action against George Heard and the Sunday Times.

I am not saying a word about De Waal nor shall I say any more about George Heard, but I only want to deal with the action of the corporation.

The hon. member must not say anything in connection with any libel case which is pending.

I know nothing about it. I am speaking about the activities of the corporation. A commission of enquiry was appointed in consequence of accusations made against certain people of the Radio Corporation that they had been guilty of certain acts. I have not mentioned any names. I do not know why the hon. member for Kensington should jump up so quickly and want to defend certain people. The charge was made against the corporation. Now I want to quote a paragraph from the report of the Commission of Enquiry, paragraph 6—

I want to ask hon. members to note the date — 26th December, 1938. Something was supposed to have taken place in Germany. This is what the report says—

Then the commission states—

I am now dealing with the Radio Corporation as such. But in passing I want to ask where the person making the charge obtained his information that the Afrikaans announcer had objected to the item, and that he had obtained permission to omit it? How did that come out? Where did George Heard obtain his information? There was a leakage from the office of the Radio Corporation, and I shall shew later on who the informant was, so that the public may know it. I shall state it very meticulously. I am still making charges against the Radio Corporation. The accusation was made that a news item had been omitted by someone who had not the right to do so. What is the truth of that? I contend that it was totally untrue. I shall mention names. Whom had they in mind? They refer to Advocate Marais who at that time was in charge of the Afrikaans news service of the Corporation. During that period, namely December, 1938, Advocate Marais with one other person, namely Miss Dickson, had the right to turn down any item of news, and not have it broadcast. Only later, namely in April, 1938, that is to say months and months later did the Director of the Corporation, Mr. Caprara, in writing, deprive Adv. Marais and Miss Dickson of the right to exercise control over the news. If the Corporation’s commission states that the regulations were contravened because the English news service had to be identicial to the Afrikaans news service I say that that is not true, and that the so called white wash commission makes a statement which is untrue. At the end of 1938 there was no regulation that the two news services had to be identical. This was enforced only in May, 1939. Consequently, what the Commission says is not true. The individual referred to as the man who had omitted this news item was Louis Wiesner. He is the man who was afterwards sent to the internment camp, and for that reason I want to give these facts. When Mr. Wiesner and others had to give evidence before the commission it was stated that the evidence would be confidential, and there would be no victimisation; in other words they could speak openly. I want to say here in parenthesis that matters went fairly well in the Radio service until the Government started its war policy. I shall prove this.

They were caught napping.

Yes, they were caught napping. I want to say this, in this House we have someone whom I have called on previous occasions the greatest destructor of Afrikaans national life, and when this person stepped in he brought about destruction in the Radio Corporation. Before that, South Africa knew nothing of those troubles, but when that spirit of persecution of Afrikaners showed itself, in the Radio Corporation too, matters went wrong. I only want to quote this paragraph from the report to show that what I am saying here is true. This is what appears in paragraph 9 of the Commission’s report. This is their finding after having investigated this matter—

That is the charge enquired into by them—

Now what does that show? The staff or the Radio Corporation is at liberty to have its own private views. That we agree with, but they are tied down in their service. Certainly, we also say so, and if the Radio Corporation have laid down a certain policy the staff should give effect to it, but what is the position? The Radio Corporation in its 1938 report already said something on that subject, and let us see what they said there. They say themselves that they are not a Government Deparment and for that reason they lay down their own policy, and the members of the staff have to carry out that policy, they are bound to do so. Now, what is the policy of the Radio Corporation. Read the 1937 report; there we find on page 13 that their policy amounts to this, that in accordance with the law they cater for entertainment, instruction and news reports which they provide, but on page 15 we find “no politics”, and on page 16 “no offence”. That is the policy of the Radio Corporation. What has happened? The staff was still engaged in carrying out that policy. Mr. Louis Wiesner and all the others with him adhered to that policy, but what happened? I shall continue to quote what the commission said about this—

Here they come and say that Louis Wiesner —he was the man referred to—would not allow a certain item to be broadcast because he regarded it as propaganda. Louis Wiesner was quite right. Under the policy of the Radio Corporation he was not allowed to broadcast that item. The Radio Corporation are co-subscribers to the Radio Convention of Geneva of 1936, in which the subscribers undertake that no news shall be broadcast which may cause a wrong spirit among the different nations. That, naturally, took place before the war, but the point is that it was the intention to perpetuate peace and not to cause war. We also signed that, aid Louis Wiesner was quite correct that on the ground of the policy of the Radio Corporation and the resolution of the Geneva Convention he could refuse to have that propaganda broadcast. Nor did he do so himself; he asked Adv. Marais what he should do, and Marais said that it should be omitted, and the assistant-manager of the Radio Corporation agreed to this. But although Louis Wiesner carried out the policy of the Radio Corporation it was stated afterwards that he was against the Government. What has he to do with the Government? In what way was his attitude reprehensible? The Radio Corporation at the beginning of September last year, through its chairman, admitted that they were going to support the Government through thick and thin, but they never informed their staff of their decision. The chairman on the 3rd December stated that he was in daily contact with the Government and he knew what the Government wanted. The staff of the Radio, Corporation was never informed that the Board had departed from its policy and that it was acting in conflict with the law under which it was there, and that it was now going to support the Government through thick and thin. Then it was said that a man was against the Government, although he only had to concern himself with the policy of the Radio Corporation. I have the declaration in regard to the corporation’s policy before me, and the staff at that period certainly knew nothing of the new policy. The Radio Corporation itself issued this statement, and I shall read it to, the House. Remember this was on the 2nd January, 1940, when Wiesner was sent to the camp. They then came along and said that as the country was at war the Radio Corporation regarded it as its duty to support the Government in seeing the war through. After this declaration South Africa knows why even the news from Daventry and the propaganda from Daventry is being rebroadcast from here. Now we know why Wilson may say anything he likes; now we know why people are told that if they are anti-Government they will be dismissed from the staff of the Radio Corporation. But the staff has never yet been told that if they fail to carry out the board’s new policy in every respect they are liable to be banished from the service. That is why they came along with the statement that they would support the Government through thick and thin, but this was only on the 2nd January, 1940, and that was never submitted to the staff before that date. It is most reprehensible to accuse the staff of Nazi activities and to put one of them into the camp simply because he happened to have a German surname. I only want to say this, that the cause of all the trouble in connection with the Radio Corporation is to be found in the decision taken by the Radio Corporation without notifying the staff of it in good time. The Radio Corporation handed the matter over to detectives, and they persecute people, not because they are Germans, but because they act in accordance with the policy laid down by the Radio Corporation itself, and which they have to carry out in accordance with the Geneva Convention. Then I want to say a few words which the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) will not be pleased to hear. There is an Ogpu, there is persecution going on in the Radio Corporation, there is a smelling-out going on, and who was it who was principally responsible for that being started? It was the physical culture announcer in the mornings, Eric Egan, alias Ginsberg. He started this smelling-out and for his pin-pose he used a Jewish typiste by the name of Rosenthal who had scrutinised the book containing comments which had to be made by members of the broadcasting service. She had not the slightest right to look into that book, but she copied certain comments and translated them, and in that way the matter came into the hands of Mr. George Heard. I should have liked in this connection to have said something about the director of the Radio Corporation but time will not permit me to do so. Now, I should like to come to another point. I have here a cutting from the Sunday Express with the heading “Broadcast House unrest and suspicion; Increased racial ill-feeling.” Statements are made here and assertions are made in regard to what is going on, and it is stated that there was no co-operation between the Afrikaans and English-speaking members of the staff. Why not? Because a few months before a proposal had been made for the establishment of a Civil Radio Reserve. Mr. Caprara had made the suggestion and he had also said that in time of national emergency the radio programmes would be carried on without interruption. That was the object and it was stated that the members of the staff would not be taken away from the microphone, and it was therefore necessary to form this reserve. But what was the case? They found that clause 6 of that reserve’s constitution read as follows—

When they saw that, they refused to sign on unless that clause was altered. And what happened then? The members of the radio staff were called in and a commissioner of oaths was present, and they were asked to sign. But they turned round at once and refused to sign. This happened in Johannesburg. But after that the director came to Cape Town and told the Afrikaans members of the radio staff that the Afrikaans members in Johannesburg had all signed on. This was an absolute untruth. In order to try and get them into the reserve and to, induce them to sign on this false statement was made. When the Afrikaners on the Rand refused Mr. Caprara was furious. It is those things which have the effect of there being no co-operation between the Afrikaans staff and the others. Let me mention another point. On the 5th September last year Messrs. Horace Collett, Cliff Matthew and Arthur Swemmer had intended holding a secret meeting in the African Theatres Building next to the Radio Building. The object of that meeting was apparently the suppression of all Nazism in Broadcast House. Mr. Caprara went out of his way and called in Lt.-Col. Spence to put a stop to this, and it was then that the real object of that meeting came out. The real object was to suppress the Afrikaans programme, and to use the announcers for the English radio service and for propaganda. Hon. members will understand, therefore, why it is that the people in Radio House are unable to co-operate with the Afrikaans-speaking staff. That is the sort of thing which has been going on in the radio service. A movement was started to establish a Broadcasting Union, and all the Afrikaans-speaking people wanted to join up, but what did they find out later on? The Afrikaans-speaking people would be in the minority because there were fewer of them than there were English-speaking members on the staff, and once they were in the union and the Radio Union had been established, the principle of a closed shop was to have been applied. If an Afrikaans-speaking person after that refused to agree to proposals made by the English-speaking members, they would kick him out of the Radio Union; this would not only have meant that he would have been put out of the Radio Union, but he would also have lost his position with the Radio Corporation. This sort of compulsion is being exercised behind the screens over the Afrikaans-speaking members of the radio staff in the service of the Radio Corporation. It is because of that that a man like Mr. Van Rensburg resigned, and all the members of the staff who have spoken to me say that it is becoming impossible for an Afrikaner who wants to remain himself, to continue in the service of the corporation. He is being compelled to go in the same direction as the majority, failing which he has to leave the service. It is not only Rosenthal who gave this information, but there were others as well who were doing so, there was Eric Egan (alias Ginsberg). When they came along with statements to get Wiesner into trouble, a certain detective by the name of Edelstein, the only Jew in the detective service, was put on Wiesner’s track. He had to compile statements and draft the charge. Is that the sort of justice and fairplay which an Afrikaner has to put up with in his own and only country? Wiesner was put into the internment camp. Wiesner thereupon appealed to somebody whom he could appeal to, and he was released from the camp without parole. He is one of the few who were released without parole, because there was no case against him. Now he is out of the camp; he is not on parole, but he is out of employment. But Eric Egan (alias Ginsberg) is still in the service. He left the service of the Radio Corporation in April last year, and he went to England to the B.B.C. When war broke out, and when it appeared that bombs were more likely to be dropped on the B.B.C. than here in South Africa, he returned to South Africa, and now he is back in the service of the Radio Board. Wiesner is out of the service, but Egan (alias Ginsberg) is back. It is that kind of thing which makes us in this country feel that what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said the other day is true, namely that as a result of this warlike spirit co-operation will for the next fifty years, and perhaps for longer, be rendered impossible in this country. The fact is that Afrikaners are thrown on the streets, persecuted by Jew and Jingo; we shall remember it! And I want to know what Africa’s verdict is going to be on those occurrences. Are we going to sit still while that injustice is being done in our radio service? The Afrikaans-speaking staff is upset, and we want to know what the listeners are going to do — the people who have to pay the licences.

Mr. Speaker, when the usual cacophony which one expects from the opposite side has ceased, perhaps the House will allow me to say, very shortly, what I have risen to say. I want to associate myself with what has been said in the House this afternoon by my colleagues, the Minister of Commerce and Industries, and the Minister of Native Affairs, in regard to the decision alleged to have been taken by the former Cabinet on September 28th, 1938. I am glad to have this opportunity of being able to do so in the presence of the former Prime Minister, because I have had occasion to mention this matter outside the House, and I certainly would not like the former Prime Minister, or any other hon. members, to think that I would make a statement outside the House which I would not be prepared to make before him. I have not risen to fling any mud or to make any allegations. I am concerned with the charge which has been made, inter alia, against myself. I am sorry, very sorry, indeed genuinely sorry, that on a matter of this sort I have a dispute with my former leader, the present hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog). The hon. member for Smithfield has always treated me with the greatest kindness and courtesy. He also did me the honour to ask me to become a colleague of his, and I shall always appreciate that. I rise this afternoon not to deal in personalities, but merely to approach this matter from the standpoint in which I come into it. It involves partly a question of fact and partly a number of inferences. The simple question is, did the former Cabinet, on September 28th, 1938, at Pretoria, take (a) a decision to remain neutral in the case of a conflict between Germany and Sudetenland, and (b) did it also take a decision that, in regard to any war in Europe in which England would be involved, South Africa would remain neutral? As I understand the hon. member for Smithfield, we took both these decisions. As I understand the former Prime Minister, after September 28th, 1938, the Cabinet was bound to a policy of neutrality in respect of a conflict between England and any European country. That was, according to the hon. member for Smithfield, the fixed policy of the Cabinet. On the question of fact, I associate myself with my colleagues who have spoken this afternoon. I say that no decision was taken on 28th September, 1938, either in regard to a Sudetenland conflict or in regard to the general question of an all-weather neutrality policy. I say we took no decision. I shall not recall in detail all that happened on that occasion, but I have a clear recollection of what took place. I was a new member of the Cabinet, and we met in a time of great stress, of great anxiety, when grave matters were hanging over our country and over the world.

And you parted without making a decision?

We parted without making a decision. That is so. If hon. members say it is not correct, I reply that I have arisen this afternoon to try, to the best of my ability, and in all seriousness and sincerity, to state what took place on that occasion.

Did the then Prime Minister make a declaration of his policy, and did you object?

I will say this, that on that occasion a large proportion of the time was taken up with the reading of a number of tables and secret documents, and towards the end of that Cabinet meeting—and I am sure the hon. member for Smithfield will forgive me if I give so much detail, because he has given details of what is purported to have happened on that occasion—towards the end of our deliberations the hon. member for Smithfield, in my recollection, rather vaguely referred to the fact that he did not think England would go into the conflict at once if Hitler went over the top the next day, and he elaborated what he thought should be the attitude of South Africa if England had to be involved in war.

Did he object to it?

No, there was no discussion whatever.

Did he make no statement?

I have never denied that the former Prime Minister did make a short statement. If hon. members will allow me to proceed without interruption, they will have their opportunity of speaking. I shall recall my recollection of the views he expressed to the best of my ability. He made a short statement, but he did not say, “I, as Prime Minister, now ask whether you agree with me that that is the policy to be carried out.” When we met at Groote Schuur on 2nd September 1939, however, the hon. member for Smithfield spoke for well over an hour, and he then fully explained his policy to us. On that occasion, 28th September, 1938, there was a short rambling discussion of about ten minutes duration, and then, as it was lunch time, we went home. We knew, on that occasion, that Mr. Chamberlain was going to Munich, and the matter was left in the air and no decision was taken. On that occasion no reference was made by the hon. member for Smithfield to any document. I say to him that he certainly did his former colleagues a grave injustice on the last occasion on which he addressed the House when he referred to this document. Even if he did not do so specifically, inferentially he indicated that we knew about the existence of a document, and that we are now trying to get out of it. I would remind the hon. gentleman of what he said on that occasion. He was quoting to the House a memorandum which he had drawn up after the Cabinet meeting of 28th September, 1938. I am quoting from the Hansard report of the hon. member’s speech—

“They all gave their approval to it after I had read out my view as set out in documents A and B.”

[inaudible].

My suggestion is that the hon. member for Smithfield did us an injustice. He did not make it clear at the time that he had read out no document. I interjected, “I deny it was mentioned by the Prime Minister at the Cabinet meeting.”

What has that got to do with the difference between you and me?

It had this to do with the difference.

It had nothing to do with it.

The hon. member can be fair, I know, and I know he will be fair to me. It has this to do with the difference. I know from the Press, the Opposition Press and from my own Press, and from the public, that they all took it that these documents were read out at the September, 1938, Cabinet, and that I had denied it. They all took it that the document of the 1st September, 1938, relating to neutrality, had been read out at the Cabinet meeting, and that therefore every member of the Cabinet whose name was on the Prime Minister’s memorandum, knew about the document, and also knew about his fixed policy.

If you had come to me and asked me I would at once have told you.

It is so reported and I did interject as it will appear in Hansard of the 12th February, 1940. I certainly do not say he abstained deliberately but the hon. member did not then say, “No, I do not suggest that it was read out.” The impression on the public was that we knew about this document and that the document had been read out. I now understand from the member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog) that he does not suggest that that document, embodying the alleged policy, was read out to us in Cabinet in September, 1938.

No. I had it before me as I usually do when I have a Cabinet meeting and have put something beforehand on paper.

Then I take it that it was not read out.

No.

But it was quite obvious that the member for Smithfield attached very great importance to it, because in the memorandum which he then proceeded to draw up after the Cabinet meeting he refers to the documents (a) and (b) and he made a contemporaneous document, having reference to document (a) and (b), in which he says that the terms of the document were communicated to his colleagues. The hon. gentleman admits that he attached importance to it.

Not the document itself but the contents of the document.

Yes, I accept that, but if it had been so essential, so important that the policy should be set down in writing and that it was so necessary that a memorandum bad to be drawn up to the effect that the policy had been laid before Cabinet, surely the hon. member for Smithfield should have communicated that second document to his colleagues and asked them, “Do you, or do you not agree that this is what happened?”

You don’t deny that that is what happened.

Yes. I do deny that a decision was taken at that meeting.

I merely gave the facts and I say that you acquiesced by your silence.

All I can say then is this, that the hon. member for Smithfield must have been very suspicious if he knew that it was only through silence we were asquiescing and he found it necessary to draw up this contemporaneous document, which he only disclosed a year later.

Let me tell you that there is not the slightest doubt that I drew up that document and had the names of the Cabinet attached to, it by my secretary, because I was afraid that something might happen which has happened before, namely, that some of my colleagues denied that they were present at the meeting.

I thought that the hon. member for Smithfield had me in his confidence at that time, and had other of my colleagues in his confidence. He talks about the present Prime Minister, suggesting that he was intriguing behind his back, waiting for an opportunity to, break with him. And now he charges me and my colleagues with a breach of faith and says that he did not trust us! Surely that is what it amounts to; that can be the only reason for drawing up that document. If he trusted me and trusted my colleagues he could have shown us that document and have asked us whether we agreed as to what took place at the meeting. In that case I could hardly have denied what took place 24 hours afterwards. It is a most unprecedented thing to have a minute of what has taken place at a Cabinet meeting. But if it were usual to have such a thing as a Cabinet minute, surely the people who took part in the discussion should have the right to say whether they agree or not to its terms? The pettiest little local committee which keeps minutes allows the members of the committee the right to have the minutes circulated to them. I am sorry the former Prime Minister makes the astounding suggestion which he has done this afternoon. I did not know, I never for a moment dreamed that so far as I personally was concerned he did not trust me, and my colleagues doubtless feel the same.

Will you deny that what is contained in the memorandum is true?

I do; I deny that we came to a decision on that day, the 28th September, 1938, either in regard to Czechoslovakia or anyhing else.

It does not mention Czechoslovakia; it simply gives the facts. The memorandum does not speak about a decision. It gives you the facts which I say are tantamount to your acquiescence.

I deny that I acquiesced; I deny that categorically. If one can only get a decision through implication and tacit silence, it is surely a very dangerous way of taking a decision on a fundamental matter. Why did not the hon. member, the ex-Prime Minister, not do this at Groote Schuur? Then we sat all Saturday and into Sunday morning. The dispute between me and the hon. member for Smithfield is as to the interpretation of what took place at the Cabinet meeting of September, 1938.

That is why you will remember I said I would give the facts, and I read these two documents.

Now may I go from facts to inferences? If the hon. member for Smithfield wishes to rely on inferences, then I also take my stand on inferences, and I ask him why, if we had come to this decision in regard to neutrality in September, 1938, why were we not charged with a breach of faith when we met at Groote Schuur?

I will tell you. It was because you had then already raised that question, namely that Hitler was now proving that he was out for world domination. That I could not share and did not share. It was not true, and has been proved to be untrue. If you could have established that it would have been something, but you failed to establish it and that is my grievance against you.

Well, I can only say this, that if it was true that I and my colleagues had tied ourselves down to a fixed policy of neutrality, then one would have thought we would have been charged with a breach of faith in departing from it. But we were not charged with that. The first the House heard of this so-called agreement was on the 12th February. 1940. On the 4th September, 1939, during the historic debate, there was no mention that there had been a breach of faith. One has only to read the former Prime Minster’s statements during the early part of 1939 to see how ridiculous it is to suggest that there was a fixed neutrality decision. In terms of this memorandum he discussed the matter with his colleagues and said that in case war should break out in Europe in consequence of the dispute between Germany and Czecho-Slovakia, and England became involved, certain things would happen. That is what the hon. gentleman has put on record—that when he did discuss it with his colleagues it was in reference to the Czecho-Slovakian dispute. In his speech on the 12th February, 1940, the hon. member for Smithfield quoted from his memorandum and said that “to come now and say that he was only dealing with Czecho-Slovakia was nothing but splitting hairs.” We have the very document before us.

That I say still, that I said this afternoon in my speech.

I find it very difficult to follow the hon. member.

Czecho-Slovakia and every other case where the circumstances are the same. My contention has always been that with Poland there was absolutely no difference, when once you remove that bogus reason, namely that Hitler had now proved that he was out for world domination.

Nothing was said about that in the memorandum and this memorandum has been used against me and my colleagues as the proof of our alleged breach of faith. But nothing is said in this memorandum but that the discussion in the Cabinet had reference to the Czecho-Slovakian dispute.

No.

May I read it again. I have the facsimile here.

You forget what everybody must read into that, the promises which had been made here oyer and over again, and the declaration of policy which had been made over and over again.

This is what the former Prime Minister wrote in his memorandum about a full meeting of the Cabinet, in Union Buildings, Pretoria—

That is what the hon. member’s document says.

Quite right.

It is not necessary for me to quote much more; hon. members have quoted from Hansard as to what the member for Smithfield said afterwards. I will merely give one or two quotations which I contend are entirely inconsistent with the alleged policy of fixed neutrality.

Who talked about fixed neutrality? We have always denied that.

Well, if you always denied it what did the hon. member for Smithfield mean on the 12th February, 1940, when he was referring to a speech made by the Prime Minister, in which he had made certain allegations against the member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow)? He said that the hon. member for Gezina had planned his whole policy of defence on the assumption that this country was going to be neutral. This is how the hon. member for Smithfield went on—

What do you mean by a fixed policy of neutrality?

I am referring to the phrase used by the hon. member for Smithfield who says “we are planning our defence on the policy of neutrality.” That is what my hon. friend said himself.

But what did you mean by fixed neutrality.

By fixed neutrality I mean a policy in advance irrespective of circumstances.

What I meant by it was nothing else than this, that we based our policy of defence on a basis of neutrality because the Government had been pledged to neutrality both to the country and to the House.

Does the hon. member say that the Government had pledged itself to neutrality? I look at the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan). He is looking startled! His complaint in the House always was that the Government would not pledge itself to neutrality, and the hon. member for Smithfield always refused to do this.

So I do still. If you mean a general policy of neutrality irrespective of any policy that was laid down by the Government….

What I would say seriously, if it is correct that there was this general policy of waiting to see what would happen, and if inside the Cabinet there was a policy of neutrality, it is a curious thing that our Caucus was never informed of this, and no one knew anything about it—even the hon. member for Piquetberg, and his followers, were always in the dark, and were always perplexed. If what the hon. member for Smithfield says is correct then his attitude is very sphinx like—it is the attitude of the Delphic Oracle—“you pay your money and you take your choice, and you get the answer you want every time.” But, apart from the facts to which I have taken the occasion to refer this afternoon, and on which there is a certain amount of dispute, all the external evidence goes to show that there was no such policy in regard to neutrality as has been alleged. And in fact there was no such policy. If we had taken such a decision in advance we would have been deceiving the people, and the hon. member for Smithfield would have been deceiving the people — and the hon. member for Smithfield, and the hon. member for Piquetberg need never have had these dog fights.

What do you mean by policy of neutrality?

A definite policy of neutrality on which to plan our defence system.

That says nothing as to the kind of neutrality you mean.

Now I think if the hon. member says that, then we are really beginning to split hairs.

Yes, that is so.

I leave it at that. May I just say this finally. I find it very difficult now to understand the hon. member for Smithfield. I thought the hon. member had always taken the line that when the time came we would decide whether our interests and our safety were involved, and we would decide on that basis whether to go to war or remain neutral.

He said so hundreds of times.

It has been said repeatedly in the House and in the country. The hon. member now says: “No, there was no danger in September, 1939. The case of Poland was no different from that of Czechoslovakia.” Czechoslovakia had been ravaged in March—but that made no difference.

We did not declare war then at any rate.

No, we did not, but one knew by September, 1939, that Hitler despite the clearest and unequivocal assurances he had given, was in for trouble. He went on trying to lap up these small countries and we knew of the danger on our borders and in South-West Africa. Now we know of Nazi organisations within our borders. Surely it cannot be said that there was no danger at that time? But I am prepared to admit that we might disagree on that point. The hon. member for Smithfield is entitled to his view that there was no danger on September 4th, 1939, but other members are also entitled to the view that there was very serious danger. That being so has the member for Smithfield any right to say that because there was that difference of opinion we broke faith with him? That is my complaint.

Who were in danger in 1939?

I am not going to argue that question now.

That is the whole case. Was South Africa in any danger?

That is the whole case, I accept that, and I say that South Africa was in danger.

That is what you say.

Yes, that is the dispute. There is a difference of opinion between the hon. member for Smithfield and myself. But does that mean that I have committed a breach of faith because we have a difference of opinion? A breach of faith is something which touches one’s honour and integrity.

The hon. member for Smithfield may hold himself up as the arbiter of what is right and proper for South Africa. He may think that if he takes a view that must be the only view. But he must not say that if one differs from him one is guilty of a breach of faith.

Will you show me where there was any difference in the situation in regard to Poland and Czechoslovakia?

That is begging the question. The hon. member may think there are no such facts. But my case against my former leader is this: That because we have this difference of opinion he charges me with being a British Imperialist and a Jingo, with being a person who has broken faith. That is my complaint against him.

My hon. friend occupied a great deal of time in splitting hairs. What really are the outstanding points in connection with this matter which was discussed here this afternoon? First of all I want to point out that for a long time one of the burning political questions in this country was what the attitude of South Africa would be in the event of Great Britain being involved in war. There were two points of view. The one was that of my hon. friends who in the past were in opposition, who said that South Africa would declare that she would remain neutral in all circumstances. The party to which we belonged at the time, under the present Leader of the Opposition, refused to agree to that. We said that it would have to depend on conditions and on the merits of the case when war broke out, and that Parliament would decide on the question. But on the other hand we had the Dominion Party led by the present Minister of Mines which took up the attitude that South Africa had no option, and it is still his view to-day that if England goes to war South Africa must also go to war. Now I come to the dispute which we heard of this afternoon, when the matter was discussed by my hon. friend here. The Prime Minister brought up a few points which he tried to destroy. But I have never yet understood anyone on this side to have said that we had stated that we had passed a resolution that we would remain neutral in al circumstances. That we cannot say. Nobody with sound common sense who has sat in this House for years and observed the attitude of the hon. member for Smithfield in connection with neutrality, could possibly say that. No, the hon. member put up his own skittles here and then knocked them down. That cannot be said. The hon. member further said that they had never seen certain documents which were drafted in 1938. Unfortunately I was not present when the Leader of the Opposition made that speech, but it has been admitted by the Minister of Native Affairs that this question as to what our attitude would be on the Sudeten question was discussed in Cabinet. It cannot be denied. Another fact which cannot be denied is that the then Prime Minister gave his view on this subject and a short discussion took place after which we dispersed. I ask my hon. friend who has just sat down whether the Prime Minister was not entitled in the memorandum drafted by him later—seeing that he had expressed his opinion, and had discussed the matter, and that they had tacitly agreed—to say that that was to be the country’s policy. At a Cabinet meeting it is not the custom to put the question whether all members of the Cabinet are in favour of it. It is made clear by the discussion what the attitude of Ministers is. I therefore feel that the ex-Prime Minister’s memorandum correctly reflects what took place in the Cabinet.

Never.

I do not wish to say that the former Prime Minister submitted the document and, that it was decided what our attitude was going to be in regard to any dispute because it would be foolish to have done so, but what is a fact is that as there was no difference between the conditions in the Czechoslovakia affair and last year’s occurrences….

That is a matter of opinion.

Yes, but if my former colleagues had changed their minds the then Prime Minister was entitled to have been notified—he should have been told before that afternoon at Groote Schuur that they had changed their minds. The present Prime Minister also saw the document, and the pertinent Question is whether the position in regard to Poland differed so largely from the position in regard to Sudetenland. But then I want to say this in connection with that matter. The Prime Minister has been proclaiming for a long time that he takes up the attitude that we shall not take part in a war in connection with Central Europe in which England is involved. He made that statement at meetings and I subscribed to that statement. As the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) has said, we must look at the background of the whole trouble in the light of which we discussed matters. The hon. member for Smithfield then clearly stated: “what have we to do with Poland?” and if the Prime Minister of to-day and his colleagues did not agree with him the hon. member for Smithfield was entitled to have been informed. There is no doubt that for a long time we had given the public outside to believe that while we were not prepared to say that we would always be neutral we would decide in accordance with circumstances, and also that we had no interest in the quarrels in regard to Central Europe.

If hon. members were really of opinion that conditions were different in this instance from what they were in regard to Sudetenland I am prepared to admit that that might possibly be a reason for their change of attitude. But that is not the reason. The real reason is that because England had gone to war we must also go to war. In other words, the attitude adopted by the Minister of Mines has triumphed. That is what I object to.

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

From the discussion which the House has had this afternoon, hon. members are at last able to piece together the facts of what we might call the “great Cabinet neutrality mystery”. Now at last we are beginning to learn the truth, and all of the truth. Apparently, sir, shortly after the outbreak of war last September, the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) first made it public that there had been a Cabinet discussion in which he, at any rate, and three other members of the Cabinet took part, on the question of neutrality. He then said that the present Prime Minister was a party to those discussions. Immediately he made that statement, certain of his ex-colleagues, prominent among whom was the present Minister of the Interior, made it plain that whatever discussion had taken place, they knew nothing at all about it. They had not heard the matter discussed and they knew nothing about it. Up to the 12th February last, that was the position accepted by all of us in this House, on whichever side we sit. All that happened was a discussion by a sort of an inner circle of the Cabinet in September, 1938, and the other members of the Cabinet knew nothing about it, and had not been consulted. On the 12th February, in this House, the ex-Prime Minister dropped his bombshell. He read what purported to be documentary proof that every member of the Government, as it then existed, well knew of these documents, and of the policy which they expressed. I was in the House, and I remember that discussion. I remember that that was the effect of what the Prime Minister had said. Now let me refer to the language which he actually used in that statement. He first of all read out a document which was dated the 1st September, 1938, laying down a policy of neutrality. Then he produced a memorandum setting out the circumstances under which this policy was laid before the whole of the Cabinet on the 28th September, and I ask hon. members to follow very carefully the wording which the Prime Minister used. I will read it in English, but I have checked the translation—

I put it to hon. members opposite and my hon. friends here, did we not all, in all innocence, understand when the Prime Minister was on his feet making that speech, that he had put forth his views as set out in these documents? And that conveyed to the minds of all of us, including the present Minister of the Interior, who heard it read, that these documents had in fact been placed before the Cabinet.

No.

I will read it again—

He goes on to say—

I will say at once that when I heard the ex-Prime Minister read this statement and make that speech, I assumed, and from the evident delight and glee displayed by my hon. friends opposite, they also assumed, that every member of the Cabinet on September 28th, 1938, was a party to the reading of those documents.

No, no.

I am going to give you the proof in a moment.

You are twisting it.

I am not twisting it, and if the hon. member has not the brains to understand it, I am sorry. I will read it again—

In the same passage he goes on to say—

That was referring to everyone. If the ex-Prime Minister is so muddle-minded and clouded in his method of expression that he cannot, when making a charge against his ex-colleagues, make it plain to them and to his party Press what he intends to say, then it is a great misfortune. To-day, for the first time since the 12th February last, it emerges that not one of those ex-colleagues, with the exception of the four mentioned, was a party to this document or had ever seen it. The next thing we are told by the hon. member for Fauresmith (Mr. Havenga) is that it was never intended to lay down a definite continuing policy of neutrality. That was not the policy of the Prime Minister, and any suggestion, sir, that the Cabinet still was bound by a continuing and definite policy of neutrality, is scouted. What did the hon. member for Fauresmith say? In effect it was this: “All I need say is this. On that occasion we, the whole Cabinet, definitely agreed to a policy of neutrality in regard to the dispute which was then raging over Czecho-Slovakia, and I say that the same policy should have been followed twelve months later, because the circumstances were materially the same.” That, sir, is the new and revised version of this “great neutrality Cabinet dispute”, that because a decision was taken in September, 1938, the same decision should again have been taken in September, 1939. The hon. member for Fauresmith has thrown overboard this fiction of a continuing policy of neutrality which began in September. 1938, and endured without hindrance and without check until September, 1939. Let me read now what their own party Press says on this very point. You will remember the political sensation which was caused in this country by the publication in facsimile form in Die Burger, on the 15th February, of the Prime Minister’s memorandum. That was hailed throughout the length and breadth of the country as a devastating exposé of his former ex-colleagues in the Government. I will read the heading over which Die Burger publishes this facsimile.

Is that a commentary with regard to a debate in this House?

No, sir.

Because if so, the hon. member is not entitled to read it.

It is a commentary showing the effect created on the mind of Die Burger by these documents. They merely introduced this facsimile to the public of South Africa. This is the heading in Die Burger—

Order! I am afraid the hon. member is not entitled to read that. It is in connection with a debate that took place in the House, and the hon. member knows the rules of the House prohibit that.

I am only showing, sir, in what connection these facsimiles were placed before the public of South Africa to make good my contention that this story now told that there was no attempt to charge us with a breach of the policy of neutrality is a new one.

The hon. member must realise that those remarks are in connection with a debate held in this House.

Mr. Speaker, these very documents we are now discussing were handed over by the Prime Minister to the Press, and I am merely showing how they were treated by the Press. The former Prime Minister said he would publish them in his speech, he said: “I am going to hand these documents over to the Press.” Now, sir, I am merely reading the introductory words with which these documents were published, I am not going to refer to the debate.

The passage which the hon. member wishes to read refers to the debate in this House.

No, sir, it is only a heading to these documents.

May I read to the hon. member the rule—

Well, I am not going to do that. I am not attempting to read from any newspaper any reference to a debate, but only the heading with which certain documents which were published for public information by the ex-Prime Minister were disseminated through the country.

The hon. member will realise that these documents were read in the House and he now proposes to read the commentary of a newspaper on these documents.

Not a commentary, sir, I am only reading the one sentence.

I am afraid the sentence that has been read rather controverts the argument of the hon. member.

I was making the point that the only object with which these documents were laid before the House by the ex-Prime Minister was to support a charge against his ex-colleagues of having broken the policy of neutrality which he laid down in September, 1938, which he says they accepted and which continued right up to September, 1939. Now they run away from that to-day, he and all his friends have run away from that, they have totally abandoned that charge and I am trying to pin him down. Every member of this House will remember the sensation which the publication of these documents caused, and that was caused by the fact that they appeared to lend some prima facie support to the charge which the ex-Prime Minister made. In making his speech, sir, he said this: “I am going to send these documents to the press, so that they may be published in facsimile form.” And I, sir, was referring to their publication in Die Burger to show that that paper published them as showing that the policy of the whole Cabinet right up to September 4th, 1939, was a policy of neutrality. However, I will not take up your time any further if I may not read this, I have told the House the effect of it. We know now, the country knows, that these documents were never shown to the Cabinet as a whole, that they have never been read to the Cabinet, and that members of the Cabinet never knew of their existence until 18 months later when they were resurrected in this House in a most extraordinary manner by the ex-Prime Minister, in an attempt, which is now thoroughly exploded, which has proved completely abortive, to charge his ex-colleagues with having deserted him in September, 1939, in the face of a policy which he said they had accepted all along. Let me now deal for a moment with the ethical aspect of this matter. The hon. member for Fauresmith (Mr. Havenga) this afternoon said quite rightly that no minutes are taken of Cabinet meetings. Cabinet meetings are secret and consultative, no outside person is present, no minutes are taken, and yet what does the ex-Prime Minister do in the present case? After the Cabinet meeting over which he presided he goes to a private secretary of his and says: “Make a note of all the people who were at this meeting,” because certain decisions were taken at this meeting. And he locked that document away in his safe. In other words he manufactures ex-parte evidence against his own colleagues although it is the practice not to keep minutes of Cabinet meetings. His colleagues had not the slightest idea but that they had taken part in a purely informal discussion, and although that was so the ex-Prime Minister endeavours to convert that into a formal discussion and a formal acceptance by them of a policy on a matter of life and death to this country. I leave the ethical aspect of that matter to be pondered over by some of his present colleagues in this House. Does he realise, sir, that if his original case were a true case, namely, that these hon. gentlemen accepted neutrality as a permanent policy for this country in September, 1938, and continued it right up to September 2nd, 1939, that he is by inference accusing Senator Clarkson of the most deliberate trickery towards the voters of Maritzburg, because Senator Clarkson was telling the electors of Maritzburg in August, 1939, with the consent of the ex-Prime Minister, that we were in it “boots and all.” He was fighting a bye-election on this very war issue and he was telling them there was no doubt where, in the coming war, South Africa would stand. But the ex-Prime Minister would have us believe that all that time Senator Clarkson had in his memory the Cabinet meeting where he had solemnly accepted, not an ad hoc neutrality decision, but a permanent and binding neutrality decision which lasted right up to the outbreak of the present war. The ex-Prime Minister cannot have it both ways. If in fact he is right that there was this neutrality policy and it did continue, how does he square it with his conscience that he allowed Senator Clarkson to tell the people of Maritzburg what he did? We are told that silence gives consent and that the mere presence of the these Cabinet Ministers at that meeting implied their consent. What, sir, was his attitude when Senator Clarkson, a member of his Government, fighting a bye-election that he need not have fought, told meeting after meeting in the constituency of Maritzburg that there was no doubt about South Africa’s attitude, and that we were in it “boots and all”? Did he send for Senator Clarkson and say: “You are making statements which bind me and my Cabinet, and for which I cannot stand, you must resign or repudiate them”? No, sir, I have the statement of the hon. member, Senator Clarkson, that so far from that being the case, he was congratulated at Cabinet meetings on his speeches by some of his ex-colleagues who now sit on the opposite side. Talk about duplicity, what would a plain dealing person think of that? Before I leave this memo, may I make a point that I think was made by the Minister of the Interior, but has not been sufficiently stressed. In its very terms this is an ad hoc decision. The adoption of this policy in September, 1938, was purely ad hoc and bad relation solely and simply to the crisis then existing in regard to Czechoslovakia. The words are—

It is plain on the face of it that it was an ad hoc decision, based solely on the circumstances which then existed. A year later there was no quarrel between Czechoslovakia and Germany, for the simple reason that there was no Czechoslovakia. To suggest that nothing had happened in the meantime, that the circumstances were exactly the same, and that the policy which dictated our actions in September, 1938, must necessarily be our policy in September, 1939, is to argue in blinkers. Whatever the full Cabinet agreed in September, 1938, it obviously was a decision based on the circumstances of that time. I am going now to leave this question of the “great Cabinet mystery” and deal with the Bill. We are now in the last stages of the great fight on the War Measures Bill, a fight that began two and a half months ago, and one at which the public of South Africa has been occupying ringside seats. What is this bill? It is a bill to vadidate the actions taken by the Government in pursuance of its war policy. Who asked this Government to follow that war policy? This House by a majority on two occasions asked the Government to follow out the war policy. And, sir, everybody admits, even the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Tom Naudé), was constrained to admit, that a state of war exists and a state of war is a state of emergency, and in a state of emergency you have to take measures you would not take in the ordinary times of peace. This, sir, is a Bill to ratify what the Government has done in the past and proposes to do in the future. A Bill of this sort is necessary in every parliamentary country which is in a state of belligerency. What has been the attitude of the Opposition? Has the Opposition said “we don’t agree that we should go into this war, South Africa should have been neutral, but because Parliament has decided, and because some such measure as this is necessary we will assist by helpful criticism and see that the Bill does not travel beyond the necessities of the case.” No, sir, the Opposition’s attitude was to oppose the introduction of the Bill, and at every possible stage they have exhausted every device known to the parliamentary obstructionist to hinder the progress of the Bill, and their action was such as to compel for the first time in the parliamentary history of South Africa the introduction of a guillotine measure. In opposing this Bill they have left no invective unused in order to attack the Prime Minister and their former colleagues on this side of the House. Why do the present Opposition dislike this Bill? Is it because they are liberalminded and do not like anything which attacks the liberty of the subject? Mr. Speaker, I don’t believe that in all the ranks opposite me there are five persons of genuinely liberal sentiment. They invoke the sacred name of democracy but they are fighting the decision of a democratic Parliament in this country. Most of the hon. members opposite, in their hearts, approve of the Prussian methods of the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow). If they had the drafting of this Bill it would have gone very much further. The present Bill is child’s play compared with the regulations of the hon. member for Gezina, who would have gone very much further and would have prepared internment camps for everybody on these benches whose politics he does not like, and would have muzzled every newspaper whose criticism he resents. And no person who has read the debates in this House will dare to deny that had the boot been on the other foot, and had my friends opposite been sitting in the Government legislating to pursue their particular policy, their regulations would have been far more drastic than anything we have passed in this Bill. They invoked the name of democracy, but they are self-convicted as bad democrats, because in the name of democracy they refuse to accept a decision which was taken in this House, and has been approved of since by a majority in this country.

Have an election and see.

hon. members opposite know very well that they represent not only a minority in this House, but a minority in this country. My hon. friend, the hon. member for Beaufort West, the other day on the report stage of this Bill, read a report from an English newspaper on the fate of a similar Bill in the English House of Commons, and he said this in effect, that the Government and the Opposition in the English House of Commons had got together, and by co-operation had elaborated a Bill which was really not too great an invasion on the liberty of the subject.

That is not what I said.

I quote from memory. The hon. member complained that the Government in this case had not consulted with the Opposition, had not got the Opposition to help them in shaping a really good Bill; but what sort of an Opposition have we in this country? Contrast the Opposition in this House with Oppositions in other belligerent portions of the Empire. We have in Great Britain, in Australia, in Canada and in New Zealand, in all those great countries, parliamentary opposition, but in every one of these countries the parliamentary opposition has united with the Government in the persecution of this war.

What about France?

And therefore any criticism which they give on the merits of a measure such as this would be welcomed by the Government as constructive criticism; but what have we here—we have an Opposition which is very largely pro-Nazi. It is embittered, disappointed and unscrupulous, and it will stop at nothing so far as I have been able to see to obstruct the successful prosecution of the war, and to hinder the successful participation of South Africa in the war.

What is South Africa doing?

And to suggest in those circumstances that there is any obligation on the part of the Government to consult with the Opposition on the form of this legislation is a waste of time. And as a matter of fact the Opposition has on more than one occasion stood up and said that so far from helping the Government it will do everything it can to hinder the Government. That is the Opposition with which the hon. member for Beaufort West wants us to consult.

You are misquoting me.

If I am, I am doing it quite unintentionally. The hon. member will do me the fairness of admitting that I asked him to give me that quotation, but that he replied that he had not got it.

It is quite fair to say that the hon. member for Beaufort West is out of favour with his party.

I may just say this, that the Opposition started off in a very full-blooded manner to oppose this Bill—even on the motion to introduce they spoke for seven or eight hours, but as the Bill has progressed through this House there has been a progressive diminuendo; instead of the Opposition being crescendo it has been a diminuendo until the other evening on the report stage we had an orgy of back bench speeches to which not even their own side listened, and the front bench members disappeared. And one of the reasons for this diminuendo is that while this Bill has been going through this House the voting public of South Africa has had an opportunity of giving their voices on the merits of this Bill. I spoke of this fight being conducted with the public as ringside spectators, with a ringside public consisting of the voters of South Africa, and the public of South Africa have been given a number of opportunities of deciding and voicing their opinions on the merits of this Bill. In every election the war issue has been raised, not by the Government, but by the Opposition. They have gone to the electorate and they have asked the electorate to decide on the war isue. Now let me remind the House of what happened in Losberg.

What about Kuruman?

No, let me remind the House how the issue was presented at Losberg by the Opposition.

Is this relevant to the debate?

May I with respect point out that for half an hour this afternoon the hon. member for Marico (the Rev. C. W. M. du Toit) spoke about the Broadcasting Corporation, and now I am going to show that the very issue of this Bill was presented to an electorate and they gave their decision on it.

Is that relevant to the debate?

Surely!

Order! The hon. member referred to what the hon. member for Marico said. He dealt with the internment of one of the broadcasting employees. The whole of his argument was directed to that, and if the hon. member had any objection to that he should have raised it at the time.

I apologise for bringing in the hon. member for Marico. That is irrelevant, I admit.

You should apologise for the whole of your speech.

In this case I am trying to show that the Government has the support of the country behind it in this very Bill, and when you interrupted me I was about to show that the issue of this Bill was presented in that form to the electorate of Losberg.

The hon. member may continue but I want to point out that a lot of irrelevant matter has been dealt with in this debate and I fail to see how the results of elections can affect the merits of this Bill.

It can affect the Government’s mandate to put this Bill through. That has been in constant challenge since this Bill was introduced. Every hon. member opposite has said that the Government has no mandate from the people to put this Bill through.

Hear, hear!

Yes, I hear the “Hear, hears” already.

Have a general election.

We had a minor general election and we beat you to it.

Order! I shall allow the hon. member to continue, but I must appeal to hon. members to deal more with the merits of the matter before the House. How the results of an election outside can affect the merits of a Bill is something I am unable to see. This kind of argument is used frequently, but I do not see in what way it is relevant to the issue at all. I am allowing the hon. member to continue, but the result will be that there will be replies on the other side and the Bill will be forgotten.

I want to say that the issue was put to, the electors of Losberg by my friends opposite. They said there that “Mr. De la Rey—that is the Government’s Party candidate — wants to sacrifice South Africa’s sons for thé interests of England. If Mr. De la Rey wins the by-election the Government will quickly despatch our sons to the dreaded fever-stricken regions of North Africa. A number are already on their way there. See Gen. Smuts’s reply to Parliament….”

I am afraid the hon. member is now entirely irrelevant.

Very well, I shall leave Losberg.

Refer to Kuruman.

I shall point out how the issue was put at a more recent election, when the Government’s war policy was discussed, and what are we discussing here but the Government’s war policy? The war policy has been discussed at the greatest possible length at every stage of this Bill, and I am merely continuing a discussion which has been going on for over two months. The Government’s war policy was made the test of the election at Carolina, another typical platteland constituency in the Transvaal, a constituency which had never been held by the South African Party in the past before Fusion, a constituency which was acknowledged by the Nationalist members themselves to be a typically Afrikaans constituency.

Your facts are quite wrong.

It seems to me that hon. members opposite cannot take their medicine.

That is not medicine; that is poison.

They are not going to shout me down. The only thing which will stop me is the time limit. In this by-election at Carolina the issue was the Government’s war policy; that was made the vital test. And on the eve of the poll the chief organ in the Transvaal of the Nationalist Party put the issue to the electors in this way. It said this—

That is how the issue was presented by the Nationalist Press themselves to the electorate of Carolina, which is a typical 100 per cent. Afrikaans constituency. And the electorate of Carolina gave their answer to this House and to the Government, and their answer to the Government was: “Get on with the war; go on with this Bill.”

Nonsense!

That is the answer which Carolina has given and that is the answer which I give to-night. I say to the Government that they have behind them not only the majority of this House but the overwhelming majority of the people of this country.

And once again you are wrong.

Every possible test by which public feeling can be tested has shown that to be the case.

I want to ask my friend, the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell), when he makes another speech, first of all to be quite certain of his facts. He represents a constituency in the Transvaal, and he ought to be more au fait with Transvaal matters. He wants to persuade us that Carolina was actually an expression of what the feeling now is in the platteland of the Transvaal. He ought to know that Carolina has always hitherto been a S.A.P. seat provincially. During all our history it has been nothing else. We know that there are still a few little S.A.P. islands in the Transvaal, and one of them is Carolina. But if my information is correct—and I do not doubt that it is correct—then the next general election will show what newly found Afrikaner unity can do. The hon. member was quite ignorant of what he was talking about there. I would just like, as a disinterested person, to say a few words in connection with the interesting debate we have had this afternoon. I have not had an opportunity of hearing Cabinet secrets, nor like the hon. member for Kensington, have I had the opportunity of learning from the inside what the Prime Minister said. But I did listen profitably to the debate which we had here this afternoon. I think that even the Prime Minister, if he had listened to some of his supporters behind him, and to the manner in which they reacted to this complaint, would sometimes have had to feel a little uneasy. I think that he must sometimes have had the feeling that Wellington had when he had to fight with a mixed army. He made an inspection and then he expressed himself like this: “Well, I do not know what effect they will have on the enemy, but by heaven they frighten me.” Particularly after he had listened to the Minister of Native Affairs, I think he must have had that feeling, and the Minister of Native Affairs is actually the Deputy-Prime Minister. And then came the Minister of Commerce and Industries. He commenced speaking here with a voice which made me think of the old Free State Griqua, who said that the man was talking with a dead voice. I nevertheless think that the debate this afternoon did many good things, and the first outstanding good thing was this, that we in any case got the admission from the Prime Minister himself— an admission which no one can any longer doubt—that he not only knew about the documents which the then Prime Minister had, but that he had approved of those documents and a policy of neutrality in September, 1938. That is, to my mind, the best progress that we have made in this debate. Notwithstanding all the shuffling on the part of his supporters, as if they knew nothing at all about the thing, we have to-day had this admission that the present Prime Minister, the responsible man in the Cabinet of the previous Prime Minister, the man who actually gave the lead in connection with this matter on the opposite side, in so far as he was not inspired by the Minister of Mines, admitted that there was a declaration of neutrality in the matter of the Sudeten question, that it was contained in a document with which he was acquainted, and that he had given his consent to it. He was, therefore, in agreement with the policy of neutrality if England were to go to war with Hitler at that moment. He gave his consent to neutrality if England were to be involved in war. Whether he kept it so terribly secret from his other supporters in the Cabinet I do not know. It seems, however, that he also kept it a secret from the hon. member for Kensington. That hon. member openly told us last year: “Smuts is my leader and he treats me with confidence; I do not worry at all about Hertzog; Smuts is my leader. He gives us a lead and takes us into his confidence.” I assume that he took those hon. members into his confidence, and that he gave them a lead that he was willing, in September, 1938, to remain neutral if England were to be involved in war with Hitler over the Sudeten question. I am at any rate glad we got that admission from the Prime Minister, and I hope that no one will try to throw any doubt on it, not even on the countryside, namely, that the Prime Minister (Gen. J. C. Smuts) was willing to remain neutral in September, 1938, while England might be at war with Germany.

Yes, about the Sudeten Germans.

In that case it was in connection with Sudetenland, but it does not affect the question. The fact is that if England had gone to war with Hitler, he was prepared to remain neutral. This time he decided to go to war, and the reason he gives is this, that if we remained neutral and we got into trouble with Germany some day, then England also would shrug her shoulders and say to us: “You wanted to remain neutral, and now I also am going to remain neutral.” At that time he was not afraid, but now he is afraid in the present circumstances, and therefore he refuses to remain neutral. No, the Prime Minister has assisted us a great deal this afternoon with that frank admission which we got from him. He has made that “lie and rot” story completely ridiculous, if there was anything left of it. If that argument applied to-day, then it was just as valid at that time. If our produce were to be lying and rotting to-day, they would also have been lying and rotting at that time. Precisely the same thing applies to Simonstown. If we cannot remain neutral to-day because of Simonstown, then we could not have done it at that time either. I mention these things in passing, because if this debate has produced nothing else—and it certainly was not an excuse for the attitude of the Government —then it has brought this great fact to light, that we now know that all the stories about the fear of England remaining neutral if we got into difficulties, of the story of the lying and rotting, and of Simonstown, were purely fiction which arose recently amongst the members on the other side. But what was so very amusing to my mind is the way in which hon. members opposite have jumped from one point to the other, even present Cabinet Ministers, to make some show of a defence. They make it clear to us that they are not incriminated as much as their own leader. He admits that he knew all about these things, and that he had agreed with the previous Prime Minister on that policy of neutrality. They, however, make out that they are a little more imperialistic than he is. They knew nothing about it, and if they had known about it then something else would have been done.

Are you not being very unfair? Was not the point we made, that we were not asked to make a decision?

There we have someone whose conscience is apparently pricking him. Before my hon. friend opened his mouth I noticed from his fingers that his conscience was pricking him.

It is merely a question of fact whether something happened or not.

I have sat here and listened as one who could well judge about what was said on both sides of the House. It was a quarrel between people all of whom I opposed at that time, and, to my mind, it was a question of a quarrel between the cook and the cook’s mate, and when they quarrel then we find out where the nice food and the bad food is kept. Here there has been the hiding behind an alleged fact, that the former Prime Minister had so represented the matter that he had submitted a certain document to the Cabinet, and my hon. friends opposite say that they did not see that document. Is that their excuse? Is it not so? They never saw that document, and they never took a decision that that document should be confirmed. That really is such a childish kind of defence, that any child would know that it is no defence. The previous Prime Minister told us that, after he had discussed the matter with the present Prime Minister, then Deputy-Prime Minister, that he drafted this document with the approval of the present Prime Minister. Subsequently, on the 28th September, 1938, he called a Cabinet meeting in Pretoria. He had that document before him, which the present Prime Minister had seen and to which he had given his approval, and he then communicated the following to his former colleagues in the Cabinet: Look, the position is critical; this is the policy which I intend to follow, and which I think we should follow, as a Government. That simply is the position. I have not yet been a Prime Minister, but as far as I can find out, that is the usual procedure, especially after he knew that the Deputy-Prime Minister entirely agreed with him. He first of all communicated his policy to the Deputy-Prime Minister, and came to an agreement with him about the policy which should be followed in case war came as a result of the Sudeten question. Can my hon. friend deny that he said that?

My whole point is that we were never asked to make a decision. If we had been, we might have taken it.

Even if my hon. friend is still young, he has nevertheless been a few years in the Cabinet and he knows just as well as I and the whole world know that in cases of that kind, especially when the Deputy-Prime Minister, who might possibly have had a different opinion on the matter, had agreed with the view of the Prime Minister, that the Prime Minister should have communicated to the Cabinet that he intended to follow that definite policy. That ended the matter, unless there were members of the Cabinet who made an objection to it. It is not a matter about which there is a vote taken. Has he ever yet known of such a case when the Prime Minister asked them to vote, and that they had to pass a resolution of that sort? The agreement had already been prepared beforehand between the previous Prime Minister and the present Prime Minister, and my hon. friends opposite who were at that time members of the Cabinet were all properly informed. The Minister of Commerce and Industries now wanted to come and tell us here that it is only casual talk. Just imagine it! The Prime Minister of the day comes and says: This is a critical time: it looks as if there may be war, but the policy which we are going to follow in this case is that South Africa has no concern in that war, and South Africa will remain neutral.

It was not put in that way. It was casual talk.

Is there any court which would accept it as a fact that the Prime Minister of the day, after he had discussed the matter with the present Prime Minister, and after having come to an agreement with him, subsequently called his Cabinet together to make a statement by virtue of that agreement, and that then there should be nothing but a casual conversation? Is there any court that would accent that, especially when he regarded the matter so seriously that he made his own secretary keep a memorandum—no minutes are kept of Cabinet meetings—as soon as the meeting was over, a memorandum of who were present there and that those facts had been submitted to the Cabinet?

It takes a lot of explaining from your side.

There can be no doubt about the interpretation which the public will give to these facts.

You need not worry about the public.

The fact is that the contents of these documents were laid before the Cabinet. Whether the Cabinet saw the document itself is not of much consequence. The Prime Minister does not always lay documents before the Cabinet. What he does is this. He says that this or the other is the policy, and no complicated document is required to make it plain to the Cabinet that the policy of the Government at a definite period, is to remain neutral. No document is required to say to the Cabinet: If war breaks out then we are going to remain neutral. Then I come to the second fact, which cannot be denied, namely, that the Prime Minister communicated to the Cabinet that that was the understanding which had been come to. He had already come to an understanding with the present Prime Minister, and he communicated it to the Cabinet. That cannot be denied.

What we deny is that a resolution was ever taken.

Now the Minister says that they deny that a resolution was taken. We notice what a beating about the bush there has been on the other side, without them trying to deny the real facts. That beating about the bush is intended to try and draw attention away from the real facts. No one expects a formal Cabinet resolution to be passed.

You are making the case even worse for the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog).

If my hon. friend could understand two words, then I should be able to take notice of what he says here.

I can understand quite well.

The second point is this. My hon. friends opposite are trying to hide behind the fact that no formal document was submitted to them, and no formal resolution passed. That is a very, very lame excuse. The facts are that the gist of the policy was communicated to them, and the present Prime Minister even read out the document beforehand. They heard what the contents were, and not one of them made any objection. Accordingly, the then Prime Minister was justified in concluding that they agreed with it. The people outside this House will accept that, and it will be interpreted in that way—it cannot be explained in any other wav. We have made a good deal of progress this afternoon. First of all, we had the admission of the Prime Minister that he had agreed to the neutrality policy, and it has clearly appeared from what has been said here, that the present Leader of the Opposition, the then Prime Minister, made known to the members of the Cabinet what the contents of the document were. They are merely shielding themselves behind the fact that they did not see the document, although they cannot say that they did not know what the contents of it were. In addition, the excuse they made is that they did not pass a formal resolution. The present Leader of the Opposition, the then Prime Minister, said that they tacitly agreed, and that is the rule which prevails in connection with any Cabinet meeting, unless the Prime Minister specially wants to test the views of members of the Cabinet. At first they even tried to argue against the Prime Minister himself, as if they were absolutely ignorant, and that there was no such thing, while the Prime Minister subsequently himself admitted that he knew about it. His excuse was quite a different one. He sees the impossibility of the excuses of his colleagues — in connection with whose support he sometimes becomes a little afraid—and he tries to defend himself in a different manner. His defence is not that he had not seen the document, because he did see it. His defence is not that he did not come to a decision, because he did agree with the document as drafted.

[Retranslation] It is strange that the hon. member for Smithfield never said that anyone in the Cabinet had stated that he agreed.

You will excuse me if I ask my hon. friend kindly not to make such interjections if he cannot even follow what I said. I have on previous occasions had the experience that one explains something at a public meeting, and then someone else gets up and asks precisely the same question. I made it clear that the Leader of the Opposition had declared his policy, and the members of the Cabinet tacitly accented it, and no one made any objection. There surely is such a proverb in English as “Silence means consent”.

Nonsense.

Now the Minister is trying to prove that his voice is not yet dead, but he and the Minister of the Interior want to evade their responsibility in a frivolous and weak manner. No one will attach any credence to it. Now the present Prime Minister is trying to grasp at something else. He has to admit that he knew about the document, and he now comes along with a kind of story that “yesterday is not to-day”, that is to say, that the question of Poland was not the same thing as the Sudeten question. Now that is the only argument, and if his colleagues were to try and argue on those lines, there would be something to say in their favour, but they are taking cover behind the excuse that they did not vote formally, that they did not see the document. That really is too puerile. I do not want to go into the merits of the Sudeten question or of the Polish, question. If I were to do that, it would once more be said that I was advocating Hitler’s cause, and was pro-Nazi. I must, however, say that even English writers who write in an unprejudiced way about things, also indicate that the blame was not all on one side I do not want to justify everything that Hitler has done, and I do not want to know anything at all about his system. But the so-called Allies, who pretend to be so innocent, were, according to many English writers, a very substantial reason for Hitler’s action against Czechoslovakia, and the cause of the war with Poland.

How do you justify it after Munich?

I shall be pleased to give the Minister the writings of English writers, who have themselves investigated the position of Czecho-Slovakia, and who admit that the position in Czechoslovakia was so much abused that Hitler had reason to be afraid that Czechoslovakia would simply become an air base, a jumping-off place for an attack on Germany by both Russia and France, and that Hitler, for his own self-preservation ultimately intervened, apart from other difficulties that existed in connection with Czecho-Slovakia. The attitude of France and Russia forced Hitler to do the thing, and the way in which England and France encouraged Poland to stiffen its back, was one of the reasons why a peaceful solution was not arrived at between Poland and Germany. Therefore, to pretend that the sins were all on one side, is nonsense. The pot cannot call the kettle black. I do not want to defend Hitler, but what was the great difference between the Sudeten question and the Polish question? It may be that Hitler acted a little more drastically in regard to the Polish question, and possibly went further in connection with the Sudeten question than he should have gone, but then it still remains a fact that South Africa, as such, is not concerned with the Polish question any more than with the Sudeten question, and that it does not, in the one case, threaten her safety any more than in the other case. If Hitler stands for world domination, the rest of the world, all the small nations, should have co-operated with England, and not one should have tried to remain neutral. The argument that South Africa had to go into the war because Hitler showed after the Sudeten question, that he was out for world domination, will not be swallowed by South Africa. That South Africa will be threatened by it and that we shall become a vassal state of Germany if we do not take part in the war will not be believed by the people of South Africa. If Germany is not defeated after this exhausting war, then I want to ask if she will so lightly come to look for trouble in South Africa, as some of those hon. members think. Now attempts are being made even by the Prime Minister to justify his attitude by the statement that Hitler’s next step would be to attack South-West. For the second time South-West is being used to drag us into an imperialistic war, although the Prime Minister knows just as well as I do that he did not go into the war for that reason, and that all the stories about the protection of small nations and of democracy and fighting for Christianity are lies. There was only one reason for dragging us into the war, and there is only one reason for this War Measures Bill, and that is that England wants to retain the world domination, and the struggle is one between two imperialisms, and nothing else. Why should South Africa be dragged in to take part on one side? The history of the world has taught me that the most unsafe place for a small nation, when there is a conflict between great powers, is under the wings of one of the big nations, whether it is the wing of the British Fleet or Hitler’s wing.

Ask Holland and Belgium.

Holland and Belgium are quite close to the war, but they definitely refuse to creep under the wings of Hitler or of England. Their ships are being sunk, their trade is being interfered with, they are right up on the border of Germany, but they refuse to shield under the wings of England or of Germany. Ever since the beginning of time, from the days of the old prophets, who surely—as the hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) (Mr. Alexander), will admit—also exhibited a little statesmanship, the slogan of the wise statesmen was not to creep under the wings of great nations which were at conflict. The prophets said to the Jewish nation, “Look, you are a small nation; take care, do not creep under the wings of great nations, do not creep under the wings of Egypt or Assyria. What concern of yours are the waters of the Nile or of the Tigris?” The prophets warned them to remain independent, and to look for safety in disinterestedness. They would not listen. Then they also followed the S.A.P. policy of creeping in under the wings of Egypt. With what result? Things went well for a time, but the day came when Egypt no longer occupied the dominating position. Great nations do not always remain conquerors, and the day came that Assyria took the field against Egypt, and overran Egypt, and then Assyria noticed that little nation which was hiding under the wings of the great nation, and then they carried off the Israelites into exile, to Syria. Accordingly, I want to warn the Afrikaans people that they must, as soon as possible, put an end to the policy which is being followed to-day. The safety of South Africa is not to be found under the wings of one or other of the big nations, does not lie in co-operating in all the quarrels that there are in the world, but safety lies in their maintaining their own independence, even if it costs more than the policy of making war. In the long run it is the safe way, and we must follow the policy of countries like Holland and Sweden and Norway, even Finland and other small nations. The Minister is possibly thankful that he has got a few more votes than what he expected by having stirred up the public with the khaki spirit, but the khaki spirit will vanish, and the people will be disillusioned, and then they will settle accounts with this Government.

If ever the hon. member for Winburg (Dr. N. J. van der Merwe) in his life made a weak speech, then he definitely did so to-night. I tried with the utmost attention to listen to him, to his arguments, and his last attempt was the old S.A.P. policy of the Israelites as he called it. Well, I think he could similarly have quoted Bible history to justify his own policy of divisions, that there was a division of the tribes under Jerobeam and Rehobeam, but he forgets that they came to grief owing to their divisions. Similarly you can quote almost anything from the Bible. Now the hon. member tried to belittle the Minister of Commerce and Industries, but he did not succeed in doing so. As an unofficial member like myself, he made out that if ever there had been anything good done by this debate, then it was the so-called secret policy which has now been revealed. It is now admitted that no resolution was moved. One would have expected him to refer to the people in the country, and have told us what the people thought of this measure, but he did not do so. I have the nick-name of Absalom, but I think that I will have to be Samson now, because just like hon. members who are now running out of the House, so the Philistines fled before Samson. They know how they distort facts in this House, and accordingly they cannot stop here when they are being attacked, when I settle scores with them. That is a kind of protest against having to listen to facts, and that is why they consistently run away. The argument against the hon. member for Winburg is that whether there was a secret policy or not, whether there was a Cabinet decision or not, it was a fact that a Cabinet resolution was never passed. That is the first thing. But the chief fact which affected him as an outsider, and with which most of us are concerned, is that if there was such a policy as was suggested by the Prime Minister of the time, what right did the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog) then have to come and tell the House on the 23rd March, 1939, that there was no policy so far as the Government was concerned? What right did the present Leader of the Opposition have to come and tell the Parliament of South Africa that so far as he was concerned, there was no policy with regard to the European position at that time? Because the question was then repeatedly put, what was the policy of the Government in connection with the European position on the 23rd March, 1939, and I repeat if there were such a secret policy on the part of the hon. member for Smithfield, then he misled the public of South Africa in March, 1939. That is why the Philistines are running away now. The Opposition cannot get away from that fact, and they cannot exist if they do not explain that point to the people of South Africa. They can only continue to exist as long as they put the people of South Africa under the wrong impression, as the Leader of the Opposition did when he said that the Prime Minister has committed a breach of faith. But in no case has a man ever been less guilty of a breach of faith than the Prime Minister in this case. That is why it is so represensible, that is why it is so worthy of blame, that they should from time to time go and say, under the mantle of Afrikaner piety, of so-called honesty, that the Prime Minister has committed a breach of faith. This is the seventeenth time that we have put the statement to the Opposition, and asked for an answer, and the hon. member for Smithfield is not in his place, knowing that the reply is asked for. The Prime Minister asked him, and then he withdrew; the Minister of Labour asked him, but as soon as we touch the subject then the hon. member for Smithfield retires. It is very unfortunate that the alternative to the Government is the Opposition which sits there. It is unfortunate that we on that account have to pass measures, because the country would otherwise get into trouble later on. If you had an Opposition in the country such as they have in England, Australia or Canada, then a measure of this kind would never have been necessary. But what happens? I am sorry that the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) is not in his place, otherwise I would ask him why he told the public of Machadodorp —and I blame the provincial leader of the party, because he cannot plead ignorance— about the discharge of 3.000 to 4,000 miners, because they would not contribute to the Mayors’ Fund.

What has this got to do with the Bill?

It stirs the people up, the people become riotous and a rebellion will break out. That is my reason for mentioning it, because inflammatory language is being used in the country. That is why the hon. member is not in his place, because he uses language which is the cause of insurrection.

The hon. member cannot say that, he must withdraw it.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I withdraw it because you order me to. By reports of that kind people on the countryside are excited and the anger of the people is aroused. No wonder that the hon. members are not here when these things are pointed out. At Carolina a meeting of protest was held in order to stir up the feelings of the parents in connection with the school. A meeting was held there at which it was said that the school was being broken up owing to the new division, and what would become, of their children?

I must really ask the hon. member to confine himself to the Bill. I cannot see what that has to do with the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I humbly submit to your ruling, but this measure is intended to calm the people, and to keep certain elements in check.

But the hon. member must not drag in all sorts of matters under the pretext that they have to do with the Bill.

But that was a meeting of protest which was founded on the greatest falsity you have ever heard.

The hon. member must keep to the Bill.

Do you prevent me from debating the matter when hon. members go about the country with stories which might lead to an insurrection of the people?

The hon. member can refer to matters which come under the measures before the House, but he cannot drag in all kinds of matters which do not fall under them.

I am sorry, I thought that they also fell under them. May I possibly also point out that there is a rumour going about the country that the Government is organising a large band, a battalion of black troops. I am pointing out how necessary it is to bring these regulations into operation, so that this terrible propaganda can be stopped, so that we can deal with persons who use reckless language which can lead to nothing else but a rising. It is said that the Government will send people overseas with no other object than to cause trouble among the people. There are many serious reasons why this Bill should come into operation as soon as possible. You have possibly noticed and hon. members have possibly already heard of the propaganda which is being conducted from South Africa to be used as news by Zeesen. That is one of the worst things, and one of the strangest things that something that is happening here to-day is broadcast to-morrow night from Zeesen.

Even the same day.

Somewhere in South Africa there is underhand work going on, and we shall never discover that underhand work until this Act is in full operation. The organisation which is responsible for it ought to be enquired into and be suppressed, and I hope that that will very soon be done. We have noticed that the most acute problems of the day which are debated in this House one day, matters which, for instance, are dealt with at political meetings, are broadcast from Zeesen the next evening. On the evening on which I had to address a meeting at Machadodorp, Zeesen had already broadcast it. Why are they so concerned about the fight between the Opposition and the Government? Commonsense will tell you that news emanates from the Government, but anyone who is au fait with the activities of both parties sends that news to Zeesen, and we must take that bull by the horns. You have heard, Mr. Speaker, that there are two sections in South Africa even in connection with this Bill, who preach that we should make peace at any price. One section is the Opposition, and the other is the Communist Party of South Africa. That is the strangest combination that you have ever seen. Just as incredible as is the link between Germany and Russia,» so incredible is it that there should be a link between the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party in South Africa. But they both sing the same tune: Peace at any price, whatever may happen, we must have peace. You, Mr. Speaker, are in the fortunate position of hearing everything, while we are not always here, but only notice how the Opposition argues in a circle. Outside of the House they have told the public that the followers of the Prime Minister always want to plunge South Africa into war, as long only as England is in it, and that although they tried this afternoon, ad nauseam, to prove that there had actually been a time, namely during the Sudeten troubles and other troubles, when the present Prime Minister said that in those cases it was not necessary for South Africa to go to war. Now they reproach the Prime Minister, ad nauseam, with this that he wanted to remain neutral at that time, but not now. But out in the country they tell the people that South Africa has to be dragged into every war, just because England is in it! The Opposition argue in a circle, and they press this thing so far that their mouthpiece will shortly be where their tail is. That is their trouble. Now I hope that you will allow me, Mr. Speaker, to say a few words in connection with what the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) said here this afternoon. He said here that that letter was a document in connection with policy, and that is why it was so very important. But what the hon. member for Gezina and his followers consistently refuse to bear in mind, is another document which was published in this Parliament. That secret document is of great importance to the public. But the document which was published to Parliament and to the people of South Africa, from that document they consistently run away. The hon. member for Gezina wanted to make out here that there was considerable unrest in the country in connection with a new oath which the Citizen Force had to take. Well, we always thought that they said: See here, you must not allow our people to go out of South Africa against our wishes. But now that the Government is taking the right step and telling the people that those who did not want to act follow the line which had been laid down by the Government and then go home, now they say through the hon. member for Gezina that we must keep those people in the service. We heard the other day that we were keeping them in the service against their wish and desire, but to-day we hear on the other hand that we are forcing them against their wishes to leave the service, and that they will be unemployed. There is not a single question on which the Opposition expresses itself in connection with which they do not sooner or later contradict themselves. The hon. member for Gezina clearly said here that he had no objection to the Government taking volunteers to the Equator and elsewhere to fight, but what did we find subsequently? We found that members of the Opposition were constantly contradicting the hon. member for Gezina and objecting to that policy. Now they are trying the “lie-and-rot” story and to-day again we see how they are arguing in a circle. If they go on in that way, and constantly make the circle smaller, then they will by-and-by bite themselves in their backs. They tell us that if the “lie-and-rot” story did not count in 1938, why should it count to-day? The members of the Opposition must not pretend to be so stupid. They are surely acquainted with two facts in connection with this matter: The first is that we have again proved thereby that we were prepared to sacrifice certain interests of South Africa for the sake of peace in 1938, that we were not just anxious to go into war every time. The other fact is this, that the Opposition knows that 1938 cannot be comoared with the present time, for the simple reason that in 1938 the British Navy was free, the United States Navy was free and the Italian Navy was free, but is that the position to-day? Can Holland come and fetch our produce here? Poor Holland. I am sorry for her. Another question which our friends opposite also raised is this. They say, “Look at Holland, Belgium and Italy, those countries are neutral.” I say that no man of common sense would exchange the position of South Africa to-day for that of Holland. If hon. members of the Opposition would only for a moment take a lead pencil and would add up how many neutral ships have been sunk by Hitler, then they will see what respect and authority Hitler is held in by neutral countries and neutral ships. If Holland, or Belgium or Italy comes and fetches our wool and mealies to carry it to the overseas market, what would have happened to it? No, we must just give the Opposition a little rope, and then they will contradict themselves. You will remember that at the start of the debate on this matter, it became more than clear to us that it was a question where South Africa would have to choose between two things: Between the friendship of the greatest benefactor of South Africa, namely England, and between providing a moral victory for the greatest enemy of that greatest benefactor. I will not refer to byelections, and I do not want to make any further quotations, because we have already had enough quotations from Hansard and other writings. It is no use going on with that, because we have had more than enough. But notice what the hon. member for Winburg said here. He spoke with a certain amount of contempt of the result at Carolina. He now says that Carolina is a kind of Sap island in the Transvaal. But on the eve of the election they did not talk of a Sap island. They said: To-morrow you will see what Afrikanerdom will say about this Communistic, capitalistic, negrophilist Government. Decision was given, and when the result came out those hon. members were so dissatisfied and disappointed that they described Carolina as a Sap island. That was another proof that we only had to give the Opposition a chance, and what they said yesterday they will contradict to-morrow. The day before the election we read of all the boasting in the newspapers; the day after we read exactly the opposite, and it is people in the same country and of the same character who draft those documents for the newspapers.

But what has all this got to do with the Bill?

You are right, Mr. Speaker, but you must please excuse me just a little. We are all overloaded with politics. Hon. members on the opposite also—not those who are sitting there now but those who ought to be sitting there—are overloaded with politics. We appreciate it that you have exercised so much patience, just when we are so overloaded with politics that we are inclined to wander from the point a little. If our front benchers are also inclined to do so, then you must not blame us for erring in the same direction. I want to say that it is time for this Bill to come into operation, and for the Government of the country to exercise control in cases where there are definite elements in South Africa who are reckless, and who do not act in a spirit of responsibility and co-operation. If speaking courteously and giving warnings is of no use— there are those who will never listen—then they must just feel, and it is only when they feel that they will come to their senses. I hope that the Opposition—there are not many of them now, and I hope that they will go on vanishing, so that they can just now and then send someone inside to come and spy out what is going on here—will act with a realisation of responsibility.

The Opposition are lying and rotting.

Yes, it is as the Minister says, because we do not see them here. They should learn that a member of Parliament assumes a responsibility, and that his duty is not only to run away from here and go "and drink coffee, that they must do more than what they have done here of late.

Mr. Speaker, the most important revelation of the debate this afternoon was that, after many months, the Prime Minister at last acknowledged that he at one time had subscribed to a policy of neutrality, had subscribed to that policy of neutrality that had been outlined in this House on the 4th September last. That in itself was a very bold admission for the Prime Minister to make and a very belated one. But, Mr. Speaker, surely equally as illuminating was the fact that the rest of his colleagues in the Cabinet and out of the Cabinet, with almost indecent haste this afternoon and to-night, have gone out of their way to repudiate the Prime Minister.

Nonsense.

The hon. the Minister of the Interior spent 40 minutes endeavouring to prove that he had not accepted on the 28th September, what his leader had accepted on the 1st September. It is of importance, because we have been jeered at by the Government Press for months and months, because we suggested that a policy of neutrality as outlined by the former Prime Minister, was practicable. We were told that it was silly, that it was foolish, that it was everything, and could never be. That foolish position the Prime Minister subscribed to on the 1st September. By that acknowledgment….

What date?

The 1st September, 1938. The point I am not making is the question of the year. The point I am making is that he subscribed to the exact policy, to the very document outlined here on the 4th September, 1939. Whoever else in the Cabinet did not see that document, and did not subscribe to those sentiments, it is not denied that the present Prime Minister saw the document A and subscribed to it. The document B was merely a record that document A had been explained.

Call it exhibit A.

The hon. the Minister of Labour now comes to the rescue of the Prime Minister, which is indeed a very funny position.

Entirely unnecessary.

Quite unnecessary. One can see that surely the times have changed so far as the Minister of Labour and Social Welfare is concerned.

Absolutely.

He has, Mr. Speaker, changed to this extent. For about 25 years he was the chief representative in this House of the under-dog.

And still is.

What has happened to the under-dog?

He has found you out.

The Minister of Labour and Social Welfare has kennelled the underdog, and the Minister is now the highest paid kennel keeper in the British Empire for the duration of the war. Now we won’t hear anything about the under-dog whilst the Minister of Labour looks after him.

Not while you are barking.

Let us get back to the point where the hon. the Minister of Labour deflected it.

I wouldn’t do that for the world. I am sorry.

The question of neutrality and the admission by the present Prime Minister disposes of the argument raised in favour of a declaration of war by that side of the House, and the one argument that is now left over is the question of world domination. My time is limited and I hardly feel disposed to deal with the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Sutter). I am after big political fish and I have no time to deal with political porpoises. We are told a lot about the British Fleet.

It is the first time you heard about it.

We are told what would have happened to us and what would have happened to the British Fleet if there had been war in September of 1938, and we had remained neutral as agreed by the Prime Minister. What would the position have been as regards the British Fleet if we had remained neutral on the 4th September? Would not the British Fleet have protected those very interests that it was the business of England to protect, and has been the business of England for many centuries now, that is to keep its trade routes open?

Well, that is pretty mean.

It is said it is base ingratitude on our part because we are not thankful for what the British Fleet does for us. Mr. Speaker, let me tell you that that contract is of mutual advantage to both sides, to Britain it is essential to keep the seas clear so that she can export, and if we are neutral it would make no difference, she would still keep the seas clear.

Well, well, well!

If Britain did not have these interests you can be certain she would not spend the money on the British Fleet to come anywhere near our shores at all.

Do you really subscribe to that?

Yes.

Well I’m dashed!

What is the advantage to South Africa?

The advantage to South Africa of having the British Fleet is the advantage that flows because the British people want the British Fleet to be there.

The Admiralty will be sending for you.

There is a small point that hon. members on that side may have forgotten. May I remind them of it without getting so much of this ribald laughter: South Africa is England’s best customer in the world.

You said the advantage was on both sides.

It was said the other day that England would go to the wall if she did not export to live. Export is the very life-blood of England and she must keep the sea routes clear. Therefore, do not let us have any more of this sentimental bosh and let us acknowledge that it is in England’s interests to export to us and that is what she is doing. Now, to refer to neutrality again. The question is whether it was acceptable on the 28th September to the rest of the Prime Minister’s colleagues. Now the hon. the Minister of the Interior admitted that the then Prime Minister explained his views to the Cabinet on the 28th September, and he could only have put to them the contents of that document which the present Prime Minister had seen and subscribed to on the 28th September. Is there any member of that Cabinet who will deny that when the Cabinet adjourned at lunch-time that day the fact that was present in the minds of all of them was that if war were to break out then South Africa would have been neutral. That is the test, and let any of them deny it. The only point that the hon. minister of the Interior was content to hang himself up on was that there had not been a formal decision, not been an actual vote taken. Was not the then Prime Minister entitled to say to himself that they had agreed to the views then expressed by him? If there had been war we would have been neutral, as neutral as was suggested on the 4th September, 1939. And was not the present Prime Minister entitled to know if at any time between September, 1938, and September, 1939, any of his Cabinet had altered their view on so vital a question as war or neutrality? He should have been told by them they had changed their mind. The Prime Minister learned a lesson between 1st September, 1938, and 4th September, 1939, and I will tell you what that lesson was.

You have learned one since.

In September, 1938, he subscribed to neutrality, and in September, 1939, he had changed his mind. The explanation we had from the other Ministers here this afternoon clearly shows why he changed. Mr. Speaker, it was because his main supporters—I don’t say all of them—would never have stood for the policy of neutrality at any time.’

[inaudible]

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth tells me so. Hon. members would not allow the present Prime Minister in any circumstances to have South Africa first. [Interruption.] Mr. Speaker, if the rumbling is ended over on that side I am prepared to continue. There must be a lot of hollow minds round Springs.

Better than fat ones.

The hon. the Minister of Finance told us in one of his speeches that had the Prime Minister agreed to neutrality his English-speaking followers would have deserted him, and there. Mr. Speaker, is the whole crux of the position. What is the use of us talking about neutrality and whether it was agreed to or not? The fact remains that the great bulk of hon. members on that side of the House will never have South Africa first where there is a question of England’s interests. We had clear proof of it on the 4th September, and we have had clear proof of it ever since. In times of peace when the Empire does not need them these people are prepared to don the costume of nationalism and they will keep it on until the Empire calls, and they will be there to a man, and that, Mr. Speaker, is the difference between that side of the House and this, and it will continue to be a difference in this country until hon. members over there are prepared to subscribe to the principle of their own country first.

That rouses them; that is good stuff.

That’s the stuff to give the troops.

I will come to the stuff that the hon. minister gave the troops later on. I would like to refer to the laughter of the hon. minister of Labour. It is a case of “When the heart is sad and weary, laugh, clown, laugh.”

Well, why don’t you laugh?

I would like to deal with an allegation made, I think, by the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell). I think he said we were a lot of pro-Nazis on this side.

I said many of you were.

Are you ashamed of it?

Well, Mr. Speaker, why are we pro-Nazi?

That is what we wonder.

We are pro-Nazi in the accusation made by that side of the House because we stand for neutrality. The Prime Minister stood for neutrality in September,. 1938. We are pro-Nazi because we won’t be pro-imperialist and allow ourselves to be used for that purpose. This is the technique, the propaganda that has been going on in this country for the last fifty years. A Scotchman by the name of MacDonnel, who does not like the Nazis, very truly tells us….

Is this drawing-room?

Yes, it is, Mr. Speaker, and that is why it does not interest the hon. member for Springs. During the Boer War. MacDonnel tells us, the President of the Transvaal Republic, Kruger, was an object of hatred and contempt in the minds of the people in England, and he remembers that his nursemaid used to frighten him with the name of Kruger. In the Great War that followed it was old Kaiser Bill that we were frightened with, and now it is Adolf.

It will never be Quinlan.

I had really got up in connection with the matter affecting the honour of a member of this House. If you were here this afternoon, Mr. Speaker — of course, you are always here, I am sorry— you would have heard a speech by the Rip van Winkle of the present Cabinet, the Minister of Native Affairs.

The hon. member must withdraw that. He has no right to refer to a Minister in those terms.

I withdraw it, of course. May I be allowed to say that the Minister of Native Affairs this afternoon woke up from a political sleep of long standing.

He was pretty wide awake.

He had gone across to England representing us there, he did a lot of things there, and we expected this afternoon that he would have told us what he had done.

He even went to Portugal.

Why not? I did not get a horse. You fellows are one up on me, you got a horse.

What did he do over there?

I did not get a mare’s nest there either.

We only have your word for that. The Minister spoke about entertainment for the troops. As far as I understand, the only benefit which South Africa had of the Minister’s visit to the western front was that he walked in No Man’s Land and there he got a twig of a willow tree, and he said he was going to plant it in his backyard.

Willow, tit willow!

As far as I can see, the only entertainment the British troops had there was a picture of a man walking in a dream and getting a twig and bringing it back to South Africa.

Have you twigged yet why I went?

The Minister told the English people….

I thought you were Irish and had a sense of humour.

The Minister is not enjoying my sense of humour. The Minister told the English people when he got there, according to the reports—Reuter reports, they are favourable to the Minister—that on the 4th September there were a couple of Dutchmen who did not quite understand the question of the real war issue, but now he could say that everyone in South Africa was solidly behind General Smuts in his great effort.

I said all the thinking Dutch.

The Minister must have a very low opinion of the intellect of his own people.

No, only of the Nationalists.

There are very few of them who think according to the Minister.

Order! I think the hon. member has wandered very far from the subject.

I want to deal with the speech made by the Minister this afternoon.

He is wandering in No Man’s Land.

He saw fit instead of enlightening the House to speak in very disparaging terms of the hon. member for Aliwal (Capt. G. H. F. Strydom).

Oh, no, he is a very good friend of mine.

That is why the Minister referred to him as a wind bag—he referred to him in a military sense. I think I should tell the House that the remark which the Minister had to withdraw was made against a man whose record is a very fine one — a record such as the Minister himself would be proud to hold.

I did not refer to his record—he is a good soldier in spite of being a gas bag.

I have here the Jamestown paper which refers to Capt. Strydom’s career, and tells us that during the Boer War Capt. Strydom was sentenced to death for high treason. The paper says: “He was one of those noble rebels who fought for his own people during the Boer War. He was sentenced to death, and that sentence was later on commuted to imprisonment for seven years and twenty-five lashes.” And let it be said that the hon. member was not such a wind bag then, and that he took his twenty-five lashes.

I never reflected on his physical courage.

It seems scandalous that a man with such a noble record should be referred to in such terms by a Minister who is supposed to hold a responsible position. This report says that the British Government has since had reason to change its opinion as shewn by two certificates sent to him — Capt. Strydom — dated March 1st, 1919. The one reads: “Lt. G. H. F. Strydom of the Second South African Horse was mentioned in dispatches by Lt.-General J. C. Smuts, dated November 12th, 1917, for gallant and distinguished service in the field.” The dispatch goes on to mention His Majesty’s high appreciation of the services rendered by Capt. Strydom. I hope we shall never see a repetition of this sort of thing in the House, of a petulant Minister of Native Affairs insulting an hon. member who has a very distinguished record behind him.

When the hon. member for Germiston (North) (Mr. Quinlan) rose he did not seem sure what he was going to deal with, and judging from the remarks which have fallen from him one would imagine that he was not sure of his facts. I am sure that not only hon. members, but the country too, must be weary of the long drawn out discussion on this measure, and as there is practically nothing new which can be added to the debate it makes me feel rather loath to intervene at this stage. In thinking over the circumstances which led up to the necessity for the introduction of this Bill, the saddest part is that much of the good work which had been done towards the bringing of our people together in the six years prior to September last has been undone, and that that unity which many of us had hoped would come within reasonable time has been put back, for how long it is impossible to say. Parting company with the ex-Prime Minister was to me a matter of sincere regret, as during the six years in which he was the Leader of our Party, whenever I came into contact with him I always received the most courteous treatment from him, and for that reason if for no other. I was exceedingly sorry that we had to part company But on the 4th September he took a path along which I like many others could not possibly follow him. Had I done so I would have been untrue to what in my opinion were the best interests of South Africa. I have a very vivid recollection of a conference held at Oudtshoorn shortly after coalition was brought about, when the present Leader of the Opposition addressed a very large meeting, the hall being packed from the door to the platform. I suppose about ninety per cent., or more of the audience, were Afrikaans-speaking. The Leader of the Opposition described what his feelings were after the South African War and how he fought for three things—the equality of his language, the independence of the country, and I forget what the third was. And he added, “The British Government gave them to us freely, which shows that the British nation is a great nation.” How often has not the hon. member said the same thing here in · this House and outside the House? I think hon. members on the opposite side voted in the way they did on the 4th September because they considered that it was in the interest of South Africa that they should vote in that way, but listening to their speeches one often gets the impression that in the case of some of them there were other motives behind their vote. One would get the impression that many of them are quite prepared to take all the advantages which they can from the partnership with the Commonwealth, but that they are not prepared to take the obligations and the risks which such a partnership may involve. They are quite prepared to sit still and allow Great Britain and her allies to fight our battles for us. Addressing his Party congress at Bloemfontein the other day the Leader of the Opposition is reported to have said that one clause in the United Party’s principles lays it down that the Government shall be in the spirit of South Africa first. That nobody could blame those who had decided in 1933 to co-operate with Gen. Smuts on that basis. The blame must go to those who on September 4th were shamefully untrue to that principle when they took a decision in which South Africa’s independence was treated as non-existent. The hon. member made the statement that “South Africa’s independence was, by our vote, treated as non-existent.” Some hon. members say. “Hear, hear!” to that. I wish to refute the statement that we took any step which was hostile to the independence of South Africa. I am unable to see by what process of reasoning the ex-Prime Minister attributes that to us. After all, the mere fact of our having voted on the question in September last, is proof enough that we are an independent people. If we had not been independent there would not have been an opportunity for us to vote.

I am afraid the hon. member has rather wandered away from the subject matter of the Bill.

I am trying, sir, to deal with what other members have been dealing with, namely, the question of neutrality. I say that the mere fact of our having been able to take a vote on the question, was sufficient proof of our independent position. Had we not been in that position, we would automatically have been at war when Great Britain declared war on Germany. Now. Mr. Speaker. I should like to know how the hon. the ex-Prime Minister proposed to maintain his neutrality had the vote gone that way in September last? Does he imagine, for one moment, that that neutrality would have been respected by the man who is at present in control of Germany? Does the hon. member think that that man would have paid any attention to any declaration that this House would have made? Personally, I do not think for a moment that he would have done so. When a country is at war, even though some members of Parliament are not in agreement with the policy, one has the right to expect of them that they will show sufficient patriotism to help rather than to hinder the Government to bring that war to a successful conclusion. I know well enough that there are many hon. members on the opposite side who, if South Africa was attacked, would be the first to come forward in its defence. I have not the slightest doubt about that. The view I take of it is this. South Africa’s independence to-day is being fought for on the battle-fields of Europe. It may never come to it that we may have to defend our independence in this country itself. Our independence is being fought for on the battle-fields of Europe to-day. If our friends and allies over there are not successful, and should they by any chance be overcome, then I should like to know what the position of this country would be. Would Herr Hitler be satisfied to take back South-West Africa only, which he has already said he would take? Would he not also claim to take the Union? Do my hon. friends opposite think, for a moment, that Herr Hitler would respect them whether they were neutral or not? I can assure hon. members of this, that if Herr Hitler was successful they could say “goodbye” to all that they value, to their independence and to their language too.

I must remind the hon. member that we are discussing the War Measures Bill.

In discussing the War Measures Bill, sir, I think, in order to protect this country, this Bill is necessary, and it is up to those of us who are patriotic to work towards the successful conclusion of this war. In times of crisis a country requires a strong man to lead them. Although hon. members on the opposite side do not agree with me, I am sure that the vast majority of the country will agree with me. Yes, hon. members opposite laugh, but I am sure, although they may not agree, the vast majority of the people of this country will agree with me when I say that we can thank God that we have the present Prime Minister to guide us. I am not afraid of any power which may be put into his hands. I know that we have a Prime Minister who will use that power judiciously and fearlessly, and will use it with the best of judgment. I have not the slightest doubt in asking if hon. members opposite can tell me of anyone who has done more and sacrificed more in the interests of his country, than the present Prime Minister.

Is that why he brings forward the War Measures Bill?

The War Measures Bill is necessary. There may be some people like the hon. member to whom it may be necessary to apply the War Measures Bill. We have in the person of the Prime Minister one in whom we can place the greatest confidence. What has he had from the other side? He has had nothing but abuse. On almost every occasion when he rises to speak in this House, instead of hon. members opposite following the lead of this side, and listening patiently and with respect to the Prime Minister when he speaks, as we did to the Leader of the Opposition instead, we have continual interruptions and abuse. That does not tend to raise the dignity of this House, but rather to lower it. The hon. Prime Minister is subject to all kinds of abuse. In this connection I am reminded of a story I heard of a prominent American politician who was treated in a similar manner by some of his opponents. When asked by a friend one day why he did not retaliate, he replied, “Well, away back in my home town there is an old lady who has a brindle pup, and when the moon is up that pup sits on its haunches and howls and howls and howls.” His friend said, “And?” He replied, “Well, the moon just moves on.”

It is very clear to me that my hon. friends opposite are always still engaged in trying to turn the tables on us, to show that we are the people who broke away on the 4th September. I remember so well that the present Prime Minister, time and again during those six years of coalition and fusion, said that he and the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog) had joined hands and that they would never separate from each other again. I remember that very well, and that my English-speaking friends told us that we had found each other. Let me tell them this, we put confidence in them. We agreed on a basis of co-operation. But after what happened on the 4th September the English-speaking people will never have the right and privilege of pointing the finger at us Afrikaners and saying that they wanted to co-operate with us, and that we would not do so. I notice, Mr. Speaker, that you are showing signs of being a little off the point, but my hon. friends have had so much margin in this debate, that you should give me an opportunity of letting off a little steam. I now come to this Bill on war measures. My hon. friends opposite say that they will, with the greatest confidence, leave the administration of this Bill in the hands of the Prime Minister. That is precisely where we differ from them. They do not know the Prime Minister as we know him. We in South Africa know him, and therefore we say that we will put these measures into the hands of any other man, but not into the hands of the present Prime Minister. He has proved in the past that when he has set his head against the wind, nothing will stop him.

We must have a strong man.

And if my hon. friend over there gets in, his way, he will shoot him down. Can my hon. friends blame us that we, knowing the Prime Minister as well as we do, should take up the attitude that we cannot trust him with these measures? We have had experience, and our experience has been a distressing one. But here this afternoon it has been repeatedly said on the Government side and by Ministers that they never knew the Leader of the Opposition had laid down a policy of neutrality in 1938. Ultimately, the Prime Minister himself admitted that there was such a document, and that it was discussed in his presence. They are constantly denying that the Leader of the Opposition called a Cabinet meeting in September, and that he discussed that policy with his colleagues, and now to-day they had to admit here, that not one of them had repudiated that policy by announcing that they did not agree with it. I just want to ask them this. Is it not actually a fact that the present Minister of Mines, when he broke away because in his opinion South Africa was at war when England declared war? Was that not the reason why he broke away, that he took up the attitude that South Africa was ipso facto in every one of England’s wars? They, along with us, denied that that was the position. We said that we were a free and an independent country, and that it would depend on ourselves, when our interests were threatened, to decide whether we were going to take a part in the European wars.

Yes, Parliament will decide.

And the day after England declared war, because England was involved in war, we had ipso facto to come in. In other words, the present Prime Minister swallowed the policy of the Minister of Mines, bone and all, and he is engaged in carrying it out. Now they want to turn the tables on us. What did we differ from the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) about? Let us just examine it. The hon. member for Piquetberg said that he stood for the policy of neutrality in any circumstances.

And you contested that point of view.

We said: “No, it will depend when a war comes what our attitude will be. That was the difference. The Prime Minister went so far as to say that we would not take part in a Céntral European war.

Parliament did decide.

The hon. member loves to hear his own voice so much that it makes me think of a well-known gramophone record. The Prime Minister said that we would all take part, in his opinion, if England were attacked.

Or was in danger.

Very well, if England was in danger. But a day after England declared war, this House had to be asked to plunge South Africa into the war. We had an election nearly four years ago, and I ask hon. members man to man, if that was the policy of the United Party, that if England were plunged into war in Europe, that we would also ipso facto be in it, how many of the members of the United Party would then have got a majority of votes. If that had been the policy of the United Party in 1938, how many of us would have come back to Parliament? Now we have this War Measures Bill before the House to give unlimited powers to the Government. To do what? They have declared war. Have they already done any fighting? With whom are we fighting? The Prime Minister promised us on the 4th September that no troops would be sent, and I know of members of the Cabinet who are sitting over there to-day who told me that they would be absolutely opposed to even volunteers being sent.

Overseas.

The Prime Minister said that no troops would be sent overseas. Now a new oath is being prescribed for the Defence Force to take, and if this War Measures Bill is passed, then it is very clear to us that although the Prime Minister has already extended the borders of South Africa by 2,000 miles, it will not be long before the Prime Minister, with the help of the new oath which has to be taken now, will send them overseas. They have already broken the promise of the Prime Minister on the 4th September, and I say that if this Bill is passed and the new oath is taken by members of the Defence Force, then there will be no stopping at the Equator, but then the next step will be to send them to Egypt, where the Australian troops are to-day.

You will not fight.

I want to repeat again that when my country is in danger I shall be one of the first to take up arms and to defend the country, and I need no legislation to give me double pay for doing so, but will defend the country without pay. Has the hon. member who is continually interrupting me, ever fired a shot for South Africa without payment? He must remember that every time he has so far taken up arms, he has been well paid for it. It is no use getting bitter about the matter to-day. I have not become bitter, I am merely stating facts. But in proportion as the war develops on the other side of the water, so will the Governmeat make more and more use of this Bill, and none of us who wants to do his duty in the interests of South Africa, will then be safe in the hands of the Prime Minister. Let me clearly say on behalf of myself and the party over here that we do not blame England for the fact that we are at war. It is not England which exercised pressure for South Africa to declare war against the Germans. It is the Prime Minister with the following behind him, who was disloyal towards the Leader of the Opposition, while the party constitution was so worded that the Government would govern the country in a spirit of South Africa First. Before I sit down I want to say to the English-speaking hon. members opposite, that the less they stir up the past, the less bitterness will be revealed, but they must remember that we went out of our way six and a half years ago to take their hand of brotherhood, and I tell them that never, never, never will an Englishman have the right to point a finger at the Afrikaans-speaking people and to say that we did not co-operate with them, when they were prepared to do so.

I also would like to raise a protest even at this late hour. When one has listened to the debate on this Bill, you come to the conviction that the people in the country who follow it all, must really say to themselves that in South Africa an end has not yet come to the organised campaign of misrepresentation which we have had to go through during the last six or seven months. It is nothing else but an organised campaign of misrepresentation. Things are not called by their real name. I do not know whether the object is deliberately to mislead people, but that does happen. Instead of talking about martial law, they talk about emergency measures. Instead of calling certain people spies, which they are, they talk about control officers. Instead of speaking about the Empire Defence Force, they still talk, in our country, of our Defence Force. It is an organised campaign of misrepresentation, and during the last six or seven months the war pill has been given to the people in South Africa with a few coatings of sugar, but now the bitterness of the pill is appearing. In the first place, they were told that we were only going into the war to defend the Union of South Africa. To-day we already know that that was hypocrisy, and that it never was the intention to go to war for the defence of the Union. To-day in view of the new oath and other measures, such as the Bill which is before us, we know that these things are not meant for the defence of the Union of South Africa, but only to defend the Empire outside of the borders of South Africa. The sugar coating of the pill was that we would defend South Africa. We were told that we need not be afraid, but that the Defence Force would only be used in South Africa, but to-day we know that the position is different. It was repeatedly announced later that only volunteers would be used outside of South Africa. A third thing that was said was that no troops would be sent outside of South Africa, no part of the Defence Force would be allowed to go overseas. It is about those three things that I would like to say something, because there is an organised campaign of misleading and misrepresentation. I just want to tell the Prime Minister that the people of South Africa feel that we are no longer dealing with the defence of the Union now, but that it is the defence of territories outside of South Africa that is being thought about, in other words, the defence of the Empire. In the second place, I want to refer to the misrepresentation in connection with the commandeering of troops. Only on the 16th February this year the Prime Minister made a statement in which he announced for the second or third time to South Africa that we need not be afraid, that we need not feel anxious, because the sons of South Africa would not be used outside of the borders of South Africa. Now suddenly the whole character of the defence force, as we knew it and as laid down in the Act, is being changed, and it is now becoming an Empire force, so to say a Smuts defence force. Now the sons of South Africa who went into the defence force under the Act of 1912 to defend the Union, have to leave to make way for the friends of the empire to be put into it. It is a scandal that the Prime Minister should come and evade the legislation of South Africa in this way. He says that our boys will have to take a new oath. Apparently the Prime Minister does not see his way of getting sufficient volunteers. A few months ago he still boasted about thousands of boys that he could get to go to the north. This provision about the new oath appears to me to be an attempt to see whether he cannot get more recruits than he can get to-day to fight for the Empire north of South Africa. Apparently he was not able to get enough volunteers, and therefore one of the adjutants-general expressed the hope, in the press, that they would get more volunteers now. What kind of volunteers is he going to get? Sons of South Africa who have been forced by economic necessity to sign on for the defence force, and now this contemptible oath is being used to get them to fight for the Empire against their will. When once they are in the north and want to turn back, then they will be faced by the oath, and the Prime Minister will be entitled to do what he did in former years in South Africa, namely, to shoot if it becomes necessary. This scandalous oath which he wants the young lads of South Africa to take, will yet react on his head later on. You cannot make use of the economic necessity of the people to make the sons of South Africa go and fight for the Empire.

Do you want to suggest that only the poor people would join up?

The hon. member will get a nice khaki uniform one of these days to walk about in. He is quite safe, but the young lads of South Africa who in consequence of the economic pressure which is exercised over them, and in consequence of the fact that it has been made impossible for them to remain with certain firms who have exercised pressure on them—just as pressure has been exercised for the making of contributions to the Mayors’ Fund—the boys who in consequence of that are unemployed and who have had to join the defence force, and who have to earn their bread and butter there now, will now be forced to do what was never the intention of the Defence Act. They have to subscribe an oath which was never intended by the Defence Act. I say that by a stroke of the pen he comes here and violates the provisions of the Defence Act, because the oath is laid down in the existing Defence Act.

It is for volunteers.

I am talking of the permanent force. But if I have to explain to the hon. member what the difference is, then he will not understand anyhow. In the third schedule of the Defence Act, the oath has been specially laid down, and it is there stated that anyone who takes the oath obliges himself to serve for the defence of the Union if he is required to do so, etc. But what is the Prime Minister doing now? Here the Act is being evaded, and a new oath has to be taken. I do not know how he is going to get past the Act, or whether the people will have an action against him. My time is limited, and I cannot go into this matter any further, but I only want to make a protest and to say that this is the greatest scandal that I have seen for a long time, for a Minister and his party behind him to use the steam roller to abuse the necessities of the people, to force them to take the oath and to fight for the Empire, which was never the intention of the Defence Act. By a stroke of the pen he turns the defence force, which was intended for the defence of our country, into an imperial force, to go and fight outside of our borders. This is a tyranny of a quality that we have never yet had in South Africa. If you say to people who are financially independent that they must take the oath, then such people can reply: You can run away with your oath. But when poor lads have joined the defence force, where it is their job that they have worked at for years, and you place an oath like that before them, and they are courageous enough to refuse to sign it, then you are pushing them into great distress, because you are taking their bread and butter away from them. I take off my hat to the young lieutenants at Voortrekkerhoogte who refuse to do so, but we shall find that the Prime Minister and his lieutenants in the business world, such as the hon. member for Vereeniging (Lt.-Col. Rood) will see to it that those people get no work, but that will react on their own heads as they found in 1914—18. You can challenge the people, but you can also challenge them too far. I want to refer to yet another point where the hon. member misled us. He put us under a wrong impression, and he got the support of the people because he promised that he would only defend the Union, that he would send no troops to the north, and now we know what he meant when he said that he would not send any troops overseas either. We know that he was not speaking the truth. It is clear now that while he was speaking in the House he sent 150 lads in our defence force, lads who had to defend our country, overseas. He told the House that he had not sent them, but a half truth is often a bigger lie than an untruth. What are those boys doing? What is that section of cur defence force doing over the water? When we asked, he got up and said that they were there under the Governor-General’s minute of 1913. It is said that they went as volunteers, but we know that the naval reserve is a volunteer body. But the hon. member told us a half truth, and he suppressed a part. It only came out later, in answer to a question by us, that the lads were not governed under the Governor-General’s minute of 1913, but under the proclamation of 1936. That differs as night from day from the proclamation of 1913. When the hon. member got up and said that the lads had gone overseas under the 1913 proclamation, because their corps had been established to serve in the Royal Navy, he knew that the proclamation of 1916 said that the lads were no longer to be at the disposition of the Royal Navy, but as the regulations say, to do service, as far as practicable, in South African waters. I do not know whether it is parliamentary to say that the House was brought under a false impression. The Prime Minister wanted to make out that the lads had been sent overseas because under the proclamation of 1913 they were under the orders of the Royal Navy, he wanted to keep the public in the dark, and he put us under the impression that they went for those reasons, and not because he had given permission. When he said that the lads had gone overseas under the 1913 proclamation, he knew that it was not true.

Order. The hon. member must withdraw that.

I withdraw it, and then I say that the hon. member gave wrong information to the House, and the House is entitled to get the truth, the whole truth.

During the afternoon I regarded this debate as a private quarrel, but developments this evening have convinced me that I am at liberty to enter the fray. I am not taking up the cudgels for either side, but I want to remind the House that South Africa is at war. I hope hon. members will realise that fact, not only members on the Government side, but also the members of His Majesty’s Opposition. In his heart of hearts every member is satisfied that the country being at war the Government is entitled to ask for special powers.

We are only technically at war.

Those special powers are provided and the Bill before the House seeks to validate them.

At 10.55 p.m., in accordance with paragraph (5) of the resolution adopted by the House on the 29th February, the business under consideration was interrupted by Mr. Speaker and the motion for the Third Reading of the Bill was put,

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—74:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Baines, A. C. V.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden. W.

Bell, R. E.

Blackwell, L.

Botha, H. N. W.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Burnside, D. C.

Cadman, C. F. M.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Collins, W. R.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

Deane, W. A.

De Kock, A. S.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, H. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Egeland, L.

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.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge. M.

Klopper, L. B.

Lawrence, H. G.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Moll, A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Nel, O. R.

Payn, A. O. B.

Pocock, P. V.

Reitz, D.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Shearer, V. I.

Smuts, J. C.

Solomon. B.

Sonnenberg, M.

Stallard, C. F.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Sutter, G. J.

Trollip, A. E.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Zyl, G. B.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

Tellers: J. W. Higgerty and W. B. Humphreys.

Noes—55:

Bekker, S.

Bezuidenhout, J. T.

Boltman, F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Bosman, P. J.

Conradie, J. H.

Conroy, E. A.

De Wet, J. C.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Du Toit, C. W. M.

Erasmus, F. C.

Fagan, H. A.

Geldenhuys, C. H.

Grobler, J. H.

Havenga, N. C.

Haywood, J. J.

Hugo, P. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Le Roux, S. P.

Liebenberg, J. L. V.

Lindhorst, B. H.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Malan, D. F.

Olivier, P. J.

Oost, H.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Pirow, O.

Quinlan, S. C.

Rooth, E. A.

Schoeman, N. J.

Serfontein, J. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Swart, A. P.

Theron, P.

Van den Berg, C. J.

Van der Merwe, N. J.

Van der Merwe, R. A. T.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Van Zyl. J. J. M.

Venter, J. A. P.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Werth, A. J.

Wilkens, Jacob. Wilkens, Jan.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

Tellers: J. F. T. Naudé and J. H. Viljoen.

Motion accordingly agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.