I move—

This Bill is being introduced to give effect to the recommendations of a Select Committee of this House which sat during 1939 and which issued its report on the 12th May, 1939. That Select Committee was representative of all sections of this House and it issued a unanimous report. I would remind the House of the personnel of that Committee: It consisted of Messrs. Blackwell, Burnside, Erasmus, Haywood, Johnson, Joubert, Liebenberg, Marwick, Nel, Oost and J. G. N. Strauss. Now, shortly after I assumed office as Minister of the Interior, I called a conference of the senior electoral officers of the Union to discuss this report and on that occasion I had the opportunity of hearing the views of these gentlemen, most of them men of great experience in electoral matters, and in working the electoral machinery, and as a result of that conference it was decided by the Government to give effect to the recommendations of this unanimous report of the Select Committee. Now it will be observed from the terms of the Bill that it deals with a number of provisions to improve the machinery of our existing electoral laws. There are provisions, for instance, relating to the reduction of the period of residence in an electoral division at a biennial registration from three months to one month; the admitting of claims, incomplete in some unimportant detail, if the Registering Officer is satisfied as to the qualifications of the applicant; the amendment of the existing provision requiring two persons to witness claim orders, in future to provide for one witness only; the provision for blind voters, enabling such persons to take a companion into the voting compartment to record their votes instead of the presiding officer, is so preferred; and the legalising of the entry into and exit from polling stations of messengers used by party political organisations. I mention a few of the more important amendments contained in this measure, but the Bill goes further. It goes further than the mere amendment and, I hope, improvement of the existing electoral machinery. It goes further in two respects, inasmuch as it introduces into our electoral machinery two new principles, namely the principle of compulsory registration and the principle that any future Delimitation Commission should have the power to take cognisance not only of existing rolls of voters, but also of provisional rolls.

Rolls which have not yet been approved of?

To take cognisance not merely of existing but also of provisional rolls which have not gone through the objection stage, but which can afford an accurate indication of the extent of the representation in any given constituency. Now the purpose of the introduction of these new principles is to deal with that evil of under-registration which was commented on by the members of the Select Committee in their report. May I just remind the House of the terms of paragraph (1) of the Select Committee’s report which deals with the extent of under-registration of voters in South Africa. Paragraph (1) reads—

And then the report goes on to make this point. It says—

The point as I read it, which the committee is trying to make, is that we are living under a democratic system, and under that system — subject to certain provisions of the South Africa Act, of Section 40, sub-section (3), which provides for loading up or below the quota — we should give equal representation to the various portions of the Union under a system of democratic representation. Subject to those constitutional safeguards we should, as far as possible, observe the maxim of one man, one woman, one vote —subject to these provisions in the South Africa Act which relate to the disparity of population between town and country. The Select Committee having heard the evidence of the experts quite unanimously felt that the present position could not be allowed to continue. There was no doubt about that. The present position under which certain areas of the country are under-represented was dealt with in paragraph 2, and the committee in paragraph 2 of its report said this—

There the committee expressed its views in no uncertain terms. It was in a sense recognising the criticism of that impartial body, the last Delimitation Commission, which drew striking attention to the disparity in certain areas between the number of Union nationals, and the number of registered voters. In order to explain this disparity I would remind members of the provisions of the South Africa Act under which the delimitations of constituencies have to take place. In terms of the Act at the present time a Delimitation Commission is in duty bound to obtain what is known as a Union quota. To obtain that quota it divides the total number of European adult Union Nationals by 150. That gives us the Union quota. Then in order to determine how many seats should be allocated to each province, the Commission is bound, in terms of the South Africa Act, to divide the number of Union Nationals (adult) residing in each province by the Union quota. That quotient gives us the number of seats to be allocated in respect of each province. The next stage in the process of delimitation is to ascertain the provincial quota. The provincial quota, of course, differs in respect of each province of the Union. That provincial quota is obtained by dividing the total number of registered voters in each province as ascertained at the last registration of voters by the number of members to be allotted to each province. It will be seen that in deciding on the number of members to be allocated to each province, the decisive factor is not the number of adult Union Nationals in that province, but the number of registered voters in that province; and it will also be readily understood that if there is a marked disparity between the number of adult European Union Nationals in a province, and the number of registered voters in the province, then that particular province is liable to be under-represented in this House and in the Provincial Council. Now the Delimitation Commission in its report in respect of the last delimitation reiterated the view that in interpreting the words “total number of voters as ascertained at the last registration of voters,” it should be bound by the number of voters registered at the last biennial registration plus any subsequent supplementary registrations prior to its commencement of work. It cannot take cognisance of any provisional lists which might be in being at the time of its delimitation. It can be conceived, if that view is to hold, and it has hitherto held, because the commissions have maintained that view, that it may mean that certain portions of the country may be penalised unjustifiably. You may have a case of a certain area where the total number of voters as ascertained at the last registration is, say, 10.000. In the meantime a provisional list has been framed, and the provisional list contains 15.000. The delimitation commission by this decision is bound to take cognisance only of the 10,000 and it bases its delimitation on that figure. I submit, and it is the view which was unanimously taken by the Select Committee, that in a democratic state that position should not be maintained, and it is the purpose of section 21 of this Bill to remedy that position. It is the purpose of section 21 of the Bill to enable Delimitation Commissions in future to take cognisance not merely of existing rolls but also of provisional rolls which have been framed at the time of the meetings of the Delimitation Commission. May I just give a brief example of the sort of thing which has taken place? A constituency like Brakpan at present is. I think, 83 per cent. above the quota. Certain rural constituencies are something like 25 per cent. below the quota. Now the result is that one voter in a rural constituency is equal to two and two and a half voters in other constituencies. That was obviously never the intention of the framers of the Act of Union.

What about your 15 per cent.?

Exactly, my friend is helping me to make my point. The South Africa Act realised that one should have regard to the difference between sparsely and more densely populated areas, and with that object it laid down that the Delimitation Commission might underload a rural constituency to the extent of 15 per cent., and it might overload an urban area to the extent of 15 per cent. That is the position in the South Africa Act, and this Bill does not attempt to deal with that fundamental position. What this Bill does attempt to do, as a result of the unanimous recommendation of the Select Committee, is to give effect to the intentions of the framers of the Act of Union. As a result (a) of underregistration, and (b) of the fact that the Delimitation Commissions are not able to take cognisance of provisional lists, we have this striking anomaly. A delimitation commission fixes a number of constituencies. The quota, say, is hundred. It decides that these constituencies are in densely populated areas, and it decides to load them to the extent of 12 per cent. Therefore each of these constituencies should have 112 voters. But in view of the experience of the past we find that when those constituencies, when the Voters’ Rolls in respect of these constituencies, are published, the load is not 12 per cent., but they start with a load of 30 per cent. or 40 per cent. They have a Voters’ Roll not of 112 but of 130 or 140, and in subsequent years that 140 has risen to 187 as in the case of Brakpan. Therefore the position is this, that the voters—that 2½ votes in those particular constituencies have merely the same value as 1 vote in another constituency. That anomaly, which was recognised by the Select Committee, it is now sought to remove under the provisions of this Bill. Now the Select Committee in its report applied its mind to the question how to remove this difficulty, and in paragraph 3 of its report said—

It is therefore apparent from paragraph 3 of the report that the committee unanimously decided to recommend the introduction of the system of compulsory registration.

Is that going to be our next step — compulsory voting?

No, this Bill does not deal with compulsory voting. If I have placed in my hands a unanimous report from a select committee of this House asking for this, the Government would have to give serious consideration to such a step, but I do not think that this Government would decide to introduce such a measure unless there was such an indication of unanimity as there is in this report in regard to compulsory registration. There were alternative suggestions in regard to the improvement of the present machinery. They amounted to this, that what is known as the “follow-up” system should be intensified, and that the Department of the Interior should appoint additional outdoor officers to follow up voters who might have missed registration. After having given this matter careful consideration the Government has decided to adopt this recommendation of the select committee and to try the experiment of compulsory registration. But it will be observed from the provisions of section 2 of the Bill that it is not sought to set up any elaborate machinery. We are not attempting to provide irksome restrictions and irksome provisions in regard to the general public. We are going to continue with the existing electoral system under which every two years there will be a complete registration of voters. In order to effect that registration electoral officers will have to send out their canvassers, voters will have to be canvassed and the existing system will carry on. But we are grafting on to the existing system this new provision of compulsory registration. It is a simple provision, namely that the onus is now placed on those who are qualified to be registered to see that their names are on the register after the biennial registration, or on those persons who subsequently become qualified to see that their names are on the voters’ roll at supplementary registrations. Section 2 makes it compulsory on eligible persons to register, and there is a sanction accompanying that section.

How does the coloured voter know?

I shall come to that later. I am dealing now with the general question of compulsory registration. The onus will be on the eligible voter. Now hon. members from their own experience must know that election after election one finds men, and in recent years women, who turn up on the day of an election, or on the day preceding an election, to ask whether their names are on the roll. An urgent search is made to find their names. They are possible supporters. One find they are not on one’s own voters’ roll and a search is made on other rolls, and it is eventually found that they are not registered. I have had many a man and quite a number of women who have complained bitterly that they have not been registered. They have perhaps not realised that it was their duty to see that their names were on beforehand. They seemed to imagine that there was some magic manner in which their names could be placed on the roll and they were incensed to find, when a general election came, that they were not registered. I hope that as a result of this provision, which will be given great publicity throughout the country before a biennial registration, large numbers of persons who are now forgetful will ensure that their names are on the list. Is it too much to ask the citizens of this country that they should spend approximately ten minutes every two years in order to ensure that they are on the voters’ roll? It cannot be said that that is placing too irksome a burden upon the people of this country. We have a number of compulsory provisions in our laws. We have, for instance, compulsory provisions in regard to the furnishing of income tax returns. We have compulsory registration in respect of the Defence Force. In fact, there are a great many compulsory provisions in the laws of our country. Therefore it cannot be reasonably suggested that there is anything burdensome in these provisions upon the people of this country. It may, however, be suggested that merely having a provision without any additional machinery will be futile. I may be asked: Do I consider that this provision is going to work in practice? My answer to that is that, at any rate, the country cannot be any worse off than it is at the present time. We shall continue with our existing machinery and bring within the net of electoral registration all that was brought in before under the existing machinery. But I think that the knowledge that it is now compulsory, with a criminal sanction attaching to the provision, vast numbers of persons who have been apathetic in the past will make it their business to enquire whether they are registered, and if they are not registered, to register. We have had only recently an example of how efficaciously such a provision works.

Efficaciously?

Yes, I said efficaciously. I refer to the Aliens Registration Act. In terms of that Act all aliens had to register. In 60 days after the given date all aliens had to register unless they were otherwise exempted, and over 44.000 persons registered. Those 44,000 persons had to pay a fee in order to register. They had to go to a great deal of trouble and inconvenience butt nevertheless some 44,000 registered.

How many did not register?

It is immaterial how many did not register. That is not germane to the present debate. My point is that, where one had a compulsory provision for its enforcement, and a criminal sanction, within two months roughly 44,000 persons registered. In view of that, it is not too optimistic to hope that the penal sanctions, small as they may be, will have the effect of gingering up those apathetic electors in our community who have not taken the trouble to ensure that they were registered in the past. It is an experiment to be worked in conjunction with our existing electoral machinery, and I am hopeful that it will be a success, and that it will result, to a large extent, in removing the evil to which the Select Committee last year referred. The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren) referred to the position of the coloured community. That is a very fair question. I want to tell the House that since this Bill was drafted, I have had my attention more specifically drawn to this particular question. After giving it very careful consideration I realised that there will be a great many administrative difficulties in the way of enforcing a system of compulsory registration amongst coloured persons. It will be easy for hon. members to appreciate the difficulties amongst coloured persons, say, on the platteland and on farms in the Cape Province, who may feel that they have to register, in case they are committing an offence, and yet who may not be properly qualified to register. I should like to tell the House here that it is my intention to move an amendment to exclude coloured persons in the Cape Province and Natal from the compulsory provision of the present Bill. So much for the compulsory provisions of the Bill. In regard to Section 21, I think I have made it quite clear why it is essential that the Delimitation Commission should have the powers given to it in the Bill, and why it is essential to take cognisance not merely of existing lists, but of the provisional lists. I would like to emphasise that I am not disturbing the provisions of the South Africa Act in regard to the load of 15 per cent., either above or below. That question was not raised by the Select Committee. I am perfectly certain that there cannot be any hon. member in this House who will suggest there should be any increase in this load, or any alterations. That question was decided at the time of Union, and there is no need to re-open it now. Having dealt with the two main principles, namely, the principle of compulsory registration and the principle of giving the Delimitation Commission the power to take cognisance of the provisional rolls, I wish to refer to some of the other provisions in the Bill. I shall not deal with the Bill clause by clause, and I feel it is not necessary to do so because I have issued a white paper in respect of the Bill. Hon. members must always have a great deal of difficulty in following an amending Bill. The sections of such a Bill relate to the sections and provisions of the principal Act, and sometimes it may appear to a layman that the amending Bill is unintelligible. It was with an appreciation of that difficulty that my department has issued this white paper, which gives a brief and concise summary of each of the sections of this Bill. In those circumstances, it is not necessary for me to go through all the sections of the Bill. A more detailed analysis will take place during the committee stage. I merely want to refer to Section 3 (b) of the Bill which reduces the prescribed period of three months to entitle a person to be registered, to one month. Hon. members will realise that under the existing system the biennial registration starts during April. Unless a person has been registered in a given division, three months prior to the commencing date, such person is at the start of the registration automatically disentiled to registration. The Select Committee considered this question very carefully and decided that all the equities would be conceded by allowing that period of three months to be reduced to one month. Clause 3 (a) also deals with the qualifying period. At the present time, if a person is not registered by a given day at the commencement of the biennial period, he will not be entitled to register until approximately a year later. It seems to be a curious anomaly. If a person is resident at the commencement of the biennial period in a certain constituency, say Moorreesburg, and he has only been there two months, he cannot register at the start, but after three months he can put in an application and be accepted for registration. But if a person moves to Moorreesburg a day after the commencing of the registration period, even although subsequently he has been there three months, he cannot register. He may be entitled to register in another constituency. A minor may arrive two days in Moorreesburg after the date of the commencement of registration, and a week later he is 21. He is not entitled to register, and he is not entitled to register even if he has been there three months. The purpose of Section 3 (a) is to remove that disqualification and to allow a person, although not resident in a particular division, to be registered in that division after he had been there one month. I would draw the attention of the House to the provision of Clause 4 (a) of the Bill. This is another of the Select Committee’s recommendations. At present the power of the registering officer to demand information is confined only to the biennial period. This Bill will give the registering officers power to demand information at any time. It is important that a registering officer should have information during supplementary periods as to whether certain persons are qualified or not. He has no power to demand that information from them at present, but he will have such power in the future. Then Clause 6 (a) is another Select Committee recommendation. This reduces the number of witnesses required for a claim form from two to one. This is in order to facilitate registration. Again, the committee gave this matter very careful consideration, and they came to the conclusion that it was not necessary to have two witnesses, and that one would be sufficient.

Will that apply to coloured registrations?

That will apply to coloured registrations as well. There seems to be no logical reason why the provision should be made different in regard to coloured registrations than it is in regard to Europeans. Then, sir, clause 7 (b) of the Bill provides that, even although a claim may not be complete, in regard to the technicalities, the registering officer, if he is satisfied that the claimant is entitled to be registered, may register him. Very often it happens that there are technical defects in a form. For instance, a woman may omit to give her maiden name on the form. Technically that form is incomplete, and under the present law that claim may not be admitted. The registering officer may even know that her name is on a previous list, and that she is genuinely qualified, but she cannot be registered. He will now be able to admit her under the present Bill before the House, but not under the existing law. This matter was considered carefully by the select committee, and the select committee came to the conclusion that there would be no danger in allowing this provision to be inserted in the Bill. On the contrary, they thought it would facilitate the adequate registration of voters. Then clause 14 legalises the entry and exit from polling stations of messengers employed by party polling agents. I am not at all sure whether the present law was always observed as strictly as it ought to be, and I do not know that any great harm accrued from a breach of the law. But to put matters on a right footing, it was felt that messengers should be allowed to go into the polling booths to get those details which are so essential to candidates during an election. The candidates have polling agents in the polling station, who take certain records of the voters who vote, and take down the number of voters who have polled, and ascertain how many voters have given their vote at any given time. That is valuable information to a candidate. Under the present system only the candidate and his agent may enter a polling booth. They enter the booth and get the necessary information from the presiding officer, and hand it to a messenger outside, and it is then sent to the candidate’s committee room. This particular section enables and authorises messengers, who will have to take the necessary oath of secrecy, to enter a booth.

The candidate can appoint two polling agents.

Certainly he can. I do not know whether the hon. member has had the experience I have had in my constituency, in an urban constituency. In my constituency, where we have over 8,000 voters, we had only one polling station, and we were allowed to appoint two polling agents. These agents had to work without a stop from the opening of the poll until the end of the poll. They absolutely had no opportunity to leave the polling stations. These difficulties are very real, and this is a matter which has been seriously considered by the Committee, who unanimously recommended this provision.

What about clause 9 (b)?

That is a detail and I would prefer the hon. member to raise the matter in Committee. It is a minor detail, and it can more appropriately be dealt with in Committee. If the hon. member will raise it in Committee, I shall be happy to deal with it then. I now come to clause 17. Under the existing provisions of our law, the vote of a blind voter has to be recorded by the presiding officer. Under this provision the blind voter can have the option of either recording his vote before the presiding officer, or allowing a companion to accompany him and record the vote for him.

He must be a relative.

Under the provisions of the Bill, as at present drafted, that person must be a relative, a mother, a father, or various other relatives. But I may inform the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren) that it is my intention to widen this provision, and use the words “trusted companion”; I am speaking from memory, but I think he may have a bona fide companion to record the vote for him. I think this is an amendment which will find favour on all sides of the House.

Will he vote in secret?

That companion will vote in secret. He will be instructed by the blind voter as to how he is to vote. The blind voter has the option of stating his choice, either to the presiding officer or to his trusted companion. This trusted companion will do the voting unknown to the presiding officer.

Can a trusted companion be a candidate?

Another new provision in the Bill is contained in section 24. It will be remembered that under our existing law, existing postal voting provisions refer only to those persons who are absent from a given division on polling day. It is now proposed to extend that facility for voting by post to persons in the division who are sick and infirm. Adequate safeguards are, however, laid down. Application will have to be made on behalf of the person concerned within three days of the poll. In conjunction with this new provision, we are making another innovation in regard to postal voting generally. Where an applicant for a postal vote is a sick person or infirm, or a person who proposes to be absent from the provision on the day of the poll, that person will be able to record his vote at the time of his application for the vote before the presiding officer. Let me deal with the general principle of allowing a voter resident in a division, to record his vote immediately before the presiding officer. If voter A knows he will be absent from his constituency on voting day, under the existing system he has to make an application before the presiding officer, or a justice of the peace, or before certain other officials, applying for a ballot paper. That application goes to the presiding officer. The presiding officer sends back a ballot paper, and the voter then has to appear before a competent officer and record his vote, and post back the ballot paper to the presiding officer. We have this curious anomaly in the existing law. If the intending absent voter subsequently records his votes before the presiding officer, he has still to put it into an envelope and post it. He cannot hand it over to the presiding officer to put it in the ballot box.

The presiding officer must post it.

Yes, I am reminded that the presiding officer must post it, in order that he himself can receive it. That is where he records his vote before the presiding officer. The intention of Clause 24, plus Clauses 30 and 31, is to remove that rather unnecessary anomaly. In future the intending absent voter will record his vote before the presiding officer, who may accept it at once, and no posting will be required. Similarly, in regard to the sick or infirm voter. An application is made to vote, accompanied by a certificate from a medical officer. The presiding officer can then go to the particular person concerned, and get him to fill in the prescribed form, and the person votes, and that finishes the formality.

And gives it to the presiding officer?

Yes. You might have this case. If a person, in a given division, is in hospital, the hospital authorities may telephone to the presiding officer saying that a certain sick person wishes to vote and has the necessary medical certificate. The presiding officer then goes out to this person and records his vote. Application must be made in this connection three days before the election.

The presiding officer is not necessarily the returning officer. He may be a police officer.

That is correct.

The voter pays the expenses of the presiding officer going out?

If there is any expense incurred, that is so. This is a matter for the convenience of the person concerned. It is not a matter of a vital principle being involved, and it has been put in by my Department. I shall be pleased to listen to the views of hon. members of the House on the matter, but I think it can more conveniently be considered in Committee. I have as briefly as I can, given the main outlines of the provisions of this Bill. There are two main principles, and subsidiary matters, not matters of principle, of electoral machinery which are aimed at improving our existing procedure. In view of the fact that these matters, these provisions, are being introduced as the result of the unanimous findings of this committee, I think I may justifiably claim that this Bill, which I am now introducing, is in the nature of an agreed measure. I have no doubt that it will be heartily welcomed on all sides of the House, and in those circumstances I hope it will have a short passage.

I want at once to thank the Minister and his Department for having taken the trouble to publish a white paper explaining all the details of this Bill, and I would like to recommend the practice to other departments in connection with complicated Bills. The Minister in his speech, also explained that the Select Comittee had unanimously made certain recommendations. Let me immediately point out that in the Select Committee all the members did not vote on various points. Some of them were not always present, and also because on a number of contentious points there was no division taken. So that when the Minister emphasises the unanimity of the committee, he is not putting the matter quite correctly. The most contentious provisions in the Bill related to compulsory registration. At this stage I do not want to go into the pros and cons of that, because that can be done at a later stage. Still, I just want to say here that compulsory registration is going to have this outstanding and great consequence that it is going injuriously to affect the country-side so far as the number of seats is concerned. I think that there can be no doubt about that, and for that reason I would like to move the following amendment—

I am glad to learn from the Minister that he is not going to make the compulsory registration apply to the non-European voters, but because that provision appears in the Bill I also want to move the last part of my amendment. In connection with the last part of my amendment, I want to say that we all welcome the Minister having said that he was going to withdraw that provision, because it would have been a farce, and would have made our legislation ridiculous. I just want to draw the Minister’s attention to one matter in connection with it. If this Bill were to be carried out, the coloured voter would be put between two fires. On the one hand he is compelled by the state to register, and when he is registered, then the onus is on him to prove that he possesses the necessary qualifications, and is entitled to be registered. On the one hand there is an obligation on his part to the state to register, and if he does not do so then he is punished, and when he is registered, then the state mulcts him in costs, because he must prove that he possesses the qualifications to be registered. That shows how absurd the whole matter is, and therefore it is a good thing that the Minister has withdrawn this absurd proposal.

Only Nationalists should be registered.

That would be wise, because then there would only be wise people on the voters’ roll. There may be a great deal to be said in favour of compulsory registration, but the Minister must not lose sight of the fact that the matter is not so frightfully urgent as he represents it to be. When we look at the figures we find that a little more than 11 per cent. of the adult white population of the Union are not registered at the moment. Out of a white population of 1,150,780 persons who are over 21 years, there are about 11 per cent. who are not registered. About 97.000 of the adult white population of the Union are not registered., and they are distributed as follows between the provinces. I would like to give the figures in order to prove that the great fuss which was made about there being a large number of Europeans over 21 years who are not registered, does not quite agree with the facts. It is, in fact, true that in the Cape Province we have the largest number of non-registered persons. Out of 451,000 adult whites in the Cape Province, about 40,000 are not registered. In the Transvaal the number of those who are not registered is smaller. I think that the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) made a great point in this House of the fact that a terrible injustice had been done to the Transvaal because a large number of adult Europeans were not registered. We did not make such a fuss in the Cape Province. Out of 467,000 adult whites in the Transvaal there are 32,000 not registered. Natal has no cause for complaint. I want to congratulate Natal on the fact that their political organisation has done its work very well, because out of the 120,000 adult whites there are only 18,000 who are not registered. But we have to congratulate the Free State still more. Out of 111,500 white adults, there are only 6,000 not registered. That shows one thing. The Free State has, in the main, a country population, and registration is done well there, and there is no need for compulsory registration. I suspect also that a large part of the 6,000 who were not registered were living in Bloemfontein. That is what I wanted to say about compulsory registration. Then I would like to refer to another matter. Emphasis is now being laid on it, and it is said: Well, the difference between the number of voters in the towns and in the country districts is so large, and now the delimitation commissions come and make the difference still more obvious. I started by saying that if the Minister insisted on it, and put compulsory registration through the House by means of his majority, then he would be doing something which would greatly injure the countryside.

But you voted for it?

No, look at the report. I was not present at the division. I have my own view with regard to compulsory registration, but I am only pointing out that I was not present at the division because the Minister put the question to me. In any case it will injure the rural areas so far as the number of seats is concerned, and if the Minister manages to do so with his majority, then I would like him to accept my amendment. If he introduces compulsory registration it will injure the rural areas, then I would like him to compensate the rural areas of their having a quota of 20 per cent. over and above a fixed quota. If the Minister is prepared to meet vs then he ought to do so in that way. Otherwise, he will have to answer for it to the rural areas. They have, for various reasons, had legitimate grievances of late years in connection with the constituencies. In the first place, the delimitation commissions did not on the whole stick to the intention of the South Africa Act. I think I am doing them no injustice when I put it that way. The first Delimitation Commission did, in fact, do so to some extent; the First Delimitation Commission, that of 1911, did indeed keep in part to the intention of the South Africa Act as drafted by the National Convention, namely, that the rural areas would receive a concession, and that effect would be given to the idea of Onse Jan, of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr, as expressed on different occasions, in the House of Assembly and outside of it at political congresses, namely, that you could not make the representation of the rural areas and the urban areas equal at all. I am glad that the Minister said that the Government still admitted that, and wanted to respect the distinction. I am glad that the Government does not want to remove it, that the Government does not want to depart from that idea in order to make a distinction between the towns and the countryside. We therefore do not differ in principle, but only in degree. The first Delimitation Commission of 1911, for instance, gave the Gardens constituency 14.6 per cent. above the quota, nearly 15 per cent., and on the countryside to a constituency like Prieska, 14.3 per cent. under the quota, and to a constituency like Wakkerstroom, 14.6 per cent. under the quota. They still kept very close to the 15 per cent. in those cases because they were still near the time of the National Convention, and tried to carry out the intention of the South Africa Act. But what happened later in connection with delimitations? The average quota, so far as the Cape Province is concerned, was in 1932 and thereabouts, 9.95 per cent. above the quota so far as the towns are concerned, in the Transvaal 8.3, Natal 5.5, and in the Free State 12.7 above the quota — in the Free State there is, of course, only one big town. How did they treat the rural areas in spite of depopulation? The rural areas of the Cape Province, instead of approaching the 15 per cent., only had 9.6 under the quota. The Transvaal, with its numerous towns, did actually have 13.9 above the quota, but that was only because there were so many towns. Natal 8.2 and the Free State rural areas, which was to a great extent the step-child of the delimitations, got 5.2 below the quota. I am therefore correct in saying that in the first place the platteland has a grievance in connection with the way in which the delimitation commissions usually carried out the intention of the South Africa Act in connection with the 15 per cent.

What is the grievance?

That the delimitation commission did not give effect to the intention of the South Africa Act.

The full 15 per cent.?

Or as closely as possible. The principle was included in the South Africa Act that a distinction should be made between densely populated and sparsely populated areas, and the first Delimitation Commission did so in part, and kept in certain cases as close to the 15 per cent. as they could, but subsequent commissions did not always do so.

Subsequent commissions even went further.

But I gave the figures of certain constituencies. Another grievance of the rural areas arose in 1937. I do not want to go into the merits of the question whether women voters should be included for the delimitation of seats or not, but in any case the amendment was introduced in 1937. When the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) gave the franchise to the women in 1930, he explained why he did not include the women in the delimitation of the constituencies. He pointed out the fact that there were many more women in the towns than there were in the rural areas. The girls went away from the country to work temporarily in the towns and then in many cases returned to the country. But in 1937 the women were included for purposes of the distribution of seats. In any case the countryside was given a tremendous blow by that, although it certainly was not the intention, the intention was merely to concede something to the women, but nevertheless the rural areas got a serious blow. Another heavy blow which the countryside received it got from the beginning, and this is the last one that I will mention, namely the migration of the population. It is not necessary for me to go into that. Every hon. member in this House is deeply under the impression of the alarming phenomenon of the migration from the countryside to the towns which has been going on for years. I just want to quote a few figures to prove what I am saying. In 1911 almost half of the population was still living in the rural areas, namely 48.2 per cent. In 1921 they had already gone away from the platteland to such an extent that there were only 44.2 per cent. left, and the census of 1936 showed that the population had so diminished there that it no longer approached half the population that there was on the countryside in 1911, but only 34.7 per cent., while there were 65.3 per cent. living in the towns. After 1936 it developed further. A percentage of 34.7 per cent. is almost a low water mark. In most countries of the world, it is laid down that the rural population should never drop lower than 30 per cent. of the total population, and as we reached the low water mark of 34.7 per cent. in 1936, it is clear that the rural areas were also strongly influenced by it, so far as the seats were concerned. The urban population rose between 1921 and 1936 by 54.Ī per cent, and the rural population by only 3.5 per cent. This shows the tremendous migration from the rural areas to the urban areas. Seeing that the rural areas were depopulated, and the Minister introduced the compulsory registration which would still further discriminate against the rural areas, we feel that in the circumstances, the countryside should be met in a different way, by means of a larger quota, that there should be a margin of 20 per cent. both ways. What is the position? I have taken twelve urban constituencies in the Cape Province and twelve rural constituencies. The twelve urban constituencies are Cape Flats, Cape Town (Castle), Cape Town (Central), Cape Town (Gardens), Claremont, Maitland, Mowbray, Rondebosch, Woodstock, Sea Point and South Peninsula and Salt River. The total number of voters there are 93,181.

What were the figures at the last delimitation?

I do not know what point the hon. member wants to make. Then I took the following twelve rural seats, namely, Riversdale, Cradock, Wodehouse, Calvinia, Willowmore, Vryburg, Stellenbosch, Paarl, Prieska, Malmesbury, Piquetberg and Beaufort West. I think that I have selected them fairly. In the twelve rural constituencies the number of voters is not 93,181 but 76,654. The difference between the number of voters in the twelve urban constituencies and the twelve rural ones is 16,500. Now what is the difference between the two groups per seat? It is said that the towns have such a tremendously large number of voters, and the rural areas such a small number. But what is this terrible difference? Distributed over twelve seats it is on the average 1,400. That is what such a great fuss is being made about now. What does it mean if the average difference is 1,400? It means that the difference between the country and the town, as far as quotas are concerned, is 10 per cent. both ways instead of 15 per cent. It is at the moment an average of 10 per cent. instead of 15 per cent. That ought to show that the Minister should listen to us when we say that where in practice the Delimitation Commission has so delimited it that the rural constituencies only have on the average an advantage of 10 per cent. both ways, he should go into the matter in order to give the rural areas their due. We are not asking such an extraordinary thing, because in New Zealand 28 per cent. of fictitious votes are added to the rural areas. They are not possible votes, but fictitious votes which are added to the rural voters. I therefore hope that the Minister will give effect to our amendment. I do not want to detain the House any longer, except for one or two further points. There is another reason why the countryside should get further concessions, and it is on account of the members of Parliament themselves. The hon. member for Sea Point (Maj. G. B. van Zvl) will not blame me if I use his constituency as an illustration. It is not the best example of a one-member constituency, but I have the figures here of Sea Point, which proves my argument. There are about 8,000 voters there at the moment, if I am correctly informed, and the hon. member for Sea Point need only hold one meeting to report to his constituents every year. It may be that he holds more meetings, but he need not hold more than one report meeting in the town hall in Sea Point. One report meeting is enough, and he can take a bus and get there and it will cost him 3d. But there are hon. members who have to hold forty and more meetings, and who have to travel hundreds of miles to make their reports.

Even though you live in Sea Point you know very little about it.

Anyhow I am right when I say that it will not be necessary for the hon. member to hold more than one report meeting, because the constituency is so concentrated. I did not specially select the hon. member’s constituency, because there are also other constituencies in the urban areas where hon. members are not obliged to incur any expenses. But there are certain other constituencies where it becomes quite impossible for an hon. member representing rural areas to visit the whole of his constituency. Now the Minister wants to act even more detrimentally towards the rural areas; in other words, the constituency must be still larger. I do not want to say anything more at this stage, except that I hope that the House will pass my amendment.

I would like to second the amendment, and I just want to say to start with, that as appears from the amendment, there is a good deal in the Bill on which we on this side are not captious at all. I think that there is considerable good in the Bill, and I, on my side, welcome, for example, the provision about the vote of the blind people. I have had experience that blind people feel that although the officials are under an oath of secrecy, they nevertheless feel that it is not really secret when they have to say before three persons how they want to vote. I think that the people of South Africa, and especially the blind people, will welcome the provision that they can bring a friend with them to vote for them.’ Then there are other provisions; for example, postal votes can be counted quicker. I think that will also be welcomed, because it is just the postal votes which delay an election very much. I therefore think that the provisions in clause 36 are good. There are other provisions that are good, and I do not want to say anything more about them now; we can try in Committee to effect improvements in clauses which are not good ones. There are various clauses to which I have put a question mark. Then there are a number of provisions which we welcome, but there are others which the Minister referred to, and I want to say that here and there the Bill shows traces of hasty legislation, as if it had not been properly worked out. As an instance I want to mention clause 3 (e). It deals with the registration of military men, and it says at the end of the clause, on page 5 — I start from about the middle — the following—

Now I ask the Minister, what is going to become of this difficult question? Now something is being incorporated into the Electoral Act with which we have had to deal before, and now again it is brought forward when we are at war. Now it is again brought to light. The Minister says that a military man cannot be registered at more than one place, but where is he registered? That is the question of importance. Take, for instance, a camp that you may have at Potchefstroom; there may be 10,000 men there. Or you may have a camp at Oudtshoorn, and there for all we know there may be 5,000 or 6,000. You have a camp like Voortrekkerhoogte where there may be 10,000 or 20.000 or more men. What will happen in case you register the 20,000 voters at Voortrekkerhoogte? Then you create three constituencies there. The Minister said nothing on this question, but I think that the most important part of the Bill is this ending to clause 3. The Minister says that such a man cannot be registered at more than one place. That goes without saying, but where will they be registered? I want to suggest that you should not have such a dislocation with regard to the registration such as we have already had in the case of the social dislocations in connection with the diggings. I therefore say that the Bill should go to a select committe to be improved. The people on active service ought to have the right of voting, but how they are to do it will have to be properly gone into. I want to suggest something to the Minister, and I want to point out that something similar is referred to in the report of the select committee, where it may happen that people are accumulated at a certain place. I am not even speaking of military men, but the select committee gave certain indications.

The select committee reported, for instance, in connection with casual labourers on page 10 of the report, as follows—

I think that a principle is here being recommended which could also be applied to the soldiers.

Would you apply the same thing to the students as well?

No, and I will tell you why not, for the reason that a student has possibly studied at one place for from five to seven years, it is his residence, but that is not the case with military men, they are possibly only there for a few months, and then they are transferred. I am thinking more particularly of married people, and it would not apply to students. Students have a fixed residence elsewhere, but in the case of the soldiers they have a fixed residence, as is stated here, where their wives live.

I agree.

Good, but then you must say so more clearly in the Bill. The Bill shows signs of hurry, and I want to deal with certain points to show that that is so. I think that we shall have to make the provision in connection with the military forces where the men ought to be registered, because if we do not do so we are going to have the peculiar position that in individual localities, one, two or three constituencies will have to be created if they are all to vote there. I want to deal with another little matter in connection with my argument that this Bill gives traces here and there that it has not been worked out properly in detail. Take the question of compulsory registration. We find it in the beginning of the Bill, namely, in clause 2, and if we look at the Bill as it stands, then we see that we are compelling the voter of the Union to register, and we go so far as to prescribe the penalties. If the voter does not do what is prescribed in the Act, then he is punishable with a fine of £10.

If there is no penalty then it will not be compulsory registration.

My hon. friend may make that remark, but the position is this. We want to introduce compulsory registration here, and if the citizens of the country do not act in accordance with the requirements of the Act, then they become punishable. I want, however, to mention a relevant instance of what occurred to me personally. Even when we have compulsory registration on the statute book, the same thing can still happen, and I would like to know who would then be made punishable. A few years ago I was living during the registration, in the neighbourhood of De Aar. My wife filled in her form and sent it in by post. I handed mine personally over the counter to the lady clerk. Some time thereafter, when the rolls were completed, and when there was a last opportunity of seeing whether all the names were registered, I was working elsewhere and I sent a telegram to my wife to make sure that both our names were on the voters’ roll. I got a telegram in reply that her name, although she had sent in the form by post, was on the voters’ roll, but that my name was not on it, although I handed in my form personally over the counter. What can a voter do more than that? What can a citizen of the country do more than to hand in his form personally over the counter of the office.

You must have gone to the wrong counter.

The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) is getting childish nowadays. Just when we use arguments which he cannot answer, he makes that kind of remark.

I did not say a word.

Then I withdraw what I said.

It was the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Sutter).

Well, I would rather not say anything at all about that hon. member. Allow me to explain the matter a little more fully. What happened in my case happens in hundreds of other cases in South Africa, namely, that the public properly take the necessary steps to become registered, and, notwithstanding that, their names do not appear on the voters’ roll. As a candidate at elections I have myself in many cases had to deal with the case where people came to me and said that their names were not on the voters’ roll. I then asked them whether they had taken the trouble to register, and they then took the ticket out of their pockets which they had been given as a proof that their forms were received. The postmaster of De Aar came to me with such a card that his form had been received, but he nevertheless could not vote because his name was not on the roll. Now I say that this little Bill does not work these things out in all the details. It will not assist in any way by telling the voters that there is compulsory registration, and that they will render themselves punishable. It is not the fault of the citizen that in such cases they are not registered. What are we going to do to put that matter right? Unless the Minister in his registration provides that the official who is responsible should also be made punishable, the matter will never be put right. That is the only solution. I am going to support that in the Committee stage, and I am going to move something in that direction. There has been a reference here to a registration certificate. It is useless having a registration certificate if when you come to the ballot box you find you have no vote. Mistakes are made in the offices owing to negligence. I do not say that they are deliberately made. They are mistakes through negligence. The citizen does everything that he can possibly do, and even then his name does not get on to the voters’ roll. The department had sufficient time, we had the report of the committee, and they know about these things just as well as I and other hon. members do, and they should have worked these things out in the Bill into all the details. Before I leave the question of compulsory registration, I would just like to add this….

Are you in favour of compulsory registration?

In answer to that question I want to say this: It appears to me from the report of the Select Committee, which we have not yet considered as such, but which is connected with the provisions of this Bill, it seems to me when I read this report of the Select Committee, that they really intend compulsory registration to be the first instalment in the direction of a compulsory vote. That is the light in which compulsory registration is being debated. Then there has been a reference, for instance, to Australia. Compulsory registration is regarded as the precursor of compulsory voting. Now I want to say this. A man like Dr. Abraham Kuper, who certainly is an authority on questions of constitutional law, always started from the assumption that the franchise was a privilege enjoyed by a citizen, namley, that he as a citizen, could have a joint say in the government of the country. That is the constitutional privilege which he has in a country where we have constitutional government. Our Government is not a dictatorship from above by a potentate who is seated there, and who dictates to the public, with the advice of a few people. We have constitutional government in this country, so that the citizen shall have a joint say. That is his privilege, and if we accept the theory that the franchise is a privilege, then we must say, with Dr. Kuper, that you cannot compel a man to carry out a privilege. If I have the privilege to go to dine with a highly-placed friend, then I cannot be compelled to make use of that privilege. I am arguing the question as a matter of principle. I took up that attitude before a Select Committee — it was not this Select Committee — that I was not in favour of compulsory franchise. If we are consistently to assume that compulsory registration is necessarily the precursor of compulsory franchise, then it is indeed a question whether we ought not to be opposed to compulsory registration. It is a serious question whether we, in these circumstances, should be in favour of compulsory registration. I want, however, to assume that there may be compulsory registration without our necessarily having a compulsory franchise. I think that that is possible. I, however, agree with my hon. friend who moved the amendment, that as things stand to-day apart from the question of principle, if we look at the matter from a practical standpoint, then it is an absolute fact that in these circumstances compulsory registration will injure the rural areas. It will definitely do so.

Why?

My hon. friend in front of me gave the figures, and he argued the matter as clearly as it is possible for it to be argued in the circumstances. Apart from the arguments which my hon. friend used, he used the complete argument of the figures which he gave in connection with the women’s franchise, how that it injured the countryside because more women had the franchise in the towns. I do not want to go into all that again. The figures have shown that his argument is right. The fact is that the rural areas are being injured because the migration to them since 1908 and 1909, when the Act of Union was drafted, has become much greater. South Africa has seen an astonishing development in industrial matters. How many more factories do we not have now, and those factories have brought people to the towns. Children cannot all remain on the farms. They go to the towns. Boys go to work there, and the girls go to work in factories or in offices. There is a natural influx into the towns which you cannot stop, and which we ought not to stop either. I am not here speaking of people who had to receive assistance on the countryside, and who had to remain there, but I say that there is a national flow to the towns which we cannot stop, and which we ought not to stop. The towns are always becoming more and more densely populated, and the rural areas are getting depopulated, and how can my hon. friend talk as if the countryside was not being injured? If you register every person in the towns, then the difference between rural areas and the towns will always be greater politically, and that is why the proposal of my hon. friend before me is a fair one, namely, that we ask, if compulsory registration comes into force, that we should be allowed to go 20 per cent. above and 20 per cent. below the Union quota in the case of the towns and the countryside. I cannot see that there is anything unfair in that. I emphasise what my hon. friend in front of me said, that the Act of Union has already made this provision. I will read it out here. Section 40 (3) lays down—

And then a whole list of considerations is mentioned, such as means of communication and the rest, and then under (3) we find—

My hon. friend in front of me spoke about the sparsity or density of the population. It must be taken into consideration. That is a principle laid down in the Constitution. The Minister referred here to “one vote one value.” I do not know whether he wanted us to understand that that was a principle of his. I do not know whether he wants it to prevail in the case of registration in view of delimitation. If that is so, that he is also going to drive it to that extreme, and if it is really his principle that he is going to attach as much value to a vote on the countryside, as he does to one in other parts of the country, then he must amend this provision in the Act of Union.

I said “subject to the provisions of the Constitution.”

If the Minister is prepared to uphold the principle and the spirit of the Constitution, then he should also apply the principle here. The position of South Africa has changed considerably since 1908 or 1909. The hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) gave statistics and showed how the rural population to-day only constituted about 34 per cent. Is it not an extremely fair request that the rural population should be differently treated to those in the towns? It says here that the density of the population must be taken into consideration. Further, the “means of communication” must also be taken into consideration. The hon. member for Moorreesburg said something about the difficulties in the visitation of the countryside constituencies. Take the long distances that we have to travel, when often proper means of transport are not at cur disposal, unless one uses a motor-car, which also sometimes leaves you in the lurch in those areas. Rivers stop one there, the roads are bad, and parts of the country there are very sandy, so that one even gets stuck with the best motor-car. I do not know whether hon. members who represent urban seats realise the difficulties which some of us experience on the countryside. Take, as an instance, a constituency like Victoria West, which is 420 miles in diameter from one end to the other.

Almost as large as Holland.

Take my own constituency, or Waterberg, Prieska, Gordonia, Hopetown. Do hon. members realise the practical consequences of this Bill? If we are going to register every European man and woman in the towns in this way then the towns will in consequence thereof have to get still more seats. The Rand will certainly have to be given six more seats, and Pretoria will get two more. What will our areas in the Transvaal look like? The seats which already cover such a large surface area will have to be extended still more. It already takes the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) two months to get through all his meetings in his constituency, and then he holds two or three a day. It usually takes me a month, if I hold meetings every day except Sundays, to give an account of my work in the constituency of Marico. Therefore I say that legislation of this kind must bear in mind the practice in the country. I do not want to enlarge on the question of expense. Hon. members who represent Parktown, for instance, and other urban seats, possibly hold one or two meetings a year, and then they are done. There is no comparison between the time and expense which are involved to do one’s duty in the country constituencies, and the time and expense which are involved in urban constituencies. I do not want to say much about compulsory registration, because it is not quite in point, but let me say something about compulsory registration for oloured persons, Indians and Malays.

The Minister said that he would withdraw it.

Yes, I accept the word of the Minister that he will delete that part. I just want to say here that if he does not do so and if the amendment which we are moving is rejected, then you will have a hopeless state of affairs with all the qualifications and disqualifications that there are, actually differing in Natal from the Cape Province, so far as coloured people, Malays and Indians are concerned. If the Minister does not delete that provision he will have an interminable series of court cases, and I am glad that it is the Minister’s intention to delete it. The fact, however, that he did make such a provision shows once more that even this Bill has been too hurriedly drafted, and that the consequences have not been properly thought out. Now we come to an extremely reasonable request. If the Minister carried compulsory registration, then let him make a concession to the countryside, so far as the distribution of seats is concerned. The hon. member for Moorreesburg has already shown that the Free State, which has rural constituencies almost entirely, has the best registration. Why are the urban areas not registered so well? It ought to be much easier for the people in the towns to do it, because they do not have to travel long distances. There can only be one reason, and that is that the people in the urban areas do not appreciate the franchise, at any rate not so much as those in the country do. Now I ask quite seriously whether it is fair to give people who do not properly appreciate their privileges additional privileges, to meet them at the cost of people who have for all these years appreciated their privileges? People who have done their duty and have registered themselves are now having their voting powers reduced by having fewer country seats and still more urban seats, although the people in the towns have not done their duty. That is not right and something must be done to compensate the rural areas. I therefore support the amendment of the hon. member for Moorreesburg.

Mr. Speaker, I was not surprised when the Opposition tabled a delaying amendment to the motion for the second reading of this Bill, but I will confess that I was surprised at the choice of the hon. member who was to move the amendment. When the Minister, in his customary lucid fashion, moved the second reading of this Bill this afternoon, he said there were two new principles in the Bill. The first was the principle of compulsory registration, and the second, a minor one, was that the delimitation commissions might have regard to provisional rolls. Now, sir, on the question of compulsory registration which this delaying amendment seeks now to defeat, if there is one member in this House who is committed by his past history right up to the hilt it is this very hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus). He was a member of the select committee in 1935; and what was the purpose of that select committee? It was called into being by the present hon. member for Pretoria (District) (Mr. Oost) on the question of a national register, that not only every voter should be registered but that every member of the South African population, be he White or black, young or old, should be compelled to be on a national register. Now, sir, I don’t wonder that the select committee rather failed to agree to so expensive and wide-reaching a proposal, but that committee did accept, on the motion of the hon. member for Germiston (South) (Mr. J. G. N. Strauss), a proposal in favour of compulsory registration in these terms—

And, sir, that is precisely what the Minister is doing this afternoon, and of all persons in this House the Opposition much choose no one but the hon. member for Moorreesburg to lead the opposition to that proposal. Let me read the names of the members of that Select Committee, who voted unanimously for this proposal in 1935. They were, Mr. Blackwell (Chairman), Mr. Egeland, Mr. Erasmus, Captain Joubert, Mr. Oost, Mr. Strauss and Mr. Viljoen. Mr. Speaker, what is one to think of an Opposition which selects as its principal mouthpiece in opposition to a bill the main principle of which is compulsory registration, an hon. gentleman who was one of five or six members of a Select Committee in 1935, which devoted so much time to research into this matter, and then unanimously brought in a recommendation in its favour? But I have not finished examining the record of the hon. member for Moorreesburg on this subject. This bill has its origin in a Select Committee for the setting up of which I moved last year, and in moving for that Select Committee, I made it perfectly plain to every member of this House that the main object I had was to remedy the extremely undesirable position which had been disclosed by the last delimitation. First and foremost in the subjects which I proposed to put before that Committee was this question of compulsory registration. I said so in the plainest possible terms, there was no ambiguity in my speech, and, sir. I was followed by the hon. member for Moorreesburg about whom I have been talking, and he gave his blessing to that proposal. He reminded the House that in 1935 he was a member of that Select Committee to which I have referred, and he offered various suggestions for making the admittedly inadequate state of our registration a perfect one.

Tn the first place I referred to the last Committee in 1935 and I said on condition.

That is the second Act, the first Act was in 1935, and the second act in the drama, if I may so describe it, was my motion in February last. On my motion that Select Committee was set up and I will read now the list of the names of the hon. gentlemen who were on that Select Committee. They were, Mr. Blackwell, Mr. Burnside, Mr. Erasmus, Mr. Haywood, Mr. Johnson, Captain Joubert, Mr. Liebenberg, Mr. Marwick, Mr. Nel, Mr. Oost, and Mr. J. G. N. Strauss. We were all members of that Select Committee. The official evidence before that Select Committee was unanimous, that the present system had broken down badly, that it led to the greatest inequalities in the basis of representation in this country, and it recommended the introduction of a system of compulsory registration. On the 28th April last year at a meeting at which the hon. member for Moorreesburg was present, it was stated by me from the chair that a draft report has been prepared which would recommend in favour of compulsory registration, and that in order to give the committee the fullest opportunity of considering the matter a long adjournment would be taken. And therefore on the 23rd April the committee stood adjourned until Friday, the 12th May, and on the 12th May it is true that for reasons which do not concern this House the hon. member for Moorreesburg was not present, but his co-organiser inside the Malanite Party….

The re-united Party.

Who sits next to him this afternoon, the hon. member for Bloemfontein (Mr. Haywood) was present, and that draft report which had been circulated and which no doubt the hon. member for Moorreesburg had read, was before the Select Committee. Now this is where I have reason to question the sincerity of the hon. member for Moorreesburg. That draft report in all essentials is as was read by the Minister this afternoon, and all the points which we have been discussing this afternoon, particularly the question of compulsory registration, are in that report. The hon. member for Moorreesburg challenged the statement of the Minister that this was a unanimous report. This was a unanimous report on all the matters mentioned by the Minister, particularly compulsory registration. I think the only division that took place on compulsory registration was that two members of the committee, Mr. Marwick and Mr. Strauss, thought that the report did not go far enough. They divided the committee on an even stronger recommendation than the one which the committee made, and having been defeated in committee, by a unanimous vote, accepted the report as read out by the Minister. It is a great misfortune, no doubt, that the hon. member for Moorreesburg was not present that morning when we took the vote, but he himself had previously served on a committee which had committed itself in the strongest possible manner to this question of compulsory registration, and therefore I have a right to ask him and the Party for which he speaks, whether they can be taken seriously this afternoon when they table this delaying amendment to the second reading of this Bill.

We could not deal with it in committee. We could not make an amendment there because it was not referred to us. You know that very well.

I am not discussing this 20 per cent. now.

Of course not, it does not suit you.

I shall deal with it in good time, you need not worry.

That is the compensation you are speaking of.

The committee, by a unanimous vote, passed this resolution. Every party was represented on it. The hon. gentleman was on it, he knew the evidence and he knew the tenor of rhe draft report. In no manner did he indicate any objection to that draft report. On the contrary he had committed himself up to the neck in support of this principle of compulsory registration. Now, he of all persons is chosen by the Opposition to move a delaying amendment to the second reading. And when he sat down two members rose to second the amendment. The one was the hon. member for Marico (Rev. C. W. M. du Toit) and the other was the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Liebenberg), another member of the Select Committee who voted for this unanimous report, and accepted this compulsory registration. I would have been glad if your eye had fallen on the hon. member for Heilbron as I would have been interested to have heard him support a delaying amendment calculated to destroy this Bill, when this Bill does not do anything more nor less than to carry out the recommendation of the Select Committee of which he was a member. What does this amendment ask for?

To give compensation.

That the order for the second reading be discharged and that the matter be again referred to a select committee. Can folly go further than that? A select committee has already sat on the matter and has brought in a unanimous report, and this is a bill which does not depart from the recommendations of the Select Committee — there are in addition a few minor alterations put in by the Department.

The instructions of the Select Committee were not wide enough.

This matter was brought before the House by me last February and the hon. member spoke on it. Did he then refer to these questions of the quota, did he then seek to have the scope of the committee widened? Did any member of his party including himself raise this matter?

Yes, I spoke against it.

I know the hon. member spoke against the principle of compulsory registration, but he was the only one. He did not raise the question of the 15 per cent. The hon. member for Moorreesburg says that there was no chance for him then to raise this question of the 15 per cent.

The hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. Le Roux) raised it.

I do not think he did so last year.

No, he raised it in 1937.

I repeat that when I put this motion before the House last year no single member raised this question. And now the hon. member for Moorreesburg who made a long speech on this matter on that occasion without raising the 15 per cent. question at all says to-day that the question is so important that he wants to wreck this Bill and send it to another select committee because it did not include a reference to this quota. Surely I am entitled to call into serious question the genuineness of the opposition to this Bill.

You know what our instruction was.

The only member of this House to stand up and voice his own doubts as to the soundness of the proposal I made in regard to compulsory registration was the hon. member for Swellendam. Now in what terms does the hon. member for Moorreesburg move his amendment? He says that this must go back to the Select Committee, and the Select Committee must draft a new Bill in which two principles are to be enshrined. The 15 per cent. load which exists in the South Africa Act is to be increased to 20 per cent., and there should be a second provision that compulsory registration should not apply to coloured voters. The second falls away because that has been accepted by the Minister. And therefore the only ground on which this Bill is not to be read a second time is that it makes no provision for this 20 per cent. Now, dealing with the matter purely on a technical basis, let me say that it will be perfectly competent for the hon. member to accept the second reading, and to move his motion in the form of an instruction that the committee of the whole House have leave to amend it by including an amendment of that section of the South Africa Act.

Will you accept it?

No. I am dealing with the motives behind this amendment. If that is all he wants he can get it by moving an instruction to the committee.

Will you support it?

Therefore it is quite unnecessary for him to move this super-ceding motion. For the rest it would be futile to send the Bill back to a select committee when it already embodies the unanimous recommendations of the select committee set up last year. I have dealt fully with the attitude of the hon. member for Moorreesburg. I am now going to deal with the substance of his amendment. In our South Africa Act certain directions are given to the Delimitation Commissioners. They are told that after obtaining the provincial quota in the manner indicated by the Minister of the Interior, they are then to divide up the provinces so that each division containing an equal number of voters, and that number must be as nearly as possible equal to the quota of the province. That is the general direction to the Delimitation Commissioners, but then a certain discretion is conferred upon them, and it is said that the commissioners shall give due consideration to community or diversity of interest, means of communication, physical features, existing electoral boundaries, sparsity or density of population, in such a manner that while taking the quota of voters as the basis of division, the commissioners, whenever they deem it necessary, may depart therefrom, but in no case to a greater extent than 15 per cent. or more, or 15 per cent. or less than the quota. My friend reasons from this that it was obligatory on the Delimitation Commission to go right up to the full 15 per cent. above and the full 15 per cent. below and he complains that in the past they have never gone as far as 15 per cent. up, or 15 per cent. down. May I say that with the last Delimitation Commission the plus and minus together totalled on just 21 per cent. It was the highest point to which any delimitation had ever been in discriminating against the towns and in favour of the country. But that does not satisfy him. He wants this 15 per cent. increased to 20 per cent., and secondly he wants some form of compulsion placed on the commissioners so that they shall go right to that limit. That means that taking one hundred as the quota country constituencies would in future have eighty, and every urban constituency would have 120. That is to say every country constituency would more or less have two-thirds of the number of voters of every urban constituency. Let me remind this House that a similar attempt was made by the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) in 1937. In 1937 the hon. member for Waterberg moved an instruction to the committee on the Electoral Quota Bill that in future the delimitation commissioners be compelled to go at least as far as 12½ per cent. against the urban constituencies. That instruction was voted on by this House. I would remind a large number of my hon. friends opposite who used to sit here that every one of them, with the exception of those who were personal followers of the hon. member for Piquetberg, voted against that instruction. Every single member of the present Re-united Opposition who was then on the Government side of the House voted against that instruction. Now let me say this to the hon. member for Moorreesburg, who has moved that this 15 per cent. contained in Section 40 of the South Africa Act be raised to 20 per cent. He is playing with fire. He is on very dangerous ground. There is a large body of opinion in this country which feels that the existing discrimination itself is unfair. There is a large body of opinion which thinks that the vote on vital issues in this country by an intelligent townsman is just as good a vote as that of any plattelander in South Africa. There is a large and growing body of opinion which is asking why there should be any discrimination at all. But the Minister very wisely has let sleeping dogs lie. He made it perfectly plain that this particular provision of the South Africa Act is outside the scope of the present Bill, and he intends that it shall remain outside the scope of the present Bill.

Are you for compulsory registration without any compensation to the platteland?

I will deal with that question later, but it is outside the scope of my argument at the moment. My hon. friend has raised a very dangerous issue in this country. He is not content to leave it, as the Minister is, outside the scope of the present Bill. He wants to drag it into the arena in this House, and he wants that provision increased to 20 per cent. I wonder what he would say if one of us on this side of the House moved that 15 per cent., so far from being increased to 20 per cent., be decreased to 10 per cent. or abolished altogether? If that were carried he would only have himself to thank.

You would like to do it.

Let me now come to the question put to me by the hon. member for Moorreesburg. He asked if I am in favour of compulsory registration without there being some balancing provision. Does he not realise that for many years past the urban areas of South Africa have suffered a disability, first as to the 15 per cent., which is really 30 per cent., or may be 30 per cent. The second is this, that the allocation inside a province is made not on a basis of population, but on a basis of registration. Everybody knows that registration on the Rand and in other large areas, is grossly under the proper potential, and therefore the urban areas are to-day losing a very large proportion of the representation to which they are normally entitled, and this Bill proposes to provide that they shall have proper registration, and proper representation. Let me remind the hon. member what this committee of which the hon. member’s colleague who sits next to him was a member, said, and for which he voted—

In other words, this committee said this, that under-representation of the urban areas is to-day, by reason of this factor, an underrepresentation greater than that contemplated by the South Africa Act, and the purpose of this Bill solely is to remedy that. There comes the answer to the question put to me by the hon. member for Moorreesburg. Nothing was said by any platteland member of this committee about any compensatory raising of this 15 per cent. to 20 per cent., although the committee raised the point that an obvious injustice to certain urban areas should be put right, and we are now putting it right. The hon. member now says, as the price for doing that, he now demands, and for the first time, that you pay the price by raising the 15 per cent. to 20 per cent. I ask the hon. member this question, why is this demand made now? Why was it never suggested by the Select Committee? The hon. member was on the Select Committee, and I ask why he did not attend the committee and suggest it? It is impossible within the limits of parliamentary language adequately to describe the position.

It was outside the purview and consideration of the Select Committee.

The hon. member says that he did not do it because it was outside the purview of the Select Committee. That is not so. It was not outside the ambit of the Select Committee. It would have been possible for the hon. member to move a rider to any recommendation of this sort to be introduced. We could easily have said that we recommend compulsory registration on condition that the 15 per cent. be raised to 20 per cent. Such a recommendation could have been moved. The truth is that the point never occurred to the hon. member at that time. He has been looking for ways and means to defeat this Bill, and this is something which he has drawn out of his hat like a conjurer draws the proverbial rabbit. Let me now come to the Bill. I have been a long time in reaching it, and I hope you will forgive me, sir, but I felt it necessary to deal faithfully, and I hope not too harshly, with the hon. member for Moorreesburg and with some of his friends. In a sense, this Bill is a disappointment to me. It is true that it has embodied the principle of compulsory registration, but it is not the compulsory registration which the Select Committee recommended. The Select Committee recommended a system of compulsory registration which, in my opinion, would be far more effective than the somewhat milk-and-water compulsory registration which the Minister of the Interior has adopted. What did we recommend? We said this. The first step is to make registration compulsory. That is to say, to place the onus on every person (a) to register and (b) to notify any change of address. The Minister, in his Bill, deals with (a) but he does not refer to (b). Then we go on to say that each voter will be given a certificate of registration which he will be required to produce on demand, and to furnish to the registering officer for endorsement, on every change of address. That has not been adopted. What has the Minister done? He has in terms laid the onus on every voter to register, and has prescribed a penalty not exceeding £10, for every voter who fails to register. He will forgive me if I express to him now a doubt whether that goes far enough, and whether it will ensure that maximum 100 per cent. registration which the select committee demanded, and which I believe the public voice of South Africa demands. I believe that only by a system of card registration, by giving every person a certificate that he is registered, just as a motorist has a licence given to him, and just as every alien has, to take the Minister’s own parallel, a certificate of registration, so is it necessary to bring home to the voters of this country the necessity to register, and each should be given a card. There is a third proposal which commends itself to me, that an onus be laid upon the keeper of flats and boarding houses and so forth, once a month or once in every three months, to furnish to the registering officer a list of persons of adult age living in their premises. That is an obligation which is laid under the Aliens Act, and it should be laid here.

Why?

I will tell you why. The object is to secure 100 per cent. registration. Why do we need 100 per cent. registration? Is there any virtue in it in itself? No. We need 100 per cent. registration in this country, because of the provisions of section 40 of the South Africa Act. If the Minister were prepared to alter section 40, and say that the delimitation inside a province should depend upon population, Union national population I mean, and not on registration, then we could scrap the whole of these compulsory registration provisions in the Bill at once. I am quite frank on this matter as I always have been. So long as you have these provisions in the South Africa Act that the delimitation is based on registration, and so long as our registration provisions are as imperfect as they are, so long will you have certain portions of South Africa gravely unrepresented. When I put the matter before the House last year, the party atmosphere was not what it is to-day. The injustice to which I referred was instantly recognised in all parts of the House, and the voice raised by the hon. member for Swellendam was not based on political considerations, but merely on his own personal dislike to the principle of compulsion. To-day we are discussing this Bill in a different atmosphere. Supporters of ours, and the supporters of the principles I had endeavoured to get accepted last year, have changed their party allegiance. The very members of the select committee who approved of the principles of the Bill will, I am afraid, be found voting for the amendment of the hon. member for Moorreesburg, not because they have changed their convictions, or that they are not convinced of the unfairness of the present system, but because considerations of party advantage will compel them to vote against it. I think I shall be excused if I do not go any further now into the other provisions of the Bill. There are many minor provisions which we can discuss in the committee stage. I hope, sir, that I have said enough to show that the political force behind the amendment which has been moved this afternoon, is a hollow one. It has been moved by an hon. gentleman who is committed, deeply committed, committed right up to the hilt, to the very principle of the Bill, who was a member of the select committee which advocated this Bill, and who now, sir, on the hollowest of pretexts, is opposing it.

The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) devoted about two-thirds of his speech to an attack on the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) His attack, for the most part, was, owing to the hon. member for Moorreesburg, so he said, being opposed to compulsory registration. If the hon. member for Moorjeesburg is against compulsory registration, then no one else is responsible for that than the hon. member for Kensington and the Minister of Justice themselves. The instruction to the select committee was “to institute an enquiry into the working of the Electoral Act,” and then the select committee was given the power to hear evidence and call for papers. When we met in select committee, there were a number of registration officers who gave evidence. Those officers, in connection with compulsory registration, emphasised the fact that in the large towns many people were negligent in connection with registration, people who moved from one place to another and who did not fill up the necessary forms. In reply to that it was pointed out that the police do the work on the countryside. They go from farm to farm, once a month, and the registration is well done there. But the great trouble is in regard to the towns and villages, and the question before the select committee was what ought to be done to solve the difficulties in the villages. There were two suggestions, and it was left to the select committee to decide about or to choose between them. One was to appoint a permanent official in an urban constituency, and that official would then have, constantly throughout the year, to be trying to put voters on the registration roll. He had to see that people remained on the voters’ roll. Compulsory registration is being provided for in the Bill, but there is no mention made of one very important thing to which we referred. We pointed out that many voters who make every effort to become registered are omitted from the voters’ rolls. If registration is made obligatory under this Bill, without the persons being protected, it will mean that a prosecution could be instituted against them, although they have honestly tried to get on to the voters’ roll. They do not know that they are not on the voters’ roll. That is why we ask whether it was necessary to provide for the issue of a receipt for registration. A person comes to me in order to register me, and then I have to get a receipt from that person that my name appears on the voters’ roll, because otherwise he may the next day or thereafter deny that I filled in a form, and then I shall be punished because he has lost or mislaid the form, and because he has not done his duty. There is no mention of that in the Bill. The great reason why we are a little suspicious of the attitude of the hon. member for Kensington and the Minister of Justice is that it appears that they are not so much concerned whether the names of voters appear on the voters’ roll, but their real object is for the rural areas to have still less representation. That is the only reason why they are so much concerned about getting voters on to the roll. They do not propose compulsory voting, but want to strengthen the position of the towns, and the Minister of Justice goes about the country boasting that in consequence of this Bill they will be enabled to give ten or thirteen seats to Johannesburg, and that that will then give them a majority at the next election. I could understand an attitude like that from the hon. member for Kensington, but it is deplorable that the Minister of Justice, a son of South Africa, who has always represented the rural districts, should have to-day to rely on this Bill to give the towns representation and to keep them in office.

The Bill is carrying out what you approved of.

I am coming to that. If there is anything which has shown up that the motive behind this compulsory registration is not to put people on to the voters’ roll, but to give more representation to the towns, then it is the attitude of the hon. member for Kensington and the Minister of Justice. I do not want to go into any other points in connection with what was said by other hon. members. We do not ask in our amendment for compulsory registration to be deleted, but we do ask that the rural areas shall get proper representation in this House. The hon. member speaks so much about the towns which should be well represented in the House. I want to point out that in the distribution of seats to the different provinces the non-European voters are not taken into account, with the result that the Cape Province, for instance, gets fewer seats than the Transvaal. But when we come to the division of the seats in the Cape Province itself then non-European voters are actually taken into consideration, and there is a discrimination against the rural areas, and this gives the towns, where there are non-European voters, more representation in this House. That is a discrimination against the rural areas. I want to mention two examples to prove that an injustice is being done. In the Cape Province at the delimitation in 1937 there were 20,000 more voters than in the Transvaal, and yet the Transvaal had one representative more than the Cape in this House. In the Free State there were 4,000 voters more than in Natal, and yet Natal had one representative more than the Free State. The result of that is that in the distribution of the seats among the provinces the non-EUropeans are not taken into account, but when it comes to the delimitation of the seats themselves in the province, then we do take the nonEuropeans into account, and in that way injure the countryside. The principle that the countryside must be properly represented in Parliament is a principle which is well known in all countries of the world, and not merely in South Africa, because the farming population who are owners of the land, and cultivate the soil, and produce the wealth of the country, are the permanent population of the country, and in any country in the world the farming population is given more representation than the towns. Inevitably the rural areas are more sparsely populated, but the people on the countryside have more interest in the country than persons who come from overseas to work here, or other persons who stream into the country to make a fortune, and who then leave the country again. That is why the countryside ought to have better representation than the towns. I do not want to go into the size of the constituencies and to argue on that criterion that the countryside should have better representation. That point has already been referred to. Take, however, New Zealand as an illustration. There the countryside get a preference of 28 per cent. It used to be 18 per cent., but that was increased to 28 per cent.

But here it is 30 per cent.

Here it is not put into practice; here it is not obligatory. The hon. member for Moorreesburg has already pointed out that at the last delimitation in the Cape Province only less than 9 per cent. preference was given to the rural areas. If the Minister of the Interior goes into the position and reads the history of the National Convention, then he will see that the convention almost broke up because the rural areas of the Cape and of Natal and of other parts strongly insisted that the sparsely populated areas in the country districts should get better representation. It was even moved by Mr. Fischer of the Free State that there should be a definition of what a sparsely populated area and what a densely populated area were, and he moved that an area with one voter living on a square mile should be a sparsely populated area, and a place where ten or more were living should be regarded as a densely populated area. There was a sharp discussion on the point between the Farmers’ Party and the Unionist Party, which represented the towns, and who are now the mouthpiece of the hon. member for Kensington. Why were the towns opposed to that? Not because they did not respect the interests of the country, but because they were thinking of political advantage. Instructions were then given to the judges to bear in mind in connection with the delimitation that the towns and the countryside, which was sparsely populated, could not be treated in the same way, but that they could give an allowance of 15 per cent. below the quota to the countryside, and up to 15 per cent. above the quota to the towns. That was not kept to, and therefore we are moving that it should be made 20 per cent. But take another example within the British Empire. In taking an illustration from within the British Empire, it should have great influence on hon. members opposite. Take the provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick. In Quebec there are constituencies, twelve as a matter of fact, which have 15.000 or fewer voters. Then you have twenty-two constituencies with between 16,000 and 20,000 voters, fourteen which have between 20,000 and 25,000 voters, five with between 25,000 and 30,000 voters, and four divisions with between 30,000 and 40,000 voters, while there are eight which have between 41,000 and 54,000 voters. There is therefore a decided discrimination and difference made between the towns which are densely populated, and the country areas which are sparsely populated.

Do you think that that is fair towards the voters?

I think that it is right. We have these examples and England herself also makes a similar distinction. There are well-founded reasons why the sparsely populated areas should get better representation than the densely populated towns.

Have you got the figures for Australia?

No.

The case of Australia does not suit his book.

I have not gone into it. Take New Brunswick. There we have six constituencies with 20,000 voters or less, two with between 20,000 and 30,000 voters, two with between 30,000 and 40,000 voters.

Canada is not neutral.

The hon. member is always thinking in terms of war. He cannot think of anything else. We are dealing with a quota for the Electoral Act. We find that in Canada there are in one and the same province, twelve constituencies with less than 15,000 voters, eight constituencies with between 40,000 and 45,000 voters. It is therefore a sound principle to give the sparsely populated rural areas more representatives. The rural population is the permanent population of the country, people who take an interest in the country, and live here, and remain here, and their descendants will live here. Accordingly, we must protect that class. We are thinking about the expansion of industries. We have got the iron and steel industry, and a large number of people have been imported from overseas. If they come from a part of the British Empire, then they get the franchise after two years. Is that fair? Is it right that the vote of these people should have just as much effect as the vote of the people on the countryside who have lived here for generations and generations, and who will never leave South Africa, while those people come here from overseas to work, and then go back again over the water, when they no longer have any work to do. Are you going to give those persons the same voting power in our country as to the rural farmer, English-speaking or Afrikaans-speaking, it makes no difference, who constitute the permanent population of South Africa? The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) and the Minister of Justice who advocates this, have no other object than a political one. I am bitterly disappointed, especially about the Minister of Justice, that he should go about the country saying that if this Bill passes he will then have the opportunity of increasing his party at the cost of the rural areas. I do not see a single representative from the rural areas on the opposite side, although we are debating a matter of the greatest importance to the countryside. Where is the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. H. van der Merwe), and where is the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie)? Not one member from the rural areas on the other side is in his place.

What about Caledon?

What about Bredasdorp?

I hope that the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. H. C. de Wet) will get up and speak on this subject. I want to point out that in consequence of the depression and the drought which we have had, the countryside is becoming depopulated. There are thousands of people who have gone to the Rand, but when conditions improve again those people will go back to the country. When you speak to those people you find that their homes are in the Free State. They take an interest in the Free State, and possibly two or three of the sons have left for the town to assist their father to win through, but when times become better then they will return to the farms. I therefore think that we should not make use of the extraordinary state of affairs to give the towns more representation in this House than they are entitled to. There are only two small points in connection with the Bill itself, that I want to touch upon. It has been proposed that the presiding officer should take postal votes, and that it should not be necessary to post it. I think that was the proposal of the Select Committee, but I think that if postal votes have to be posted, then the postmaster gives a list to the magistrate and he can check the votes that he has received. In that way no vote can be lost, but according to this proposal, votes can be lost without it being possible to check them. It is proposed here that the vote need not be posted, and I ask the Minister whether the office of the party gets a notification that he has voted.

No, provision is not made for that.

But I suppose that there will be no check if the vote is lost, if the vote does not have to be posted, while to-day we have a check. To-day a vote is posted, and I think that is in order to have a double check, because the postmaster has to give some proof that he has received the vote. But if I can simply give the vote to the magistrate, then there is no longer any such check. Then it is proposed here to have one witness for a voter. I think that when we are dealing with Europeans, then it is enough to have one witness. But our experience, especially in the Cape Province, is that coloured people try to get on to the voters’ roll illegally. We had the scandalous affair at Grabouw, which the, hon. member for Caledon probably knows about, where coloured voters were not entitled to get on to the voters’ roll, and nevertheless they tried to be put on it, and witnesses signed to what they had not witnessed at all. I therefore think, when we have to do with coloured people, that we should insist on having two witnesses. We find that attempts are to-day being made by coloured people to get on to the voters’ roll illegally, and if we only have one witness for a coloured person, then we shall be making it easier for the coloured people to get on to the roll. The hon. member for Caledon knows very well that such attempts are constantly being made, and I hope that he will get up and support me in my request that when we are dealing with coloured people, we should demand two witnesses.

In supporting this Bill let me say that I feel that the Bill does not go far enough. The new principle introduced by the Minister which has apparently raised the ire of the Opposition, rests on very solid facts. Never was an innovation introduced which rested so solely on incontrovertible facts as the innovation introduced in this Bill. Let me quote a few instances before I develop my argument. We have 153 members in this House, 150 of whom are elected by the usual electoral proceedings, and when these members rise in the House each of them consider that they are entitled and are in fact speaking with an equal voice, and it does seem to me that it is an elementary fundamental principle of the democratic system of government that they should be speaking with an equal voice. But what do we find? As a matter of fact, we find that the longer they talk, the lower is the percentage of voters whom they represent. That is perhaps only one of these anomalies which seem to spring up in every walk of life.

Does that also apply to Umbilo?

No, it does not. I am going to quote the figures for Umbilo, and I find that Umbilo is quite far up in the list. However, I have taken these constituencies more or less at random, I have not had time to go thoroughly through the Government Gazette which publishes the latest figures. I find that the number of voters for Humansdorp is 6,368. Kimberley (City) has 8,104 constituents. Graaff-Reinet has 6,334, and Mowbray has 8,522. Willowmore has 6,046 and Woodstock 8,166. Wodehouse, the hon. member for which constituency delivers himself quite often, mainly by means of interjections, has 5,081 constituents, while Krugersdorp has 8,406. The hon. member for Ventersdorp (Col. Jacob Wilkens), who sometimes has a few words to say, gets down to as low as 4,883 constituents. Ventersdorp, as a matter of fact, is the smallest constituency numerically in the country.

That is the figure to-day, not as the result of the delimitation.

No, but the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) should know that the whole point in the method of delimiting is to prevent this kind of thing occurring. But even if that were not so, surely the hon. member is not in favour of a so-called democratic system which will reduce Ventersdorp to 4,883 constituents, and at the same time raise Springs to 10,888. There, side by side, we have it — Ventersdorp 4,883 and Springs 10,888. Surely even the hon. member for Moorreesburg is not going to suggest that there is something special about the 4,883 who have votes in Ventersdorp that raises them to the position of having one member as compared with the 10,888 in Springs?

At the next delimitation that will be rectified.

In Waterberg, where we have a member who often speaks of the volk of South Africa, we have 4,963, compared with Brakpan 11,047. Zwartruggens, whose member also talks occasionally and who not long ago treated the House to a dissertation on Durban, has 5,150 constituents, while my own humble place has 7,471. Willowmore, another opposition constituency, has 5,065, while Orange Grove has 10,000 odd. Marico, another opposition constituency, has 4,956. Now it does seem to me that first of all there may have been a justification at the time of Union for inserting in the South Africa Act such a high differentiation in number as 30 per cent. between town and country. No doubt the framers of the South Africa Act foresaw the difficulties which would face South Africa, and which would face agriculture, and wished, as has been done in other countries, to allow for this differentiation on the ground that somehow if the towns were allowed an equal vote, perchance there would grow up an antagonism to agriculture and to the rural part of the country generally. That has not proved to be the case, because I want to suggest that there is no country in the world where more general sympathy is extended to the agricultural community than there is in the Union. As a matter of fact, that is so much so that the agricultural community tend to resent even reasonable criticism in this House, and there is not one jot or tittle of evidence at any time to show that the fears of the framers of the original South Africa Act are justified. My friends on the other side, when addressing this House, still seem to have their fears occasionally, though I really doubt whether they are real. In the time that I have been in public life in South Africa I have certainly never seen any suggestion of a possibility of a movement rising in the towns definitely opposed to the interests of the agricultural community. The towns, as a matter of fact, know full well that South Africa has to look after its agricultural community. There is, of course, quite a deal of difference between us on many occasions as to what is the best possible way to deal with the position — some of us feel that the measures which have been taken have not been the best possible measures. The agriculturists on the other side, again, feel that they are the best measures. But there is no danger in South Africa of the country dividing itself into town versus country for reasons purely of town versus country. If South Africa does eventually divide into town versus country, it will so divide for reasons quite apart from the agricultural industry, or urban industrialism, it will divide itself for reasons of higher politics which have nothing to do with either agriculture or with industries in the towns. We see, as a matter of fact, to-day a tendency in the political divisions of South Africa, towards a dividing on town versus country lines. It has no relation whatsoever to agriculture in the country, or to industrialism in the towns. The political division in South Africa to-day is not an economic division at all. That is the trouble we have in this country. We are not able to get an economic division. The present division is a division based upon higher politics, foreign affairs and such like, and, therefore, we cannot argue that that tendency to divide in that particular manner is one which should receive, under the electoral system of the country, any consideration whatsoever. I feel that South Africa, particularly South Africa with its small voting population, where constituencies are still, for the most part, remaining under 10,000, cannot afford to continue with a system whereby there is a very distinct possibility, and as a matter of fact, it has occurred once already in this country, a distinct possibility of a government actually being elected to govern this country on a minority vote. That did once before occur. Last time the Nationalist Party Government got into power, they got into power on a definite minority vote. However much may be said of the usefulness of the democratic system, which sometimes allows an individual member to be returned on a minority vote, there is nothing to be said for the machinery of such a system which permits a government to be returned on a minority vote. If we are going to continue with this democratic system, we shall have to see that our electoral laws are made as water-tight as possible to guard against a government being returned on a minority vote. That is a bad thing for the country. A government must have behind it the acquiescence of the country. If it does not, it is inclined to make political divisions a great deal deeper and more serious than they should be.

That same minority government brought prosperity to the country.

I do not know.

And you brought the war.

I heard an hon. member of the Nationalist Party laying claim yesterday for his party having been the instigators of Iscor, when they know perfectly well that it was the Labour Party which instigated Iscor.

Order, order.

Yes, sir, I know it is irrelevant, but it is true nevertheless. I shall not argue as to whether a minority government may at times bring prosperity to a country, for prosperity comes in peculiar ways. We had one sample of a minority government, which nearly landed the country in ruin through their obstinacy and stupidity over the gold standard. I suggest, further, even if it is still contended by members of the Opposition that it is necessary to grant some form of defence to the agricultural community against we terrible people of the urban areas, I want to argue, if they still contend it is necessary to have some form of defence in the line of a differentiation of the numbers of their constituency with the present permissive differentiation of 15 per cent. above in the case of the towns, and 15 per cent. below in the case of the country, that it is far too high. I am quite satisfied that the country districts, if they still have this fear and will persist in feeling that the towns may one day rise up and sweep the agricultural community out of the country, must admit that their defence can be accomplished by a reduction of this 15 per cent. to, say, 7½ per cent. My only objection to the Bill, so far, is that it does not go far enough, as I have said, and determine to deal once and for all, and deal effectively with this very large disparity which gives a preponderance of seats, in some instances, to the rural population when they are actually a minority in population. If the working of the 15 per cent. disparity each way had, in many instances, resulted in a sort of even balance of rural and industrial representation, one might not be so critical. But there have been instances, and it can be shown, that that disparity has been used to give a preponderance of rural seats with a minority population against the industrial, with of course, their majority population. Surely with an electoral innovation of this description in its actual working out, and with, I am tempted to call it, a stupid position, in the long run something should be done to alter it, more in keeping with modern democratic ideas. I am tempted to think that the Minister has not taken his courage in both hands. He has been slightly over-awed by the possibility of the noise the Opposition would make, and he has decided not to introduce an amendment to the Act of Union. He has made a serious mistake in not doing so, because all of his arguments, advanced as regards that particular amendment to the Act which has annoyed members of the Opposition, and the argument which he has advanced in favour of that amendment, similarly apply to an amendment of the Act of Union itself, reducing the 15 per cent. to 7½ per cent., or rather I would wish to see it abolished altogether. This argument can be carried to an absurdity. If it is true of the agricultural community to say that they can have it accepted as a reasonable argument, that they should get smaller constituencies because of the danger of the people in industrial towns swamping them, would it not be equally true if the commercial community said that they should have a low constituency because of the danger of the industrial community swamping them? Would it not be true of the smaller provinces of the Union, the Free State and Natal, to come along and say that they should have a disparity in their constituencies because of the danger of the Witwatersrand taking full control of this country?

It has been said already.

I know it has been said already, and it might be reiterated. If we attempt it in the case of the agricultural community, we shall have great difficulty if the day ever arises when a serious agitation is put forward either from Natal or the Free State, for a differentiation in constituencies because of the growing powers of the Transvaal, and of the Witwatersrand particularly. Personally, I can see no sound reason for the continuance of this 15 per cent. differentiation each way. As a matter of fact, I am almost persuaded to move in the Committee stage that the Act of Union be so amended. I should like to deal with one point which was dealt with by the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell). It is a point which the hon. member has pursued in company with the hon. member for Pretoria (District) (Mr. Oost) for a number of years. It is this question of the compulsory notification of a change of address. I am utterly opposed to any legislation which is going to compel a citizen of this country to notify a change of his address. It is not necessary to accomplish the purpose which the Minister has set out to accomplish in his Bill. In order to get the fullest possible representation of the urban districts, the Minister, in the Bill, has rightly set out upon a policy of compulsory registration, because the constituencies will be framed upon the registration. They will not be framed upon changes of address. That is as far as I am prepared to go with reference to compulsion in connection with electoral matters. I do so, sir, because I take the view that if the citizens of South Africa, or of any other country for that matter, do not wish to exercise the franchise, I think it is a dangerous thing for us to provide to compel them to do so. We compel them to register because if he refuses to register he is not only refusing to exercise his franchise, but in many instances he is a contributory party to the non-representation of large sections of the country generally. If he is registered, whether he exercises his franchise or not, has nothing to do with us. I have known occasions when I refused to exercise my franchise. I have been faced with the proposition of three candidates at an election none of whom I wanted, and I do not see why the House of Assembly should force me to vote for anyone of them. The hon. member for Kensington has suggested that we should force voters to notify a change of address as a preliminary step to the final madness of Australia—forcing people to vote. The hon. member for Kensington has insisted that the Minister should include a provision whereby voters should be forced to notify their change of address. That is something I do not like. It has a bearing on matters quite apart from the Electoral Act. We had a select committee some years ago in the House, which was the forerunner of the select committee which has reported on this Bill, and from whose report the present Bill is drafted, bearing on this question of compulsory voting and compulsory registration. It transpired there, as hon. members know, if they read the evidence, that the hon. member for Pretoria (District) (Mr. Oost) had a wonderful system based on the continental system, whereby you had to supply photographs and finger prints and say how much money you had in the bank. I fear it is very dangerous to impose legislation of a compulsory nature, and I trust that the Minister will not listen to the suggestions made by the hon. member for Kensington in so far as the notification of change of address is concerned. I am in favour of compulsory registration, because it is on that that the Delimitation Commission could rectify some of the obvious injustices of the present system of delimitation. But after we have had these injustices rectified by the method of forcing people to register themselves, we are not concerned ourselves with whether they notify their change of address or not. A great many people have very good reason for not notifying a change of address. After all is said and done, it is not the duty of this House to legislate in order to make debt collectors’ work easier, or to help the erring husband to find a similarly erring wife. These matters can be left to the police. They should not be tacked on to the electoral law to be used by the police. There are a number of details in the clauses which I hope to criticise in some instances, when we reach the Committee stage, not in an attempt to alter them very radically, but as an individual who has been concerned with the running of elections, I say there are some little things which I think need altering. There is one, for instance, where the heavy expense incurred in connection with casting the vote of a sick or infirm person is laid on the shoulders of the candidate. Now, I think elections cost candidates quite enough already without landing them with the cost of paying for the voting of infirm persons. The vote is one of the most important privileges which we have, and I do not think any question of cost should be tacked on either to the persons or their immediate friends or candidate. The vote is something which we should prize and it should not be the duty of the Government to tack on any question of expense in so far as the casting of the vote is concerned. I don’t know whether it is any use appealing to the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus). This whole matter of electoral reform was discussed very thoroughly by the select committee of which I was a member. If one reads through the report it will be seen that latterly I did not attend very many meetings, because there was such a large degree of unanimity, and as I was busy elsewhere I thought it could quite well be left in the hands of the few enthusiasts who subsequently drafted the recommendations. The hon. member for Kensington is quite right, during our discussion I never once heard the member for Moorreesburg raise the point that he is raising now.

It was outside our scope; we could not raise it.

Oh yes, we could; we could have brought up anything at the time. I am sure that I did raise the question of the 15 per cent. differentiation, although I never pursued it any further. It could have been raised if the hon. member had any intention of doing so, and it must have been obvious to him, as it was to all of us on the committee, that the particular method of delimitating constituencies had now reached a stage where these anomalies in delimitation after delimitation must arise, and surely the hon. member for Moorreesburg does not now need a select committee to investigate whether these anomalies do arise. The facts as published in the Government Gazette, and as drawn up by the Electoral Department, show that these things do occur, that within a period of two years you have constituencies like Ventersdorp going down to 4,883 and constituencies like Springs rising up to 10,888, and that is non-democratic, it is opposed to all the elementary principles of democracy, and if continued can only land the Government of this country in a mess; it can only make Parliament a laughing stock and in the long run result in producing an assembly here of 150 members who are in no way representative of the people of the country. We know that the greatest political brains in the world spent many years trying to devise the very best possible method of representation. South Africa has gone in for this single vote method; there are many other countries who do likewise, and it is a fairly workable scheme, provided that from time to time you eliminate any anomalies which may arise. I feel that the Opposition are doing a disservice to their own cause, because of late I have read in quite a number of their speeches that they emphasise the point that they wish to be constitutional and democratic, they resent very definitely any suggestion that they are inclined to dabble with the tenets of Mr. Adolf Hitler, or any other gentleman of that calibre. I am prepared to accept their oft-repeated statement that they are democratic. Now, here is a democratic measure, here is a measure which seeks to place our electoral system on some basis of even fair representation. If your representation is wrong, lopsided, if you continually get minorities represented in the House, and if you eventually get minority government in a country for any length of time, that is undemocratic. The only possible way the Opposition could govern this country would be by minority representation. I am sorry I do not have the time at my disposal to tot up first how many constituents the hon. members of the Opposition represent, and how many constituents those of us who support the Government represent, because I am quite sure you would find that although the Government majority may be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 18 or 20 their actual majority assessed on constituents would probably be about two to one.

Why don’t you have an election?

To be reasonably fair in this House the hon. member for Ventersdorp should only be allowed to talk for 20 minutes in a second reading debate, and should only be allowed to use his voice at half his general tone, while the hon. member for Springs should be given at least an hour and be permitted to bellow in a loud voice. I know that the ability of the hon. member for Springs to bellow could never reach the proper proportions to represent the 10,888 constituents whom he represents here. I don’t want to delay the House. I give my wholehearted support to this Bill with the one proviso that I would like to see it made a little stronger. Even although the Minister will not accept an amendment at the Committee stage to reduce this differentiation, I am at least prepared to move it, as a preliminary in this House to the eventual establishment of the only democratic principle which we should be prepared to accept and that is, one man, or one woman, one vote:

What astonishes me is that hon. members opposite who represent the rural areas can sit and listen to a speech like that of the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Burnside) and still not come under the impression that they are sitting among a group of people who are taking up a dangerous point of view to the future of our country.

The hon. member must confine himself to the Bill.

I am only referring to the plea of the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) for the alteration of the quota. Towards the end of his speech he went so far as to say that as long as he was in the House he would fight for an alteration in the quota system, namely that one vote should have one value, which was in direct conflict with the Electoral Act and with this Bill. It is certain that some constituencies have more voters than others, and the hon. member stated that this Bill was intended to alter that, but then he has not read it very well. With regard to the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell), I do not believe that he understood the speech of the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus), or otherwise he deliberately distorted it. The hon. member for Moorreesburg did not entirely disapprove of compulsory registration, as the hon. member stated. We support compulsory registration, but we moved the second portion of the amendment of the hon. member for Moorreesburg in connection with it, namely that when compulsory registration is enforced the interests of the countryside should be protected by an alteration in the existing quota system. I just want to quote a few points to indicate the importance of this change. The instruction to the Committee were not to go into the quota system. We are in favour of compulsory registration, but then we say that the quota system should be increased from 15 per cent. to 20 per cent. The hon. member for Kensington asked why we did not move it in Committee. I am not specially authorised to do so, but I feel convinced of it that if the hon. member gives us the assurance that he will vote for it, and if the Minister is prepared to accept it in Committee, then we will withdraw the amendment this afternoon. That proves that we are not opposed to compulsory registration, but we feel that the interests of the countryside are not safe on the other side of the House, and we want to protect those interests. What is there behind it? The hon. member for Kensington made speeches on the Rand, from which it clearly appeared that he is out for political advantage in this matter, and nothing else. I have a report here of the speech which he made in Johannesburg last year, as reported by the South African Press Association—

He is referring therefore to an increase of eight or ten seats so far as the Rand is concerned, and then he expresses his pleasure because the countryside would lose the seats. Then he added, and this is important—

There the cat comes out of the bag. The aim is merely to make political capital out of the Bill. They are not concerned about the interests of the country, but only to get political gain. What does he say in addition?—

So he goes on. In other words, the hon. member for Kensington is out, and he appreciates it, to break the back of the Afrikaners once and for all now, and that depends on the next three years, and he wants to use this Bill to give the Government ten seats, which will, of course, mean an alteration of twenty if we are to lose ten seats. If that is the object of the Bill then I am sorry that there have been so many pious platitudes about this Bill. No, it is only being done for a political purpose, nothing else. Apart from that I just want to say in the first instance that on the whole I heartily welcome this Bill in connection with the subordinate points which are amending the Electoral Act as it stands. Various points have already been dealt with, and I do not want to go into them again, but I want to point out section 16, where the White Paper clearly says that the principal Act makes no provision for the official mark, and the provision of the Bill is that a ballot paper must be rejected owing to the absence of such an official mark. You sometimes find a whole box: it happened in my constituency that we had a case where a box with thirteen votes were all rejected, because the ballot papers did not bear the official seal. I want to ask the Minister whether it is not correct that the Act, as it stands here in Dutch, that what he said was not correct. It says here, for instance, that the new paragraph will read—

I would like the Minister to give me the assurance that clause 16 will have that effect, as the White Paper says, that the ballot paper will be valid even if it does not have the official seal or mark on it.

The object of clause 16 is to make sure that the voter hands in the proper document. He shows his document, and if the proper mark is not on it, then an objection can be taken to it. This is intended to prevent his putting in a paper which does not have the proper mark.

In other words, if he hands in a paper without a mark then it does not count.

Yes, that is correct.

But then you are making no amendment. In the past mistakes were made by the officials who were inside the voting station. They made the mistakes. I can assure you, in my constituency we had an official, where the people had come 30 to 40 miles to vote, and all the ballot papers were thrown out because that official had not put the mark on them. That is still the position under this Bill. If the official does not have the necessary knowledge, then the ballot papers will still be thrown out, and I hope that the Minister will draft an amendment that the ballot papers of these persons should not, in such a case, be declared invalid. I want to say something which other hon. members have already referred to in regard to the concentration of certain persons at a certain place. The Minister nodded his head, but I would like him to give us the clear assurance that it will not occur that the people will have votes at the place where they are temporarily concentrated, as for instance, in the military camp at Oudtshoorn. He subsequently asked: What about the students? I want to point out that the comparison does not hold, because if a student goes to the university to study, then he leaves his home for good, it is possibly only one in a hundred who goes back home. He leaves home permanently, and is possibly for four, six or eight years at the university, and then he goes to another place where he starts making his living. I hope that the Minister will give the assurance, where that is the case as at military concentration, that the people will not get the franchise there.

Then there is another little point that I feel I must agree with the hon. member for Marico (Rev. C. W. M. du Toit) about namely, that this Bill is not complete in all respects. I can give the Minister the assurance, that it happens that the provisional typed voters’ roll which is sent out by the local registration officer, to see whether any persons have been left out, is in order, but it happened in my constituency two years ago that everything was in order on the typed list, and we then waited for the printed list. And what happened? It seems to me that it was not deliberately done, but in the printing of the books some voters on both sides were omitted. I think that as we are making this provision here, we should see that as soon as we learn that a person has been omitted at the printing, that such persons can be put on the list again without their having to make fresh application. Finally, I want to come to the amendment which is being moved here, namely to increase the quota to 20 per cent. I want to support that heartily, and for a reason, as a matter of fact, which has possibly not yet been stated in that way. The object of the Electoral Act was to prevent the sturdy old Afrikaners being entirely out-manoeuvred in the future, and it seems to me that there is a danger that after this war, which will possibly develop into a world war, we may possibly have a big influx into South Africa and that that influx will not go to the countryside, but to the towns, and the result will be that the countryside will be entirely unrepresented to the extent to which it should be represented, and the extent is laid down in the Constitution. May I quote something here in connection with the big constituencies which the rural areas already have, and in connection with what an hon. member has already said here. I want to point out that in my constituency there are nine villages, and if I take my car and travel along all the villages and return home, then I have travelled 1,000 miles. There are hon. members opposite who have repeatedly told me that they only hold one meeting, and they need not even walk 1,000 yards to the meeting, while I have to hold 20 to 50 meetings, and have to travel 1,000 miles just to get round. But that is not all. There are hon. members here who told me that they have only had one letter from their constituents during the session, and others have got one per month. But I have of late kept a note, and I have received as many as 15 to 20 letters a day. I cannot say whether that is the reason why hon. members on the opposite side are so ineffective, but look at the difference in the work of hon. members from the towns and members from the rural areas, for which the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) and the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Burnside) have pleaded. It is nothing more than making the rural constituencies still larger. It is against the interests of the voters who need to be able to keep in touch with their representatives. That is easy in the towns, but now hon. members want to make it still less possible for us on the countryside. I just want to say this, that if we have the assurance on that point that the Minister will take it into consideration, and that he will go so far as to accept this amendment which we have moved, then we will assist in the Bill passing as quickly as possible, and then there will not be much difficulty, because there are amendments required in the Bill, and if he will give us the assurance that he will increase the quota to 20 per cent., then we will make no further objection to the Bill.

The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) was very much concerned because I rose to second the amendment of the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus), inasmuch as I was a member of the committee, and agreed with the contents of its report. May I point out that his whole speech was directed against the hon. member for Moorreesburg for having dared to speak against compulsory voting, but he forgot to bear in mind the amendment of the hon. member for Moorreesburg. There are two parts to the amendment, and the one part has already been accepted by the Minister, namely, that it shall not be obligatory for coloured people to register themselves, but the other part mainly dealt with the delimitation. But the instructions to the Select Committee were very clear, namely, that a Select Committee was appointed to make enquiry and report on the working of the Electoral Act, the committee to be empowered to hear evidence and to call for papers. The Electoral Act is quite a different thing to the delimitation, which is controlled by the South Africa Act, and at the meeting of the committee there was never any reference to the delimitation. It was not forgotten. The committee was very busy, it was a busy session. The committee acted on its instructions, and that matter was left out of account until the time, as the hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen) said, that the hon. member for Kensington had mentioned in casual speeches on the Rand and elsewhere, that the plea which he made here was not intended to amend the Electoral Act, in pursuance of the experience that had been obtained, but he had, in the main, pleaded so strongly for the appointment of the committee because he had other things at the back of his head. He had something against the countryside, because the hon. member has no time for the countryside, and he is afraid that the rural areas will progress to such an extent as to become dominating. The hon. member should have drawn the attention of the Select Committee to that, and if it was necessary to go into it, then the Select Committee would have had to get further instructions from the House before they could deal with such a matter. If the hon. member for Kensington did not agree to that, then he should have drawn the attention of the Select Committee to the fact, and we could then have asked the House whether we could go into it. Nevertheless we find in the report of the Select Committee that they recommend that the law should be altered in order to empower the delimitation commissioners also to take into account other factors, which indicated a change in the population. Section 40 of the South Africa Act laid down the factors which have to be taken into consideration, namely community or diversity of interest, means of communication, natural characteristics, existing electoral boundaries and sparsity or density of population. It was therefore the duty of the Government, before introducing this Bill, to bear in mind the spirit of the South Africa Act, to take notice of the migration of the population, and in accordance with that, to do justice to parts of the country such as the Orange Free State, which is sparsely populated.

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

When the debate was interrupted I was dealing with the accusations of the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) against the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus). Unfortunately the hon. member for Kensington was not here at the time, and for his benefit I want briefly to repeat what I said, namely that to my mind his whole attack was out of place. Possibly the hon. member for Moorreesburg has said that he is not very much in favour of compulsory registration, but his main point was the amendment moved by him. That amendment purports simply to show that the position as entrenched in clause 40 of the South Africa Act is in danger as a result of this compulsory registration. The South Africa Act stressed the fact that the balance between the platteland and the town should be maintained. Not that there was distrust as far as the towns were concerned or that the framers of the Constitution expected the towns to dominate the position soon, but yet it remains a fact that the settled portion of the population is to be found on the platteland. It is the most conservative section of the population. For that reason we find that members of the Government told us during the last by-elections that they were very satisfied and their paper boasted that, as they put it, there was a large section of the population on the platteland which had voted for the Government.

Which Government?

This Government. The hon. member should know that we had elections and that his papers boasted that the Government received considerable support on the platteland.

Are you referring to the general election?

I am referring to the by-elections. Your papers noted with particular satisfaction that the Government received a considerable measure of support on the platteland, as they put it. They did not pay the same attention to the votes cast in favour of the Government in the towns and villages. We know that the towns are densely populated and that it is easier to sway them in a certain direction. But on the platteland the farmers live separated on their farms; it is not so easy to stir them up, because they have learned to act independently. It is for that reason that the old fathers who framed the Constitution were very emphatic on that point. From their own experience they knew that in a country like South Africa, where one may expect industrial development as we have had in the Transvaal, one had to be very careful to maintain the correct balance. We know that the Boer War was caused by a question of electoral rights, and it originated in an industrial centre, in the gold-mining centre. Consequently the old fathers of the Constitution instructed the delimitation commission to take certain conditions into account, and all the amendment of the hon. member for Moorreesburg aims at is to maintain that balance which is endangered by the Bill before the House. Figures have been quoted to illustrate the ratio between town and platteland, and I do not want to enlarge upon that matter. I only want to point out that the National Convention instructed the delimitation commissions to take into account community and diversity of interests, means of communication, physical features of the country, existing electoral boundaries and sparseness and density of population, and in this connection it was laid down that they could go 15 per cent. over and 15 per cent. below the quota. Now I want to point out something else. Since they laid down the scale in order to safeguard the position we had the migration to the towns and villages. It is a fact that the sons and daughters of the platteland migrate to the towns in order to find work there. A father has three or four children of age who go to the towns. Then the towns have four votes as against the one vote of the father on the platteland. I want to point out that it would not matter so much if they were voting in respect of the same interests as far as South Africa is concerned. But whilst that may be the case from a broad point of view, we know that young people who spend years in the towns become urbanised, and they do not view matters any longer through the eves of the platteland. For that reason I contend that we cannot allow the representation of the platteland in this House of Assembly to decrease below what it is to-day, and in order to uphold the right balance we suggest that there should be a marein of 20 per cent. above and 20 per cent. below the quota. That would balance the position more or less for the next ten years or so. Is there anything wrong in that suggestion? The hon. member for Kensington and the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Burnside) propagated the ideal of one vote one value. It may sound nice to say one vote one value, but I want to point out that since the inception of Union there never was such a thing as one vote one value. The population of our country is of such a composition, and conditions in the country are such, that we cannot uphold the ideal of one vote one value. That is the reason why we find that one constituency has 4,800 voters and another has 10,880. That does not matter, because it is a fact that where a migration takes place to the town from the platteland, that population moves back again to a great extent. It all depends on conditions governing at the time. During the depression thousands of people migrated from the Free State to the Witwatersrand and other towns. After that we tried to induce them to come back. At the present moment we are trying to establish factories in the country and the Government is encouraging industrial development through the corporation which will be established, and it should be our aim and object to decentralise our industries, more particularly on the platteland, in order to prevent a continual migration to the big towns and important industrial centres. We should decentralise industries so as to avoid the population of our country being more and more concentrated in a centre like Johannesburg and a few other big industrial centres which in due time will dominate the whole country. I hope the Government will realise that it will create a dangerous position if we have one or two large industrial centres in South Africa which have such a large representation in this House of Assembly that they dominate the whole country. Let me quote a few figures to show the trend of development, and to my mind members of the Cane should pay particular attention to what is going on. At the time of Union the Cape Province received 51 seats, Natal 17. the Transvaal 36 and the Orange Free State 17, a total of 121 seats. But mark the migration. At that time the Cape Province had 51 seats and the Transvaal 15 seats less than the Cape Province. To-day the Cape has 59 seats and the Transvaal 69 seats. That shows the enormous migration which has taken place. As far as the Free State is concerned we have remained more or less in the same position, but we are going to suffer most in future if this quota of 20 per cent. is not embodied in the Bill. Naturally in the Free State we have a purely rural population. At the time of Union 17 seats were allocated to the Free State, and to-day we have 15: in view of industrial developments, the position may arise that the Free State will lose more seats. I want to give the hon. member for Kensington the assurance that the time must come when the scales will have to be balanced. Australia had the same experience. They had a Labour Government there, and the towns and industrial centres dominated the country. The same may happen here. To-day there is practically nothing left of the Labour Party, but one never knows what may happen, and we may be faced with the same position as they were faced with in Australia. There is one other point, and that is that we try to legislate in the best way possible, taking into consideration past experience. Now the only flaw in this legislation is the flaw pointed out by me. Otherwise we could dispose of this matter in a satisfactory manner, and we would be in a position to place this Electoral Act before our constituents and to say that all difficulties in respect of postal votes have been removed and that other flaws have disappeared. The only flaw remaining is the question of the quota. If the Minister is prepared to give us the assurance that he will meet us in Committee, this legislation will have an easy passage. He took up a conciliatory attitude in respect of compulsory registration of coloured people, and I hone he will also meet us in this matter in the interest of the whole country.

The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) referred to me this afternoon, and wanted to make out that I was the only member who had remained constant in his feelings as far as this matter is concerned. I only want to say that many members on this side hold the same opinion as I do, but they did not speak, because the arguments which could be used had been advanced by me, and the rules and regulations of the House do not permit a member to rise and simply say: “I agree with the last speaker.” I want to give him the assurance that I am not the only person, but that all members here share those views. It is quite evident from the speeches we have had from the other side of the House that this is an attempt to give benefits to the towns to the detriment of the platteland. There can be no doubt about it. This is a clever scheme to afford an opportunity to the towns to outvote the platteland. The Minister of the Interior knows it just as well as I do. It is the intention to give more votes to the towns so that the other side of the House will receive additional support and can remain in office. Why be so secretive about it? That is the intention. I want to know from the previous Minister of the Interior, who is now Minister of Commerce and Industries, whether he still shares my view? He agreed with me when the motion concerned came before this House at the beginning of 1939. May I just read what he said? He is still a Minister, and I understand that he is supporting this Bill. If that is so, it is evident that he has changed his views since 1939, because he and I explained the position in 1939 and we maintained that this Bill was not necessary and that there was no reason to appoint a committee. Let us read from Hansard, Volume 33, what the present Minister of Commerce and Industries said—

That is hardly a year ago, and it came from one of the Ministers of the present Government. Well, whilst they are only out to gain a party advantage, they come here and drag democracy into the dust and they say that they propose this measure for the sake of democracy. It is nothing else but party political advantage they are seeking. The Minister of Commerce and Industries is one of the oldest Ministers on the other side of the House, and I want to ask him whether he is going to vote for this Bill, after having said himself that compulsory registration was only desired by politicians and organisers in order to facilitate their work. If he votes in favour of this Bill, it will be abundantly clear that the only object is to gain political advantage. If the towns feel that they are going to gain advantage at the expense of the platteland, then I want to ask hon. members on the other side, who represent rural constituencies, whether they are prepared to subject the interests of the platteland to the interests of the towns, and to allow the towns to dominate the position. Are they satisfied and prepared to sacrifice the interests of the platteland? The hon. the Prime Minister was a member of the National Convention which framed the Constitution, and he knows as well as I do why they introduced the differentiation between the platteland and the towns. He knows that it is essential for the proper government of the country that we should come to the assistance of the platteland not only in view of the distances members of this House have to travel, and the meetings they have to address, but he knows as well as I do that the rural population is the settled population of the country, and in, order to obtain a measure of constancy in the political life of the country, they had to lay down a quota. Now, for purely political purposes, this Bill is introduced and they even dare to introduce it in the name of democracy. I always understood democracy to mean liberty, and the right to vote and to do as you like. They are not concerned about people who do not want to vote, but they are concerned about party advantages. They know very well that people who do not want to vote, are not concerned about their registration either, and the only reason why they are in favour of compulsory registration, is that they want to allocate more seats to the towns and they want to smother the platteland. It is no use to hide that fact. It was said by the hon. member for Kensington. I want the platteland to know what the Government is doing. The Government is watering down the influence of the platteland and is taking away certain rights. Is the Government serious when it says that this Bill is a means to promote democracy? The Government does not even permit proper discussion of certain legislation coming before the House. They are dictators out and out. The hon. member for Kensington may laugh. I can understand such laughter. I do not blame him. Of course, he is not capable of understanding the position, hence his laughter. He is nervous because the truth will out and he now begins to realise that he has not all the say in the matter. I want to ask the hon. member whether democracy does not mean freedom, and if it means freedom and liberty, why should these people not be free to register if they want to? I want to say that this is the first step in the direction of compulsory voting. The hon. member always talks about democracy and I want to ask him if, when people are compelled to register, a case may not arise that two people are put up in my constituency, and I do not want to vote for either of them because in my opinion neither of them should represent my constituency, but then I shall be compelled to vote for one of them. I, therefore, think that it is a farce to propose this measure in the name of democracy. It is party politics pure and simple, and it is in favour of the towns at the expense of the platteland. To talk about one vote one value, is nonsense. Is there a single member who wants seriously to advocate that? The position of New Zealand has been mentioned during the debate and the hon. member also knows the nosition of Great Britain and the history of Canada. He knows that it is necessary to differentiate between the platteland and the towns, but he has the audacity to frighten us by pointing out that we have a margin of 15 per cent. and by telling us that they will vote for a decrease in that percentage. He cannot say it straight out, because he knows that the electors will call him to book. Where the towns will benefit, I want to tell hon. members that ultimately they will curse hon. members there and vote against them.

Judging superficially the matter at stake in this Bill seems to be the question of compulsory registration of voters, but there is much more at stake than compulsory registration. I listened with particular interest to the cutting read by the hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen) from a speech made by the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) at a meeting of the Women’s United Party, in which he frankly admitted that one of the aims in connection with the increase of seats on the Rand, was to increase the number of seats of the United Party by eight or ten. I was not here when the hon. member for Kensington addressed the House this afternoon, but if it was his contention that the ideal of democracy would be advanced by this measure, then I think he was talking with his tongue in his cheek. This is really nothing but a political manoeuvre and the idea behind it is to give an additional eight or ten seats to the United Party. But leaving that alone for a moment, the real issue at stake is the question of the ratio between the towns and the platteland which is going to be interfered with. It was frankly admitted by the hon. the Minister of the Interior when introducing this Bill. We are faced with a change in the ratio between the towns and the platteland as far as representation is concerned. When we are dealing with the ratio of representation of the platteland as compared with the urban population, then we have in mind conflicting interests. When we talk of the interests of the towns, we are not in the first instance referring to the interests of the urban population, but we have in mind certain interests which have always represented the towns, namely, the big financial and business interests which have always proved to us that they are unsympathetic towards the platteland. They have always taken up an unsympathetic attitude. The Minister of the Interior declared that two and a half urban voters had the same value as one voter on the platteland. There is something in that contention, but if the Minister refers to voting power, then I want to ask him whether he puts it correctly? Are we only dealing with voting power? I suggest that such is not the case. I maintain that there are other factors to be reckoned with when dealing with representation in this House. We have for instance the factor of the size of constituencies, but there is also another factor which has not been mentioned so far, and that is the factor of the production of the platteland in comparison with the other big industries in South Africa.

You mean as against the mines?

Exactly, as against the mines, and if you compare those two you find that the total agricultural production on the platteland, taking into account also industries on the platteland, that the production of the mines to-day is less in value than the platteland production. The fathers of our constitution recognised that position when framing the Act of Union in 1910. But important changes have taken place since 1910. We have witnessed a migration from the rural areas to the towns, and if it was necessary in 1910 to protect rural interests against domination by the towns, then I say that in view of the migration which has taken place in certain parts, it is more than ever necessary to-day to protect the rural interests against town interests. But this phenomenon is not confined to South Africa alone. When we want to compare the position in South Africa with that of any other country, it is necessary to make the comparison between our country and another country which has more or less conditions which can be compared with those in South Africa, and when looking for such a country, we at once think of the United States of America, though admittedly it is a much larger country and more densely populated than South Africa. I can speak of the United States of America with some authority, because I lived there for seven years and am acquainted with conditions there. I was forcibly struck by the comparableness of the history of the United States and our own history. This historical development is particularly of interest when dealing with the question of representation. Both in the United States and the Union of South Africa a new colony was established and both countries witnessed a gradual increase of the population in the different parts of the country. In both countries financial and business interests centralised in certain parts of the country. At a certain stage of the development enormous financial powers concentrated in New York, and that city grew like a mushroom, until the population of New York, together with its suburbs to-day, amounts to over 10,000,000. In South Africa we have the same experience. We also have a mushroom development in Johannesburg and big business interests and financial interests concentrated there. The fathers of the American Constitution, who also were dealing with conditions in a new country, appreciated the danger, because when the American Constitution was drawn up there were already signs of financial concentration. They laid down the provision that, as far as senators are concerned, each state will be represented by two men, whatever the population of the state may be. A town such as New York has 43 members in the House of Representatives, whilst some other states have only one representative. In order to guard against the danger of domination by big financial interests and big business centres such as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other towns, it has been laid down that as far as the Senate is concerned, each state will only have two members in the Senate.

We have the same kind of arrangement here as far as the Senate is concerned.

If the hon. member for Kensington (who often wants to give us the impression that he knows much) makes such a statement, then he does not know that there is a world of difference between the Senate of the United States and the Senate in South Africa. He does not know that in South Africa and in certain other countries the Senate is a “rubber stamp,” but the Senate in the United States is the most powerful and most important part of the legislative body of America. Therefore, in America they have protected those parts of the country which are not strongly represented in the House of Representatives, by giving each state the same representation as other states in the Senate. A state such as Nevada, with a small population, has exactly the same representation as the state of New York with over 15,000,000 inhabitants. The Senate is the most important legislative body. When political news comes through from America, one seldom hears what has taken place in the House of Representatives. The important work is done in the Senate. It is very seldom that one hears opinions expressed by Representatives, but one hears very often about the opinion expressed by one or other Senator. The Senate is the important body and there they do not differentiate between representation of a densely populated urban area and the rural areas. Every state has two representatives, whatever its population may be. What is the position in South Africa? A margin of 15 per cent. over and under the quota is allowed and nothing more. Where we are dealing with a Bill which provides for compulsory registration, the effect is undoubtedly going to be, as admitted by the Minister of the Interior, that the urban areas will get more representation at the expense of the rural areas. They will increase their influence. Let me say in passing that mention has been made of 2½ persons in the towns having the same voting power as one man on the platteland. I want to ask whether that 11 extra person in the towns who does not show sufficient interest to see to it that he is registered, will show sufficient interest to vote when we compel him to register. Will you really achieve the carrying out of the democratic principle after you have passed this Bill? No, the only effect will be to increase the number of seats for the towns at the expense of the rural areas and the only aim is to give political advantages to a particular political party. Our aim is not to stir up the rural areas against the towns.

Why did we have a unanimous recommendation of the select committee?

In reply to that question I want to say in the first instance that I do not speak for any select committee, I speak on behalf of myself and the voters I represent. In the second place, the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) showed very clearly—I do not know whether the hon. member for Kensington was present, but it is a wrong interpretation of the position to say that the decisions were adopted unanimously.

No, it is not.

It is a matter between you and the hon. member for Moorreesburg if you are not prepared to take his word for it. The hon. member for Moorreesburg has clearly shown that he was not present when certain divisions were taken, and that on other occasions there was a division taken. As far as I am concerned, the question is not what the select committee decided. Let us take it, for argument sake, that the select committee came to a unanimous decision, then I say to the hon. member that this side of the House is not bound by any decision of any select committee. It does not affect the matter and it is no argument to use against us when we are opposing this measure. I say, Mr. Speaker, that we are not raising the cry of town versus platteland, but we are dealing here with another matter altogether, and that is that we cannot allow the urban interests to have a controlling say in the country. We cannot allow the platteland to go down in any struggle in the future, and, therefore, our party takes up this standpoint that this is not a question of being against compulsory registration as such, or being in favour of such a system, that is not at stake. There is much more at stake, namely, the effect of such compulsory registration. Any rural representative on this side of the House, or on the other side, who supports that principle, without the proviso proposed by us, renders a disservice to that section of the people he represents.

I can imagine what happened in 1908 when the National Convention sat. I can conceive the leaders of the platteland attending that convention. I can imagine J. C. Smuts being there as one of the representatives of the platteland. I can imagine “Onse Jan,” Abraham Fischer, and other representatives of the platteland being in attendance, and I can conceive, when the question of the representation of the people in the Volksraad had to be decided upon, and their agreeing to this bias of 15 per cent. I can appreciate that J. C. Smuts, who in those days still enjoyed the confidence of the platteland, and of the Afrikaner people, raised his voice and voted in favour of the 15 per cent. I can also conceive that on the same occasion Sir Star Jameson, Sir Thomas Smartt and Sir George Farrar opposed this proposal. I can realise, Mr. Speaker, that in those days Onse Jan said that if that provision was not agreed to, he would be unable to agree to unification. I can imagine J. C. Smuts in those days saying…

The hon. member must refer in the usual way to another member of Parliament.

I do not know which constituency the right hon. the Prime Minister represented in those days. I take it that in those days he also represented a rural area; in those days he voted with his section of the people, that that provision should be inserted in our Constitution. Today, however, we find him on the other side, together with the Minister of Justice who is now going round the country boasting that he is going to administer a knock-out blow to Afrikanerdom by this Bill. The Minister of Justice is now going about and declaring in his political speeches that this Bill will be passed, and that Johannesburg will then get an additional ten seats, and that the section which is opposed to the platteland will then govern the country for ever. And that is what we hear from the son of the President of one of our former Republics! The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) asked the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) this afternoon why he had agreed to this in the Select Committee. Has the hon. member ever read the instructions which were given to the Select Committee? That was not one of the provisions which the Select Committee had to enquire into; and it was not within the scope of the investigation of that Select Committee to enquire into that. The hon. member for Kensington is a lawyer, and if he reads the instructions to that Select Committee he will realise that if the hon. member for Moorreesburg had raised this question he would have been ruled out of order.

He (Mr. Blackwell) was the chairman of the Select Committee.

The hon. member tells me that he was the chairman, and he would have ruled the hon. member for Moorreesburg out of order.

He did not try to raise it.

What happened in 1937? The hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) definitely stated then that we, the then Nationalist Party, were in favour of the quota being raised. As we are to have compulsory registration now, we insist all the more on the quota being raised. It is all very well for the hon. member for Kensington who represents a homogeneous constituency, to come and talk about these matters here. What has come to my notice lately is that the hon. member is actually claiming a victory for his party. He is perfectly satisfied with the condition of affairs. Some years ago he left the United Party because he could not agree with the present Leader of the Opposition. He had a dispute with him on some great and important matters. Now, however, he is sitting on the benches opposite and he is perfectly satisfied with himself. Now all that is left is the knock-out blow which he wants to administer to this side of the House, and he is trying to achieve this by means of this Bill, among other things. I shall never forget the hon. member for Kensington stating on the occasion of another debate: “I am British, as British as can be.” He does not consider anything from a South African point of view. He does not take any notice of South African conditions; he is a stranger on the platteland of South Africa. I want to ask the hon. the Minister of Lands, and the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. H. C. de Wet) when they are busy making propaganda in favour of their views, to be good enough to ask the hon. member for Kensington to come and make speeches for them on the platteland. One never finds the hon. member for Kensington making speeches on the platteland, however.

Of course I make speeches there.

If the hon. member goes to the platteland, the platteland will find out what the attitude of the hon. member for Kensington is. He is one of those people who have never yet had a good word to say for the platteland of South Africa. He does not know that the platteland is our hinterland, and that it is there that that section of the community is to be found which remains stable, and that it is that stable section of the community which has to be represented. What do we find to-day? I believe the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) emanates from Scotland, and he comes to tell us how many voters there are in the Ventersdorp constituency and how many there are in Springs. That sort of thing is typical of the mentality of that class of man. He hails from Scotland, and he should know that the Orkney Islands have something like 8,000 voters to each constituency, whereas one representative of a constituency in Edinburgh represents 40,000 people. That is all very well in England, but it is not good for South Africa. There it is democracy, but in South Africa it is not democracy. Some members on the other side of the House were born in the rural districts of England. If they go there they will find that the representatives of the rural areas represent fewer voters than the representatives of Davenport, Liverpool and other larger places. Why then do they wish to lecture us about democracy? Is not England the great home of democracy? No, Mr. Speaker, this Bill has been introduced with only one object in view, and it has been done on the strength of the demands made by the hon. member for Kensington. He is the cause of this Bill. He is one of the representatives of the British spirit in South Africa. He imagines that if he continues to give greater representation to the towns, British interests will rule longer in this country. That is where he is mistaken, however. There are thousands of Afrikaners drifting to the towns, and if, what he tells us, is his object with this Bill, it is quite possible that he may still be defeated by a Nationalist candidate in Kensington. He regards Kensington as the great stronghold of British Imperialism in this country, but it may still be his political downfall, because no matter what the hon. member for Kensington may feel to-day, I know personally that his son does not share his views. I rise here as a member representing one of the largest constituencies in this country so far as size is concerned. I believe that the constituency I represent is larger than Holland, and I believe it is also larger than the Rand. My constituency from south to north extends over more than 200 miles.

And you do not even live there.

Nor does the hon. member live in his constituency. From east to west my constituency is more than 200 miles in diameter, and unlike the hon. member for Kensington I do not represent people who have only one interest, but in Gordonia there are at least five or six different interests. It is for that reason that we on the platteland, irrespective of the size of our constituencies, can boast of the fact that we represent more interests than hon. members in the towns do. The electors represented by the hon. member for Kensington are probably all office workers, or factory workers, but in my constituency one gets the ordinary workers, one gets small farmers, big farmers, and one gets farmers with a diversity of interests; we have the farmers along the Grootrivier carrying out agricultural pursuits, the stock farmers in the Kalahari, the sultana farmers and the lucerne farmers, and so on. Hon. members opposite always tell us that we talk a great deal when agricultural matters are under discussion, but they forget that I have to plead on behalf of four or five kinds of farmers.

That is why you are so confused.

The hon. member is always confused. The hon. member for Kensington represents only one type of people, people who are all labourers.

And flag waggers.

I am now looking at the matter from an economic point of view. One of the hon. members on the other side of the House, a man for whom I have the highest respect, is the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Trollip). One never hears him casting reflections on this side of the House. I know he represents one of the largest constituencies, but one gets only one type of voter there, namely, miners. He only has to concentrate on the interests of the miners, but we are in a much more difficult position. We have to go from the one side to the other, and the hon. member for Kensington sits here and has practically nothing to do but to write out speeches and to defend the Government. He is the man who usually defends the Government. I wonder what he is expecting to get for it. What has struck me further is that the hon. member for Kensington always tries to set himself up as the high priest of justice and fairplay, while we on this side, so he alleges, are animated by the lowest motives. I say that this Bill is a Bill which only aims at reducing the representation of the platteland for political purposes. As the representative of one of the largest rural constituencies, so far as size is concerned, I am unable to vote for this Bill, and when we get to the Committee stage, there will be some points of minor importance which I shall want to bring to the notice of the Minister of the Interior.

As a representative of a Witwatersrand constituency it naturally behoves me to express my view on this matter. Let me say at once at the very start that I am definitely opposed to the acceptance of this Bill. Although I represent a Witwatersrand constituency, I am convinced that the right-minded voters of the Witwatersrand will agree with me. One must ask oneself first of all what is really the intention of the Government in introducing this Bill, and if one bears in mind the fact that the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) is the father of this Bill, suspicion must arise in one’s mind as to whether the hon. member and his party are so much concerned with the justice of the case, namely, that the Witwatersrand should get additional representation, that an injustice is being done to the Witwatersrand and that the platteland is getting so many advantages, or whether the hon. member is only concerned in safeguarding the position of his own party. I have had the privilege of knowing the hon. member for Kensington many years and I have come to the conclusion that my hon. friend is only concerned with one aspect of the matter, namely, the perpetuation of those Empire interests which he represents through the party of which he is a member. The hon. member has been engaged for many years in an agitation in favour of the Witwatersrand obtaining greater representation and that agitation has been taken over by the papers and the Press supporting the other side, and after every delimitation the cry is usually raised that an injustice is being done to the Witwatersrand, that one rural voter has as much voting power as two voters on the Witwatersrand, and that the Witwatersrand must insist on getting its rightful representation in Parliament. The hon. member’s real object in connection with this agitation, however, was that the party which he represents should benefit, because the hon. member knows full well that the party to which he belongs has no support whatever on the platteland, and that all its power and support has to be drawn from the towns. It is also very noticeable that immediately after the 4th September the hon. member for Kensington scraped together a few of his supporters and at once made a beeline for Pretoria to go and consult the Minister of the Interior. He went there with a deputation to urge that this Bill should be passed during the present session, as he realised that the Government’s position was a very precarious one, and he realised that the only way in which they had a chance of winning a few seats in the next elections would be by giving increased representation to the Witwatersrand. Immediately after the 4th September the hon. member wrote a few newspaper articles. They appeared under the heading “Electoral Reform”, and in those articles he explained why it was so important that the Witwatersrand should obtain its rightful representation. Inter alia, he said this—

Let us analyse those remarks. He speaks of the neediest and most ignorant poor white on the platteland. That again is only another description of the Afrikaner on the platteland. He is often stigmatised as an ignorant backvelder, but now he is calling him an ignorant poor white, and the hon. member is deeply concerned over the fact that that ignorant poor white, that is to say the Afrikaner on the platteland, exercises as much power or more power than the well-to-do merchant in Johannesburg. I may say in passing that those prosperous merchants are usually people of the same race as the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge). Let me say that I am proud to be counted among the ranks of the ignorant poor whites of the platteland. But this shows clearly what the object of the hon. member is, namely, that the voting power of the Afrikaner on the platteland must be reduced for the sake of the prosperous merchant in Johannesburg. The matter goes still further, however. A week or so ago one of the Johannesburg sensation mongering papers contained an article by George Heard, a person of whom we have already heard something during this session. I am sorry the Minister of Finance is not here, because he will take particular interest in this. George Heard says this—

I should like the Minister of Justice to watch this carefully, because I understand that he too is an aspirant for the Prime Ministership, and I believe that this competition by the Minister of Finance is very dangerous, because the Sunday Times has a considerable influence on the Rand. George Heard goes on and says—

I want to say in parenthesis that I believe the Minister of Finance has never understood it himself. And he goes on to say—

I admit this must be a bitter pill for the Minister of Justice to swallow. The Sunday Times, through the instrumentality of Mr. George Heard, declares that this Electoral Bill has to be passed so that the party over there may secure its position for the future, as they have to draw all their strength out of urban constituencies. He states here that if it is possible for them to remain in power, the Minister of Finance is the only Prime Minister for the future. That is something which the voters should know. The hon. the Minister of Finance is fairly popular among the people of the race of the hon. member for Troveville (Mr. Kentridge) and among the old women of the United Party. He is often invited to their tea parties.

Order! The hon. member must confine himself to the Bill.

I only want to show how important it is for that party to have this Bill passed, because it is stated that the Minister of Finance is the only man for the Witwatersrand. It is perfectly clear that the only object which that side has in regard to this Bill is to obtain some political advantage from it. They are not at all concerned with the justice of the case — they are not concerned with the fact that rural constituencies will be enlarged, that while the diameter of a rural constituency is 200 miles to-day, it may, after the next delimitation, possibly be 400 miles. I only have to look at my own constituency which has a diameter of two miles. It takes me half an hour to walk from the one end to the other. And now it is expected of a platteland member to work a constituency which may perhaps have a diameter of 400 miles. In addition to that, the representatives of a rural constituency have to look after a diversity of interests. As has already been said, it is impossible for a platteland member to hold only one meeting to give an account of his stewardship. As a rule he has to address as many as forty meetings after every session to give an account of what he has done. We know that the framers of the Act of Union took into special account the circumstances of the people of the platteland, and granted certain privileges to the platteland in regard to the delimitation of constituencies. Now I want to put this question — have conditions changed? Is the platteland no longer entitled to equal representation with the towns? If in 1910 it was considered to be unsound for Parliament to consist mainly of urban representatives, is it not equally unsound in 1940? No, conditions are unchanged, and in spite of the fact that possibly 11,000 voters on the Rand are required for the election of one member, and possibly 5,000 or 6,000 voters to elect one member for the platteland, that is still the only fair way for the delimitation to take place. Although in a Witwatersrand constituency one has from 9.000 to 10,000 voters it will be found that as a rule only from 40 per cent. to 50 per cent. take the trouble of going to the poll, while on the platteland from 80 per cent. to 90 per cent. of the electors as a rule avail themselves of their franchise. What then is the benefit of compulsory registration to the public? There is no benefit except that compulsory registration will give the towns additional seats at the expense of the platteland, and it will possibly benefit the political party on the other side of the House. Another provision in this Bill reduces the residential Qualification from three months to one month. That is to say that whereas under the old Act a person bad to live three months in a constituency before being allowed to register, under this Bill he will only have to live in a constituency for one month before he will be able to register. There is a serious danger in this connection. It is not unknown in history for a government to move large numbers of voters from a safe constituency to an unsafe constituency with the object of securing that constituency for its own candidate. What guarantee have we that this Government, which avails itself of all possible means to secure its own position is not going to avail itself of this as well? Finally I wish to repeat that thé right-minded voters in the towns are just as strongly opposed to the adoption of this Bill as any rural voter is. They realise that the Government is more concerned with the perpetuation of its own political party than with the welfare of the country as a whole. They know that the career of this British Imperialistic Government has almost run its course, and that, therefore, it will do anything in the world to remain in power a little longer. I wish to utter a word of warning. The Government may perhaps think that the addition of eight to ten seats to the Rand will benefit them. They must bear in mind, however, that the Witwatersrand voters are the most unstable element in South African politics, and if hon. members study history they will find that on occasion the electors of the Witwatersrand have turned right round from one party to another within a period of twenty-four hours. They will yet find that this measure by which they want to benefit their party may lead to this Government coming to grief even sooner than would otherwise have been the case.

If the object of this Bill is to spoof the platteland, to affect the platteland detrimentally, I want to protest most emphatically against it, and I want to express my surprise that representatives of the rural districts on the other side, such as the hon. member for Vereeniging (Lt.-Col. Rood) and the hon. members for Carolina (Mr. Fourie), Ermelo (Mr. Jackson), and others, keep quiet while a Bill is before this House which means the destruction of the platteland. They do not care so long as their party is protected and safeguarded. I feel the country should know it, and I shall move heaven and earth to show the country the injustice that is being done to the platteland. The platteland is that part of the country which is stable; it is on the platteland where you find the backbone of our religion, our culture and our healthy moral life, and there one finds the best section of our population, that section which has to contend with droughts, pestilence and all sorts of difficulties. And that is where the best people live. We find that that section of the community which is most entitled to be assisted, is going down to-day. The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) spoke here to-day of the ignorant Afrikaners. Why are they ignorant and illiterate? Because they have been impoverished by the extortions and the plunderings of the traders in the towns. And to-day their sons have to be led to the slaughter like oxen, but hon. members on that side of the House do not care so long as they are able to remain in power, as the result of this war ecstacy. There we have the hon. member for Calvinia (Dr. Steenkamp) who in days gone by championed the cause of the farmers. To-day he sits there patiently and tamely among the capitalists, and we find that the Minister of Railways and Harbours, the Minister of Commerce and Industries and the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. Pocock), who has a great deal of say in the Government even though he is not there as a member of the Government, practically govern the country and they are representatives of commerce, and the interests of the farmers are to-day being sacrificed to the interests of commerce. When the hon. member for Kensington spoke of ignorant Afrikaners and of the poor whites he forgot the coloured people, those dirty, low-down coloured people who are keeping them in power. To-day the poor whites are being sneeringly referred to, but why are they poor? Because they have lost everything as the result of a war and they have been impoverished, but the hon. member for Calvinia sits there to-day among those hon. members listening patiently while the name of the Afrikaner is being besmirched.

Order! The hon. member must confine himself to the Bill.

I want to ask the Minister whether he will give us the assurance that he will accept the amendment of the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus), so that the interests of the farmers shall not be ignored. If he gives us that assurance we shall give our hearty support to this Bill. The platteland is the neglected part of the country; the people of the platteland are lacking many of the comforts which other parts enjoy, such, as medical comforts, educational services and so on. I want to assure you that my district is three hundred and fifty miles in diameter and one hundred and fifty miles wide, and it is the duty of the member of Parliament to look after the interests, the divergent interests, of all sections there. The people are poor and they are not always able to attend meetings. They are indigent, and one has to go to their homes, and now the situation is going to be made even more difficult. There are other constituencies, such as Pietersburg, for instance, where the distances are enormous. I hope therefore that the Minister by this time will be convinced of the seriousness of the position, and that we shall get the Minister’s agreement to this amendment.

I wonder whether hon. members are animated by a sense of expectation or by a feeling of pleasure, the same as I am in connection with this matter. Having on a previous occasion contravened our standing rules and orders I wish to refrain from doing so on this occasion, so I shall confine myself to the question what this Electoral Bill implies and what the prospects placed before us were when we entered into unification, and when our Electoral Act was agreed upon. We know that since 1909 or 1910 more than thirty years ago, tremendous changes have occurred. There were four provinces in the Union and account had to be taken of the spirit and the ideals of each of these provinces when the Electoral Act was introduced. The position was then that the Electoral Act allowed the coloured people to vote in the Cape and in Natal. We felt, however, that there were certain gaps in the Act, so the Act was amended from time to time. Even in 1936 we attempted to bring about improvements. In view of the world conception of democracy we also gave the franchise to women, but the fundamentals of the franchise have always been maintained. Our starting point is that the white man of twenty-one years and over who has to come to the head of a family, who is responsible for the setting up of a family, and may be called upon to defend the country with his life and his blood, must be our first consideration, and that therefore he is the man who must have the franchise. We now find that in the year 1940 further amendments are proposed in our Electoral Act; but from the very start we find that all voters, both white and coloured, are to be dealt with in this Bill. That is something radical. I may be narrow-minded in my conception, but in my opinion this is a question which we should carefully consider. We should consider who should have the vote in a democratic country. The voter should be the man who is prepared to sacrifice everything, his life, his goods and his blood in the service of his country. Not the man who comes here to find a home, but who all the time strives after other ideals, and who later on wants to come and dictate to us how we should govern this country. Now we have before us this Bill which contains a further principle—the principle of compulsion, and it starts off with compulsory registration. In every family we find people, members of that family who take a lively interest in the building up of the family circle. Then there are others who only concern themselves with their daily duties and obligations. That also applies to our national life. We have nobody in this House who does not take a lively interest in the building up of our national life, and it is as a result of that that he has drawn the attention of the electorate to himself. Some of the voters in a constituency take a lively interest in the building up of the nation, others again do not do so. I also want to point out that we have nobody in this House who represents every elector in his constituency. Never! Although a member has been elected by the majority, possibly only half of the electorate shares his ideas, and the other half does not share them. Then there is this to be borne in mind as well, that many voters are unable to record their votes. Now an effort is being made to provide in this Bill for compulsory registration. In no country in the world has registration ever been one hundred per cent. complete. There are people who have no political or economic talents, and they do not want to have anything to do with elections. Why impose the obligation on every elector that he must be registered? What is the object of doing so? I say that this Bill has only one object, and it is a political one. The Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Justice as I know them, are among the ablest political “spoofers.” They possess the art of spoofing to a nicety. This Bill will have to be administered by the Minister of the Interior, and I say that the Bill has a political object. I first of all imagined that we were going to have an election very soon, at the end of this session of Parliament. The indications were very definite in that direction. But in the present circumstances there will be no election until this amended Electoral Act has come into force and a new delimitation has taken place, under the new Act. We shall therefore have to insist that no steps shall be taken which do not comply with the requirements of the conditions under which the four provinces entered into Union. An hon. member stated that the stable portion of the population lived on the Platteland. That is where we find the lifeblood of the country. That is where the country is being built up and that is where eventually we shall have to look for the welfare and prosperity of our people. To-day we have a temporary prosperity in this country. That will pass, and when this period of wasting money has passed, that section of the community which is now making money out of us will pack their bags and turn their attention to other parts of the world. The rural section of the community, however, will remain here, and it is they who will have to bear the burdens of South Africa. It is because that position is realised in a democratic country like America—as another member has shewn—that proper steps are taken there so that the rural part of the population is treated fairly and justly in regard to its representation in the Senate, which is the most powerful body there. In this country the Senate is a minor institution.

The hon. member must not refer to the Other Place in those terms.

I am not doing so in a contemptuous manner. I am only mentioning the fact because the Senate is not allowed to vote on financial matters. In America, however, things are different. For those reasons and with these few words I wish to give my hearty support to the proposal of the hon. member for Moorreesburg so that this change in the Electoral Act shall not be allowed to interfere with the principle laid down in our Constitution. I notice very few rural representatives on the other side, and the few who are there are so imbued with the war spirit that they are inspired with only one ideal and that is Great Britain’s welfare.

The hon. member must confine himself to the Bill.

The Bill concerns the welfare of South Africa. With these few words I wish to support the amendment of the hon. member for Moorreesburg and before you call me to order again and before I sit down I wish to congratulate our hon. Leader on his birthday.

During this discussion this afternoon and this evening this side of the House has drawn attention to the motive underlying the Bill now before the House. It has been said that the motive is a political one and it has also been said that if the political objective behind this Bill is that members opposite by passing this Bill think to perpetuate Imperialism in South Africa, or to cause it to live longer in South Africa, there are members on this side of the House who are of opinion that in the long run it will have the very opposite effect. While that motive on the other side is the cause of the introduction of this Bill, there are members on this side who contend that it may possibly have the very opposite effect. We have repeatedly in the course of this debate had the fact both this afternoon and this evening that reference was made to statements by responsible members on the other side of the House and also by Ministers—statements made even before this session started, and made to the public, that they had a carefully prepared scheme by which the Opposition would be dealt a knock-out blow, and this prepared scheme was not that they would rule the country in such a manner that they would secure for themselves the good feeling of the people of this country but the prepared scheme aimed at so amending the Electoral Act that that Act would be in their favour and in that manner they would be returned to power. This side of the House has repeatedly levelled the charge against the other side, and that charge is still being made, that the Government which is sitting there to-day is not enjoying the confidence of the people. Let one hon. member get up and deny it. Since 1924 the Prime Minister who is in power to-day has never yet enjoyed the confidence of the public, nor does he enjoy that confidence to-day; yet this Bill is now being brought before the House with a view to safeguarding the present Government. A great thinker on one occasion voiced the following very telling words—

That being so we are entitled to ask what the motive is behind this Bill. Although this side of the House has repeatedly pointed out that even before the commencement of this session the other side of the House had stated that they would “put one over us” they are trying to hide that fact to-day. They do not see any chance of keeping in power and now they want to amend the Electoral Act that the towns shall get the greater representation and the platteland less, and in that way they want to prevent us from taking over the reins of government of the country. I only want to say that this sort of thing is an admission of the Government’s weakness. The urban centres are their strongholds. Their political strength lies in the urban centres, and those centres do not register very strongly. People in the towns do not take so much interest in hon. members that they are willing to go and register on their own initiative, in order to keep members opposite in power by voting for them; and now hon. members there want to compel the voters to take an interest in them so that in that way they may be enabled to keep in power. Ever since the 4th September we have been challenging the Government to go to an election, but they dare not accept our challenge.

What about Losberg and Carolina?

That happens to be the one place which they have taken and that is all they have to console themselves with. The hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. H. van der Merwe) feels very nervous when he thinks of the next election. I do not blame him, but if I were in his place I would not get nervous until I was beaten. I am not going to be afraid before my time. The fact of the matter is that they want to compel people to show an interest in their party, and in that way they want to retain their positions. We are accused of being animated by a foreign spirit. Our reply to that is that there is a dictatorship in power here in actual fact. Beautiful phrases are being used, and we are told that this Bill has been introduced for the sake of democracy, but the Bill is to be exploited in order to compel people to keep the dictators in power. The Government has no right to claim that it is occupying the Government benches in accordance with the will of the people. While we hear such a lot of talk about democracy I only want to tell hon. members that the main principle of democracy is that the voice of the people is the voice of the King—and the King carries out his own wishes. Why does the Government come along now with a Bill to compel people to do what so far they have not been willing to do? People do not want to register, but under these provisions in the Bill they are to be compelled to do what they do not want to do, and then this whole business is wrapped up in the beautiful cover of democracy. This is making a farce of democracy. Why should people be deprived of the right to register, or not to register in accordance with their own wishes? There is another important aspect of this matter which has not yet been referred to, and I want to put it quite clearly. The spirit of democracy is that one shall have representation in accordance with the will of the people. The object of representation is that there shall be contact between those who rule and those who have to be ruled. Let me put it this way. Each hon. member sitting over there is a channel through which the people are represented in the Government—they are the medium through whom the people are represented. Now that medium has a twofold obligation. On the one hand it must be coupled to the administrative part of the country, but on the other hand each member has to have his ear on the heart of the people and he must be able properly to interpret to the administrative body the needs of the people. In order that he may be able properly to carry out those functions, the representative of a constituency under a system of democratic representation must be in a position to be in the closest contact with the people whose interests he represents. As Parliament is in session six months in the year, there are another six months every year during which the representatives of the people have the opportunity of keeping in touch as much as possible with their constituents and to become familiar with their interests so that they may interpret those interests in this House. If we carry out our work in that spirit then, and only then shall we be able to claim that we are really democratic and that we sit here as the democratic representatives of a democratic people and that we actually interpret the sentiments of the people whom we represent. The effect of this Bill, however, will be to make it easier for those representatives representing very compact constituencies to do their work and to make it more difficult for members representing the rural areas. Mention has been made here of a constituency which one can pass through in the course of half-an-hour. Well, it may be a little more than that, but in any case there are members representing urban constituencies who only require three or four days to get into personal contact with the electors they represent. Having established such personal contact they are able after the recess to speak on behalf of their electors and to say that they represent the sentiments of their constituents in a democratic manner. But how does that compare with the platteland? It takes a rural representative not just a week, but a month or even months to go the rounds, and even then he has not the opportunity which urban representatives have of getting into proper personal touch with their electors. It is this aspect which I am sure members of the National Convention must have had in mind when they provided for the bias of 15 per cent. above or below the quota. The effect of this Bill is going to be to reduce this bias in the quota. The effect will be this, that it will be in conflict with the intentions of the National Convention to give due representation to the platteland, so that the representatives of the people may keep in contact with their electors, and shall be able properly to represent their interests. There is just one other aspect of the matter which I wish to refer to. I believe it was also the intention of the National Convention in drafting our constitution to provide for a very definite and lasting discrimination between two types of interests. That is to say those interests which are gradually coming in from other countries, and settling here—let me call them the temporary interests, and on the other hand the hereditary vested interests in the country. A country like South Africa with a population such as South Africa had in the past, and also as it has to-day, will of necessity always attract other interests from outside and the interests coming here from outside, the people who come to settle in South Africa from other countries, are mostly people who settle in urban areas. The permanent section of the community is the rural section—the people who are born here; they are the people whose forefathers were born here, they are the people, if I may put it that way, who have hereditary interests in South Africa. But while this Bill aims at giving greater representation to local voters than to the platteland, that is again an admission by that side of the House of the fact that they are unable to govern this country in the interest of South Africa. They are so far as the future is concerned, dependent on people coming from abroad; they are dependent on people who settle in the towns. They will use their best efforts in the interest of those people. The primary birthright of the settled population is that they shall constitute the strength of the population in preference to the people coming in from outside. I think it must be a sound provision for any country to attach value to the vested hereditary interests of a country, and as we are here passing a Bill which proposes to change the balance of power in favour of people coming in from outside, in the interest of people from abroad entering this country, members who support this Bill have no right to tell the people in the country that they stand for the principle of South Africa First. It is essential that we in South Africa shall have a permanent South African population. The struggle in South Africa is the struggle between two streams of thought, two spirits. On the one hand we have the Afrikaner spirit which has taken root in South African soil, and which has its primary birthright in South Africa, and on the other hand we have the interests which have come from outside, which, like the hon. member for Kensington, stand with one foot in South Africa and with the other foot in London. One of our Ministers declared in respect of the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) that he stood with one foot here and with the other foot in Germany; but the Minister who made that assertion stands with one foot in South Africa, with another foot in London, and he has a third foot in Portugal —if the Portuguese want him; I say so because he went to Portugal during his Christmas voyage. We demand that a man shall be a good South African, and if he is a good South African his interests shall be in South Africa. The hon. member for Kensington, who holds meetings in various parts of the country, though naturally not on the platteland , has let the cat out of the bag, because, according to a Sapa message, he stated in one of his speeches that they see no chance of dominating us in days to come. They see no chance of gaining the confidence of the people by their actions, and because of that, as admitted by the hon. member for Kensington, they are trying to put it across this side of the House by undermining the very foundations of the Act of Union, by detrimentally affecting the vested section of the population for the sake of the less permanent section of the population. Although this may not appear to be so serious, we have here a measuring of strength as between the school of thought which tries to make the best of South Africa, and on the other hand the school of thought which is out to make good Britishers of the people in this country. This clash is the clash between the two great interests, and while it has been said in this House that the effect may possibly be the very opposite, we have had an admission from the other side that this is an attempt to promote their party interests. We are pleading here for proper representation in South Africa. We are pleading for people to be given the opportunity to keep proper contact with those people who are called upon to represent them here. We plead for the permanent section of the population and not to give rights to people coming into this country from outside. We are pleading here this evening for the primary birth right of every Afrikaner in the land of his birth, South Africa.

As a representative of the platteland I wish to utter a few words of protest against this kind of legislation. The platteland has not changed, but people are forced to trek to the towns owing to circumstances over which they have no control, and if we pass this Bill we deprive the platteland of rights which it has had and which it will not get back. If we look at the representation which the platteland had at the time when Union was established, we find that urban representation as compared with platteland representation has continually increased, while the representation of the platteland has steadily decreased. If we take the joint representation of the Witwatersrand and Pretoria I believe that those two towns together have more representatives in Parliament than the rest of the Transvaal put together, and if we accept this Bill, the Witwatersrand and Pretoria will have two-thirds of the representation of the Transvaal, and the same thing will happen in the Cape Province. The good relationship between the farmer and the townsman will be disturbed by that sort of thing. We have been told that in practically every country in the world a substantial bias is provided for in the quota in favour of the platteland population. The trouble is that the more depopulated the platteland becomes, the more difficult it becomes to represent the platteland. It becomes all the more difficult. Take for instance the constituency which I used to represent. There were no fewer than forty-eight polling stations in that constituency, and to-day my constituency has thirty-nine polling stations. This means that I have to provide for the necessary officials and helpers at thirty-nine places. As against that, let us take the position of an urban constituency: if the representative of such a constituency can obtain a large enough hall he probably has to hold only one meeting to render an account of his stewardship, and his constituents have no trouble in walking to the meeting. As against that, it takes us from four to six weeks to go and give account to our people, and if this Bill is agreed to it will take even longer. Our difficulties are added to if we want to represent people as they should be represented. The intention of the Act of Union was to give the platteland certain advantages over the towns, and it is for that reason that this 15 per cent. above or below the quota was provided for. But to-day one does not get that, because the platteland is becoming depopulated and we have fewer people on the platteland than we had in the past. People are drifting to the towns so that the representation of the platteland, comparatively speaking, was much better in the past than it is to-day. If something must be done, it is that the platteland should be given better representation as against the towns. If we look at the provisions contained in this Bill, we cannot expect the same good relationships between the plattelander and the townsman to prevail. This good relationship will be disturbed as the result of rivalry. We find in Australia, New Zealand and also in America, that the interests of the platteland receive more attention and consideration than is the case in our country. But, as the hon. member over here said, it does not matter in this country how much the platteland has to suffer — all the Government wants to know is how their side can achieve greater representation in support of their policy. And for that reason the platteland is continually made to suffer. If you have compulsory registration, what is the use if you do not get compulsory voting at the same time? Does not this go to show that this Bill only aims at providing more seats for the towns? If the Government were to say that the electors, as citizens of the country, must carry out their obligations, I could well understand it, but the Government’s object in regard to compulsory registration is merely to provide more seats for that side of the House. Their object is not to ensure that the citizens of the country shall shew greater interest in the affairs of the country, because they would then be obliged to vote. As a result of the depopulation of the platteland we find that a great many of our young girls and young men drift to the towns to earn a better livelihood there. They are unable to achieve this on the platteland owing to circumstances over which they have no control, and the people living in the towns look to the platteland to protect them against the capitalists. They do not look to the urban representatives to do so, because the urban representative is to the extent of 99⅞ per cent. the representative of capitalism, or of the big man who is out to exploit the people. Those are the interests the urban representatives have to attend to and they have very little sympathy with the working classes. That is the reason why we hear those sneers about the unintelligent people of the platteland from hon. members over there. What right has anyone to say that the poor man on the platteland is less intelligent than the man in the town? The man in the town may know a great deal less, but it looks as though it is believed that people who live in the towns know more than people on the platteland, in spite of the fact that it is the people of the platteland who have developed and tamed the country. Those people want to remain on the platteland, and we want them to be properly represented. So far as I am concerned. I say that even 20 per cent. is not sufficient to compensate the platteland.

What do you want? Do you want 50 per cent.?

It is too little, and it will be too little in comparison with what they do in the countries which have been mentioned here, countries such as Canada. England and New Zealand itself. Our platteland has not got the advantages which the platteland has in other countries. Hon. members over there, however, do not worry themselves greatly about what becomes of the platteland, so long as they are able to achieve their object. We find that the representation of the platteland is continually becoming more irksome and more difficult. I personally have to represent all kinds of people — I have wheat farmers, fruit farmers, mohair, wool and all such things. However well intentioned such a member may be, he cannot possibly represent all these interests, particularly if constituencies are to be made still larger, while the representative of an urban constituency represents practically only one type of interest. This Bill has only one object, and that is to affect the platteland detrimentally and to create benefits for the towns, and for that reason I want to register my protest against the Government proposal as a representative of the platteland. I protest against the rights of the platteland being continually interfered with, and I protest against the rights to which they are entitled not being preserved for them. Instead of more rights being granted to the platteland, those rights are continually being whittled away.

I wish to support the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus), and I also wish to emphasise what he said, viz., if this Bill, as it is before us now, is passed it is going to be most detrimental to the platteland and it is going to constitute a breach of faith with the founders of Union. Such a breach of faith is a serious matter. In the years 1909 to 1910 some of our greatest intellects and most prominent men came together to bring about Union, and it is now proposed by a stroke of the pen to undo and to break down what was done at the National Convention. I can only regard this and stigmatise it as a breach of faith. I want to utter a word of warning to members opposite who represent rural constituencies. In my mail the other day I received a letter from my farmers’ association. That association is representative of more than 1.000 active farmers, and they are of opinion that if this Bill is passed it is going to be most detrimental to the platteland, and they have asked me to use my best efforts and to speak against this Bill and to oppose it in every possible way, so that it shall not be passed in the form in which we have it before us now, because they feel that it is going to be detrimental to the platteland. I am convinced that other farmers’ associations in the country will take up a similar attitude, and I should not be surprised if hon. members opposite representing platteland constituencies were also to receive similar letters from their farmers’ associations. The secretary of this particular farmers’ association writes to me as follows—

We cannot get away from the fact that if this Bill is passed it will benefit the urban population; it will result in additional seats being given to the towns at the expense of the platteland. The result will be that we shall be unable to carry out the duties imposed upon us by unification. We still have members in this House who were responsible for the establishment of Union, and I want to appeal to them not to commit a breach of faith, and to see to it that what was given to the platteland on the establishment of Union is maintained. It is our duty to maintain it, failing which we shall be committing a breach of faith. Much has already been said by hon. members on the difficulties in connection with rural seats. My constituency has a diameter of 160 miles, and it takes me more than two months to go through my constituency to hold meetings to report on my work in Parliament. If my constituency has to be made even larger it will mean that I shall have to travel about for three or four months. In my constituency I represent various branches of activity, not merely farming, but general economic activities as well. I have forest workers in my constituency, sheep farmers, tobacco farmers, wheat farmers, miners, diggers and all the rest of it, and in connection with each of these groups various matters have to be attended to. Things are not as easy on the platteland as they are, for instance, in the constituency of the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) who only has one set of interests to worry about. He need only make one speech, even though he may have to repeat it at two or three meetings. But in our area the interests of the farmers, the diggers and others are so divergent that it is very difficult for us to keep in touch with our constituents. If such a constituency has to be made twice as large as it is to-day as a result of additional seats being allocated to the towns, seats which will be taken away from the platteland, the position will be rendered even more difficult so far as we are concerned. It is our duty to protect the platteland. The rights which we have to-day were given to us on the establishment of Union, and those rights should be observed. It has been argued by hon. members that it would be ridiculous if we failed to carry out the democratic system contemplated by this Bill. I feel, however, that the very opposite is the case. The democratic principle is not carried out merely by numbers, but it is the interest of the population which is at stake. It is not merely a question of numbers but of the divergent interests of a constituency which have to be taken into account. The hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Bumside) said that Parliament would be the laughing stock of the country if we continued our system of representation which members on this side of the House want to have. In saving that, he loses sight of what several members on this side of the House have already said, namely that in Canada, New Zealand and England this very same system is in force, the same system that we are proposing, so that the platteland which is the backbone of the people, should maintain all the privileges it has as against the towns which have a floating population. In conclusion I wish to point out that this letter from the farmers’ association, to which I have referred, is probably entirely spontaneous, and that it is a clear sign of the fact that people on the platteland are uneasy about this Bill. That being so, we hope that we may reckon on the support of members opposite representing platteland constituencies; we hope that they will help us to maintain the rights of the platteland.

This side of the House is definitely convinced that this Bill which aims at compelling the voter to register has not been asked for. If we put this question: “Who has asked for it?” we must come to the conclusion that a few members opposite are responsible for the introduction of this measure. The Bill is in conflict with principle. It is a question of principle, and we feel that there is a motive behind it which we definitely cannot regard as a noble one— a motive overloaded with intentions of a certain type — intentions which are ignoble and unjustified, and which certainly are not to the credit of the Parliament of South Africa. There is nothing unselfish underlying the introduction of this Bill, on the contrary we feel that selfishness has played a very great part in the introduction of this measure. We feel that it is really not justified, not justified to this side of the House which is to-day in the minority, not justified towards the platteland, because it benefits the towns, and enables the town to dominate the future. This danger was realised as long ago as 1910 and precautionary steps were taken at the establishment of Union to make the quota subject to a 15 per cent. bias both ways, and we must regret it, Mr. Speaker, that those precautionary provisions are being, departed from in a shameless manner, so that to-day the play either way is hardly 9 per cent. This great principle is gradually being watered down and ignored, and it is the majority party which is responsible. We further feel that these actions cause the split between the two sections to become wider and wider, and will have the effect of making future co-operation even more difficult. We have noticed the enthusiasm prevailing on the other side of the House. They are high up in the clouds; they are delighted at the idea that as a result of this Bill something like ten additional seats will be handed over to them. I am afraid that some of them have actually already started distributing those seats among themselves. I actually feel that the other side of the House is trying to “put it across” this side of the House? They are trying to administer a knock-out blow to this side, and it appears to me that they no longer care what methods they use to achieve their object. We say that it is nothing but oolitical corruption, a political crime, a crime to the Platteland, the Platteland which is of such great importance to the country as a whole, and which in the past has done such great things for the prevention of our national life. It is a crime, political theft and robbery, and it is being unblushingly committed by the other side of the House. The representation of the Platteland is becoming more and more cumbersome every day. My constituency is 200 miles wide, and 300 miles long, and when this House rises no fewer than 60 meetings at which I shall have to render an account of this session of Parliament await me. Is not that enough? If this Bill is passed the result will be that I shall have to hold at least eighty meetings while other members will be able to sit in their easy chairs and hold only one meeting to give an account of their stewardship. The Platteland is being discouraged, because the trend of affairs is very strongly against them. People are being compelled to-day to take refuge in the towns, and I ask who is going to bear the burdens of the country when the Platteland has been totally depopulated. I have little fear of those hon. members who are protagonists of this Bill. The Platteland in the past was, and is to-day, and will in future be an indispensible factor. The Platteland constitutes the real strength of the country, and if there were one grain of wisdom on the other side members should know that they should safeguard the real strength of the country, they should encourage it and back it up. We should not do what they have done in Russia, where they murdered and destroyed the real strength of the country. We behold the conditions in which Russia finds itself to-day in consequence of the steps that have been taken there. It will be an irrevocable loss to the whole country if the Platteland is destroyed and undermined. Hon. members opposite are digging a grave. I am afraid that they only think of the danger threatening them as members of this House, and I am afraid that they are not concerned with the future of the country. They are busy digging a grave for this side of the House, for the Platteland, and we know the old saying which is to the effect that if one digs a grave for someone else, one has to beware lest one fall in it oneself. May this come true, that this grave will mean their own end, and not the end of the Platteland. The danger is that they will fall in it themselves and that they themselves will come to their end. May that come about. It will be what they deserve. I wish to make an appeal to hon. members opposite. There are some hon. members over there who, I believe, can never be really at home there. They are busy destroying their own nation by these methods. They realise quite well how dangerous this Bill is to the Platteland. Even though we differ from each other to-day I still want to make an appeal to them. I am convinced that in a few years’ time we shall no longer differ and that many hon. members over there will realise then that they belong on this side of the House. But it may be too late then to put right what they themselves have spoilt. There are hon. members on the other side who do not feel at home there, and they should exercise pressure on the Government to get this Bill withdrawn.

It is a notable fact that in this debate so far only three members on the Government benches have spoken, namely the Minister of the Interior, the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell), who is a front bencher, and then one of the members of the Labour Party. We should also like to hear other members speak, especially members from the platteland, because this Bill affects the platteland in particular. We are not dealing with this question from a political point of view, but we are dealing here with a matter of the most drastic kind and of very far-reaching principles and we are very anxious to know what hon. members opposite think of it. Has a caucus meeting ever been held on this subject? We are given to understand that caucus meetings are held only very rarely lately, but if the Minister had asked what the views of the platteland were, some hon. members opposite who represent platteland constituencies would certainly have raised their voices against this Bill. That is why we are so anxious to know what their attitude is, because we want to inform the platteland what they have to say about this, and if they keep silent we have to take it that they whole-heartedly support the Minister. They should bring pressure to bear on the Minister in order to save the position, not the position of a party, but the position of the platteland as against that of the towns. This is a subject in respect of which we have always felt that we should be most careful; we should not incite the platteland against the towns or the towns against the platteland, but the Minister of the Interior will be accused of having done so if he proceeds with this Bill. He will have to take the responsibility in days to come if the relationship between the towns and the platteland does not continue to be what it is to-day. This question of the relationship between the platteland and the towns, especially so far as the Electoral Act is concerned, was the cause in the Transvaal in the past of the Transvaal going to war. We know that the new arrivals, the immigrants to the extent of 90 per cent. go to the towns and after a short space of time they are able to become union nationals. We also know that of late years there has been a great influx from other countries, and we know that a large number of people even to-day are illegally in this country. According to reports they are granted permits on a large scale to come and live here. If that is so, we want to know what this Bill is going to mean to us in the future. Are not these people the same kind of foreigners who in years gone by went to Johannesburg and became the main cause of the Anglo-Boer War? The immigrants always come together in the towns and there constitute a power against the permanent residents of the country. Your land-owners who reside on the platteland are dominated by foreign elements which congregate in the cities where they gather wealth. That has been the cause of the great struggle in South Africa, and the position is still the same to-day. We are now interfering with the foundation laid down at the time of unification to prevent this very thing. In this Bill we are interfering with this important principle and we are going to give the towns certain advantages over the platteland. An effort like this has never since. Union been made in South Africa. If we read this clause of the Act of Union we find that our legislators in 1910 specially provided that community or diversity of interests must be taken into consideration. I do not want to deal with that point at length. Several hon. members have already referred to conditions of the platteland in comparison with those of the towns, and have shewn that the platteland’s representatives have greater expenses and have to take a great deal more trouble about their work than urban representatives. Secondly, one has to take into account the question of means of communication. Let us compare the means of communication of the platteland with those in the towns during election time. Thirdly, we have to consider existing electoral boundaries and natural features. These matters were taken into special consideration at the time of the establishment of Union and they are still being specially considered to-day, but in this Bill that main principle of the arrangement arrived at is being indirectly interfered with. The Minister is aware of the fact that in Europe especially to-day, conditions are being created which will probably have the effect of an influx from there to other countries such as there has never been before. A year ago and even before that we had to pass legislation to try and determine what class of people we should allow to enter South Africa. We are now going to give an opening to foreigners who want to come to South Africa on a large scale to avail themselves of the provisions of the Electoral Act to establish a dominating power in South Africa against the platteland, not merely against the land-owning class of the platteland, but also against the land-owning class of the cities. On the platteland one has the old established population which has no interest in any other country but South Africa. We are going to allow that section of the community to be dominated by these people who, under the present Government especially, are going to be allowed to enter this country on a large scale. The hon. member for Kensington to-day in a characteristic speech expressed the feelings of a large section of that type of people towards the platteland. I want to tell the Minister that this action which he is committing against the platteland to-day will be held up against him for many years to come. I further want to say that we shall avail ourselves of every possible opportunity to explain to the people of South Africa what methods and what motives are at the back of this Bill of the Minister of the Interior. Hon. members may say that this Bill was passed by a select committee, but no Bill has ever come from a select committee without having to be dealt with again by the legislative body—it is the legislature which is responsible for the measure which is eventually made law. We have been sent here to look after the interests of the platteland, and if the Minister will promise that he will be reasonable he has to realise that over and above all the inconveniences and discomforts which have been mentioned here his Bill is going to cause great difficulties to the platteland. We have now reached our maximum of 150 members in this House and we must realise that if the representation basis is changed, every seat given to the towns has to be taken away from the platteland. The hon. member for Namaqualand (Lt.-Col. Booysen) has pointed out that although the distances which he has to cover in his constituency are 300 miles to-day, they will in all probability be considerably larger in the future. His correspondence from his constituency is tremendous, while on the other hand we find that many of the urban members do not even know their own voters. They do not even hold meetings to give an account of their stewardship, and when an election takes place the whole business is to all intents and purposes disposed of within a few hours, while in the country areas it takes a few days before an election is completely disposed of. This shews the difficulties in the constituencies which we represent. It proves that the Minister must take the position seriously, and that he must take into account conditions on the platteland as such and that he must not only try to promote the political benefits of his own party. If the Minister is honest in his intentions towards South Africa, we want to ask him in view of the fact that we are suspicious, and in view of the fact that we are suspecting political motives behind this whole matter, to leave out this particular provision at the present juncture. Why should the Minister come forward with this Bill at this particular juncture? We feel that this is a hurried session and we want to know why this Bill should be introduced at this particular stage, during a session like this one. While we are considering serious war measures the Minister comes along with this Bill. Is it not a fact that if the Minister were not to pass this Bill now, the condition of affairs which he wants to create will not be ready in time for the next delimitation? If that is not so, why not leave this Bill over until some other time? What other important Bills were introduced by the Government this year? The most important Bills have been set aside for the time being, yet at a time like the present when we should be giving our full attention to Bills in connection with the war this drastic measure has to be placed before the House. I say that if our suspicions are well founded, we must conclude that this Bill has been introduced with a view to the next delimitation. We should like the Minister to try and prove to us that that is not the case. The Minister himself is not sure of his ministerial seat if an election were to take place under the old delimitation, and hon. members opposite know quite well that the Government will not get a majority again. If the motive behind this Bill is not what I have said it to be, I want to ask the Minister to put off this measure in view of the conditions in which the country finds itself at the moment. If the Minister does not put it off he will confirm the suspicion which we have to-day of this Bill having been drafted with a political object, as the hon. member for Kensington has said, namely to enable the Government to remain in power, and that it has been introduced with the intention of arrangements being made in connection with constituents at the next delimitation to enable the Government to remain at the head of affairs. If that is not so, let the Minister remove our suspicions and allow the Bill to stand over.

Quite a number of hon. members have spoken to-day but the question has cropped up in my mind why it is that hon. members opposite are keeping so quiet. I always try to say that a thing is right if it is right, but if I think it is wrong, I say so too. We are dealing here with something that is wrong, and I represent a platteland constituency, and I feel that under this Bill the greatest possible injustice is being perpetrated towards us. The platteland is the permanent part of the population of the country. The people of the platteland are the people who have suffered the hardships, the bitterness and the sorrow of this country; they are the people who to-day are being deprived of something which is dear to them, and which they cherish. I, who represent a platteland constituency see what is going on, I see what is ahead of us, and that is why I have got up to protest against this Bill. People are being deprived of their civic rights, or rather we are now busy depriving them of these rights. Why is that side of the House so quiet? They are sitting there as if they are deaf, in spite of the fact that we are dealing here with a matter which very deeply affects the interests of the people who have sent them here. It would appear to me as though some arrangement has, been entered into, as though this is an agreed matter so far as the other side is concerned, because members from the rural areas are as a rule never as quiet as they are to-day. To-day they are sitting there shifting uneasily in their seats.

At 10.55 p.m. (while Mr. Bosman was addressing the House), the business under consideration was interrupted by Mr. Speaker in accordance with Standing Order No. 26 (1), and the debate was adjourned; to be resumed on 4th April.