I move—

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—78:

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.

Dolley, G.

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.

Howard, F. T.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Klopper, L. B.

Lawrence, H. G.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Marwick, J. S.

Moll, A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Nel, O. R.

Payn, A. O. B.

Pocock, P. V.

Rood, K.

Shearer. V. L.

Smuts, J. C.

Sonnenberg, M.

Stallard, C. F.

Steyn, C. F.

Steytler, L. J.

Strauss, J. G. N.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Sutter, G. J.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

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

Noes—55:

Badenhorst, A. L.

Badenhorst, C. C. E.

Bekker, G.

Bekker, S.

Bezuidenhout, J. T.

Boltman, F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Bosman, P. J.

Bremer, K.

De Bruyn, D. A. S.

Du Plessis. P. J.

Du Toit, C. W. M.

Erasmus, F. C.

Grobler, J. H.

Havenga, N. C.

Haywood, J. J.

Hertzog, J. B. M.

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.

Olivier. P. J.

Oost, H.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Pirow, O.

Quinlan, S. C.

Rooth, E. A.

Schoeman, B. J.

Schoeman, N. J.

Serfontein, J. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

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.

Viljoen, J. H.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Werth, A. J.

Wilkens, Jacob.

Wilkens, Jan.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

Tellers: J. F. T. Naudé and P. O. Sauer.

Motion accordingly agreed to.

I beg to move—

It will be seen that the motion relates to Section 40 of the Act in question. That section stipulates the manner in which the Provincial quota is to be arrived at. It then goes on to stipulate that, while taking the quota as a basis for divisions in settling electoral areas, the commissioners shall have the right to depart from the quota provided that no area shall be more than 15 per cent. above or more than 15 per cent. below the quota. The proposed amendment I am moving seeks to do two things. First of all it seeks to increase the latitude allowed to the commissioners, from 15 per cent. to 20 per cent., and, secondly, to make that increase in the case of the urban areas obligatory, and the decrease in the case of the rural areas also obligatory. It is necessary, sir, that the Committee of the whole House should be empowered to take this matter into consideration by reason of the fact that this does not fall within the scope of the Bill. That is something to which I wish to draw the particular attention of the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell). It seems to me that in the hon. member’s rather unfair remarks concerning the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) the other day, he entirely overlooked that fact. The select committee was empowered to consider the operation of the Electoral Law and to bring up a Bill and to report thereon. Now, sir, the hon. member took two points. He first of all castigated the hon. member for Moorreesburg because he did not, while the Bill was upstairs, refer to this matter, and secondly he told us that because this was a select committee Bill, therefore the House was under some obligation to accept the Bill as it stood. I should like to suggest that that is not the position. I should like to suggest to the hon. member that it is very doubtful whether the select committee would have been entitled to make any variation or to recommend any variation of the South Africa Act. The committee was set up to take into consideration the electoral law and not the South Africa Act. I submit that it would have been out of order for the committee to have done so without getting an instruction from the House: and he suggested that as this was a select committee Bill the House should swallow it whole. I refer to the fact that it is within our experience that select committees frequently recommend Bills and that nothing further is ever done by the Government, and the Government takes no notice of them. I refer to an instance in 1937 when a select committee brought up a Bill relating to the prevention of the employment by Asiatics of European women. I should like to know what happened to that Bill. It never reached the Table of this House. As a matter of interest there was the more recent incident of the Hire-purchase Bill, when we were told last year that it was a matter of urgent necessity. It was a unanimous Bill and it has got no further than the Minister’s office.

But it will.

But when? That was an urgent matter and it is still important, and is still more urgent now that war has come, for the poor man needs all the protection that he can get. If anybody can corroborate the statement that this Bill is a particularly necessary Bill, surely it is the hon. minister who has just interjected. I understand that Stuttafords, Limited, do a larger trade in hire-purchase than any other firm in South Africa, so the Minister will be able to speak with authority on the subject. The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) played a very prominent part indeed in connection with this particular Bill. He was the man I think who introduced the subject matter to the House, and I think it was as the result of his efforts that this matter was referred to a select committee. It now comes as a surprise to all of us to find that this matter, which has been hanging fire for so many years, should suddenly become a matter of extreme urgency.

The hon. member must not discuss any other matter except the instruction.

As you please, sir. In order to understand this instruction it is necessary to put the matter in its correct political background. I naturally bow to your ruling, sir, but I hope you will not prevent me touching on matters which are closely connected with this particular Bill. The object of the instruction is to protect the platteland which is, apparently, now to be victimised in order to satisfy the demands of the urban areas. It will be necessary to explain to the House exactly how that has come about. I should like to say that the original Unionist Party was always very keen on some change of this kind being brought about, something to bring the urban areas on to a parity with the rural areas. That being the case, it is a matter of interest to find that at this particular juncture, when by the terms of the peace treaty of Maritzburg whereunder the Minister of Mines took over the United Party, this matter has now cropped up again. Although it is quite true that this matter was brought forward by the hon. member for Kensington while he was still a member of the United Party, it happened at a time when feelings between the hon. member and his friends in the United Party were somewhat strained.

No, we were the best of friends at that time.

In fact the hon. member about that time was accused of flirting with the Dominion Party. It seems to me rather significant that that hon. gentleman with his well-known leanings should be the very man to introduce the subject matter to the House. That, I can assure hon. members, is a matter which is not without significance to those of us on this side of the House. Now, Mr. Speaker, the subject matter of this instruction is not new to this House. In order to deal adequately with the matter and to put it in its correct political niche, I shall have to go back to 1909. In 1909 the South Africa Act, or what became the South Africa Act, was under discussion. It was under discussion in the four provinces, and in particular was it under discussion in the Cape House. The draft Act of Union had been prepared by the Convention and had been submitted to the four provinces. It has been my privilege to turn up the Cape Hansard and to see exactly what transpired on that occasion, and it comes as a surprise to me to find that of the 152 odd clauses in the Act, only three were seriously challenged by the old Cape House, and clause 40, the one now under discussion, was the one which I think excited the most discussion. The position was then very much as it is to-day. There was subterranean strife going on between the urban areas and the rural areas. It is natural that that should be the case. I should like, in order to make my point quite clear, to quote from the Hansard of the old Cape Parliament in 1909. I am now quoting from a speech by Mr. Cronwright Schreiner, one of the prominent politicians of that day.

Are you going to quote all the speeches?

Oh, no. I shall quote just sufficient to make my point, which I hope will sink home. Under the heading of “Mining Domination”, Mr. Cronwright Schreiner declared that—

And then I want to quote from a speech by Mr. Upington on page 62 of the same volume.

That is quite a few years ago.

Yes, it is forty years ago, but the mining magnate has not changed even though the hon. member has changed his opinion.

You do not know the present developments.

Now this is what Mr. Upington had to say—

And let me say that that statement caused considerable commotion at the time—

Would not proportional representation be the way out?

We are considering how to protect the platteland from these trusts.

You are considering contortional representation.

The hon. member is apparently not feeling quite himself to-day.

Are you talking about the South Africa Act now?

Matters reached a climax at a later stage when an amendment was proposed to this very clause 40, because of the unrest it created in the minds of members at that time, and it is a remarkable fact to me that the amendment then proposed had very much the same object in view as the amendment which the House is now considering— the instruction which we are now considering. There is a difference, of course. The position then appeared to be that a 15 per cent. provision in the Act would satisfy the rural members, but they wanted it to be obligatory, and they were not prepared to leave the matter to a commission, and that matter was fully debated and ultimately a division was called. And you will be impressed I know, Mr. Speaker, when I tell you that the motion was carried by an overwhelming majority and among the eyes you will find such famous names as Schreiner, Merriman, Sauer and the rest of the great Parliamentarians of those days. I should just like to read you some more. I am quoting from a speech by Mr. Blaine which is reported on page 117 of the same Volume. This is what he said—

That was the atmosphere in the Old Cape House at that time, and I put it to hon. members, that the position has not changed very much to-day. It is true, domination by the financial interests, does not excite so much comment, because we are accustomed to it.

The same old tale.

But unless something is done in the near future it seems to me that the position will be beyond remedy. Now I want to say that in order to bring about Union it was necessary to satisfy these gentlemen and the Cape Parliament was determined to protect the rural areas, and they were so determined that they actually went to the extent of altering the Constitution as approved of by the Convention, and they altered it in the respect I have indicated, and the Prime Minister will remember the wrangle which took place in Pretoria when the Convention discussed the final draft.

It never sat in Pretoria.

Wherever it sat.

Bloemfontein.

It makes little difference whether it was Pretoria or Bloemfontein, but the important part is that at that Convention in order to persuade the Cane and Transvaal delegates not to withhold their consent and so wreck Union, they were made to believe that this provision in section 40 would adequately protect the Platteland, and they were given to understand—and I think Dr. Jameson was one of those who spoke most—they were given to understand that in effect section 40 would see to it that the rural areas received a 30 per cent. advantage over the urban areas. That is the way in which it was interpreted. That is the impression I have after reading all these speeches. I am sorry to say that the Prime Minister failed to make a speech at a stage when speeches were recorded, because his words would be of great interest to us.

He destroyed the whole thing.

The impression was that the Platteland would receive a benefit of 30 per cent. What happened?

It works out at more than that now.

No, it is nowhere near it. If it were it would be grossly illegal. 30 per cent. is the maximum. I want to tell hon. members that in spite of the reassurances given to the Platteland at that time we find that in 1910 the benefit which the Platteland received was a 3.5 per cent. advantage below the provincial quota, whereas the urban areas were only 7.7 per cent. above the provincial quota, making a total difference of 11.2 per cent. instead of the 30 per cent. promised. That was the beginning. It is quite true that as matters had developed the advantage to the Platteland has been increased.

Very much so.

It has been materially increased, but I do not think that at the present moment it has yet reached 15 per cent. I am certain it has not.

In many places it is over 100 per cent.

It cannot be over 100 per cent. The law lays it down that the maximum is 15 per cent. above and below. I want to stress the point that this is an undertaking which the Platteland has every right to require to be implemented. It was never the intention that we should have to wait until 1940 until we received that 30 per cent. advantage. The principle of allowing us to entrench the Platteland and to see that the towns did not by means of a floating population take away this advantage was clearly laid down. Now I should like to deal with the figures relating to representation as between the Platteland and urban areas. I find that in 1910 in the Union there were forty representatives from urban areas as opposed to eighty-one from the rural areas. A difference of something like 50 per cent.

One hundred per cent.

How do you distinguish between urban and rural?

These are official figures.

You do not know what the distinction is.

No, I do not, but I take it that the officials who deal with these things know all about it. But even then it is a matter of opinion, one man may put down a constituency as a rural constituency and another as an urban one. These were the figures given at the time, and there was no dispute about them. By 1937 there had been a tremendous change; there were sixty-three urban constituencies as opposed to only eighty-seven rural.

Who gave you those figures?

The difference changed from 100 per cent. to 72.4 per cent.

Who gave you those figures?

One of the heads of your department.

If you check the figures you will find they are not correct actually.

Why should I check figures which your department gives me.

It depends on how you use them.

It is all very well, we can bear with the Minister when he starts clowning the way he did—the other day at the second reading of this Bill—when he selected a solemn occasion to indulge in buffoonery; but when he comes here and repudiates his own officials it is high time that some one should put a stop to it. Of course I agree that the Minister should be allowed a lot of license—literary license—because he is now an author. He is the author of the Gadow letters.

On a point of order, do I understand the hon. member to suggest that the Minister wrote the Gadow letters?

He edited them.

Is that what the hon. member meant to convey?

I do not suggest that the Minister forged them, but as far as we are concerned he is the author of them. And he is the creator of Mr. X.

I do not think the hon. member is entitled to say that.

I withdraw that, but then the Minister is not entitled to the latitude which I was prepared to extend to him.

An hon. member now suggests that the Minister edited these letters. That suggestion is equally offensive.

I must ask hon. members to refrain from making these remarks.

hon. members have appealed to you for assistance, Mr. Speaker.

Order!

One can quite realise that feelings are becoming tender. If I had realised how tender they are I should not have raised the issue.

I hope the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) is proud of his pupil.

Yes, no doubt. Now I should like to get back to, this question of the representation in Parliament of platteland and urban areas. And I want to say that a matter of far more vital importance than the registration of voters is a readjustment of the political balance between town and country which is now upset. There is a great deal to be said for registration. By having registration of this kind we shall be able to check adequately, I hope, our uninvited guests in the country.

Who are they?

Well, I do not know; that is just the thing we do not know —we do not know who, they are. I mean people rejected elsewhere and who have now found a home in South Africa largely by reason of the fact that the Minister of Finance in his time when he was Minister of the Interior was well known to favour liberalism which allowed people to come into the country in evasion of the law, and I make bold to say that had the law been carried out at that time we would have had a different state of affairs now. I only hope that the Minister of the Interior will not appear in the guise of the pupil of the Minister of Finance, because if he does we shall be swamped by a foreign population which will be just as unwanted here as it was elsewhere. Now I shall once more try to get back to the point.

Which point are you coming to?

I am coming to the point which relates to the manner in which the country population is unfortunately becoming a diminishing factor. I am going to deal with that point which the Minister of Labour would have supported six months ago, whereas to-day he is fighting me down as a result of his new-found allegiance. But that was before the hon. member had been converted to the public position which he holds to-day. Of course, hon. members like the hon. minister for Labour are always converted more readily than the ordinary individual. But now I want to say this: On the Witwatersrand there has been these last two years an increase of 40,000 voters. In the whole of the Transvaal there has only been an increase of 42,000 voters for the same period. Surely that is significant. That is a danger sign which we would do well to heed.

Do these figures come from the same official?

No, these figures come from one of the newspapers which the hon. member idolises. He should not challenge them. It is not good form. It seems that it is necessary to bring about by legislation a readjustment of the original balance. It is more necessary to do that than to bring about this mere registration which is not of such vast importance, unless one looks at it from the political point of view, as another sign of the will of the Minister of Mines being imposed on the Prime Minister.

Do not forget that it takes a clever man to be funny.

Do you want to suggest that the Minister is not a clever man? The industrial development in South Africa has only just got under way, and if we can judge the future by what has happened in the last two years then we are going to see very drastic changes in our own life time, and the question which arises is whether we should not take time by the forelock and act now while we can still act. There is another argument to convince hon. members opposite. Whereas in 1909 Johannesburg had only seventeen members of Parliament, today they have twenty-seven. And what of to-morrow? I would like to ask them whether they do not agree with me that it will be dangerous for one city in the country, one area, to ultimately have such vast political power as to be able eventually to control this House? We know what happened in the old days in the Cape. Their leaders said themselves that the Cape House of Parliament was run by De Beers. Are we going to submit to a condition of affairs under which we are going to be ruled by the Corner House or the Chamber of Mines? And what is going on now is the right way to bring that about. It is quite clear that the new Unionist Party which is now in power is going to take full advantage of the situation.

Better than the Nazi Party.

The idea is to take advantage of the opportunity while they have it and to dig themselves in. They are doing that by means of this Bill. There has already been a great deal of canvassing of the voters, and within a space of two years they have an additional 40,000 registrations. It is time this House sat up and took notice. Finally there is the point that the next delimitation will hold good for ten years, and if once that comes about, if we neglect the opportunity which is now open to us to restore the balance it may well be that it will be too late and that South Africa will have every cause to remember the period during which those gentlemen over there were in power.

I want to second this motion which has been proposed by the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth) and I would start by saying that nobody can object and nobody will object to the registration of people who are entitled to be registered. But the difficulty is that as a result of this Bill being passed large numbers of people will be registered as voters who were not registered in the past, and that will be the position in the towns especially, so that it will have a detrimental effect on the representation of the platteland. That particularly is so to-day owing to the fact that during the past quarter of a century there has been a great shifting of population, as a result of which the relationship between the town and the platteland has been completely dislocated, so that this side of the House feels very seriously that what was intended at the time of establishment of Union in regard to the platteland being given a larger representation, as against the towns—I say in view of the peculiar condition of affairs which has been created the intention which was expressed at the establishment of Union should be given effect to, to an even greater extent than is the case now. I ask myself what the reasons were which induced the National Convention to lay down a smaller quota for the platteland than for the towns, and those reasons to-day apply not only for maintaining that provision, but for strengthening it in view of the fact that such a great shifting of population has taken place from the platteland to the towns. There are several good reasons for that position, and I should like to deal with the matter from that point of view. As everybody knows it is our duty first of all to consider the interests of the country as a whole in this House, and what is more, it is the Government’s duty in this House to maintain the balance between the different interests and the different groups of population. Now, Mr. Speaker, in the towns, the population is concentrated, and because of the fact that the different interests and different groups of people are concentrated, it is not only easy for them to keep in touch with each other, but it is also much easier for them to organise than it is on the platteland. Consequently they are in a very much better position than the people of the platteland to plead their own cause, and to have their interests protected by their representatives. As against that one finds on the platteland an extremely sparse and widely spread population, a population which finds it very difficult to keep in touch with the various sections with the result that it is much more difficult to organise that population. In consequence it is also much more difficult to have their interests represented by a member of Parliament. But owing to the long distances in those areas the promotion of platteland interests is even further handicapped. As a result of the easy and more effective communications in the towns it is possible in the towns to make propaganda more easily and more effectively. Now I should like to look at the matter from the point of view of the representatives in Parliament. During a previous debate it was found that in the towns the parliamentary representative was able at a low cost to himself to protect not only his own interests but he was also able, at a low cost, to look after the interests of his constituents. He is able by holding one or two meetings to address all his constituents who want to listen to him. Let us compare this position with that of the platteland, where we have constituencies extending over 10,000 to 12,000 square miles, and where there are members who have to hold from 30 to 40 meetings so as to give their electors as a whole a reasonable opportunity of listening to them. Take my constituency, and take those of several other members. If a member wants to travel through his constituency in order to hold meetings to report on his parliamentary work, he has to cover 1,000 to 2,000 miles by motor car, because he has no free railway tickets for that purpose, in order to hold the necessary meetings to account for his stewardship. In addition to that he often has to pay special visits to some outlying part of his constituency so that a considerable portion of the remuneration which a platteland member receives is taken up if he wants to do his duty to his constituency. That is one of the reasons why the National Convention inserted this provision in the Electoral Act. If that reason applied at that particular time, it applies with double force to-day. The position of the platteland is very much worse to-day than it was in those days. We are all familiar with the disquieting shifting of population from the platteland to the towns, which has brought about a complete change in the representation in Parliament. To show the extent of the shifting of population which has taken place I should like to submit a few points to the House. In 1911 48 per cent of the white population resided on the platteland as against 51.7 per cent. in the towns. That is to say that almost half of the white population of the Union resided on the platteland in 1911. The most recent Census which was taken in 1936 showed that only 34.76 per cent. of the white population lived on the platteland as against 65.24 per cent. in the towns. From that we deduce at once that there has been an abnormal shifting of the population from the platteland to the towns and that the platteland is being placed in an unfavourable position in respect of its representation. If the position in 1909 was of such a character that the distribution of population as between platteland and town rendered it necessary to make certain concessions to the platteland, it should be clear to everyone that it is not only necessary to-day to grant this concession in a practical form but that owing to the changed conditions even greater concessions have to be made in order to achieve the position aimed at by the National Convention. There was a time when the population of South Africa was considered to be a rural population. People used to speak of the “Boer” nation. The Afrikaners were called “Boers,” and people spoke of a “Boer nation” because the population was principally a platteland Boer nation. But during the past quarter of a, century that position has undergone great changes, and in comparison with conditions prevailing in certain other countries, that no longer is the situation to-day. To-day 65 per cent. of the population of this country live in the towns. In New Zealand we find that 59 per cent. of the population live in the towns, and in Australia 63 per cent. In Canada it is 53 per cent., and in the United States of America which is a highly industrialised country, we find that the urban population from a percentage point of view is lower than in South Africa, that is to say, 63.7 per cent. of the total population live in the towns. We find, therefore, that in South Africa there has been an abnormal shifting of population to the towns, which is a condition of affairs of which this House unquestionably has to take account unless we want to see the position in this country become totally dislocated. This shifting of population is still going on, and it might perhaps be as well if I were to give some further data to show what this abnormal shifting of population really amounts to. In 1911, 618,000 white people lived on the platteland; to-day 697,000 live on the platteland. In other words, the platteland population has for all practical purposes not progressed during the past quarter of a century. There has been a negligible increase of 11 per cent. as against an increase of 100 per cent. in regard to the towns, whose populations have gone up from 658,000 to 1,300,000. So far as the towns are concerned, therefore, there has been an increase of 99 per cent. as against a negligible increase of 11 per cent. for the platteland.

Where do you draw your distinction as between town and platteland?

This information is supplied by the latest census, and the census has taken all Municipalities and Village Management Boards as urban areas.

Even on the platteland?

Yes, but I am prepared to deal with other aspects of the matter if my hon. friend feels that this comparison is not a fair one.

Is a dorp like Nylstroom regarded as belonging to the platteland, or is it included among the towns?

Nylstroom is included among the towns, but if the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) wants to make that an excuse, then I shall give him other data to show that the condition is still thoroughly unsatisfactory and disquieting so far as the platteland is concerned. This increase in the urban population so far as representation in Parliament is concerned becomes all the more disquieting because of the fact that this increase is concentrated in certain large towns. So far as the Witwatersrand is concerned, for instance, we all know that the influx from the platteland particularly applies to the Witwatersrand. From 1911 to 1936 urban populations in general have increased by 99 per cent., but let us take the position of the Witwatersrand by itself without considering Nylstroom and other dorps. As compared with the general increase of 99 per cent. for the towns, the population of the Witwatersrand by itself increased by 123 per cent. over that period. Compared with an increase of 11 per cent. in the case of the platteland and compared with a general increase of 99 per cent., so far as the population of the towns is concerned we find that during that period the population of the Witwatersrand increased by a figure of not less than 123 per cent. In other words, the population in those twenty-five years has increased from 180,000 to over 400,000. So it must become all the more clear what the danger is which is facing us, namely, that it affects not only the platteland as a whole, as against the towns as a whole in regard to representation in this House, that it places the platteland in an unfavourable position in consequence of this change which has come about in our population, but in addition to that, we also get this undesirable condition of affairs to which the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth) has already referred, namely, that parliamentary representation is becoming more and more concentrated in one small area of the country, namely, the Witwatersrand where the gold mines are of overwhelming importance and where the power and strength of capital carries most weight. I put this question to myself, and I should like the right hon. the Prime Minister to give his attention to this aspect of the matter. Does he consider it to be a sound position in this House, not only that the whole of our parliamentary strength is becoming concentrated not merely in the towns as a whole, but in a small concentrated area such as the Witwatersrand? Is this situation ever likely to lead to a sound development in the Union of South Africa? In order to answer that question I should like to place this aspect before the Prime Minister. The rural population of South Africa is to a large extent the conservative section of the population, and that being so, it is the permanent, the stable element in the population as a whole. Compared with this conservative, stable element of the platteland, it is a fact that, I will not say the whole of the urban population, but a large proportion of the urban population is of a changing, unstable and floating character. That is the position at this stage in the history of the world in which we find ourselves to-day, in these days of chaotic revolutions when foreign ideologies and ideals such as communism, are rampant and flourishing; and we must realise that when this tragedy which is being enacted in Europe to-day is concluded, those foreign influences in the world as a whole will probably be even more rampant and be even more flourishing than is the case to-day, and it may then happen that they will make themselves felt to an even greater extent in this country than they have already done. In view of those considerations, I say that the conservative and stable platteland population may in days to come even more than to-day become the bulwark of strength and resistance against these foreign influences which have already arrived here and which will more and more continue to find their way into this country. Are we in those circumstances going to allow the strength and influence of the stable section of the population to be weakened in regard to its representation in these highest councils of the country? If we allow that to happen, I contend that by doing so we shall not be rendering a service to South Africa. If we allow this platteland population with its power of resistance, its stability and its conservatism, to be displaced owing to the platteland being placed in an inferior position in regard to representation in this House, and if we allow that representation to be concentrated to a large extent in the towns, and especially in the unstable population of the Witwatersrand so that they will have the final say in regard to our representation in Parliament, then I say that we shall certainly not be rendering any service to South Africa, and I go still further and I say that we shall be guilty of nothing short of a crime towards posterity. I want to give an example of what I mean by saying that a large section of the urban population is unstable and changeable. I want to remind the right hon. the Prime Minister of what happened in the past on the Witwatersrand. The voting population of the Witwatersrand is unstable and of a floating character, and we find that they are supporters of this or that party, in many cases on a very loose basis, in many cases they change with the wind — they are subject to momentary influences. The Prime Minister will remember that there was a time in the Transvaal when the provincial council was composed largely of representatives of the South African Party. He will also remember that the Labour Party which up to that time had received very little support on the Witwatersrand captured the whole of the Witwatersrand, and carried on in the provincial council of the Transvaal in a thoroughly unsound manner. We even had the same state of affairs so far as this House was concerned. We found one party being supported during a certain period of time while subsequently that support switched over to another political party. And in political respects there was not that same stability and that same tendency to adhere to one steady course which one finds on the platteland. Then I want to give another reason why the platteland should be given larger representation as against the towns, as contemplated by the Act of Union, larger representation than it has to-day in consequence of the changed conditions which have come into being in this country. The plattelander is essentially a land owner. He has taken root in the soil of South Africa. He is born out of the soil of South Africa. The great majority of the electors in the towns have no real interest in the soil of South Africa. They are a floating population and consequently we may expect the people of the platteland, whether they are English-speaking or Afrikaans-speaking, in actual fact to take a much more earnest interest in the real problems of their fatherland than many of the elements in the towns who have no definite interest in the soil of South Africa.

Do you want one vote of theirs to have the value of two votes of ours?

For the very reason that they have a greater interest in the state they should also as platteland citizens of the state have a greater say.

Then there should be a distribution on the basis of first class voters and second class voters.

I only want to say that in that part of the country which has the real interests of the country at heart there should be proper representation; I only want that part of the country not to be deprived of its representation in this House, so that afterwards it may not have any say in the country. I wish to adduce another reason, and it is this: We have foreign elements which come into this country and those foreign elements settle more especially in the towns. Having obtained rights of citizenship they also get votes, and as a result of the larger representation of the towns due to the increase of the population of the towns it means that this foreign element, which certainly cannot have the same love for South Africa as the older population of the country, this foreign element which is often made up of people who can never look at conditions from the same point of view as the older population of this country, it means that they, because of the greater representation of the towns, will also in this House have a great deal more say than what is good for South Africa. All those new foreign elements to the extent of 90 per cent., settle in the towns, and as a result of the larger representation of the towns, in consequence of those conditions, we find that the foreign element as against the older population of the country, which largely resides on the platteland, obtains a much greater say, not merely in the country’s legislation but in the general life of South Africa. For those reasons I wish to support the motion of the hon. member for Zoutpansberg, and I want to ask this House and especially the Prime Minister very earnestly to consider this matter before this condition, which is developing so fast to-day, grows to such an extent that it becomes totally uncontrollable. If we do not apply the brake now in regard to this steady deterioration of the position on the platteland, the day may come when it will be too late, and when the farmers, English-speaking as well as Afrikaans-speaking, the people of the platteland, the agricultural population, the stable section of the population, will no longer have that say in the affairs of this Parliament as a whole, which in the very nature of things they should have.

I think it is very remarkable that the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) manages to work himself up to such a pitch of eloquence in a plea for something which can only be considered to be complete and rank injustice. One can understand hon. members becoming eloquent when making out a case which has justice behind it. To listen to the hon. member speaking in support of something which is palpably unjust, leads one to wonder where the Opposition is going. I am reminded of a story of a schoolboy in the hon. member’s constituency, who was asked by the visiting inspector, who was the first human being. Said the schoolboy, “Jan van Riebeek”. The inspector replied, “No, who was the first human being?” The schoolboy thought carefully about it, and replied “Jan van Riebeek”. The inspector said, “My dear boy, have you never heard of Adam?” “Oh, yes,” replied the boy, “I have heard of Adam, but I did not know you were bringing ‘uitlanders’ into the question.” That is a perfectly true story from Waterberg, which represents the sort of Waterberg mentality as expressed by the hon. member in this House. It appears to me in the governing of the country, in being given the franchise, there is only one thing that counts, and that is the agricultural community which must be placed in a perpetual position of domination over the rest of South Africa. Now, we have been accustomed to the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth) introducing various amendments in complicated Bills in this House, and he has built up for himself quite a reputation as being the hon. member who puts forward a carefully reasoned case. This afternoon I listened carefully to what the hon. member said, but in not one single sentence did he admit the justice of this particular case. He travelled all over the field and dealt with the sins of various Ministers, and I waited to hear from him only one single justification of the amendment which he seeks to instruct the committee to impose upon the South Africa Act. One gathers that it is purely a piece of what I might call political empiricism. He says it should be done, and that in itself is sufficient reason why we should accept his word and do it. Sensible Parliamentarians do not alter the South Africa Act for reasons of that description. I was interested in the hon. member’s little lecture of what happened forty years ago, but surely hon. members realise that what happened forty years ago happened forty years ago, and we are now forty years further on, and what may have been found to be true forty years ago is not necessarily true to-day. The hon. member has suggested that because Mr. Cronwright Schreiner said something forty years ago….

Are promises and undertakings made forty years ago no longer to be followed?

That is a silly interjection. How can a politician or a Cabinet Minister bind posterity? It is nonsensical. How can the Prime Minister to-day make a promise for forty years hence? The hon. member knows perfectly well that that is nonsense. What happened forty years ago has nothing, or very little, to do with the situation to-day. The situation to-day is precisely because of the rapid change in the South African population, because of the acceleration of this drift from the country to the towns. The existing machinery of the delimitation commission has resulted in very grave anomalies arising in certain parts of the country. To-day we have a situation where quite a number of constituencies are actually loaded over 80 per cent. The hon. member made the rather amazing suggestion that the hon. member for Benoni, at least the hon. the Minister of Labour and Social Welfare, had switched, and he made the further amazing suggestion that the Labour Party six months ago would have been in favour of the instruction which he is now moving. The hon. member has been a long time in this House and a long time in South African politics, but he must have been definitely asleep for many years if he is under the impression that the Labour Party was ever in favour of loading the town seats and giving a 15 per cent. bonus to the country. We have been opposed to it ever since we have been a Labour Party.

I thought you were fighting capital?

I can fight it more successfully than the hon. member attempted to fight Schlesinger. When I go back forty years and make a mistake I at least have the manliness to apologise when it has been made.

Explain to us why you have changed your opinion about Schlesinger.

I have not changed my opinion about Schlesinger, but I have changed my opinion about the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth) very definitely. There is the hon. member for Zoutpansberg, who is apparently now the new Socialist member in the House. He is engaged on a holy crusade against capitalism. The hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) is also engaged in this crusade, and forsooth is going to throttle it and keep it in its place by the simple expedient of allowing the rural areas to get an increase in representation, and suppose, from the argument, one must conclude, of allowing an extended number of those gentlemen to come back into this House. Quite a number of hon. members opposite, including the hon. member for Fauresmith (Mr. Havenga) and the hon. member for Zoutpansberg, were in the Government ranks for the last six or seven years. I never noticed in those days that they did any strangling of big capital. In fact I have found that the hon. member for Zoutpansberg, at times, was a very able speaker on behalf of capital, and in favour of the gold mining industry, which to-day he is afraid of. I think the hon. member for Fauresmith will hardly ally himself with the hon. member for Zoutpansberg in a crusade against big capital. The truth of the matter is that hon. members on the other side of the House know perfectly well that the political views which they represent today are not the views held by the majority of the people of this country. They know perfectly well that at the next general election a great many of them are likely to lose their seats and so they come calmly asking the Government side — and it is audacious on their part — who are opposed to them in almost every political thought, to accept a proposition which will make a certainty of the return of a number of people to the House, who we know perfectly well in the present circumstances will lose their seats at the next election. The hon. member for Waterberg wants to tell us that the platteland population is a stable population. Is that true? Have we not got voluminous reports to show us that most of our poor white population lives in the platteland?

No.

But we have. We have report after report to show that the poor white population lives chiefly in the platteland. There is nobody in this House more concerned about these unfortunate people than I am myself, but I say that they certainly do not represent the cream of South African intelligence. The hon. member in introducing this instruction is not suggesting that we should give preference to the stable and most intelligent portion of the South African population. He is suggesting that we should make the poor white, the unintelligent people in the country districts worth two of the intelligent voters in the town. I could quote a number of constituencies represented by hon. members over there where there is a very large number of poor whites. I could quote one or two constituencies in which there are probably 50 per cent. of poor whites, and their standard of intelligence is not very high. The hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. Van Nierop) does not represent extremely intelligent constituents, nor does the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth). The hon. member for George knows perfectly well the standard of intelligence possessed by the woodcutters in the forests in his constituency.

They have a higher intelligence than yours.

I am surprised to hear the hon. member for Graaff-Reinet (Dr. Bremer) say that. Many of the woodcutters have a poor standard of intelligence and it has been emphasised in various volumes published by various societies in the Union of South Africa, and one can go to the library and read them; and if the hon. member for Graaff-Reinet says that, then he admits that he knows very little of the poor white problem, and I am surprised.

They are politically honest, and you are not any longer.

Go back to your own slums.

That is not a remark that worries me. One knows about slums both in the large towns of South Africa and in the large towns elsewhere. When one speaks truthfully about the people who reside in the slums, or the poor whites, it is no reflection upon those people. It is a reflection upon the political parties who for years in this House have allowed them to get in that position.

It is not a question of party but intelligence.

What is the cause of the lack of intelligence? Poverty.

Are you apologising now?

No, I am not apologising. And the cause of the lack of intelligence is, in the main, poverty. It is precisely this poverty which causes it. I repeat, whether hon. members like it or not, this suggestion is a suggestion for added voting power to be given definitely to the least intelligent section of the South African people. That is true, and it cannot be denied. Furthermore, it is a suggestion that added voting power be given to what is the greatest vested interest in South Africa, namely, the agricultural community, a vested interest which is a great deal more powerful than ever the gold mines have been in South Africa. It is a vested interest which can get out of this House permission to legislate in a manner which the Chamber of Mines could never get out of the House. And the vested interests, let me quote you one of the things which they do get. They have a Farmers’ Assistance Act which allows even a member of Parliament to compromise and to pay £1 17s. 0d. when he owes £27, and he is still allowed to hold his seat in Parliament, whereas a townsman, if he goes bankrupt, he goes bankrupt, that is the end of it.

What are you referring to?

I have the details here; this refers to one of the hon. member’s colleagues who went bankrupt under that Act and paid £1 17s. 0d. on a debt of £27, and that was the end of it. I consider it is time that the power of the agricultural interests was considerably curbed in South Africa. We are developing into an industrial community, the Afrikaans-speaking people as well as the English-speaking people are becoming industrial, and it is ridiculous for the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) to suggest that the people he considers to be stable in the country are no longer stable when they are in the towns. What is there in the towns that makes these people less stable? He says that the country people are a conservative element, and he is proud of it. I am not so certain that South Africa wants to be ruled by the conservative people. This is not a country where conservatism should be elevated — where conservatism should get special privileges for their representation in the House. I think the hon. member for Waterberg is mixing up conservatism with reactionism. Let us see what some of the conservative ideals are which we have had put before us in this House. The hon. member for Gezina wanted a Handhawersbond set up in this country as a sort of a counterpart to Hitler’s storm troopers — that is how conservatism works here.

Must you always talk nonsense?

Not always. I leave that to the hon. member. Another hon. member suggested that natives should be forced to work for so many months in the year. That was a statement made by a leader of hon. members opposite.

You are distorting it.

The hon. member for Gezina said the other day — these are his actual words — that we required a well-regimented supply of native labour in this country.

Well, what is wrong with that?

That is not conservatism, that is pure and simple reactionism, and in order to protect ourselves against that sort of stuff I feel that rather than increase the load on the towns, the South Africa Act should be altered, and I believe, and I honestly believe that this 15 per cent. provision should be reduced to 7½ per cent. or even 5 per cent. Now that the hon. member has introduced this subject it would be a real justice if we were to take advantage of the opportunity and say: “No, we are not going to increase it, we are going to reduce it.” Perhaps the hon. member would now like to withdraw his motion? He will say that this wicked Government is introducing this Bill in order to get some political advantage over the Opposition — how can one take an unfair political advantage of the position when it is still possible to lower the town vote by 15 per cent. and raise the country vote by 15 per cent.? That makes a total difference of 35.3 per cent. What the hon. member suggests will make a difference actually of 50 per cent. between the number of voters in the towns and the rural areas. The only justification for this differentiation, as I said before, and I think it is worth repeating, was apparently the possibility or the fear in the minds of people many years ago that the agricultural community might be dominated by the industrial or financial elements in South Africa. And that has never happened. No one can say that in any way whatever has the agricultural community in South Africa ever been dominated by anyone. But the fact of the matter is that the agricultural community in South Africa have themselves dominated the rest of the country ever since Union. It may be a good thing, or it may not. There are different points of view about that. But these are the facts of the position, and now that the industrial areas are growing larger, now that it is possible to get a more even balance between town and country, I think it is not only audacious on the part of hon. members, but I think it is doing the country a disservice to put into effect a special part of the machinery aimed at maintaining a special number of rural members for a steadily diminishing number of voters in the country, and the thing we have to guard against is the possibility of a minority Government in the Union of South Africa. I am satisfied from our experience of the last six months that under the electoral provisions of the South Africa Act we have a very dangerous provision. Because I am satisfied that there may come a time when parties are more evenly divided than they are to-day when with the intrusion of a third party it will again be possible to elect a minority Government and we have the spokesman of the new Opposition Party saying clearly that when their Party is returned to power he is going to keep the two concentration camps open specifically for a number of members of this House, and a number of journalists of English newspapers.

Are you nervous?

Not the slightest little bit, but I still have to hear any prominent member on the other side disassociate himself from that statement. So we must take it that the hon. member for Graaff-Reinet (Dr. Bremer), who works himself into a fury when one refers to poor whites, and that the hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw), who also works himself into a fury— one must take it that they agree with the hon. member for Gezina that these concentration camps will be reserved for us.

There will be special accommodation for communists.

That is very nice for the communists. But it does not apply to me. But I do not think it will happen, because the only way the Opposition could ever be returned to power would be by a minority vote, and we owe it to the country generally to see that nothing is done in amending the Electoral Act which will make it possible for a Government to be returned on a minority vote. It would be a tragedy for the country to leave any loopholes for the Opposition being returned in sufficiently large numbers on this minority vote to assume the Government of this country. There has been some talk by the hon. member who introduced this instruction of what he alleges to be the indecent haste of the Government in introducing this particular Bill, but if he will read the last report of the Delimitation Commission he will find that that Commission received the strongest representations from all political parties on the Witwatersrand pointing out anomalies that were bound to arise if the Commission could not take into consideration this matter of the provisional rolls. The Commission unfortunately had to obey the law and they could not take into consideration the question of the provisional rolls, but they specifically mentioned it in their report, which shews that this has not been introduced with undue haste. It has not been introduced one minute too early, and at any rate it will not function until the next delimitation, but it is necessary that it should function, so I cannot understand this allegation of indecent haste. As a matter of fact there would be many excuses for haste. When we found that the new provincial rolls were made up and that three or four constituencies on the Witwatersrand had increased to over 11,000 voters, while the rural areas of the Transvaal had gone down to under 5,000, I think the time has arrived that we should make haste, and introduce a Bill to rectify this thing as soon as possible. But it is always easy to make a case against the Government. There are numerous Bills which have to be investigated, and which have gone by the way. I suggest that this Bill which has been introduced should not have kept the House more than a few hours. The facts of this Bill are unassailable. The Bill only seeks to set right these anomalies which have grown up as a result of the varied machinery introduced in the Electoral Act, and there is no possible argument about it. On the question of haste, and taking up the time of the House I am satisfied that the hon. member for Zoutpansberg did not introduce his contingent motion because he had a case to meet. He knows only too well as a legal man that there is no case for the extension of the loading envisaged, I am satisfied he introduced his motion to take up the time of the House, and to obstruct the passing of this Bill; his main reason is to hang up the matter as much as possible and to make as much propaganda as possible for the country districts. I suppose we shall now hear in the country districts, these very intelligent country districts as the hon. member says, that this vicious Government is now proposing to take away the voting rights of these people whereas the Government have not interfered in the slightest with the voting rights of the people. They have left those rights. They have only sought to remove anomalies which I am sure were never visualised at the time when the original Electoral Act was put into force, and in so doing they have done something which was crying out to be done. Even the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth). I am quite sure, if he were honest with the House, would never countenance a growing situation such as we have in these large constituencies on the Witwatersrand. It is quite possible if this were allowed to go on, that we may be shortly faced with a few constituencies numbering 14.000 or 15.000, and the country districts coming down into the region of 3.000. That may be all right for the Opposition, it may be all right to enable them to return certain members to Parliament, but this is something which recommends itself to no sensible individual in the House. I felt very inclined, Mr. Speaker, to move an amendment to this instruction, to delete the word “twenty” and to reduce it to “twelve.” However, in order to show my goodwill….

We don’t want your goodwill.

Have the courage of your convictions. You don’t know what goodwill means.

hon. members opposite are not satisfied when I show bad temper, and they are not satisfied when I want to show goodwill. In order to show my goodwill to the argicultural community, and to show that I have the interests of the rural constituencies at heart, I will refrain from moving such an amendment, although I feel, in justice to the voters in the towns, such an amendment should be moved and carried.

I think you are afraid to move it.

hon. members opposite always have some ulterior motive in their mind, they find it impossible to believe that anybody has a little bit of political honesty about him at all, they certainly find it impossible to believe that any of us have any goodwill towards them. I am quite satisfied that quite a number of those gentlemen opposite after the next election won’t be here to argue the case. The hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman) will not.

What about you?

Oh, I will be here, but it is true the hon. member for Fordsburg will not. We don’t need to amend the South Africa Act, we will give them their 15 per cent. differentiation, and still have our urban areas loaded up to another 15 per cent., and even allowing for that there are a sufficient number of intelligent people in the Union to see to it that in a position such as we have, an Opposition such as we have will never be returned to rule South Africa.

I rise here with the object of giving my strong and wholehearted support to the motion of the hon. member for Zoutpansberg and I want very briefly to give my reasons for doing so. We have been listening here to a speech by the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside). He has been proclaiming a certain point of view, a point of view, which, as we know, is shared by a number of members opposite, such as the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) and others. We heard the interjection made by the hon. member for Cape Town (Gardens) (Mr. Long) and we know that there are quite a number of hon. members opposite who agree with the hon. member for Umbilo. They are hon. members who are simply not prepared to accept the principle of any differentiation being made in our legislation in regard to the value of a vote, and in the representation of the different parts of the population. I know that that is a view which is strongly held on the other side of the House. Nor would I have got up to say anything on this matter if I had not hoped in any case that that was not the view of the men who still carry most weight on the other side of the House, members of the United Party, men who until recently were my colleagues, and men who hold certain principles on this question. It is to those members of the Government and the supporters of the Government that I want to make my appeal this afternoon. We are faced here with a very serious matter, and it has been correctly stated that if we do not avail ourselves of this opportunity to do something it may for many years to come have consequences which may prove fatal to this country. I do not wish to discuss the Bill, but as we are dealing with this motion in which an effort is being made to give certain instructions to the committee, we should not lose sight of the political background with which this Bill has been introduced. My hon. friend, the hon. member for Kensington, who was primarily responsible for this Bill, comes here and supports an apparently innocent recommendation of the select committee in connection with compulsory registration. But he made no secret of it; he went to Pretoria with his deputation to ask that legislation should be introduced during this session, and has made no secret of the fact that he has great political expectations of this Bill. This was stated openly but what makes us all the more suspicious is that this Bill is introduced during this extraordinary session, when no other legislation except that in connection with the war was to have been considered; this session is to last only a short while—we are well into April already and we have not disposed of one ministerial vote yet; and what fills us with suspicion is that the Government has in this session introduced a Bill like this—this Bill which they consider to be of such great importance. They want this Bill to be passed now, although there is other legislation which is much more essential. We are entitled to ask ourselves what the reason is, and we dare not lose sight of the motives which appear to be behind all this. I should now prefer to deal with the merits of this measure. What struck me was that the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth) used this argument—and he went back to 1910 in our history—to let us know what took place at the time of the National Convention. But he could have gone even further back. This fight is an old one, it dates back to 1900— this difference between the uitlander conception as against the conception of the permanent population. This was the principle for which men like Sir Lionel Phillips and other leaders of the past stood: the principle of one vote one value and no differentiation in representation. The present position, as the hon. member for Umbilo told us here this afternoon, was an injustice; we are familiar with that argument and we have had to deal with it not just since 1910, but even before that. That, however, was not the view of South Africa; the view held by these other people was never accepted, and it never triumphed. I trust it is unnecessary for me this afternoon to defend the principle which we stand for. I take it that men like the Prime Minister and men sitting behind him, who still have the final say in the party, do not consider it necessary for me to defend that principle. The hon. member for Zoutpansberg has explained the reasons for this differentiation most effectively; he has pointed out that the sparsity of the population on the platteland has to be taken into account, that the difficulties of communication on the platteland have to be taken into account, but above all that the more stable part of the population are entitled to certain advantages.

We are not interfering with that.

The Prime Minister says that we are leaving that untouched; in other words, I am correct that there is no need for me to defend the principle either for his benefit or the benefit of those of his supporters behind him, who still have the final say. If it is unnecessary to defend the principle, if we still adhere to that principle, if the principle is right, then we are compelled to take action now because conditions have changed completely since 1910. The National Convention made certain provisions—they had a special object in view, namely to afford protection to the platteland section of the population; but if, as a result of economic conditions, the position of the platteland as against that of the towns has undergone such a change, we have to take notice of that change, and we have to take steps to see to it that the provisions made by the National Convention shall not become entirely valueless. There is no special significance attached to the 15 per cent,; why 15 per cent.? But the National Convention definitely intended allowing this discrimination of 15 per cent. in favour of the platteland. There is a discrimination but the hon. member for Kensington and others are not prepared to accept the principle.

What principle?

The principle that there shall be a discrimination with a special object in view.

I have not attacked that.

The hon. member now says that he has not attacked that principle but he stands for the other principle of one vote one value. I make an appeal to hon. members opposite; they may possibly be able to score a little political advantage here; but this orientation of parties is not permanent, conditions change in our country, but the interests of the people remain. I ask my hon. friends over there, who represent a section of the people just as I and members over here do, not to underestimate the other section of the population. Let us do something before it is too late. Do not let us look at political gain, do not let us allow the back of the platteland to be broken and while we have an opportunity to help and to protect the platteland to-day, let us do so. I only got up to make this appeal, and not to defend this principle in our legislation. The only argument is that while protection is required, the protection afforded to-day is no longer adequate, and as it is a principle laid down in our legislation, it is the duty of this House in view of the changes that have taken place in the conditions of the country, to bring our legislation into harmony with changed conditions and to accept the motion of the hon. member for Zoutpansberg.

If I was surprised at the speeches of the hon. members for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) and for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth) I was a great deal more surprised when I heard the speech by the hon. member for Fauresmith (Mr. Havenga) and his support of the motion by the hon. member for Zoutpansberg. He goes so far, while challenging the Prime Minister to say whether we are still adhering to the principle adopted by the National Convention, to say that he wants to go further and he wants to increase the differentiation laid down in the Constitution to 20 per cent., and, in passing, he attacks the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) in connection with the political background of this matter. The hon. member for Kensington, as we know, is in the habit of giving interviews to newspapers, and in the course of one of those interviews he said that this Bill would benefit the Witwatersrand. The hon. member for Fauresmith now says that the hon. member for Kensington is hiding himself behind an innocent proposal of a select committee, meaning thereby the select committee which last year went into the matter and reported on the subject of compulsory registration. I wish to direct the attention of the hon. member for Fauresmith to this Question. Long before last year’s investigation this whole question had already been enquired into. As far back as 1935 when on a motion of mine a select committee was appointed to go into the question of compulsory registration and compulsory voting, a discussion took place in this House. On that occasion we were unanimous, and not a single member of this House objected to the question being enquired into, to an enquiry being made into compulsory voting and compulsory registration. And when the select committee’s report was discussed, this is what took place.

I had moved in select committee that the following report should be presented. I shall quote from the report—

That proposal was made and it was unanimously agreed to. Among the members who voted in favour of it there were the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus), the hon. member for Pretoria (District) (Mr. Oost) and the hon. member for Hoopstad (Mr. J. H. Viljoen). Those hon. members, all members of the party of the hon. member for Fauresmith, as far back as 1935 voted in favour of this principle of compulsory registration. Those hon. members in those days also went a great deal further than the Minister of the Interior now proposes to go. That same select committee made a recommendation in favour of compulsory voting. They adopted the principle that we should have compulsory voting, and those self same three hon. members, who are now sitting on the Opposition benches, voted for it. The attempt which is being made to oppose this proposal because of its political background is only the way which hon. members opposite have of looking for something to say in favour of the attitude of the Opposition. If the subject is considered on its merits and if one asks oneself, “What is just and what is reasonable so as to have the interests of every section of the country properly represented?” one cannot but support the Minister’s proposal. That was also perfectly clear from the speech made by the hon. member for Waterberg. He spoke here about the representation which would now be given to the Witwatersrand, and he objected to it because, as he said, the Witwatersrand was the capitalistic part of the country, and those parts are dominated by the capitalistic element. If we were to put all the capitalists of the Witwatersrand together they would not constitute one-tenth of the electorate in one constituency on the Witwatersrand. The nakedness of the hon. member’s argument, however, was shown up fully when he went further and said that the danger of the Witwatersrand was the Communism which we find there, and he said when the tragedy which was being enacted in Europe to-day was concluded, that danger of Communism would be even greater than it is to-day. How can we take the hon. member’s attitude seriously if in one breath he tells us that the danger of the Witwatersrand is capitalism, and in the same breath he tells us that the danger of the Witwatersrand lies in communism? Then the hon. member went on to speak about the stability of the platteland. We do not want to say a word against the platteland. We are not a party of individuals who desire to put the town up against the platteland. But when an argument is put forward about the stability of the platteland one is forced to ask oneself what that stability of the platteland amounts to. The difficulty which we have had in this country, not as a party, but the difficulty which the one government after the other has had, has been how to stabilise the population on the platteland. The difficulty is how to keep the population on the platteland, and we know what we have had to do in the past to achieve that object. It has been done by means of all kinds of subsidies, and by means of legislation, as the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Burnside) has shown, to stabilise the people on the platteland. The difficulty is that the population of the platteland is drifting to the towns, and the population of the towns is becoming larger and larger as a result of that influx from the platteland. That again shows us the nakedness of the argument used by the hon. member opposite. It is stated that the population of the platteland is stable and not floating. In spite of this we find this self same population of the platteland drifting to the towns and increasing the population of the towns.

Where do we usually get revolutions!

It is a well-known fact that there is a drift from the platteland to the towns. It was shown here that the increase in the population of the Witwatersrand was 40,000 while that for the whole of the Transvaal was 42,000. If the hon. member for Potgietersrust (the Rev. S. W. Naudé) would use a little common sense in considering this matter he would realise that the influx to the Witwatersrand is not an influx of electors from other parts of the world, but that it is an influx of electors from the platteland to the towns.

I have not denied that.

In those circumstances I cannot see how hon. members on the Opposition benches can speak with conviction on this question. They may, for political reasons, get up here to try and extend their political lives, but they certainly cannot put forward their arguments on a basis of what is really right and fair. The question of taxation is also to a certain extent, important in connection with this matter. We have an old saying that there can be no taxation without representation, and this surely is just as important now as it was in the days of the war of the American colonies.

Why is it not dealt with in the Act of Union?

The Act of Union laid down the principle of discrimination because of the conditions prevailing at that time, but those conditions are no longer applicable to-day. We had the question of communications — the difficulty of getting quickly from one place to another — it was a difficulty in those days, but it no longer exists to-day to the same extent. In these days of fast moving motor cars that difficulty no longer exists. We on this side, however, have no wish to depart from that principle. That is where we differ from the Opposition. We are prepared to leave that principle in the Act of Union as it stands, but we want right and justice to be done to all parts of the country. In those circumstances I shall have the pleasure of voting against the motion of the hon. member for Zoutpansberg.

I feel that from the very start we should try and get away from the idea that we are dealing here with votes of different values. We should try and get away from the idea that we on this side of the House are anxious to propose that a greater value should be attached to the vote of the man on the platteland than to the vote of the man in town. The real reason why we want this discrimination is perfectly evident from the history of representation in South Africa, as well as in other countries. We know perfectly well that the population of a country can usually be divided into two classes, namely the urban population and the rural population; and it is because the rural population has not the same opportunity of expressing itself and of making its voice heard continually that the principle was clearly laid down that that section of the population should be assured of proper representation, not for the sake of the individual belonging to that section of the population, but for the sake of the interest which the state has in that part of the population. It is not a question of the vote on the platteland having a greater value, but it is a matter of safeguarding the interests of the state in the rural population. The matter is so important to the state that one has to differentiate, as is done in the Act of Union, for the sake of the stability and of the continuation of the functions of the state. Consequently we must not look at the matter from the point of view of the individual on the platteland, but from the point of view of the state in whose interest it is to ensure and to be assured that the platteland population shall be adequately represented in the legislative institutions of the country, even though that section of the population may become smaller. As long as that part of the country has a special value to the state so long must that part be given adequate representation for the sake of the state. It is because the same thing is done in other countries where those sentiments and that conviction have expressed themselves, that it is also done here, and that is why this differentiation is made here, and it is for that reason as well that the framers of the Act of Union wanted to give that part of the country the assurance that they would have proper representation, and so long as we attach any value to there being a sound type of safeguard for that portion of the population consisting of small producers and small land owners who in that sense constitute the backbone of the state, so long must we see to it that that section shall have adequate representation in the legislative institutions of the country. We do not wish to argue or to plead for greater value to be attached to the vote of the platteland than to the vote of the town, we do not wish to advocate a position under which the vote of the individual on the platteland shall have more value than the vote of the individual in the town.

That is what the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) pleaded for.

I say that on the ground of principle we have every reason to plead and to demand of the state that that section of the state which in that sense is the backbone of the country — not because they are rich, but on the contrary because they are poor and because they are the small land owners who have a permanent interest in the state — shall be given greater representation, not because the individual should have greater representation, but because the interests of that section of the state are greater than the interests of the towns. There is another point, too, which is being lost sight of. Half of the votes which are called platteland votes, do not by any manner of means represent that section of the population. They are just as much townsmen as the people who live in the large towns. And for that reason, too, we find that the real small land owners in the country, those people whom the hon. member for Waterberg called the stable portion of the population, should have greater representation. I do not wish to argue here that they are better people, but they represent a greater interest to the state.

Do they represent the rural interests?

No, they represent the small land owners who have a permanent and fixed interest in the state, and they have taken root in the country. It has always been clear in the history of South Africa that it is in the interest of the country to maintain that principle. We have not yet progressed to such a position in South Africa that we want to accept other principles in our Government. If one has a different type of state, I can quite appreciate a provision of this kind being entirely abandoned, and our having representation not of individuals but of interests, and one may then have a different kind of Parliament in which the distribution will be based on a distribution of interests. In such an event a provision of this kind may be done away with. But until we have that condition of affairs, we have to carry on as we are doing now. If we have such a condition as I have outlined, if we have another state of affairs in South Africa under which different interests will be represented, it will not mean that the rural interests will have to have less representation. On the contrary; if, under a new system, interests are to be represented, and not constituencies, experience in the states where that position prevails has shown that rural interests are considered to be of the greatest importance to the state, and there, too, they are given greater representation. It is a modern phenomenon, and the position in South Africa is not modern. It has developed in South Africa, together with our whole parliamentary system. But not only that, in the very nature of things we have had a development here which has come about without compulsion, and without any force. We must realise that the rural representatives of the population primarily have to ensure the perpetuation of the population of the rural areas on sound lines. What do we find in South Africa? As the outcome of our development, the percentage of our rural population has not increased, on the contrary, it has decreased, and the same thing has happened in other parts of the world. Does that imply that the representation of those parts of the country must also be reduced, or are we to try to maintain the balance, or are we to try to improve the relationship? I come to the conclusion that it is absolutely essential in the interests of the state that we should keep the platteland representation at least on the same level as it is to-day. What do we find in practice? In practice we find that by no manner of means is the platteland receiving that 15 per cent. advantage, or that the towns are being loaded to the extent of 15 per cent. In practice we have found that that is not the case at all. If we study the figures, and study them carefully, I believe we shall find that the delimitation of this country has been done in such a direction as to favour the platteland less than has been the case in the past. For the very reason that the percentage of the population on the platteland is smaller, we should decide that the platteland is of such importance to the state that its representation in the House should be maintained, and if that representation is to be maintained, we should definitely raise the percentage of advantage to the platteland to 20 per cent. And that is the reason why we have put this motion of ours to the House to-day. A great deal has been said here about the great part played by the towns, and about the interests of the towns. We have never heard it argued in South Africa that the interests of the towns, the interests of large business, the interests of the mines and the interests of industries are not adequately represented in Parliament. We find that all the groups I have mentioned are not only represented, but that those groups have an influence in South Africa far in excess of their voting power. And what is more, there is a tendency in this country not only to give a greater voting power to the towns, but to the great interests, to the great financial powers of those trusts and great interests to influence the legislation of the country. And for that reason it is essential that we should to-day take steps to provide reasonable representation to the platteland, and to safeguard such representation. In that regard, however, I wish to point out that a platteland representative represents the interests of the platteland only to the extent of one-half and for the other half those representatives represent urban interests. Take my own constituency. Nobody can say that it is not a rural constituency, yet half the interests are within the urban area of the constituency and the other half are outside the urban area. As against that, take the representative of a town, he represents only one type of interest. One must, therefore, readily realise the importance of the platteland representatives to the towns. The interests of the agricultural and forestry parts of the state are getting less and less power, and are getting less and less representation, while on the other hand the representation of the towns keeps on growing as everything connected with urban development keeps on growing. And what is the result? We have already been told that there is a dangerous development going on in the towns, a dangerous mushroom development which is also getting its representation, and the power which is thereby obtained for certain special interests in the towns is also represented. This constitutes a great menace to equal representation, it is a great menace to those interests which are the real interests of the state, and not of certain specific electors. For that reason we are pleading and we are asking freely and openly that this question should be carefully enquired into, and we say that hon. members should give their support to the motion of the hon. member for Zoutpansberg so that the Committee may be given the opportunity of discussing the matter thoroughly, and of making this proposal part of the legislation of South Africa.

There is one thing at any rate upon which I should congratulate the Opposition this afternoon; that is that they have had the good sense to entrust this motion to, an hon. member whose past record is not that of the hon. gentleman (Mr. Erasmus) to whom this matter was entrusted on a former occasion. At least we can say this of the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth), that he has no past to, live down in regard to this particular issue, that he has not so thoroughly compromised himself on this matter as the hon. member who had charge of this matter on the last occasion when we debated this question in the House some two or three days ago. They have put this motion in charge of a true blue died-in-the-wool self-confessed Tory, and the motion was seconded in eloquent terms by a gentleman who made no secret of the fact that his sole idea was to bolster up the conservative interests in this country. And I accept that as a perfectly honest and outspoken statement of his intention. Hon. members over there remind me of a saying of the late Lord Melbourne about the Order of the Garter. He said that what appealed to him about the Order of the Garter was that there was “no damn question of merit about it.” When these gentlemen tell us straight out they want this thing, there is no question of justice about it — they just want it.

There is a justification for it.

They think then-voting strength should be bolstered up further, and if elementary questions of justice stand in the way, then so much the worse for justice! We already have had a full two days’ discussion on this matter. When the second reading of the Electoral Bill was moved the hon. member for Moorreesburg stepped in with a delaying amendment, and that amendment was that the matter should be referred to a select committee on two points. The first was this very matter in regard to an increased load from 15 to 20 per cent. which we are now discussing, and the second one was the question of the non-application of the Bill to the coloured voters. That has passed beyond the stage because the Minister of the Interior opened by saying that he had already agreed to do, that. Therefore it is fair to say that we have had a full two days’ discussion on this very question alone on the second reading debate. Now we are faced with another full day’s discussion on this very same issue. The hon. member for Zoutpansberg referred to the Hansard of the late Cape Parliament and read speeches by gentlemen who, though influential in their day, have long since been forgotten in the history of this country. But what he did not tell the House was this, that when these speeches were made the franchise provisions in the Cape Province were very different from what they are today. The Cape Province entered Union not with a manhood suffrage as the Transvaal had, but with a limited and qualified franchise. The hon. member knows that a European could not be put on the voters’ roll unless he could pass an education test, and a property or earnings test. To-day throughout the length and breadth of South Africa there is no test whatever for any European voter.

That does not affect the principle.

Oh yes, it does. I shall come to that point. To-day in all the provinces of the Union, including the Cape, which entered the Union on a different basis to the Transvaal and the Free State, there is no difference whatever; there is no test for any voter who is of European parentage. By the mere fact that he is a European he goes on to the roll. He may not be able to write his name; he may be in receipt of poor relief, and thus a burden on the public funds, but he goes on the roll and he is a fully-fledged voter by reason of the fact alone of his European parentage. When the hon. member for Waterberg was arguing in favour of an increased electoral preference being given to the platteland I wonder whether he remembered that fact. When he spoke about bolstering up the forces of conservatism, when he told us that the country voter was the real conservative, and that they represented the true permanent interests of South Africa I wonder if he remembered that throughout South Africa once a person is a European nothing further is demanded of him, and he can by that fact become a voter. I have no objection to that. I believe that the true democratic principle is that of manhood suffrage, and that every European in this country should get the vote. But I do object when it goes beyond that. I object, sir, when under some electoral system which has got out of gear voters in the platteland, however estimable they may be, are given a preponderance which I believe to be entirely illegitimate. Now let me deal for a moment with the hon. member for Fauresmith (Mr. Havenga). He seems to think that I am the author of some sinister plot to do away with the 15 per cent. load which to-day is in the South Africa Act. I defy him to quote one single speech of mine at any time in this House or elsewhere in which I have moved for the deletion of that load. It is true that the other day when the hon. member for Moorreesburg started looking for trouble, in a political sense, by moving to increase that load from 15 per cent. to 20 per cent. I warned him to be careful, that if he threw this matter into the melting pot the ultimate issue might not be to his liking, because it would set people asking themselves the question whether, in fact, this load is justified or not, and whether instead of being increased it should not be decreased. I warned him to that effect, but I must remind my hon. friend that when I started this particular ball rolling twelve months ago by moving for a select committee I was very careful to keep off that issue, and I have kept off it all along. If you ask me for my personal feeling, I believe that that load does impose an illegitimate burden on the towns. I will, however, be frank and say I have never moved for either its abolition or its reduction. I would say this, however, that I regard the present attempt to increase the discrimination against the towns as an entirely illegitimate one, and one which we should resist for every possible reason. I am conscious that I am a member of a party which contains members both urban and platteland, and I don’t want to start any issue either inside the party or in this House, of towns versus platteland. That was started by the hon. member for Moorreesburg when he moved his amendment four or five days ago. Now why did he move that amendment? He said it was to counterbalance the illegitimate gain which the urban population would get through this Bill. Am I right in summarising his argument in that way? Let me remind him of what the Select Committee unanimously reported on in that regard. It began by referring to the South Africa Act. It says this—

Then they go on to say unanimously—

In other words, the purpose of stiffening up this registration provision in the Electoral Bill, was not to give any illegitimate advantage to the towns, but was to redress a disadvantage from which they suffered, and every member of that Select Committee, whether townsman or not, was fair enough to see that. Even the hon. member for Moorreesburg took no exception to it. Am I not right, therefore, in saying that the intention of compulsory registration was not to give any illegitimate advantage to the towns, but to put right a matter which, in the opinion of all members of the committee, did not reflect the true intention of the South Africa Act. Therefore, sir, when the hon. member says that it is necessary to increase the 15 per cent. to 20 per cent. in order to counterbalance some illegitimate advantage which the towns are going to get from the present Bill, I remind him that that is not the case. The South Africa Act provides, as the Select Committee’s report has already pointed out, that when you have settled the number of seats inside a province, the allocation of those seats is to be on the number of registered voters, and it is perfectly clear to anybody who reads this section and who studies our Constitution, that the farmers of the South Africa Act contemplated that every voter would register. They omitted to take into account this particular fact that a very large portion of our population would not bother to go on the roll. The percentage of these is as high as 25 per cent. in some of our larger urban areas, and therefore as I said on the last occasion, if the delimitation of constituencies were based on population and not on registration, it would be unnecessary to stress this question of compulsory registration. But so long as our South Africa Act bases it on registration, so long is it necessary to see that the registration is effective. That is all that the report of this committee amounts to, and I stress again that that was a unanimous report, the fairness of which was recognised by every member of that committee. During the two days’ debate to which we have listened last week on this Bill, I was pictured as a sort of combination of Machiavelli and Caesar Borgia, with a touch of Stalin and Hitler thrown in, who had either bullied, cajoled or deceived my fellow-members of that committee into voting for a report which they did not understand, and for which had they understood it, they would never have voted. Mr. Speaker, that is a ridiculous picture to draw. In the first place, if I have any reputation at all in this House; it is for being straightforward, for saying what I mean and meaning what I say, and when I moved for this Select Committee last year I said in the plainest possible terms that the injustice which I was out to remedy was this very matter which we are discussing this afternoon. I moved it for that purpose, I don’t say that was the only purpose, but that was the main purpose which I indicated when I moved that afternoon, and when we commenced our deliberations, we received an overwhelming mass of testimony on this very question of defective registration.

The hon. member is now travelling outside the scope of the motion.

I am only defending myself, sir, against the charges which have been hurled at me with so little restraint.

The hon. member will have another opportunity for doing that.

May I return then, to this particular question? It is unnecessary to increase this load to redress an injustice which the towns are about to inflict on the platteland. In terms of this report of the committee, the sole intention of the changes recommended is to redress an existing injustice, and if that is the case the argument put forward by the hon. member for Moorreesburg, and those adduced this afternoon by speakers on the opposite benches, fall away.

Tell us why you are in such a hurry to redress errors in the Constitution.

I or my party or the Government?

Your party.

If the hon. member puts to me a question in the abstract, what is the urgency…

The hon. member must not allow himself to be drawn on a sidetrack by interjections.

I make my apology to the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. Van Nierop) and say I would be delighted to answer his question, but Mr. Speaker will not allow me to do so. Let me now come back to the hon. member for Fauresmith. I was amazed to hear him add his voice to the pleas put forward by the hon. members for Zoutpansberg and Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom). He referred to the days when he and I sat together in the same party, and presumably, shared the same political thoughts. That is true; we sat together in the same party in 1937. That was the last occasion on which hon. members opposite, or rather the Nationalist section of them, attempted to raise the load from 15 per cent. to 20 per cent., and it is perfectly true that the hon. member for Fauresmith and I shared the same sentiments, and voted in the same division lobby against that very proposal. I would have liked to have heard him explain to the House this afternoon how the proposal which is good to-day was bad then.

When was that?

In 1937.

That was before the influx to the Rand.

My hon. friend says this was before the influx to the Rand. Now there are two answers to that question, and the first is that the influx to the Rand had already taken place. This was 1937, not 1927. And in the second place, I want to ask, is the purpose behind his amendment to defeat the political changes caused by the influx to the Rand? Is his case nakedly and unashamedly that because the Rand has grown in population it shall be deprived of the increased representation to which the law entitles it? I think the hon. member has let the cat out of the bag; it is right out of the bag now; it only stuck its head out a moment ago, but the whole animal has now emerged. Let me remind the House that when our Constitution was framed we provided a system of checks and balances to meet the admitted fact that our population was a shifting one. Amongst other things it was decided that every five years there should be a census, and after that a delimitation, and that that delimitation should be based on the numbers of the European population, and inside the provinces on the registration of voters, and the only departure that was made from the principle of one vote, one value, was this very 15 per cent. So that the framers of our Constitution provided for the factor of a shifting population. If a particular area grew in population it was to grow in representation every five years. Every five years the matter had to be thrown into the melting-pot, and an area which has gained in population has to gain in seats, and an area which has lost population has to lose seats. The hon. gentlemen who turned up to-day as the upholders and maintainers of the South Africa Act seem to forget that it was the corner stone of the electoral part that there should be a five-year delimitation. Much exaggerated language has been used in regard to this proposal for compulsory registration, and I would like to remind hon. members that most of the electoral inequalities to which reference has been made will be remedied by the automatic re-delimitation in 1942. Reference has been made to the fact that Springs has 11,000 voters, and Ventersdorp and Delarey between them less than 11.000. This question of compulsory registration barely touches that. That will be put right automatically in 1942 by the next delimitation. It has been suggested that I, in speeches and interviews, have said that compulsory registration would give ten extra seats to the Rand. If I said that it was a stupid statement to make, but I never said it. What I said was that the effect of the change of population, automatic delimitation and compulsory registration combined, might give ten extra seats to the Rand. And I certainly never claimed all these in anticipation as United Party seats. It is said that I took the steps I did last year and carried on the campaign which I have been carrying out solely with a view to party advantage.

I am afraid the hon. member is away from the motion.

I apologise for wandering beyond that, but it is rather difficult to refrain from replying to some of the attacks upon myself, to which I have listened for two days. The effect of the present proposal is to increase the limit from 15 per cent. to 20 per cent., which means 20 per cent. up and 20 per cent. down. In other words, the platteland constituencies need only be 80, while the town constituencies will be 120, and that is a difference of over 50 per cent. Even the existing 15 per cent. is giving a difference of just over 35 per cent.—the ratio of 85 to 115. This would differentiate to the extent of 50 per cent. Therefore, my hon. friends are asking it to be laid down as a matter of policy for the future that the platteland vote is to be worth 50 per cent. more than the town vote. I entirely fail to see any injustice whatever in that provision. What did the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. Strydom), who in my opinion, at any rate, put up the most reasoned case for this position, in effect say? He said, “I do not want to run down the townspeople, or to hurt their feelings, but after all South Africa is the platteland; it represents the conservative interests of this country, and you should build up the platteland and protect it against the inroads of the town.”

Hear, hear.

Yes, “hear, hear.” In other words, you must build up a sort of Junker aristocracy in this country. You must depart from the sound principles of the South Africa Act, which said that, subject to this particular load, which by the way néver mentioned urban or platteland—you must depart from that Act and you must divide this country into two categories, namely, first-class voters, and second-class voters. The first-class voter is the man who lives on the platteland, and the second-class voters are those who live in the towns. Anybody who lives in the platteland by reason of that fact alone— he may be poor and ignorant and a burden on the State, and unable to sign his own name—his vote is to be worth more than 50 per cent. of the town vote.

You said the Delimitation Commission should go into this matter. I understood that the Delimitation Commission provides for this matter every five years.

The hon. member did not understand my argument. The argument of the hon. member for Waterberg is, that you are to create a privileged section in this country. That is of persons who live on the platteland who are to be given, permanently, this political advantage, they are to have the political power in this country, permanently and for all time, without consideration of taxing capacity or any other consideration, in the platteland. I am sorry that the Opposition have raised this matter. I think they were unwise to do so. No townspeople have ever made a move forward in regard to this 15 per cent. Many people have regretted it, but there has been no movement to remove it. Now that they have brought it into the region of party politics in South Africa. I would not like to say where the end will be. May I remind hon. members that there is no test as to where the urban areas begin and where the platteland ends. I would ask the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Mr. Fagan) is Stellenbosch urban or platteland?

Platteland.

Is it platteland? What is the test? Is Paarl urban or platteland? What is the test? There is not, so far as I know, a single constituency in South Africa which does not contain within it at least one local authority, at least one urban body. What is the test? Are we to say that a citizen who lives in the Main Street in Paarl is to have a 50 per cent. more stake in this country than a citizen who lives in the Main Street of Woodstock or Wynberg? That is what it comes to. I wonder what is behind it all? Let me refer for one moment again to Section 40 of the South Africa Act. That Act does not mention platteland or towns. It draws no distinction in terms between town and country. I agree that successive Delimitation Commissions have interpreted it in that sense. They have drawn a ring fence round the towns, and they have drawn a ring fence round the platteland, but the section does not do so. The section says—

I suppose out of consideration for the latter they have dealt with it. You can get urban areas that have a comparatively sparse population, and you can get rural areas that are comparatively densely populated. But the point having been put to them the Delimitation Commission have interpreted this as meaning they must give a load to the countryside as against the towns. Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) pointed out that if this proposal were granted, South Africa might very well find itself faced one day with a minority government. I will tell the hon. member this that South Africa has in the past been governed by a minority government. After the general election of 1929, I think it was, it was abundantly apparent that the Nationalist Party which had a majority of some 18 or 20, had actually polled less votes than the South African Party opposition, which had been defeated.

There was something wrong with the system.

I am pointing out that that is actually what happened. That Nationalist Party Government was returned to power with a majority of something like 18, and it really polled fewer votes than the South African Party which had been defeated, and which was condemned to remain in opposition. I am afraid that behind all this there is an attempt on the part of hon. members opposite permanently to enshrine their political power, permanently to entrench themselves. I believe that is exactly what they mean, and precisely what they want. Behind all this high sounding talk of the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) it comes to this, “I and my people want to be permanently in political power in this country, whether we are in a minority or not.” That is exactly what the South Africa Act said should not be. That Act provides for automatic redistribution; it provides that representation should follow the population. It meant something quite different. I hope hon. members this afternoon in deciding whether or not to vote for this particular proposal will realise what is implicit in the minds of the two hon. members who have moved this motion. It is significant that the two hon. gentlemen come from the northern Transvaal, and represent widespread constituencies. They come from a part which stands to lose a portion of its representation at the next delimitation. They are not trying to correct the defects in representation. That is only a minor thing with them. They are trying to offset in advance the results and the findings of the next Delimitation Commission by raising this 15 per cent. to 20 per cent.

There are some points in this debate which are most disquieting to me, and the first point is that the representatives of the platteland on the other side of the House are taking so little interest in this debate. At no time have more than four or five of them been present in the House, while this debate has been going on. The second point is that they allow the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) to be the mouthpiece of the Government on this subject together with the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Burnside). The hon. member for Umbilo who had to speak here this afternoon on behalf of the Government, and who did not hesitate again to do something which he has also done on a former occasion, openly insulted the platteland. He said that the platteland population is the ignorant and unintelligent part of the population and does not merit that degree of representation! I can tell him this, not only will he get just as well educated people on the platteland as in the towns, but on the platteland he will also find people, who even if they have not had the amount of schooling which others have had, are able to deal with questions of interest to the country with as much common sense as anyone else, people who have more right to talk about conditions in this country than the so called learned people of the towns. To me it is a deplorable fact that representatives of the platteland on the other side of the House allow the hon. member for Kensington and the hon. member for Umbilo to be their mouthpiece, while they themselves fail to say a word, to show that they realise the seriousness of this subject. The hon. member for Kensington a little while ago accused the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) of not being in earnest, but at the back of his mind he has the idea of digging in his party politically, and of scoring some political advantage. We all know that the question of scoring political advantages has played its part in this matter, but the man who has dealt with the question from that aspect will be found, on the other side of the House. If there is one man who is responsible for this Bill having been made a political question it is the hon. member for Kensington. He is accused No. 1. He himself knows that he is responsible for this. I have a small cutting here from a speech made by him on the 7th November, 1939, in Johannesburg.

I was in Kenya then.

No, the hon. member was back by that time because he attended the session of Parliament in September. He spoke in Johannesburg and this is what he said, inter alia—

He rejoiced at that. As early as the 7th November of last year he saw a party political intention in this Electoral Bill. And his party followed him along the same course, and he dare not get up here to-day and say that the hon. member for Waterberg has a political motive at the back of his mind. As long ago as November last he stated that he hoped and expected political advantages for his party to accrue from this Electoral Bill. I greatly regret the fact that this Bill has been made a party political question. I made an appeal the other afternoon to platteland representatives on the other side of the House, and I meant it honestly when I asked them to take this question seriously as platteland representatives and to realise what they owed the platteland which they represented. There are quite a number of them over there on the Government benches. I have reckoned out the number of seats which may be regarded as pure urban seats in this country, constituencies which have no electors living outside the urban areas. I find that in the Transvaal out of the sixty constituencies there are thirty-three which are pure urban constituencies — that is to say, more than half. Here in the Cape we have not got as far as that yet, and here there are eighteen pure urban seats out of fifty-nine. In the Free State there is one out of fifteen, and in Natal there are eight out of sixteen.

What about Kroonstad?

Kroonstad has been put down as a platteland constituency.

And what about Bethlehem?

The majority of the electors of Bethlehem are on the platteland and not in the town.

Kroonstad is a large town.

The hon. member says that it is a large town, but he loses sight of the fact that the quota in the Free State is larger than it is in any other province, and there are more voters on the platteland in those seats than there are in the towns. I am speaking only of the pure urban seats where the voters are all living within the Municipal area. My hon. friend will realise that in that respect the towns have no reason to be so frightened of the platteland representatives, because the platteland representatives are invariably members who to a smaller or greater extent also represent urban areas. I do not believe there is a single platteland member who has not got some towns or dorps in his constituency. In my constituency there are six. The result is that we do not take account only of the platteland population but also of the inhabitants of the towns or villages. But that does not apply to the urban people. We find that a member representing Cape Town (Central) or Cape Town (Castle), does not concern himself at all with the rural population, whereas we who represent the platteland also have to take into account the interests of the people of the towns, because of the fact that in addition to the platteland we also represent small towns and dorps. It is for that reason that the interests of the towns need not be afraid that the platteland representatives will work against the urban interests. That is a safeguard which the representatives of the platteland have not got, and that, I believe, is an aspect of the matter which has not been sufficiently taken into account. In that respect the representatives of the towns can be assured. But conditions are changing very rapidly. The Prime Minister, when he spoke here about the provision made by the National Convention, namely, 15 per cent. either way, said that we were not interfering with that. That is so, but the hon. member for Kensington argued against it. He said that that provision of the Act of Union placed an illegal burden on the towns. The Prime Minister told us that we are not touching that—but that is not enough. The facts and conditions are not the same as they were in the past, the position to-day is not what it was at the time of the National Convention. If the National Convention recommended the principle that there should be an equilibrium as between the platteland and the towns, then it is essential that the figures should be gone into to-day to ascertain whether those figures are still the same, and to ascertain whether a change should not be made. It is perfectly clear that if we do not want to see an injustice done, if the balance has to be maintained in the relationship between the platteland and the towns, a change has to be introduced. I am sorry the representatives of the platteland on the other side of the House do not take a greater interest in this matter. This is a matter which we should not consider from a party political point of view, and we should keep it out of party politics. If matters go on like this, when the next delimitation comes, or certainly when the delimitation after that comes, it will be found almost impossible to make an appeal to hon. members opposite, especially those hon. members representing the platteland. If we do not bring about a change in the position, it is going to mean that the pure urban constituencies are going to control the whole political position in South Africa, so that the platteland will have no say. We shall have a majority of members in this House representing pure urban centres, and they will form the majority in the House. People who have nothing to do with the platteland, who do not represent a single farmer, who will be concerned with pure urban interests only, will be able to constitute the majority in this House. Where will the platteland be then? To-day there is still a chance for the platteland representatives whatever side of the House they belong to, to say that they will in any case take steps to safeguard the platteland. The figures I have mentioned are on a very conservative basis. I have even included constituencies containing a large number of voters living in the towns as platteland constituencies. So I have only taken pure urban areas where there are no electors who are farmers, or who live outside the towns, and if I add all those I find that there are thirty-three in the Transvaal, eighteen in the Cape, one in the Free State and eight in Natal. This would mean, therefore, that leaving out the three native representatives, there are even now sixty members in Parliament representing purely urban constituencies. So far as the three native representatives are concerned, they usually throw in their weight with the towns, although the natives whom they represent as a rule do not live in the towns. This means, therefore, that out of 150 members sixty members already represent pure urban areas; they are people who have no concern with the platteland and who have no reason to take any notice of people from the small villages, or of the people from the platteland. And if what the hon. member for Kensington and other members predict does come about, namely that the next delimitation Johannesburg alone will get another additional ten to thirteen seats — let us call it ten for argument’s sake — it will mean that after the next delimitation there will be seventy representatives representing pure urban constituencies, as against eighty who can still be called representatives of the platteland.

It will be more, because Pretoria and other towns will also get additional seats.

Yes, very probably my figures are too conservative, but in any case if we estimate the additional number of urban seats at ten, it means that at the next delimitation there will be seventy pure urban constituencies as against eighty from the platteland, and probably after that the relationship will be seventy-five—seventy-five. After the next delimitation there will be from seventy to seventy-five members of Parliament who will not represent anything connected with the platteland and who will not be able to put up a plea on behalf of the interests of the farmers.

How about the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) ? He does not live on the platteland.

Nor do you live in Woodstock.

It is not a question of where a man lives, but if he represents a platteland seat he has to make a study of the interests of the platteland in the constituency he represents. A great many of us may possibly live in the towns, but we represent the platteland. I am speaking of pure urban constituencies where one is concerned with urban interests only, which members come here to represent. After the next delimitation half the members of this House of Parliament will be people who will only represent pure urban constituency interests. If matters develop as they have been doing in the past few years, after the next five years there will undoubtedly be a majority of town members in this House, a majority of members who will represent pure urban areas. That does not mean that they will all be supporters of the policy of the present Government. Even to-day we have on our side people who represent pure urban areas, so it is not a matter entirely of party politics. There are some half a dozen members on this side of the House who represent pure urban areas. I consider that on the other side of the House there are to-day still about twenty-nine members who represent platteland areas, yet not one of them has got up to help us in this matter. I want to give hon. members the assurance that I am not trying to score any party advantages on this question. I fully realise the necessity of our maintaining the balance between the platteland and the towns, and the very least we can do, is to make an appeal to the platteland representatives on the other side of the House and to show them the seriousness of the position and to tell them that they must do something and that they must face the position in order to, preserve the principle and to safeguard the position laid down by the National Convention.

The hon. member should not cry so much.

I am sorry the hon. member has not got up to assist us. He represents a platteland seat and his constituents would appreciate it if he were to get up to support us.

My constituency appreciates what I am doing.

This is a serious matter which we have to face. If we do not tackle it now it is self-evident that we shall have to get a dividing line in political matters which will be fatal for South Africa, and then we shall simply have a battle between town and platteland. This will have a most detrimental result on the people as a whole. The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) a little while ago accused the hon. member for Fauresmith (Mr. Havenga) of having voted against it, when a few years ago we on this side of the House made a similar proposal. It is true that he did vote against it on that occasion, and I deeply deplore his doing so, but still I want to tell him that we did not at that time have this Bill before us, this Bill of which the hon. member for Kensington is the father; we did not then have this legislation before us which is going to bring about so great a change so far as the towns are concerned. In those days the platteland was still able to reassure itself to a certain extent; because in a large number of the urban areas people in practice did not register thoroughly and the platteland benefited from this fact. In those circumstances there was no need for us to be very much concerned. But since the introduction of this Bill and since the development that is taking place in that direction nobody can blame the hon. member for Fauresmith, since he has realised the seriousness of the position if he strongly and earnestly draws the attention of the House to the danger of the position to-day. The 29 representatives of the platteland on the other side of the House should realise that they are neglecting their duty. They have not said a single word in the interest of the platteland. Some of them are farmers themselves, like the hon. member for Weenen (Mr. Abrahamson) over there. Is he prepared to leave his interests in South Africa as a representative of the farmers, and of the Platteland in the hands of a lot of townsmen? What do they know of platteland affairs? And if he does not help us in this matter, that is how things will go. I am making an appeal to hon. members as representatives of the farmers, and of the platteland, not to allow themselves to be blinded by political prejudice, and not to allow themselves to be led by the hon. member for Kensington. Let them realise the seriousness of the position and try to find a solution. Let them enquire into matters and see what we can do in order to a certain extent to protect the position of the platteland. There is no need for me to go any further into the desirability and the necessity of concessions being made to those parts of the population living in the less densely populated areas of the country. The hon. the Minister said that he still stands by the principle laid down by the National Convention, but that is not so. Many reasons have been mentioned why we should adhere to that principle, a principle which to-day is still being recognised by practically every democratic country. Hon. members opposite often quote Great Britain in support of their contentions, but they should take note of the fact that in Great Britain there is differentiation in respect of the various constituencies. Although they get on their hind legs here in regard to a loading of 20 per cent. one way or the other they will find that in Great Britain the differentiation as between constituencies on the platteland and in the towns is often 100 per cent. and more. In one of the most densely populated areas in London there is a constituency with 87,175 voters while the North Cumberland constituency only has 28,637 voters. That means that the one constituency has three times as many voters as the other one.

Is that fair? Why do you want to follow England’s example?

This is the first time that I hear the Minister describe anything that exists in England as unfair. In England they take account of those circumstances which the National Convention in this country also took into account. I do not want to say anything to belittle the towns. I am familiar with the interests of the working classes and I want to fight for those interests, but there is no doubt that the anchor of a nation in nearly every country in the world is in the first place the vested interests of the platteland. It is on the platteland that one has the least shifting about and it is there that one finds the most stable section of the population, it is there that the traditions of the people are maintained in their real essence, and it is there that those traditions are respected. The urban population which is a floating population is exposed to a larger extent to all sorts of divergencies. That is not the position so far as the platteland is concerned. This fact is fully realised in England and in other countries as well. Let us take Wales for instance. There they have a constituency like Newport with 56,000 voters, as against which there are rural seats with 27,000 and 28,000 voters. I would rather not try to pronounce the names of the rural constituencies there. Even in Scotland one finds the same position; a constituency like Edinburgh West has 71,403 voters, and alongside it one has a rural constituency with 32,000 voters. England and Scotland have always followed that principle, and that principle was adopted at the time of the establishment of Union. If that had not been done, Union would never have come about. And we are now asking the Government in order to carry out that principle in the spirit of the National Convention to take the necessary steps in connection with this particular Bill to try and more or less maintain the balance between country and town. Before sitting down I again wish to appeal to representatives of the platteland sitting on the Government side. I am not anxious to go to their constituencies and attack them there on this particular question. We shall be obliged, however, to point out to the platteland people what the menace is that is contained in this Bill, and to tell them that the 29 representatives of the platteland sitting on the Government benches have failed to defend the interests of the platteland. We shall be obliged to do so in the interests of the platteland, not in the interest of any particular party. Unless hon. members opposite have the manliness to resist the efforts of the hon. member for Kensington and unless they decline to follow in the footsteps of the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) by saying that they are not going to allow the interests of the platteland to be overshadowed by a temporary political advantage, it is their duty to help us. I hope they will be big enough to prevent this Bill from being passed and I hope they will make themselves heard in defence of the true interests of the country.

Mr. Speaker, the Opposition has called on representatives of the rural areas on the Government side to speak this afternoon. Well, we have been listening carefully to the case they put forward on behalf of the rural areas, and I wish to say that I feel just as anxious about the position as any of them do, and view with great concern the disappearance of rural constituencies to the larger towns. But I do not agree that no matter what the population of the rural areas is, as compared to the towns, they must get equal representation with the towns. I do not know how the last speaker can justify that.

That was one of the conditions of Union.

I don’t agree with everything the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) said, or the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside). If it were within my power I would like to see the influence of the rural areas strengthened to the uttermost in Parliament, but, Mr. Speaker, why are we sitting on different sides of the House?

Yes, why?

I think the hon. member for Winburg (Dr. N. J. van der Merwe) can tell us better than I can. The speeches made by the hon. member for Winburg and others on that side have been in the direction of dividing town and country, and I think that will be a misfortune. Our interests should not divide us into two camps. If we divide the country on those lines, the country as a whole is going to suffer, and we as farmers must suffer too, perhaps more in the future than in the past. No matter what we do or what we say, the future of this country must mean that the towns are going to get a considerable increase of population, while our rural population cannot increase to any very great extent, and I think no case can be made out for placing the rural areas on the same or equal footing as the towns, no matter what the difference in population is. We have an advantage of 15 per cent. below for rural areas and 15 per cent. above in urban areas. I think we were treated fairly when Union took place, and I would support the continuance of the 15 per cent. giving us the benefit of 30 per cent. in favour of the cormtry. Let us stand by this, and no one can take this away. When you ask for an increase of 20 per cent. I feel that we have no case to demand it as things are to-day. If a case can be made out for an increase to 20 per cent. to-day, then a case can be made out for a further increase to 25 per cent. or 30 per cent., as the population of the towns increase in future, and the danger I see is that a government may get in power here on a minority vote of the country that will decide the destiny of this country. We know what the Opposition policy for this country in the future is. They are out for a republic, and they may get into power on a minority vote, and force this on the country by a majority of one in the House.

A government can always get into power on a minority on a split vote.

Then on a majority of one vote in this House they might declare a republic against the wishes of the majority of our people in the country. We have to look not only at the interests of the farmers, but the interests of the country as a whole, and there is no reason why we farmers should not work together in the interests of farmers. I feel if this were only an issue of the economic welfare of the farmers, I could and would vote with you, but there are bigger issues even than the interests of the farmers, and that is the future of this country. On that issue I cannot vote with you.

Is it the republic you are afraid of?

Certainly I am afraid of the republic danger.

We will have a referendum; you need not be afraid of that.

They talk about a conservative people in the rural areas, but a section of them are now becoming a revolutionary people. At the present time this country is at war, and it is hon. members on that side of the House who, for political purposes, are trying to undermine the Government of this country and working against the interests of South Africa in the future.

The hon. member must confine himself to the motion.

I bow to your ruling, sir. I feel that the Opposition have not made out a case for this increase. I feel that they are out on a very dangerous principle. Let us hold the advantage we have, and they are out now to divide the country into town and rural oppositions. The safety of this country, at the present time, depends upon the co-operation of the town and the country as a whole, and unless we can maintain that, I feel that the future of this country is in danger. I am not prepared to assist to divide the country in any way to-day.

If there were any doubts left about this Bill, introduced by the Government, having party political objects, the speech of the hon. member for Weenen (Mr. Abrahamson) must have completely removed such doubts. The hon. member may perhaps not be aware of the fact that he changed his attitude completely to-day. In 1937 I moved a similar motion in this House and on that occasion the hon. member voted in favour of a loading of 20 per cent. above or below the quota.

Many of your friends voted against it.

I am now dealing with the hon. member for Weenen. The motion which I proposed in this House at the time was similar to the motion which the hon. member for Zoutpansberg introduced here to-day. I move—

When that amendment was voted on, we found that four members who are now sitting on the Government benches voted in favour of it and among those four members was the hon. member for Weenen. One of the others was the Minister without Portfolio who unfortunately is not here just now; then the hon. member for East Griqualand (Mr. Gilson) and the hon. member for Newcastle (Mr. Nel). They voted against their own government on this matter in order to show how strongly they were in favour of the Platteland not being in danger of losing its rightful share in the public life of South Africa. But now they are seeing in this matter—in the past they looked at it from a different point of view—the possibility of their party which has now become a Unionist Party, obtaining an advantage when the new delimitation takes place. They think that when compulsory registration is in force and the new delimitation takes place, the large towns will reap certain advantages and they imagine that this will be to their political advantage. It ill becomes the hon. member for Weenen to get up here now and to make accusations of political motives. This is proof to us that he, for the sake of party political advantages, has switched round in the short period of hardly two years. The principle which was accepted in 1910, at the time of the National Convention, is a principle which is recognised to-day in most of the democratic countries in the world. In America, in Canada, in Australia, in New Zealand and in England the principle is recognised and no adequate reasons for its abandonment have been put forward.

But the difference there is not so large.

It is a sound principle that when a decision is taken in connection with the representation of the country, and its legislative bodies, one should take into account not only the population, but also the extent of constituencies. That is the reason why in 1910 a certain amount of play was allowed for in the delimitation of constituencies. I say that one of the reasons was that the delimitation takes place not only on the basis of the population, but it takes place also bearing in mind the geographical conditions of the country in general. This arrangement was made for the sake of convenience in regard to the representation of constituencies. It is convenient not only for members of Parliament but it is convenient also for the electors to have the country divided as much as possible into areas and those areas should not be too large. Some hon. members have to cover constituencies which are over 100 miles in extent. I believe that there is one constituency which is more than 400 miles in extent. I recently visited Kuruman, which is a constituency measuring 260 miles from the one side to the other. We must realise the difficulty a member has if he wants to visit every part of his constituency, as he should do to represent all the divergent interests of the area he represents. We should realise the difficulties the voters must have in getting their interests attended to, and in submitting their interests in the way they want to submit them, and for that reason the extent of a constituency should be taken into account. This also applies to the convenience of the Administration. If a constituency is very large, it is self-evident that it must be extremely difficult for the heads of the Administration properly to attend to the interests of the country, as the units of those constituencies coyer such enormous areas, and it is for that reason that this principle takes into account that the extent of a constituency as well as the density of its population shall be considered. If this principle was considered to be sound in 1910, if there were reasons for its adoption at that time, then those reasons are doubly sound to-day, because since those days a great depopulation of the Platteland has been going on and there has been a concentration of the population in the towns, such as did not exist in the days when our representatives at the National Convention considered it necessary to leave that amount of play. But there is another reason why this was taken into account in 1910 and that is that a large proportion of the inhabitants of the Platteland are natives and coloured people, and they have not got the franchise under the present system of representation. For that reason we find that in view of the fact that members of Parliament representing rural constituencies not only represent the electors of such constituencies, but also large numbers of other people residing in those constituencies, these circumstances were taken into account in the delimitation of constituencies. While in the urban constituencies almost the whole of the population constitutes the electorate we find on the Platteland that a large proportion of the population of a constituency has not got the franchise, with the result that the Platteland, representative represents as many and even more members of the population than the member representing a town. If for the reasons I have given it was considered necessary, therefore, to make this differentiation in 1910, then in view of the depopulation of the platteland since 1910 it is not unfair to ask now for an increase in the extent of the play which was provided for in 1910. We find that in New Zealand the original differentiation was subsequently increased. It was first of all laid down that the Platteland was to have an advantage of 18 per cent. as against the towns. Afterwards this was raised to 28 per cent. It was found necessary in New Zealand to raise the advantage of the Platteland as against the towns. I feel that in South Africa the same causes and the same conditions are found to exist, and possibly to an even greater extent than in New Zealand. That being so it is not unreasonable to plead here for a further increase in that bias. The interests of South Africa demand that there should be a differentiation. South Africa is an undeveloped country. There are ample opportunities for development in the interior and it would be in conflict with the interests of South Africa if our interior and our Hinterland should in future be more poorly represented than was the case in the past. With the shifting of the population from the Platteland to the large towns we are running the risk of the Platteland becoming more poorly represented later on. In addition to that we have this factor, that the concentration which is taking place in the large towns does not even mean a permanent concentration of the population. There is a temporary concentration of voters to-day on the Witwatersrand, and it would he most unsound to lay down a delimitation for representation in this House on the basis of a population which is concentrated temporarily on the Witwatersrand. For that reason it is doubly necessary for us to take into account this temporary concentration and we should consequently not create such conditions as a result of which our Parliamentary representation in South Africa would be of such a nature that those people who are temporarily concentrated and who are engaged in the development of a temporary industry would have the final say in the representation of the country, and would thereby disturb the relationship of the one section of the country towards the other. I am surprised that members who realise the importance of this matter, that a member like the hon. member for Weenen who realised it two years ago, and that members like the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) and the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. J. H. van der Merwe). who feel exactly as we do on this matter— and I want to say that the majority of hon. members opposite are in agreement with us, and if they for one moment could ignore the question of a possible party political advantage, they would vote with us. I say that I am, surprised at the attitude of those hon. members, and that I can conceive, if they were to consider the matter on its merits, apart from the question of political advantages which they hope to secure, they will unanimously support us in the motion which we have put forward. This side of the House is unanimously in favour of the Platteland not being detrimentally affected in the way it is proposed to do. While on the Government side through the activities of the hon. member for Kensington an attempt is being made openly and deliberately to upset the relationship of the representation in Parliament to the detriment of the Platteland, and to the advantage of the towns. I say that this will eventually not be in the interest of South Africa, and I say so especially in view of the tremendous temporary concentration of population which is to-day taking place on the Witwatersrand. And while hon. members over there imagine that they are busy doing something which will detrimentally affect us, I want to tell them this, that they may be making a mistake so far as the future is concerned. Hon. members from the Platteland on the Government side take up the attitude they are doing because they imagine that they are promoting their own interests, but I want to tell them this, that it may so happen that this plan of theirs will react like a boomerang, because who are the people who are to-day drifting from the Platteland to the Witwatersrand? They are people who are concerned with the permanent interests of South Africa, and for that reason I feel that although it is unsound in principle to disturb the balance of the representation, it will in my opinion be shown in future that those people who are drifting into the large towns will be the very first to belabour hon. members over there with their own whips; they will not vote for those hon. members but they will give their votes to this side of the House which looks after the permanent interests of South Africa. For that reason I foresee that this step will eventually be to the benefit of this side of the House, because those new constituencies which will be created on the Witwatersrand, will in all probability return members to this side of the House. But whether that be so or not, that is not the question with which I am concerned. What weighs with me and what should weigh is the consideration which weighed with the fathers of the Act of Union, and the argument which weighed with them was that it was in the interest of the country that the representation of the people should be spread over the whole country, and should not be concentrated merely in certain areas. That is the principle which counted and that is the principle which has to be maintained because it will be a menace to the Union if we depart from it. For that reason I am going to vote in favour of this effort to maintain that principle, and I still want to express the hope that hon. members opposite who have turned this into a party question will come to their senses and will realise that it will be in the best interest of South Africa to vote for the resolution which has been proposed by this side of the House.

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

I rise to support this motion because I am convinced that in the present circumstances it is right and fair. It is of course unnecessary for me to repeat the arguments which have been used so clearly and explicitly this afternoon as to why this motion is justified, and I cannot improve on the way that it has been done. But I listened carefully to the arguments which came from the other side of the House in connection with this motion, and I must honestly admit that not even a serious attempt has been made to rebut the statistics and facts which are incontrovertible. No attempt was made. It is, as usual, because they are going to kill it by means of the steam-roller which they have. I would like to refer — usually I do, not take any notice of what the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Burnside) says, because his speeches consist to the extent of 99 per cent. of abuse, and for the rest they are nonsense — but I want to tell him that we are commencing to become tired of his abuse of the people on the countryside, and hon. members on this side, who are much better educated and who are of much better descent than he is. Let me ask him to stop this abuse. For the rest, I do not want to bother myself about him, but if he is as clever as he pretends to be, then let him produce facts. Only one argument has been brought forward, or rather let me say two arguments, which were used by the other side. The one argument which he mentioned was: One vote one value. I do not know what precisely he means by that, but I assume he means the idea of getting an equal number of votes in each constituency, and that it is not fair that there should be a margin allowed in favour of the countryside. If he is not honest in the matter, then I want to ask whether he really thinks that anyone who votes for him would be getting value for their vote. Is he going to apply the value to the person or to the importance of the constituency? What is he going to apply it to, because I am going to put this direct question to him and to other hon. members on that side who are so, concerned about the fact that the countryside has a margin of 15 per cent., whether he has ever thought, when he votes in his own neighbourhood, when he gives his municipal vote, whether he tried to apply that principle then. Here in the city of Cape Town you have about fifteen wards, and each one of the wards sends three members to, the municipal council. Those wards vary from 2,000 to 9,000 votes. In this city that is the present position, and I make bold to say that in the town where he lives it is the same, and that it applies to other towns as well. As he can apply the principle here without causing difficulties let him do so, because at the moment one ward has 2.000 people who elect a man, and in another ward it is 9,000. They have the opportunity of applying the principle there, but there is one difficulty lurking behind this objection. It is that they are afraid of not getting the number of seats for the towns that they want to get. That is behind the matter, because they are not trying, first of all, to, controvert the facts stated from this side of the House. I do not want to speak about what the hon. member added in connection with intelligence. If he says in that connection that many of the poor whites are not intelligent, then I want to say that the people of whom he speaks in that way are of better descent than he is, and far more intelligent than what many of his constituents are, who are supposed to be so clever and to live in the towns. When he speaks of intelligence I think he had better allow the matter to drop, because by that argument he is going to prove to the House that his constituents are far less intelligent than the voters on the countryside. Then it is alleged that they or the voters would suffer so much damage if there were a difference in the figures of the constituency. But it has already been shown that in the constituency of one of the whips on that side 80 per cent. of the voters have removed from that constituency to another one. If that is the position then I would just like to know whom do they actually represent. He is elected in a constituency where 80 per cent. of the voters are not even in the constituency. I always thought that hon. members here were elected not merely to represent one section, but to represent the country, and to do their best for everybody. Accordingly, I cannot understand why they are so worried. I just want to call the attention of hon. members opposite to the fact that in New Zealand, where there is a Labour government, there is a compulsory margin of 28 per cent., in other words they start with a margin of 28 per cent., and it is governed by a Labour government. In Australia you have the same circumstances, where they have 20 per cent. margin, and what we ask is not what they have in New Zealand, but that we may have the 20 per cent. margin which prevails in Australia.

You ask for 50 per cent.

You do not know what you are talking about. The position is very simple. This amendment explains the attitude which we take up, and all we have got from the other side is the principle of one vote one value. What, however, was painful to me was the argument of the hon. member for Weenen (Mr. Abrahamson). I became extremely sorry for him when he got up here and admitted that he agreed with us, that he thought that we were right, but that his difficulty was this: There was an important question which compelled him to vote against this motion, and it was that he wanted to see the war through. To my mind also it is very fair to see how the native representatives every now and then cross over to the Government side, because they feel obliged to support the Government for the same reason. When I see that my country is going to suffer because there may be a wrong distribution of seats, then I must have the courage of my convictions and vote against it. The war is not going to last so, very long. Suppose that it lasts three, four or five years, but this amendment is going to last a long time, and if the hon. member for Weenen helps us to pass the amendment which we want to pass, then it is possible that it may yet some day save his children from domination by the towns. But he has now been put into the position that he has to vote against our motion owing to party loyalty. That is, to my mind, a very sad spectacle, and I feel extremely sorry for the hon. member for Weenen.

The hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. Le Roux) challenged me in regard to the vote which I cast in this House in 1937 in support of a motion in similar terms and with the same objective as the one now before the House. The circumstances to-day are totally different. At that time I sat behind the present Leader of the Opposition, who had a very powerful party behind him, one of the most powerful parties that has ever sat behind a Prime Minister in this country. The then Prime Minister had over and over declared not only in this House but also in the country, that he and the party which followed him did not stand for secession, nor did they stand for republicanism. To-day the circumstances have changed completely. The hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog) has now joined up with the party whose object it is to establish a republic in South Africa.

Hear, hear.

I hear over there “hear, hear,” I say the Opposition party now stands for a republic. I have never been a republican, and I consider that a party which stands for a republic does not stand for the interests of South Africa first.

We cannot have a discussion on republicanism now. The hon. member is entitled to make an explanation of his position, but he cannot argue the question of republicanism.

With due submission, I want to give my reasons for my action. While I am in full sympathy with the motion which is being discussed, I want to give my reason why I cannot to-day cast my vote as I did in 1937, and I ask that I may be permitted to give my reasons for the attitude which I am taking here to-night.

The hon. member may do so, but we cannot have a discussion on republicanism.

My reason for not casting my vote to-night as I did in 1937 is this, that by doing so I will be lending myself to the possibility of that subversive movement. I would be a party to strengthening the position taken up by hon. members on that side, on the republican issue, which if they were successful would mean the destruction of the Act of Union and of the Union as well. Mr. Speaker, I am only giving my reasons, and I should be permitted to do so without all this chattering and shouting over there. I am fully entitled to give my reasons, and I fail to see why hon. members opposite, particularly those who were our former colleagues, should raise such strenuous objections. I am glad to hear from hon. members over there that my reasons are well-founded, and therefore I am entitled to take up the attitude which I am taking to-night. I think I am perfectly justified, in view of that change of front, to also change my front. Whilst I admit quite frankly and honestly that I am in full sympathy with the motion, I cannot for these reasons cast my vote with a party which has that objective. I would like to make this point, that subsequent to the vote which I cast in 1937 a very far-reaching and important amendment was made to the Act of Union. I refer to the Act introduced by the present Minister of Finance, which altered the Act of Union so as to provide that after 1951, instead of having a five-year delimitation, there will only be a delimitation every ten years. To my mind the effect of that legislation will be to considerably improve the position on the platteland. So that if the position changes, and there is that menacing danger which members on that side foresee, it is possible, not probable, but it is possible that they may be in power within the next 13 years, and they will be able to alter the Act of Union on the lines they now desire. [Interruptions.] When hon. members on that side of the House speak we don’t interrupt, we are fair, we don’t chatter all the time, but when hon. members on this side get up to speak, the hon. gentlemen over there try and barrack them. Please don’t interrupt. Give us an opportunity of collecting our thoughts and expressing ourselves. I rose to give that explanation, but I want to go a little further. I happened to be a member of that Select Committee, and I have the report before me. No hon. member on the committee raised this question, although anyone was perfectly entitled to do so. My friend over there shakes his head, but I say any member of that committee would have been perfectly entitled to bring this question before the committee. The reference to the committee was this—

The Electoral Law is closely interwoven with a provision in the Act of Union in regard to the percentage of underload and overload of 15 per cent., and I submit that the Select Committee would have been perfectly entitled to consider that matter, but it was never raised, nor was any question asked about that. To-day this question is raised with an objective, and I want to ask hon. members there to get up and say why they, when they sat on this side of the House voted against a similar amendment in 1937. They have not yet given any reason whatever why they are supporting this motion to-day. It is the same motion in exactly the same terms as the motion in 1937. I have given a good reason, a fundamental reason why I am not voting for this motion to-day. I submit the reason is that hon. members there have now adopted and put on the clothes of those who were their opponents in 1937. In reply to these interruptions from hon. members opposite, I say this that so far as the composition of this party is concerned, it is carrying on for the purpose of giving effect to the resolution of the 4th September. The Labour Party is still an entity as a Labour Party, and the Dominion Party is still an entity as the Dominion Party.

The hon. member must not allow himself to be led astray by interruptions.

I am not being led astray, Mr. Speaker, because I am only giving them a picture of the true position.

The picture that the hon. member is hanging up is rather irrelevant.

I bow to your ruling, sir. However, Mr. Speaker, very simply I have given my explanation, which I submit is well founded because it deals with, what to my mind, is a fundamental. I cannot be a party to assisting the breaking up of what to my mind is a sacred thing in this country, namely, the Act of Union.

We can heartily congratulate the hon. member for Newcastle (Mr. Nel) on his honesty, which in any case is an example to the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) who again told us this afternoon that in this matter political considerations never had any weight with him, and that in spite of his speeches in the past. Now comes the hon. member for Newcastle, and lets it appear clearly that in his case and also in that of several other hon. members, it is merely a case of what side of the House they sit on. The hon. member first sat here, and now he sits over there, and therefore it is only a question of where he is sitting whether he is in favour of a matter or against it. I do not want to go into the reasons that he gave. The cat is now out of the bag, and the hon. member clearly showed that the question which weighed most with them in this matter was not whether an injustice was being done to the countryside, as against the towns, but as a matter of fact, the position that they can get extra seats if they vote in favour of this Bill. The hon. member for Kensington can protest as much as he likes. We now know what the actual attitude is on the other side. I say again we can congratulate the hon. member for Newcastle on his frankness. He sets an example to the hon. member for Kensington. We ought not perhaps to take much notice of the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside), but nevertheless I feel that as he again sneered this afternoon at the poor people amongst our Afrikaner race, we cannot let it pass without reply. I hope that hon. members on the other side, the Afrikaans-speaking members, will now realise what society they are in.

The loafers.

Yes, that is what you are. There are Afrikaans-speaking members sitting there who represent Afrikaans-speaking voters, and who represent countryside constituencies, and who also have a considerable number of impoverished Afrikaners among their constituents, and I hope they have seen the class of person with whom they have to-day to sleep under the same political blanket. I hope that the hon. member for Kimberley (District) (Mr. Steytler) and other hon. members who represent Afrikaans-speaking constituencies, where there are impoverished compatriots of ours, when they make their report about this session they will take the hon. member for Umbilo with them, so that he can tell the people what he thinks of the poor people in their constituencies. To-day they are sleeping under the same political blanket with the hon. member for Umbilo.

Just as you used to sleep with the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick), under one blanket.

I have never yet done any such thing with the hon. member for Illovo. The hon. member for Umbilo said that the impoverished Afrikaners on the countryside are lacking in intelligence. In the first place, I doubt whether the hon. member has ever become acquainted with the impoverished Afrikaans-speaking class on the countryside. In any case, if we are to judge by the attitude of the hon. member for Umbilo in this House, then I can only say that the Afrikaans-speaking poor people about whom he spoke so contemptuously, show more intelligence than the majority of the electors in Umbilo, who showed their lack of sense by sending him to this House. He comes here and speaks in a sneering way, and in a humiliating and insulting manner about the impoverished Afrikaners. It does not befit him. Let him go back to the country he came from and see what the conditions are in the slums of Glasgow and other towns before he comes here and talks about our people. Those poor Afrikaners about whom he has spoken in such a sneering manner, have been forced into that position by the pressure of economic conditions in South Africa. The people in Glasgow have been in that position for generations, but the impoverished poor people in South Africa are the descendants of best families, and of some of the best people in the country, and they have been reduced to that state by economic pressure. When the hon. member speaks in that sneering way, then it is not so much because he looks down on them owing to their lack of intelligence, as he states, but he looks down upon them because they have become poor.

What has Glasgow to do with this Bill?

I said that the hon. member instead of sneering at our poor Afrikaners, ought rather to go back to Glasgow, and attend to the conditions prevailing among his own people in Scotland. He does not look down upon the alleged lack of intelligence of our impoverished people, but he looks down upon them because they have become poor. To-day he gets his £700 as a member of Parliament, and now he has no longer got any time for the poor people. The other day the same hon. member referred to intelligence, when he spoke about the “stupidity” of an hon. member here, I think it was the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow). The hon. member, I fear, has such an exaggerated opinion of his own intelligence, that he soon will no longer be able to get a boot to fit him, or a hat which he could put on his head. I want also to tell him that soap-box oratory is not a proof of high intelligence, or commonsense. The hon. member for Kensington has again taken part in the debate. It is almost unnecessary to reply to him, because we have had a complete reply to his arguments from the hon. member for Newcastle, that it was not a matter of political advantage with them. He let the cat out of the bag, and we now know where we stand.

Two cats.

Yes, and the cats are coming again! The hon. member for Kensington apparently has a very short memory, and has apparently forgotten the speech which he made at the meeting of the Women’s United Party. Possibly he got so excited in the society of ladies, that for that reason he also let the cat out of the bag there. His speech, as reported, not in Die Burger but as given in the report by S.A.P.A., has already been quoted by the hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen). In it he boasted of the fact that in consequence of this Bill, and in consequence of the compulsory registration under it, his party would get at least an additional ten seats, but as I have said, the hon. member for Newcastle has given a complete reply to the statement of the hon. member for Kensington, that no political advantage was being aimed at by them. With regard to this Bill, the question of compulsory registration is not the matter which is at stake, but what is actually at stake is the effect which it will have on the countryside, and the detriment that will arise from it to the countryside, and its representation in the House of Assembly. There are certain factors which we must bear in mind when we debate this matter. There is the factor of the extensive constituencies which are now going to be still larger in consequence of the application of this Bill. It is said, I do not know whether it is so, that the countryside of the Cape Province will lose three seats, which will go to the towns, by which the already large constituencies, like mine, for instance, and especially the constituencies of Gordonia and Kuruman will become still larger. They will suffer in the circumstances. There is another factor which we must not lose sight of, and that is the question of production, the value of the rural agricultural production in comparison even with the production of the towns. It is not so much a matter of the conflict between town and country. I do not believe that there is any hostility between the towns and the country, but what we do have to deal with is a conflict of interests, the conflict of the interests which are represented by the great business concerns such as the mines and others in the big towns, and the other interests which are represented by the inhabitants of the countryside. We are concerned with that conflict of interests, and we know, by virtue of our experience in the past, that every time when that conflict of interest arises, you have got an unsympathetic attitude on the part of the big towns and of the Press towards the interests of the countryside. Time and again, when the giving of assistance to farmers had been debated here, the Cape Times, or the Rand Daily Mail or the Star, has immediately took up the cudgels and made criticism. They showed no sympathy towards the needs of our agriculture, and of our farming population. Inasmuch as we run the danger to-day of the countryside being about to lose still more, so far as its representation is concerned in the legislative bodies of the country, every member from the country on this side and on the other side, should guard against there being injury done to the interests of the rural areas. When I spoke on this matter on the second reading of this Bill, I made mention — and I want to repeat it here because I consider it an important point — I mentioned how in other countries the same point of view was held. I gave New Zealand as an example, and I dealt more in detail with the position of the United States of America, where in the highest and most important legislative body, namely, the Senate, a state like New York with 14,000,000 or 15,000,000 people had two representatives, while a state like Nevada with only 100,000 inhabitants, also had two representatives. While in the House of Representatives, i.e. in the Lower House, representation is given on the basis of population, we find that in the more important House in America, no difference is made between the densely populated areas in the towns and the countryside. I must again point out to hon. members that in the United States of America the Senate is by far the most important legislative body. With regard to importance, the relations of the Senate towards the House of Representatives in America, are more or less like those between this House and our Senate. The Senate in the United States is by far the most important body, and in that body precautionary measures are taken for the rural areas to get precisely the same representation as the big towns. That is a principle which, at the inauguration of the Union, the fathers of our Constitution also tried to apply, because they appreciated the difficulties; they saw that there was already a larger population in the towns in comparison with the countryside, and accordingly, they made provision and provided for the margin. But what they did not provide for was the exodus from the countryside to the towns, the great migration of the people which took place. To-day, 1940, we have come to the position that a large national migration has taken place by which you have a still larger population in the towns compared with the countryside, and I say that if it was necessary in 1910 to protect the rural areas against the big business interests in the towns, then it is still more necessary to-day, because you have not only had the removal of population, but also during the past years — fortunately for South Africa, but nevertheless a factor which must be taken account of — the industrial development of our country. Owing to that industrial development, which has taken place in South Africa, not only have other interests been created in the big towns, but it has to a great extent led to the removal of the people from the countryside to the towns. I, therefore, say, if it was necessary in 1910 to take that precautionary measure, it is so much the more necessary when you have had a big addition to the population of the towns. The countryside feels this strongly, and I hope, notwithstanding the speeches that have been made, that the hon. member for Newcastle, for instance, will stick to his convictions when he said that he was in favour of the amendment moved by the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth), that he would not be influenced by political motives, and I hope that he and other representatives from the rural constituencies will, for the nonce, set political considerations aside, and will vote for the proposal which is intended to protect the countryside against the constantly increasing power of the towns.

The motion of the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth) is really in effect an appeal against the decision which was taken by this House last Friday. Hon. members will remember that on the occasion of the second reading of this Bill the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) moved a delaying motion, the effect of which was that the subject matter of the Bill should be sent to a select committee in order that this very question of loading certain areas to the extent of 20 per cent. should be considered. The House on that occasion had a very full debate. For two days this question of the disparity between urban and rural areas and the question of loading, and of the intention of the framers of the Act of Union was carefully analysed. We had arguments from all sides of the House, and after having considered all sides carefully, in the early hours of Friday morning this House decisively rejected that proposal. Now the hon. member for Zoutpansberg, as I say, seeks to appeal against that decision, and I have been waiting this afternoon for fresh arguments, fresh contentions to support this appeal. I must confess that what has been said this afternoon, some of it very forcibly, and some very eloquently said, is merely a re-hash of the old arguments, and no new considerations have been put before this House, which would justify it in, departing from the decision taken last week. On the occasion of the second reading debate I attempted to deal as fully as possible with all the arguments put forward. — I attempted to deal with the argument that the Act of Union should be altered, that after thirty years we should go back on the fundamental provisions of our Constitution, that we should tamper with them, and make the changes hon. members opposite advocated. Having dealt in some detail with the matter, it is unnecessary for me to cover the whole ground again to-night; but there are certain facts and considerations of which I feel it my duty to remind hon. members. Before doing so, I wish to tell my hon. friend, the hon. member for Zoutpansberg, and hon. members opposite that I am not prepared to accept this motion. I am not prepared to go back on the decision which the House took. I am not prepared, as he wishes, to tamper with the Act of Union. I would remind hon. members of this fact, that the motion of the hon. member for Moorreesburg on the second reading was in itself an attempt to reopen a matter which had come under discussion in this House in 1937 on two occasions, and which had been decisively dealt with on these two occasions. Hon. members will remember that on these two occasions in 1937 both the hon. members for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) and for Oudtshoorn (Mr. Le Roux) attempted to reopen this question of the provisions of section 40 of the South Africa Act. The hon. member for Waterberg in his proposals before the House at that stage suggested that it should be made compulsory on the delimitation commissions to load urban constituencies to at least 12½ per cent. and to underload rural constituencies to at least 12½ per cent. The hon. member for Oudtshoorn introduced a motion in almost identical terms to that of the hon. member who introduced his motion this afternoon, namely, that the load should be 20 per cent. As I reminded hon. members the other night, and I wish to remind them again to-night, on both those occasions in 1937 the House rejected the proposals put before them. In the case of the motion of the hon. member for Oudtshoorn it is true that the hon. member for Newcastle (Mr. Nel) voted in favour of the proposal. He has given his reasons. But the vast majority of this House rejected that proposal. The hon. member for Fauresmith (Mr. Havenga) who spoke this afternoon, rejected it on that occasion. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp), who is in his seat, also rejected that motion. And in view of the fact that the House did take two decisive decisions in 1937, in view of the fact that the United Party Government of that time took this definite view, that it would be most dangerous to tamper with the Constitution, I was more than surprised at the intervention of the hon. member for Fauresmith in this debate this afternoon. I would remind the House that on both occasions he voted against the proposals in 1937 to tamper with the Constitution. Now I entirely agree with what the hon. member for Fauresmith said this afternoon, namely, that it is in the paramount interest of South Africa that we should preserve the Platteland and all that it stands for in our history, in our traditions and in our culture. The culture and traditions of the Platteland of South Africa are something peculiar to this country. They are steeped in the history of our country, and it would be a national tragedy if at any time the countryside should be so denuded of its population that that distinctive quality which makes up the Platteland should disappear. I am entirely in agreement with the hon. member there. But, as I shall attempt to show by the figures which I shall give, there would appear to be no such danger of that happening now, or in the future. None of the signs on our national horizon are such as to indicate such a state of affairs coming about. On the contrary, all the indications in the last thirty years are that, while there has been a drift, a fairly consistent and persistent drift from the rural areas to the towns, at the same time there have been growing up in the Platteland areas larger communities, particularly in the Platteland towns, and you have this position, that the population of the rural areas has become more firmly fixed than ever before. I said that I was surprised at the intervention of the hon. member for Fauresmith, because he at any rate, with his sense of responsibility, must realise the danger of attempting to reopen a matter of this sort. He must realise the inherent danger of doing that, and I would like to utter a word of warning and I would like to say to my hon. friends in this House, representatives of Platteland constituencies, whether they are on my side or on the Opposition benches, that if they really mean well with South Africa, if they really mean well with their country constituencies and their constituents, let them and the countryside leave this question of entrenchment well alone. It is in the Act of Union that we have this entrenched provision, this load, this special provision, this weight in the scales against the towns, and in favour of the rural areas. There it is in our Constitution. In my Bill I have made no attempt to interfere with it, to tamper with this fundamental provision of our Constitution. The previous United Party Government rejected any attempt to tamper with it. This Government does not intend to tamper with these fundamental provisions, and I can only say this, that for hon. members opposite lightly to meddle with this matter is playing with fire. They are doing something which may in the future have very alarming and very dangerous repercussions. If they are correct in their anticipations that the political centre of gravity is shifting from the countryside to the towns, if they are correct in their dire prophecies that the Witwatersrand and other urban centres are going to take complete control of the political situation, if that is so, if these centres have complete control, then the example set by the hon. member may be followed in another direction. Others may follow suit, and attempt to tamper with the Constitution at a later date by trying to reduce the load of 15 per cent. If they have the power, there is nothing to stop them doing so, and I want to utter this word of warning—I ask hon. members to leave it well alone. Do not let us tamper with these things.

That is what your Bill is doing.

Do not let us attempt to resuscitate these matters which have been disposed of in the past. Do not let us renew old controversies. It is incorrect for the hon. member for Zoutpansberg to say that my Bill tampers with it. It does not attempt to tamper with the Constitution, it does not deal with the fundamental provisions of the Constitution relating to population disparity. It leaves that question entirely alone. This debate illustrates the danger of trying to revive those old controversies. We have had allegations about alleged antagonism between town and country. I am glad to hear from the hon. member for Beaufort West that he does not believe that that is so, that he does not believe there is this inherent antagonism between town and country. He talked, however, about a clash of interests, and he said that there was a clash of interests between town and country. I am sorry that the hon. member, who represents a rural constituency with a fair-sized town within its confines, should have fallen for this fallacy that there is a clash of interests between town and country in South Africa.

It is so.

It is a fallacy, and hon. members who preach this doctrine, who, are misled by this fallacy, are certainly not doing this country a service. I would ask hon. members to remember the history of the past eight, nine or ten years. I would ask them to cast their minds back to the times of the depression, the times when our agricultural population was enduring the greatest hardships. In those times taxes had to be imposed, heavy levies were made on the towns, and industries had to give large-scale assistance to the agricultural community.

What about the assistance to the towns?

I am not saying that no assistance was given to the towns. I am sorry to hear my friends adopt that carping spirit. I am sorry that that spirit should have entered into this debate. I am trying to make a very important point. The hon. member for Wodehouse (Mr. S. Bekker) who interrupted me just now, was one of those who in previous days attempted to make the very point which I am making to-night. No objection was raised by persons in the towns. If objections were made, they were made by very few against the large-scale assistance which was given to the country districts, and it must be admitted that these globular sums which were spent upon our agricultural community, and which ran into many millions, came from the taxpayers in the towns.

How many millions to the mines?

The mines give, sir. They adopt the principle that it is blessed to give and not to carp when you take. No, sir, these are facts. There have been from time to time some persons living in the towns who have raised objections, and hon. members opposite, who were formerly in the party that I am in at the present time, will remember how the United Party consistently preached the doctrine that it was wrong for the townspeople ever to quibble at that assistance, because it was being given in the national interest. I say that it is entirely fallacious to suggest that there is a clash of interests between town and country. The interests of town and country are most intimately bound up one with another. Progress in industry means additional purchases of primary products and additional opportunities for employment for those who, may be seeking employment from the country districts and so on. Your towns cannot prosper without similar prosperity being reflected in the country districts. If your towns were to go under, or, rather put it the other way, if the countryside went under, the towns automatically suffer as well; the interests of the two are inextricably bound up together. I am sorry to hear the hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw) preaching this doctrine that there is necessarily a clash of interests between the towns and the country. I should have thought it was the duty of hon. members in this House to break down this feeling if it still exists, and not to suggest that there is this clash of interest, but to repudiate the suggestion as strongly as one can. The hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus), in the course of his speech on his amendment, made the point that one of the reasons for increasing the load was that the delimitation commissions were departing from the principle they had adopted earlier. He said that the 1911 delimitation commission followed this principle and allowed several platteland constituencies almost the maximum of 15 per cent. below the quota. Since then, however, he complains that the commission has not done that. When he referred to this principle he was referring to an allegation that it was the intention of the framers of the Act of Union that the overload should be as near 15 per cent. as possible, and the underload as near 15 per cent. as possible, and the contention of the hon. member was that the first commission was well aware of this intention of the framers of the Act, and carried it out. He then went on to say that since then, however, the commission had not done that, and he quoted figures in regard to the 1910 and 1932 commissions. Well, sir, the hon. member was incorrect; the figures he gave to the House were incorrect. The hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth) corrected him this afternoon, because he did give the correct figures in regard to the 1910 delimitation. The results of that delimitation show that the average overload for urban cities in the Cape was 12.2 per cent., Natal 6.1, Transvaal 4.8 and the Orange Free State 14.4, making an average overload for urban cities in the Union of 7.7, considerably below the 15 per cent. to which the hon. member referred. These figures also show that the underload, the average underload in the case of rural constituencies, was, Cape 3.8, Natal 4.3, Transvaal 4.06 and the Orange Free State 88. Therefore the average underload of rural constituencies in 1910 was 3.5. We have, then, that there was an average overload in 1910 of 7.7 and an average underload in that year of 3.5, the total difference between the average overload and underload being 11.2. That does not bear out the contention of the hon. member for Moorreesburg. Adopting the argument of the hon. member for Moorreesburg, presumably the delimitation commission of that year had some idea of the intention of the farmers of the Act of Union, and sought to interpret that intention by their action in delimitating constituencies as they did. What is the position at the present time? Let me give hon. members the position, and having given these figures to the House I would ask any fair and unbiased member of the House whether the present position is in conformity with the intention of the framers of the Act of Union. Let me take the position in the Cape at the present time.

Is that as at the date of delimitation, or at the present moment?

This is the present time, but I will give the position as at the date of delimitation in 1937. I have not the figures before me of the average over all the provinces, but I can give typical figures. For instance, taking the Cape Peninsula, the average overload was 10.4, Port Elizabeth 9.8, East London 9.1, and Kimberley 9.1.

You are taking out the extreme cases. I have seen those figures.

No, I am taking the figures from the report as they come right from the top.

These are the extreme cases.

Then if we take the Witwatersrand, and I particularly draw attention to these figures, the average overload was 9.8, and for the six Pretoria seats 8.6; that was at the time of the last delimitation in 1937. You have an average underload of figures ranging from 8.9 to 14.9. Now what is the position at the present time? We find that in the Cape the average overload of urban cities is 26.8. In Natal the average overload is 23.06. In the whole of the Transvaal the overload is 51.39, and in the Orange Free State 21.95. Now the average underload at the present time in the Cape rural areas is 2.3, Natal 10.11, Transvaal 2.5, Orange Free State 6.6. So that the position in the whole of the Union at the present time is that the average overload is 38.2 and the average underload 9.8. I want to make this point also. The division between urban and rural constituencies is a very arbitrary one, and when hon. members talk lightly about differences between urban and rural interests, I would remind them that there are a great many towns which it would be very difficult to define. Take, for instance, places like Kroonstad, Vereeniging, Worcester, Krugersdorp, Springs and Roodepoort. How is one going to define those? Are they necessarily urban or rural? I would ask hon. members to bear that point in mind. I go back to these figures, sir, and what I want to emphasise is this, that when this Delimitation Commission issued its report in 1937, the average overload was 9.8 for the Rand constituencies, and for Pretoria 8.6. At the present time the average overload for the Rand and Pretoria is 51.39. Can that ever have been contemplated at the time of the Act of Union? If there were a general election to-morrow, you would have two country seats returning two members and a much greater number of voters in another division returning only one. I see the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) looking at me. Take his division. I find that the constituency of the hon. member for Wolmaransstad is underloaded at the present time to the extent of 14.9 per cent., and the hon. member for Ventersdorp (Col. Jacob Wilkens’) constituency is underloaded to the extent of 17.6. Then I find that my colleague the hon. minister of Finance, has a seat which is overloaded to the extent of 71.9. Now, sir, under what possible principle of justice of equity can you justify that.

We want 30 per cent., that is all.

A smaller number of voters in Wolmaransstad and Ventersdorp return two hon. members, while a larger number on the Witwatersrand only return one, namely the hon. minister of Finance. Judged on personal value, I can understand the differentiation!

That is very cheap.

The hon. member may say it is cheap, but hon. members opposite have quantity, while we on this side have political quality. But I have yet to learn that that was one of the intentions which the framers of the Act of Union had in view when they laid down this differentiation. These figures show the anomalous position at the present time.

Give us the figures for the delimitation of 1937.

I have given the figures for 1937, which show that there we have an overload up to 10 per cent. But if I am going to follow that argument up I would be getting beyond the scope of this present motion, because one of the purposes’ of the Bill is to remedy the anomalies which existed when this Delimitation Commission issued its report. At that time there was an overload of only 10 per cent., but the moment the new delimitation came into effect that percentage rose to 20, 30 and even 40 per cent. But that is due to a matter which is dealt with in Section 21 of the Bill, and which I am not able to deal with at this stage. The hon. member for Beaufort West and certain other hon. members have quoted the case of New Zealand and they have quoted it incorrectly. In New Zealand the position is this. After a population census the Dominion is divided into 76 European electorates, according to population distribution, with an allowance for rural population. They have what is called a country quota, and the country quota is computed on the basis that 28 per cent. is added to the rural population, which for electoral purposes means a population in towns not exceeding 2,000 inhabitants. There you have a statutory definition of a rural population, and if we apply that statutory definition to South Africa, we might have quite a number of rural towns such as Kroonstad and similar centres, ruled out as urban. In South Africa a very large number of smaller towns with populations of over 2,000 would be ruled out if we applied the New Zealand system here.

Why not?

If that is so, a great deal of the force of the arguments used by hon. members opposite would be dissipated, because many places in the country would, in terms of the Statute, be held to be urban and not rural. But in any event, quite apart from that, this load in New Zealand is a maximum load of 28 per cent. We in South Africa at the present time have a maximum load of 30 per cent., and hon. members want now to raise it to 40 per cent.

Is that not the minimum load?

Is it not the fixed load?

It is the fixed load, but only of the rural population.

Exactly, but 15 under and 15 above is not a fixed load.

On this New Zealand definition of rural area, this addition does not apply in the case of towns with a population of 2,000 or over, which to a large extent would nullify that benefit which is being sought to be applied to South Africa. And there is no underloading. I might point out that, in actual fact, the figures from the Witwatersrand and in respect to the whole of the Union show that the difference between town and country is well over 40 per cent. The average at the present time is about 48 per cent.

Not at the time of the delimitation.

The hon. member surely misses the point of the Bill. He surely misses the intention of the framers of the Act of Union. It was surely never intended that the Delimitation Commission should be allowed to frame a list which was a list only in name, and which really did not convey the true position.

The object of the amendment is to get a better division of seats at the time of the delimitation.

hon. members at the present time complain that the Delimitation Commission does not overload to a sufficient extent.

Yes, for the purpose of the division of seats.

I think I have shown that two years ago you had a load to the extent of 10 per cent. To-day it is on average over 56 per cent. in the Transvaal. If that happens when you have a commencing overload of 10 per cent., what is going to happen when you have a compulsory overload of 20 per cent.? Finally, sir, there is the argument used by the hon. member for Fauresmith (Mr. Havenga) who is not here at the moment. The hon. member said that he strongly supported this motion because he wished to preserve the identity of the platteland and feared a revival of what he called the old uitlander conception in the towns. The hon. member suggested that the towns were being governed by the old uitlander conception. I want to ask the hon. member whether our people, our own South Africans, our own fellow-Afrikaners, when they leave the platteland and live in the towns, become uitlanders. Is that the suggestion?

That is cheap and silly.

You are evading the question.

I am not evading the question. Hon. members have quoted figures to show that in recent years there has been a drift to the towns, and that the population of the towns has increased. I ask, where does that increase in population come from? It has been suggested that it comes from overseas. Hon. members say they profess to know correctly about their own people, but if they really believe that that is so, then I can only say that they have but a slight knowledge of what is taking place in South Africa and of the social conditions in South Africa. In recent years many persons have come into the towns, and many of them have joined the Railway Service and we have built hostels for them and look after their welfare and interests in the towns. Who are they? They are not uitlanders. They are our own flesh and blood from the country districts in the platteland.

Has not the registration under the Aliens Act brought to light that you have some 45,000?

Forty-four thousand, but they are not voters. They cannot vote.

But they are citizens of the urban areas, and this increase of population also includes them, and one of these days they will also get the vote.

I am afraid the hon. member is begging the question. The hon. member knows quite well that in computing the number of seats in the province you only have regard to the number of registered voters.

We are only concerned with the increase of the population in the rural areas.

You are not concerned with them. If you follow the terms of the motion you will realise that the basis of 20 per cent. either way has to apply to registered voters.

Your argument was not based on that.

No, my argument is that hon. members opposite say that the pendulum is swinging to the towns, and that there is a large increase in the numbers of voters in the towns. They are afraid of the potential voters allowing their names to be on the roll. I reply that those fresh or new residents in the towns have come from the country districts. It is said that the towns have this uitlander complex, the old uitlander conception. I therefore ask the question whether, when these people leave the platteland and come to the towns, they then turn into uitlanders? I say that that is a very dangerous argument to use. If hon. members opposite wish to preserve this principle and if they value the principle of differentiation, then I say do not use these specious arguments which cast a reflection on your own flesh and blood and which cannot be supported by any sound reason. I also say do not attempt to tamper with things, with dangerous things, which may react against you in the future. The whole case which has been made out this afternoon has been merely a repetition of what was dealt with for two days last week. It has not carried us any further except to emphasise once again that what hon. members opposite do not realise is this, that by making these allegations against the towns and against the new urban voters, they are in effect accusing their own fellow-South Africans who were perfectly good voters when they lived in the platteland, of turning into uitlanders. In those circumstances, I regret very much that I cannot accept the motion of the hon. member.

I did not intend to take part in this debate, but after the speech of the Minister, one must point out that he was hopelessly wrong, so far as his figures were concerned. The Minister comes here and tells the House that there are constituencies to-day, urban constituencies, with a percentage of 51.39 per cent. above the quota. If this Bill does not pass, and the alteration is not made, and you get a delimitation tomorrow, what is going to happen? Then he knows very well that the maximum which will remain of the 51.39 per cent. can only be 15 per cent. according to the Act. Therefore, if this Bill does not pass, it will still mean that quite a number of urban constituencies will be added, and a constituency like Turffontein will possibly be cut up into three constituencies. Without the Bill there will, as it is, be an astonishing increase in the number of seats, so far as the towns are concerned. It is misleading of the Minister to come here and pretend that his Bill is going to make an alteration in the position. What we propose is just that we should look the position which is indicated by the statistics, in the face. There has been a tremendous migration to the towns, with the result that the urban constituencies have tremendously increased, so far as voters are concerned, so that in one case we find a margin of 71.9, but under the existing legislation, it will in any event have to be reduced to 15 per cent., and under our proposal the margin can at most only be 20 per cent. Why then will he not accept the 20 per cent. proposal? If we admit that 71.9 and 51.39 per cent. are unreasonably high, then he surely must admit that 20 per cent. is not so unreasonable. The Minister’s argument may, if it is superficially considered, create an impression. But he has not stated the real position, and it is not fair of the Minister, who is responsible for this Bill, to try and mislead not only the people in the country, but also this House, in that way. He knows well enough that his figures are wrong, and that he quoted them wrongly, and that is not fair on the part of the Minister. The Minister further said that we are trying to make an encroachment on what had been done by the drafters of the Constitution, that we did not want to maintain the position which was laid down in the Constitution, that we did not want to perpetuate it. If we were to have a National Convention again to-day, and a Constitution had to be drawn up to-day, what would they have done, what would the position have been? That is the question that it comes down to. I want to point out that at the inauguration of the Union, about 50 per cent. of the population lived in the towns and 50 per cent. on the countryside, and notwithstanding the fact that the position was more or less equal at that time, the fathers of the Constitution— to whom the Minister has referred as our example — said that the countryside should be given 15 per cent. more, and that the towns should be given 15 per cent. less. We only ask that, in view of the tremendous removal of the population, we should try to maintain the position, and we say that it is in the interests of the country that the rural areas should be given more representation, because you find the more established interests and the more permanent section of the population in the rural areas. That was the point of view of the drafters of the Constitution, and we want to maintain it, while hon. members opposite are trying to depart from it. But as to the figures which the Minister quoted, of 51.39 per cent. above the quota, and in one particular case of 71.9 per cent., will not the figures be made still higher by compulsory registration? If the numbers become still greater, then the Minister must admit that it would mean an improper representation for the towns. By the compulsory registration you will get a larger number of voters on the rolls in the towns, with the result that there will be more seats, altough the voters will possibly not vote. That will make the position of the representation still worse, and if we do not prevent it, then we shall have a very unsound state of affairs. Nor does our motion say, if it is passed, that it must come into force immediately, but we only propose that it shall be an instruction to the Select Committee to consider the desirability of it, and of going carefully into the matter, and of getting all the data, and then to consider the matter. But even that the hon. member is not prepared to do. Why not? The Minister and his Party are only influenced by a matter of political advantage. They know that they will get a temporary political benefit out of it. That is the view which is gaining the day, it is the old Unionist point of view which has conquered in that party, and the poor members from the countryside on the other side have absolutely no say in the party. It is the Minister of Mines, whose party does not represent a single constituency in the platteland, and it is the Minister of Labour, whose supporters do not represent a single rural constituency, who is doing the dictating, and subsequently the Minister of the Interior also saw that it was in the interests of his party to make that Dominion Party and the Labour Party stronger, to give more representation to the towns at the expense of the rural areas.

But you voted for a similar proposal three years ago.

Then there was no compulsory registration, then there was absolutely no legislation, then the rush to the towns was not so strong as it is to-day. The position was completely different. To-day we have new legislation before us, and a motion for compulsory registration, and in consequence of that the interests in the towns will become dominating, and the countryside will suffer in consequence. For these reasons it is not only in the interests of the platteland, but of the whole country, that this Bill should not pass in that, form. The Prime Minister has now asked whether the migration from the countryside, whether the people who are streaming into the towns, are not our own people. To a great extent they are, but if they live in the towns they no longer represent the interests of the country-side. That is obvious. Then they are people who work on the mines or in factories, and those then are their temporary interests. Then they no longer represent the countryside. This has nothing to do with the question whether they are Afrikaans or English-speaking. But hon. members on the other side are so obsessed with the idea of racial distinction, that they immediately assume that that is behind it. It is clear that the people who go to the towns in their own interests will think differently, and will have other interests than when they lived on the countryside. I did not intend to take part in this debate, but it is clear that the figures which the Minister quoted are misleading. They are not relevant to the matter at all, and if we were to have a delimitation tomorrow without this Bill, then this state of affairs which they consider so alarming, would be put right, and therefore this Bill is quite superfluous in its present form.

I only rise to remove a misunderstanding. The hon. member for Newcastle (Mr. Nel) unfortunately has just gone out, but he got up in the House to explain why he voted in 1937 for the amendment of the hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. Le Roux), and in his explanation he advanced his arguments, and I said “Hear, hear,” because I agreed with what he was saying at that moment. He said that I should not say “Hear, hear,” because he had Hansard here, and he saw from that that I had at that time voted against the motion. I could not remember it any longer, but because the House got the impression, or would have got the impression that I voted against the motion of the hon. member for Oudtshoorn, I turned up Hansard and want to say for the information of the House, that I did not vote against the amendment of the hon. member for Oudtshoorn. I did not vote against the amendment of the hon. member for Winburg (Dr. N. J. van der Merwe) either, which he moved at the same time. I think the hon. member, in his haste, read the matter wrongly, and thought that he had seen my name. I assume that the hon. member mentioned my name by mistake, and, therefore, I want to tell the House that I did not vote against the proposal in the amendment. I just want to mention another small point. I expressed my view of the Bill on the second reading, and I just want to say that it appears strange to me that the Minister wants to explain how impossible it is to separate the interests of the countryside from those of the towns.

But you voted against the motion.

Of the hon. member for Oudtshoorn?

No, of the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom).

The Minister is wrong there again. We were all the time debating the motion of the hon. member for Oudtshoorn, who got up here and said: The hon. member for Newcastle then voted for my amendment, and now he votes against it. When the hon. member for Newcastle gave his reasons why he voted for it at that time, I said “Hear, hear,” and subsequently the hon. member for Newcastle accused me of having voted against that proposal. The Minister says that a case has been made out here for the motion, but you cannot separate the two things. Here comes the Minister with a Bill which has only one object, and that is party political advantage, and the result is a separation of town and country. That is what he is doing, and his name will be known in history as the man who divided the towns from the country. I am reminded here of the election cry of the Dominion Party during the last election, namely, “Town versus country.” That was the slogan, and now they are sitting there and are perfectly happy. But this in passing, I say that the Minister will not escape his responsibility, which is that he has introduced a Bill for political advantage, and that he will be responsible for the struggle which will break out between town and country, to the disadvantage of both sections. I just want to add this, that I do not consider it necessary to compel people to register who have such a poor idea of governing the country. It must be a class of man who is less educated, or who is of such a class that it is not desirable for him to vote. How can the Minister argue facts away when we allege that he is only trying to collect a small number in order to play it off against the countryside? The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) is quite honest. He said that they must do it now, within three years, because it would keep them in office. The hon. member is also honest in other respects. He admits that he was also asked by the Prime Minister not to break away from the party too soon, but that he should wait until everybody did it. I hope, therefore, that the House will agree to the motion of the hon. member for Oudtshoorn.

I do not want to detain the House long, but I want to reassure the hon. member for Winburg (Dr. N. J. van der Merwe), who made such a heartrending appeal to hon. members on this side who represent the rural areas, and also the hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. Le Roux), who asked me personally what I thought about the proposal. I do not want to keep them waiting long, and I want to say at once that I am going to vote for the Bill. The reason is that when the National Convention met in that splendid atmosphere, then they fixed the 15 per cent. advantage to the countryside, and I want to be satisfied with that, because I think that in the excited condition in which we are living, we cannot find any better solution. The hon. member for Winburg asked how we were going to justify our present attitude on the countryside, but I am courageous enough to explain to the farmers what the attitude is which I am adopting. If he wishes, he is perfectly welcome to explain to the farmers at Rustenburg what his attitude is, and I will state mine. When the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth) moves for a tampering with the Constitution, I will not lend myself to it. If we lay down the principle to-day that we can tamper with the Constitution, where are we going to end, seeing that the stream to the towns is constantly going on nowadays? Everyone will admit that it creates a dangerous precedent if we commence tampering with the Constitution. What will happen in the future, in, say, ten or twenty years, if there is a party in office which possibly proposes the reduction of the representation of the countryside by abolishing the margin of 15 per cent. in favour of the countryside? What argument shall we then be able to use against it, if we to-day allow the Constitution to be tampered with? For those reasons I shall vote for the Bill, and against the motion to alter the margin.

The Minister said that I represented the smallest constituency, and I am proud of it, because all the small branches that you get are good, and the fact that you represent the smallest constituency is possibly explainable by the fact that it is of the best quality. If I represent the smallest constituency, why then was it established? The Minister represents nothing but factories and shops and coloured people, and whom do I represent? The mealie farmers, they are the backbone of our country; the wheat farmers, the meat farmers, the bacon farmers, the dairy farmers, diamonds and even gold as well. Those are the different products of my electors, but what do his electors produce? They are all dependent upon what we produce. We have something to show for our work in order to enable them to live. If it were not for us, then they would not be able to exist, but we can exist without them.

Are you giving it away for nothing?

No, we do not get any alms and we do not give them either; possibly the hon. member, who always speaks disparagingly of my work, who always wants to speak about the subsidies which the farmers are getting, wants that to happen. He is the hon. member who talks of those hypocritical subsidies, while if we had only got the difference in the exchange, we would now be able to claim damages. But they are always belittling the farmers, and distorting our words. You said that you, as urban residents, had voluntarily given the subsidy. Do you deny that he curtailed the subsidy here to reproach us in connection with the subsidy, and is that possibly the reason why they want to amend the Electoral Act now so that we may be entirely dominated by them. What then do they represent? Hotel-keepers and shopkeepers—and what do they produce? I say that we who produce something out of the earth, we enable the others to live. I do not say that the others are parasites, but they are living on us. The hon. member asked what about Paarl, what about Worcester, are they not urban constituencies? He searched for a definition, and he thought that he might find a solution of the difficulty. But he proved today that he does not know the difference between the platteland and the towns. If I may give a definition, then I would say this. The interests of a village like Paarl depend on the countryside, and the interests of Worcester depend on the farmers, on the fruit and wine farmers. That is why I am defining them as being rural seats. That is my definition. I do not want to answer any other hon. members, but I want to point out that a principle has been stated in the Constitution, and as they said, a quota has been fixed here by our ancestors. Why was that provision made? Because they started from the point of view that we, as the rural areas, should have a majority in the Houses of Parliament. That is the principle. The quota itself can always be changed. It can be pushed up or it can be lowered, and then we shall not actually be tampering with the principle. There I differ from the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) who says that this motion will mean a tampering with the principles of the Constitution.

You are tampering with the 15 per cent.

We are making an improvement there. The principle there is that there must be a quota, but we can push the quota up and down, and then we still do not affect the principle.

To-morow the 15 per cent. may be taken away, and what will you say then?

Why should it be taken away now? Suppose that later on we become very strong on the platteland, then I think that it is desirable for that percentage to be brought down. We can push the quota up and down, but we cannot tamper with the principle of the Constitution, namely that the countryside must be given the biggest representation in this Parliament. Why is that principle there? Because, as I have already said, the countryside has the permanent section of the population. On the countryside we are not like a swarm of flies which are here to-day and gone to-morrow. Why did they go on doing that? We always heard, and from the Prime Minister as well, and who will deny it, that the countryside is the backbone of the country? I ask the hon. member for Rustenburg and other hon. members opposite, like the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. H. van der Merwe) who represent rural constituencies, will they deny that the countryside is the backbone of the country?

It may be the backbone without any meat on it.

The mines are the backbone.

There we have it now from the hon. member for Calvinia.

That is so.

The other hon. members opposite who represent the countryside, are as silent as the grave. It is just because the countryside is the backbone of the country that it is right that it should be laid down in the Constitution that the countryside should have the largest representation in our country. Possibly at the moment, a larger amount of revenue is received from the mines, but if we take the total payments, then I am convinced that the countryside contributes the greatest amount of any section of the population of South Africa. I deplore the attitude of the hon. member for Weenen (Mr. Abrahamson). The name of his constituency suits him, because he is weeping to-night. He upheld the principle that the countryside ought to get a larger representation than the towns, but he has abandoned that principle to-night. Why? Because the Empire is much nicer and more glorious to him than the countryside, and at any cost he is going to sacrifice the countryside, and remain faithful to what he did on the 4th September, and to that Empire. I wonder whether he has any sons who can go to the front to-day, and whether they are there, or whether he is hiding behind others.

But you also fought for the Empire.

I am glad that I elicited that interjection. Now I shall be in form for giving the answer. If the hon. member turns up the Hansard report then he will see that when the motion came up about “Die Stem van Suid-Afrika” I gave a reply to the question why I had put on the khaki uniform.

The hon. member must come back to the motion.

But an interjection was made, and when shall I have an opportunity of replying to it? Can you advise me?

You cannot follow a wrong track.

The hon. member cannot reply to it now.

I am very sorry that I may not do so now, because I would have raked up old sores of the Boer War up to the present time. The position then was different. At the commencement of the Union about 50 per cent. of the population lived on the countryside, and to-day there are only 34 per cent. This shows that the population of the countryside has left for the towns on a large scale, and what is the reason for it? Because in the past the countryside was not looked after in the way that I think it ought to have been provided for. Reproaches have been made against the countryside here to-day by the Minister of the Interior, that we on the countryside are assisted by alms. Our children on the countryside say that they do not want to remain in the position of having those reproaches flung at them, and they leave the countryside to go to the towns. Those charges which the Minister of the Interior made against us they do not want to be made against them, and they go to the towns.

I made no charges of that kind.

I am sorry that the hon. member for Weenen (Mr. Abrahamson) is not in his place. He executed an egg dance here to-night. He made out that he was heart and soul in favour of the motion, but there was another matter which is of greater importance, and therefore he felt obliged to vote against the motion. The hon. member for Ventersdorp (Col. Jacob Wilkens) rightly said that it was the Empire and the excitement of the war which he was inspired by, which made him go the length of forsaking the principles. We are indebted to the hon. member for Newcastle (Mr. Nel) for what he said here, and we shall certainly make good use of his argument as to why he altered his opinion. He is afraid that a republic will be proclaimed in the country if the rural representation is retained and if the countryside becomes strong. Because he is afraid that a republic may then be proclaimed he has changed his point of view. He thinks that he is right in believing that the additional seats which will be created on the Witwatersrand will be held by his party. What right has the hon. member to take up that attitude? He is a parliamentarian who has been long enough in politics to know that politics change from day to day, and they alter, especially on the Witwatersrand, where we have a fluctuating population who shout “Hosanna” today and to-morrow “Crucify him.” That was the experience of the Prime Minister. There was a time when the Witwatersrand had a very high opinion of him, and there was also a time when they wanted to crucify him. The same thing will happen again in the future, and while the hon. member for Newcastle now thinks that he can oppose a republic by voting on this motion with the Minister, it may be that he will thereby be playing into the hands of a republic. I would like to approach this matter from another point of view. The Minister told us that no new arguments had been used here. I have another new argument, and it is that the majority of the people in the towns are poor people, people who are unemployed and who are impoverished, and when people are out of work and impoverished then they are dissatisfied. It leads to riots and it is particularly in the big towns that we have the hotbed of vice and riots. There we meet with strikes, rebellions and disturbances, and the rest of it. Those conditions in the towns promote Communism, because it is where there are poverty and unemployment, where the people are suffering severely, that we meet with Communism. If this migration from the countryside to the towns continues, with the result that representatives like the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Burnside) get into Parliament, then we shall in time have a Parliament which is governed by Communism and not by the conservative section of the population, which has always kept a straight course. The hon. member for Weenen said we must look to the future. If I may use an English expression then I want to say that we ought to have a “long-range view,” and I want in my turn to tell the hon. member for Weenen that he should not look at temporary political advantage. Let us look to the future. We are engaged in building up industries in our country and in developing our country industrially, with the result that people are streaming into the towns from the country. It may also be that we shall have people coming in from elsewhere, with the result that we shall have an accumulation of people in the towns, people who will transplant ideologies from other countries into our country, and we may later on have a position which becomes intolerable if those towns get the upper hand. Is it not better then to see to it that we maintain that conservative and permanent section of the population in its authority? Why do we plead on behalf of the rural areas? Because the rural areas are more particularly that part of the country which is deprived of many privileges. Their privileges are not comparable to those of the towns. Then we have the people who have not the necessary educational facilities, who do not have the necessary hospital facilities, who are far away from the railway stations and from villages. I have people in my constituency who are 200 miles away from the nearest village. Such a person is deprived of the privileges which the townsman enjoys. He has to battle with many difficulties and he requires a representative to look after his interests. The hon. member for Ventersdorp (Col. Jacob Wilkens) pointed out that the rural representative had to look after a variety of concerns. In my constituency I represent tobacco farmers, citrus farmers, ground-nut farmers, mealie farmers, cattle farmers and also gold mines and diggers. Then there are also tin mines— there is a variety of interests which one has to look after, while the urban representative has practically only one kind of interest to concern himself about. I am thinking of what the position was at Potgietersrust before it had its own representative, and when we still fell within another division. The constituency was extraordinarily large; we were situated far away and we were in a condition of desertion. We had no privileges and our interests were not looked after. I do not want to blame the representatives of those days, but the distances were tremendous, and it is only a human tendency to look after the interests of one’s own division first and subsequently those of the far away areas. Potgietersrust was deserted and neglected. But since representation was given to it both in Parliament and on the Central Board, things have changed tremendously and have developed, and it is at present one of the most progressive districts in the Transvaal. There we find the biggest tobacco farmer, the biggest groundnut farmer, the biggest cattle farmer and the biggest citrus plantations in the whole of the world, because all the interests of those people are looked after by their representative. We have schools there, in the bushveld area, such as exist nowhere in South Africa. There are roads, telephones and the like because there is representation. If you make the constituency larger then it will become neglected, and I say it is not fair for that to be permitted. It has frequently been mentioned in this debate that the country representatives opposite are remaining silent. Here and there some of them have spoken, but what have they actually said? The hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) spoke of the inviolability of the Constitution. I am sorry for him. He does not know that our Constitution has already been torn to shreds by the Status Act, and now he actually says that the Constitution must not be tampered with. That is a pitiable argument for the hon. member to use. [No quorum.] It is very deplorable that when the highest body in the land is dealing with very important legislation hon. members are not in their places, especially hon. members on the other side. I have pointed out the lack of interest which members from the countryside in this House have shown in connection with the interests of their electors. Are they prepared to leave the interests of their constituents to the tender mercy of the traders, exploiters, hawkers and fortune-seekers? The question was asked why the depopulation of the countryside had taken place, why the migration? Because the farmers cannot make a living on the platteland on their farms, in consequence of the low level of the prices of produce. The farmer is dependent on the merchant and is being exploited in a terrible way. The hon. member for Frankfort (Brig.-Gen. Botha), who is sitting over there smiling, is prepared to hand the interests of the countryside over to the merchants. So far as the composition of the Cabinet is concerned….

The hon. member must confine himself to the motion.

I just want to point out that if this Bill passes and still larger representation is given to the towns, then the towns will also have still more representation in the Cabinet. They already to-day have strong representation in the Cabinet, but if an extra ten or twelve seats are given to the towns they will have still more representation in the Cabinet. I am astonished that hon. members opposite will justify this to their constituents and I only just want to express the hope and trust that their constituents will settle accounts with them.

As the representative of, if not the largest, then surely one of the largest constituencies in the country, I feel justified in saying a few words in support of the amendment. I feel that no one has more burdens and has to make more trouble and make more sacrifices in connection with his constituency than I have. I speak from experience and therefore I want heartily to support the amendment. I definitely believe that hon. members opposite will be aware of the urgent necessity of not going on with this matter, if they would only think for a moment. For the sake of unity in the country and having healthy conditions in South Africa it is necessary to put this quota system between the countryside and the towns on a better and sounder basis. It is done practically in all democratic countries, and more particularly in the British Commonwealth of Nations, and also in America. There this principle is being applied in practice. Why must South Africa then come and lower itself into a position of being unable to accommodate itself to the practical circumstances prevailing throughout the world. As already explained, you have a margin in England of 50 per cent. and above the quota. The National Convention in 1910 saw to it that we should have equilibrium here between the countryside and the towns. It is a pity that only two members of that Convention are still in the House, namely, the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister. The fact that they put the quota into the Constitution gives me the assurance that that honourable Convention considered it necessary to have a margin between the countryside and the towns, but things develop slowly. In the towns the number of voters is increasing tremendously and in other parts of the country it is being reduced, and therefore I think that this House is justified in increasing the margin over what it was at that time. When we take our economic circumstances into consideration and the interests of the different constituencies, then it is a self-evident proposition which compels this House to support this justifiable amendment. The amendment is not only based on economic grounds but also on moral principles. There must surely at least be a little magnanimity on the other side, a little honesty, a little justice, in order to eliminate domination, a domination which is not a sound thing for our country. There is little chance for the rural areas to extend. The carrying capacity nas reached the enith. The superfluous population is gradually streaming into the towns. We know that the countryside can only carry a certain number and the balance of the population is gradually going to the towns. The towns are growing by tens of thousands, and what will be the position in a hundred years? Then the towns will have millions and the countryside will still have the population that it has to-day. The strength of the parties also changes in the towns. With very few exceptions I foresee that the towns will gradually all be Nationalist seats later on. To-day the majority of the seats goes to the other side, but owing to the tremendous influx from the countryside the seats will be taken from the United Party and they will become Nationalist seats. Accordingly I want to say that this is not a party matter not at all, because the Nationalist Party will gradually occupy the towns and then it will also be able to dominate and become a threat to the rural areas. It is, therefore, not only the United Party with its principles which will be able to dominate the countryside, but also the Nationalist Party when it gets the majority in the towns. Then it will become a threat to the countryside. Let this House now be sober and regulate things in good time. You know what happens when a dam becomes too full and there is no outlet, then the water runs over the walls and breaks the embankment and causes destruction. We now have the opportunity of debating the matter calmly and of putting it on a sound basis for the future, not for the benefit of the other side or for the benefit of this side, but for the salvation of the country. The rural seats are on the average 200 by 200 miles in size. What is the size of the urban constituencies? One mile by two miles and in some cases even one mile by one mile. Is it just to expect that one man should struggle in that way travelling such a large and powerful constituency to look after the interests of the people there, while another representative has practically no trouble worth mentioning? It is a terrible thing to represent such a large constituency and it is not only coupled with fatigue but it wears you out and causes tremendous expense and takes a lot of time. I have reckoned that to do the work in my constituency in a proper way it costs the representative about £300 a year in travelling expenses and wear and tear alone. We, therefore, feel justified in complaining, especially when I think of representatives from the countryside on the opposite benches, that we have tremendous difficulties and expense. Why then should we not put this matter on a sound basis in good time seeing that to-day we are able to do so? If hon. members opposite were in our places and we had the power in the towns to-day and they that of the countryside, then I do not even want to say a word about all the crocodile tears which would be shed on the other side. We would never reach the end of the most pitiful cries of distress, and I want to give hon. members the assurance that we would give a hearing to those cries of distress. We would really see at once that they had a just case and that we, if we refused to grant their request, then would be labelled in the eyes of the country as people who were not in favour of promoting an honourable and just case. My hon. friends on that side who represent rural seats feel very much at ease. They know that they are on their last lap. They know that these additional seats which they are being presented with in this way that they will become the safe representatives of those seats. The hon. members who represent the countryside on the other side are quite at ease, peaceful and quiet. They make me think of the pyramids in Egypt which have been there for centuries, the sphinx, perfectly quiet and calm. They know what is awaiting them and I can understand why they are so satisfied. But may I assure them that they will have to keep a watch over their constituents in connection with this amendment, and their constituents will settle accounts with them and the whip will crack. But if I must go further I want to say that I feel sorry for those 27 hon. members opposite who represent the countryside, who are neglecting this just matter and will not in the least assist in pleading for the removal of this injustice

Order. The hon. member must keep to the motion.

I just want to make an appeal to hon. members to assist us in getting the amendment through because if they will assist us I know this injustice will be removed, but I say that they dare not assist us. They dare not vote for this amendment. Why not? Because they are controlled by the sjambok of the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell). In that way those hon. members lose their initiative. They allow themselves to be led by the nose by someone who in future wants to sit in the Prime Minister’s seat, and they do not see it. In that way they are neglecting the true interests of their Fatherland. That is why I have undertaken the task of convincing them on that side of the House, if they cannot go the length of supporting this just cause, that they are establishing hotbeds of weaklings who dare not promote the interests of the country. I want to make an appeal to the Minister of the Interior seriously to consider this amendment. The future will thank him for it because there is no other way out for the future, this is the only and the proper way.

I listened attentively to the answer which the Minister gave, and the figures with which he juggled—which I do not now want to analyse—and with which he attempted to evade the truth and the objects which are implied in this motion. Is the Minister serious? Does he actually think when he gives us these figures, the last return of the census, or rather of the persons who are in the different constituencies, and whether he can say that that is the quota which has been laid down on which those representatives are elected to the different seats? No, it is below the dignity of a Minister to drop to that level, and we do not assume such a thing. What was the intention of the fathers of the Constitution in providing for that margin? It has already been fully debated, and here the Minister comes and quotes figures which give a wrong impression. But reference has been made to what is being done in New Zealand. New Zealand has a European population with one civilisation. But what have we got in South Africa, and what has the Union of South Africa to do with its mixed population, and the conglomerate population, which we have got in South Africa, and which does not have a South African outlook? That is the difference, we are dealing here with the people of South Africa, who demand representation. Last night when I had the opportunity here, I tried to show who the people of South Africa were, but I did not complete it because I felt that this House took no interest in it, but now I am reverting to it. I am not going to repeat myself, but I am going to repeat the law which exists, that the South African towns may not be driven into conflict with the rural population. Industries, capital, should not be given dominating power in South Africa. We get it owing to South Africa extending its industries, and for that reason the population is being driven more towards the towns, and now we are passing a Bill here to extend the industries to the rural towns and villages. What is the object of that extension? It is intended to provide work, because the country cannot automatically be made larger, but the towns can, in fact, increase. The farms cannot be made larger, and the children on the farms must have a livelihood, and where are they to get that on the land? It is therefore justified that the people of South Africa should have the right to say that the population of the country should be justly represented. Is it justly represented when our constituencies have within the area of a mile sufficient persons to elect a member, and from the way flats are going up all over the place it will soon be a few streets which will elect a member. But hon. members who represent the countryside have constituencies which have a diameter of hundreds of miles. My constituency is already more densely populated. It has a diameter of 64 miles, and it gives me the opportunity of going to see my constituents. But there are other constituencies which have a much larger diameter, and the hon. member who represents a constituency of that kind gets the same pay as a member who only has to hold one or two meetings in order to reach his constituents. What are the obligations of a member on the countryside? They demand a great deal of him because he has to visit an extended constituency; he must represent all the interests, and if he is an honest man he must visit the people and he must give them his services in all their difficulties. Is it right that such a slight difference should be made between the urban and the rural constituencies? I make bold to say that the promoters of this Bill have not borne in mind what I have been referring to, what the duties of the rural representatives are and all the things that are demanded of him if he is an honest representative. No, the Minister has disappointed me, disappointed me bitterly, because I have followed his career. I remember that he stood on the soap-box and snowed-out Snow, and he told the workers that he would represent their interests. Although he can represent the interests of other workers, as embraced in the motion of the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth), he is not prepared to do so. I expected that in the changed circumstances they would propose a different quota and that they would follow the example of the greatest republic in the world. America, that every part of the country would have a due representation of its interests. The village which I represent with its European and coloured population of 10.000 I can reach every day, but my district and surrounding country, with a further 30,000 inhabitants, I cannot get to every day. Look at the difference in the interests of the village which is dependent on the exports abroad, because the only industry we have is the farming industry. Fortunately the interests are still the same, and that is why I represent a country constituency. But the interests of my son, who now lives in Cane Town where he makes his living, are they still the same rural interests which he will support if he had been living up there with me? No, his method of life has completely changed; his future is entirely dependent on other sources than those of the countryside. I wonder whether the Prime Minister realises that the biggest capital invested in any industry, the largest number of people who make a livelihood out of a particular business, and the ultimate result on which the Minister of Finance has to make his budget balance, that those are the rural areas with the production got from farming? There we have the biggest capital investments, the biggest employers, and there we have that section of the state which provides for the feeding of the state. Is that section of the state then to be placed in inferior position for political purposes? And this Bill has only one object, and that is a political one, as my hon. friend from Newcastle (Mr. Nel) and the hon. member for Weenen (Mr. Abrahamson) have said here. We might almost weep with the latter that he who was formerly an adherent to a different principle is now going to vote for this Bill. South Africa still stands by the same principle, and this side of the House still stands by the same principle, the principle of South Africa first. The hon. member for Newcastle, who, came here with his Jeremiads, also represents a rural constituency, although there are a few smaller industries. He says that he has changed his views because we on this side are supporting a republic. It is not we who will proclaim a republic; it is the people of South Africa who will do so, because it is an indisputable fact that it is the best form of government for South Africa. I deplore the fact that hon. members who sit here for the purpose of representing the countryside should submissively agree with this political trap which the Minister of Justice wants to inflict on us. It is nothing but a political trap in order to get more seats for the towns by the delimitation, and to allow the rural areas to lose seats in order to allow that Government party to get more seats, and to try to squeeze us to, death for the next ten years. We are not afraid of that threat, but we are not going to allow ourselves to be out-manoeuvred by this fraud which is to be played off on the people of South Africa in order to keep that Government in office. We must maintain that principle of the Constitution in order to protect our people from domination by a small group of capitalists and capital, which will dominate the greatest capital of the country which is spread over the rural areas, because they are concentrated at certain points. I say again that the biggest capital investment, the biggest employer and the feeder of the people is on the countryside, and it is also the countryside which has to provide that final result which enables the Minister of Finance to make his budget balance, and to maintain the trade balance. I want to end by making a serious appeal to the Government, because I am one of those who regard my own life seriously, and I regard the national life still more seriously. I consider it so serious that I believe that I am not here only for the present time, but for the future. I almost made quotations here, but I know that it would once more provoke a laugh which would hurt my soul, arid therefore I prefer to be silent. I know that the Government, with its powerful position, can refuse what we are asking from the House, but if it does refuse, then whatever may be done, the repercussions will come. If he does not act in an honest way, on lines we move in our amendment, then the setback will come, because the people of South Africa will not let it remain like that.

I want to rise once more to make an earnest appeal to the Government, before putting this Bill on the Statute Book, again to give serious consideration to the consequences which may result from this Bill becoming law. I would like to impress on the minds of my hon. friends opposite that that section of the country which is going to suffer first of all and most, if this Bill is going to be passed, is the extensive North-West area. There is no part of the Union which will be affected more directly by this Bill. Why? The first reason is because we have a sparsely spread out population there, and the second is that when one looks at a map you see that that big area has practically no railway and no national roads. It is particularly that region which is unreachable by their representatives. If the constituencies in the North-West, therefore, are still further increased in size, which will be the inevitable result of this Bill, then those areas will directly experience the injurious consequences of this Bill.

I want to remind the hon. member that we are not now dealing with the Bill, but with the motion of the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth).

That is what I want to get to, Mr. Speaker, namely, if that amendment which we have moved is passed, then it will reduce the damage to the North-West.

We can now only go into the motion that that question should be considered by the Committee of the whole House.

Then I will abandon that point and come to the second point, namely, the danger to those parts of the country if they have to be represented by persons on the other side, after we have heard the opinions which they have expressed to-day about the countryside. We have heard to-day the opinion of the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) about the Afrikaners who go from the rural areas into the towns. The Minister of the Interior also referred to-night to his opinion of these people who moved from the countryside into the towns. We have confidence in those people who are moving, but the migration which is taking place there is not on so large a scale that they will be able to influence the urban representation as to turn the scale so that the interests of the countryside will be represented. When we come to the figures, we find that the urban birth statistics are about 31,000 a year, as against 19,000 on the countryside. When we add to that an increase of about 6,000 due to immigrants who come from abroad, and if we assume that on the average half of the increase through births on the countryside migrate to the towns, then it means that the towns annually have an increase of about 48,000 as against an increase in the rural areas of about 9,000. This shows us what a great danger to the rural areas in the future there is in this Bill, if it is passed. In the future it may have a greater effect than would immediately appear to be the case. The possibility is there that after the war there will be an additional influx, so that there will not only be an annual increase of 6,000. We are on the verge of an industrial development. In view of these dangers, and especially when I take into consideration the position in the North-West, I want strongly to protest against this Bill, and I would like to read a telegram to the House, one of quite a number which I received recently from my constituency.

If that telegram is in connection with the debate in this House, then the hon. member cannot read it.

It has no connection with this debate, but it is a protest against this Bill.

That is precisely the same thing.

If I may not read it out, then I need only mention that I have received numbers of telegrams and letters to protest against this Bill. The different villages in the North-West feel that the Bill will injure their interests and that is why they want, by means of telegrams and letters, to protest most strongly against the Bill.

Motion put, and the House divided:

Ayes—46:

Bekker, G.

Bekker, S.

Boltman, F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Bosman, P. J.

Bremer, K.

Brits, G. P.

Conradie, J. H.

Conroy, E. A.

De Bruyn, D. A. S.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Du Toit, C. W. M.

Fullard, G. J.

Hugo, P. J.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Liebenberg, J. L. V.

Lindhorst, B. H.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Naudé, S. W.

Olivier. P. J.

Oost, H.

Pirow, O.

Rooth, E. A.

Schoeman, B. J.

Schoeman, N. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Swart, A. P.

Theron, P.

Van den Berg, C. J.

Van der Merwe, R.A. T.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Venter, J. A. P.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Viljoen, J. H.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Werth, A. J.

Wilkens, Jacob

Wilkens, Jan.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

Tellers: J. F. T. Naudé and P. O. Sauer.

Noes—62:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Botha, H. N. W.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowker, T. B.

Burnside, D. C.

Cadman, C. F. M.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Collins, W. R.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

De Kock, A. S.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, H. C.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Faure, P. A. B.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Hayward. G. N.

Hemming, G. K.

Henderson, R. H.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Lawrence, H. G.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Marwick, J. S.

Neate, C.

Nel, O. R.

Payn, A. O. B.

Pocock, P. V.

Stallard, C. F.

Steenkamp, W. P.

Steyn, C. F.

Steytler, L. J.

Strauss, J. G. N.

Sturrock, F. C.

Sutter, G. J.

Tothill, H. A.

Van Coller, C. M.

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

Motion accordingly negatived.

House in Committee:

Clause 1 of the Bill put.

I move—

Agreed to.

House Resumed:

The CHAIRMAN reported progress and asked leave to sit again; House to resume in Committee on 12th April.

I move—

On the motion of Mr. Tom Naudé, the debate was adjourned; to be resumed on 11th April.