I move—

I second.

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—64:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Baines, A. C. V.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Blackwell, L.

Botha, H. N. W.

Bowie. J. A.

Burnside, D. C.

Christopher, R. M.

Collins, W. R.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

Deane, W. A.

De Kock, A. S.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet. H. C.

Dolley, G.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Hemming, G. K.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr. J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth. F. T.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Klopper, L. B.

Lawrence, H. G.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Moll, A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet. J. W.

Neate. C.

Nel, O. R.

Payn, A. O. B.

Pocock, P. V.

Rood, K.

Shearer, V. L.

Smuts, J. C.

Stallard. C. F.

Steyn, C. F.

Sturrock, F. C.

Sutter. G. J.

Tothill, H. A.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Zyl, G. B.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

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

Noes—51:

Bekker, S.

Bezuidenhout, J. T.

Boltman, F. H.

Bosman, P. J.

Brits, G. P.

Conradie, J. H.

Conroy, E. A.

De Bruyn, D. A. S.

De Wet, J. C.

Erasmus, F. C.

Geldenhuys, C. H.

Grobler, J. H.

Haywood, J. J.

Hertzog, J. B. M.

Hugo, P. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Liebenberg, J. L. V.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Malan, D. F.

Naudé, S. W.

Olivier, P. J.

Oost, H.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Quinlan, S. C.

Schoeman, B. J.

Schoeman, N. J.

Serfontein, J. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. P.

Theron, P.

Van den Berg, C. J.

Van der Merwe, N. J.

Van der Merwe, R. A. T.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Venter, J. A. P.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Viljoen, J. H.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Wilkens, Jacob

Wilkens, Jan

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

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

Motion accordingly agreed to.

This Bill is one of the most important Bills of the session, and it principally affects the countryside. Because I am in the main defending a rural constituency, I want to coniine myself to the rural areas which this Bill concerns. There must be a reason why this Bill has been introduced into the House to-day. The reason is very well known to us, and consequently the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) moved an amendment about which I would like to say something. I actually had asked the question last night, when I commenced to speak, as to why hon. members on the other side of the House, who represented rural areas, were so quiet. There must be something wrong, or there must be some arrangement already entered into, an arrangement not to speak, because there is only one thing behind this Bill, and that is to give more seats to the towns at the expense of the countryside. As you have once already had the victory, why should you still continue chastising to-day? The other side of the House is the Government party to-day. In some way or another they got into power, and they are not satisfied yet. To-day the rural areas must be still further punished, and the towns benefited. If one wants to be and to act honestly, then I have nothing to say about it, but here action is being taken in an unreasonable and cruel way. This thing which is being foisted on to the countryside is a cruel thing. Why do the members from the rural areas on the other side remain so silent? Do they think that their seats will be delimited in such a safe way that they need not worry themselves about the matter, that they may just as well fall in with what is dictated to them? Are they just being dictated to, and do they consent? I want to ask them to be honest towards the people who sent them here. They were sent here to represent the countryside, and the countryside has to contend against many difficulties. To-day the interests of the countryside are being affected, but they remain quite silent and say nothing. It looks as if everything was pre-arranged, but the Minister must remember that the more you oppress and chastise a nation, the more steadfast they will become. A dishonest thing is being done here, and history tells us that not only in the case of persons, but also in that of families and nations, the saying is true that the truth will out. That is what you must not forget. Who is there on the other side who has not yet had experience of that? If I, for instance, refer to the war, you will rule me out of order, but something that was done in the past was dishonest, and it will, not be talked about. Here again another injustice is being done to the countryside, and those hon. members remain silent. Not one of them has expressed his views, while the countryside is being deprived of its old established rights. Those rights the countryside did not just pick up, but they are old established rights. In the towns, on the contrary, you have a floating population, not an old established population, whom you can call the voortrekkers of the country. Those old established people live in the rural districts, on farms which have for generations been owned by their families, and an injustice is being done to them today. Of whom do the rural inhabitants consist? Out of the old families in the country. An injustice is being done to them, and I cannot understand how hon. members can reconcile it with their own consciences and with their own constituencies. Everything is gradually being taken away from the rural areas. Where is the trade to-day which ought to exist in the country districts for the benefit of the people who live there? The hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) looks so serious. Well, the trade is mostly in the hands of the nation to which he belongs.

I want to point out to the hon. member that that has nothing to do with the Bill.

I only want to point out that rights are gradually being taken away from the countryside, and here again an attempt is being made to take away our old birthright. The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) spoke of the ignorant poor whites, and he made it clear that the only object was to give more seats to the towns and fewer to the countryside. Who are the people who are being characterised by the hon. member as uneducated poor whites? They are the people whom we want to protect in this amendment. They are the people who have gone through hard and bitter distress, and everything, they are my race, the race of this side of the House, and a large part of the other side, who are being so abused. The hon. member wrote articles in which he said that the people on the countryside did not need so much representation as the rich merchants in the towns. Everybody can see, there is no secret being made of it, where this Bill comes from. The Minister of the Interior looks very innocent, and he gives the impression that you might be able to move him in the right direction. But I fear that he is being unmercifully ridden, and has to walk along the fixed path and cannot do as he wishes. The Minister must not blame me, but that is the impression which one gets. This measure does not come from him, but comes from a different corner. We cannot allow this Bill to be passed as it stands here. If Parliament is to consist merely of the representatives of towns and people of the Burnside and Blackwell kind, then I ask what is left of the rural areas. I really think that this Bill is scandalous. What is the object they have with it? It is merely to out-manoeuvre us on the countryside, in order to get more seats for the towns, and we will be the suffering party. But there are other reasons that I want to mention as to why we object to this Bill, and which I would like that side of the House to bear in mind. They are in connection with the registration of those people. If you take the distances, if you force these people to make them register, then they have to make great sacrifices, they will have great difficulties, and they will be almost insuperable difficulties for those people, if they are compelled to register. They are difficulties which the urban residents do not appreciate. On the countryside the constituencies are mostly from 100 to 150 miles in diameter, and just to think of it, that those people must be compelled to go and register. Those are things which the hon. member for Kensington and others have probably never appreciated, because they have never yet had to deal with those people. That is why they are proposing this. And so there is still another point. Just think of all the things with which the representative of the people in such a constituency has to deal. They are things which are absolutely unknown to the representatives of the towns, and if we pass the Bill then it means that the constituencies will be made still larger, and the difficulties will be even worse, still more insuperable. If it was being done for good reasons then I could understand it, but that is not the case. Who are the people who are fighting the rural areas in this way, and who are trying to injure the countryside? Who are the people who describe the people on the countryside as contemptible, uneducated people? Who is the cause of their being poor to-day? Who acted in such a way in 1899 to 1902 that they trampled them under foot? I am trying to make it clear that our amendment must be passed to come to the assistance of our people in any way. I ask who is characterising my nation as one of uneducated bucolics? Where do they come from who say that? What right have they to say such things about the permanent inhabitants of the country? It is a cruel thing to say such a thing. Now I would like to hear what the representatives of the countryside on that side of the House have to say about that description of their constituents. Otherwise they would never have remained silent; they acted like a man who was very querulous, but when they have to fight for their own people then they remain perfectly silent and do not talk. I will mention a few things with which the countryside are concerned, in order to show hon. members opposite what our difficulties are. They are in connection with the work of a member who represents a rural constituency. They are concerned with the purchase of land, with individuals who apply to get hold of a piece of land, and who give the member a great deal of work to do. You have to deal with the purchase of stock, the sale of farms, and although we do not act as agents the people come to the member and ask him to put those things through for them, that he should go to Pretoria or to Parliament and has to make himself useful to them. We also have the applicants for stock, the applications for dams, the applications to get jobs on the relief work. These are all things with which the constituents come to the rural member and which sometimes make his existence almost intolerable. We also have to deal with the sale of land to the Native Trust, and there also many difficulties arise. The people ask us to assist them in selling the land to the trust, and subsequently they come and ask for assistance to obtain other land, and then the person who used to be a bywoner on the farm that was sold comes and asks for help, because the land has been sold and they also have to make a living. These are all difficulties about which the representatives from the towns know little. Then we also have the persons who come for help owing to stock diseases and similar things, and haw many meetings of agricultural unions, which are the mouthpiece of the farmers, does a member not have to attend, and how often does he not have to deliver the resolutions where they ought to be sent? I mention these things merely to give hon. members on that side, like the hon. member for Kensington, who speaks so lightly of the difficulties which country members have in the large areas coming in their constituencies, and which impose burdens on them which are too numerous to mention, and with which the rural member has to deal. When, however, we introduce this amendment, they do not even trouble to listen to it, and now they are pretending to be deaf. When we consider these things then we cannot but seriously ask what is to happen if that permanent section of the population is robbed of all their property and all the articles which they need, and now they finally bring forward this impossible proposal. I really hope that that side of the House, even if we could only get the representatives of the country seats to vote with us, will assist so that the Government will have to agree to the amendment. The people on the countryside will be grateful to us if we can put this matter right for them. But I fear that hon. members who sit there, although the Bill conflicts with the interests of the farmers, will nevertheless support it, but they will be told by their constituents that they are not worthy of being their representatives. I hope that before we decide to pass this resolution hon. members will remember the injustice which is here being done to the countryside.

I do not intend to say much about the intentions, the party political intentions on the part of the Government, which are behind this Bill. I think that sufficient has already come to light which has adequately shown what those intentions are. In the very first place I want to point out that the Government summoned this session of Parliament more particularly to deal with certain special measures connected with the war, and to prorogue Parliament again as soon as possible, so that the Government could have full opportunity of devoting attention to the war. For that reason small and non-contentious measures on the whole have been brought before the House. But one exception has been made, a very important exception, and that is this Bill in connection with compulsory registration. That in itself is an indication, and especially the determination with which the Government wants to force it through — if necessary, by a night session — that is to my mind a definite indication of what lies behind it. It is not the public interest nor the interests of the country, but the interests of the party. But what is more, prominent members on that side have made no secret of the real intention of the Bill. We have already heard it before, not here, but from the public platforms, from the hon. member who is the enfant terrible of the party, namely, the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell). He made it appear clearly several times that he wanted to put this Bill through, not only for the Witwatersrand, in which he is more particularly interested and in which his political party is more definitely interested, but he also expects that it will srengthen his political party in the country. I want to express my satisfaction that a provision which was contained in this Bill was withdrawn by the Minister at the start, in his introductory speech, and that is that coloured people, that non-Europeans in general, would not come under this provision of compulsory registration. What astonished me in that statement by the Minister was that he assured the House that he was dropping that provision because it had only been brought to his notice at a later stage, when the Bill had not only been published, but already introduced into the House, that it was also applicable to coloured people, and after his attention was called to it he saw that it would not do, and that it was a thing which could not be done in that way. I must say that I am expressing my astonishment at that, because one would have expected that when a Minister was to introduce such an important Bill as this into the House, that he ought to understand the application and the implications of it. If he does not understand them, who then will do so? But what is more, the Bill says in the first clause that it applies to Europeans in the Union, and also to all who are not described as natives under our laws. In other words, it says in this Bill that it applies just as much to coloured people. I say that it is an amazing thing that the Minister had to come and find out in this House, after the Bill was already introduced, that it also applied to coloured people. I do not think that it is so much a later discovery, as to what the Bill actually meant that we are concerned here with, but a case of necessity being the mother of invention, and that the Minister did not actually see what opposition his Bill would actually get in this House, but that it would create a sensation in the country, if he left it as it stood. The relations between Europeans and non-Europeans in South Africa are already serious enough. Those relations, one might almost say, are already becoming more complicated and more difficult, friction is arising in more than one area and in more than one respect, with the result that it is a question which must be urgently solved. If that provision in this Bill had remained, then it would have made that difficult position which already existed a hundred times worse. That is why I am expressing my satisfaction that that provision has been dropped. I would like, before I go any further, to point out a matter which I think would have been a better provision for what was actually intended by this Bill, and not only in connection with that, but also in connection with quite a number of other things besides the Bill which is now before us. The question rose in my mind, when I read through the different clauses of this Bill, whether as a matter of fact, legislation was necessary to improve the position, whether the time had, not come, when instead of pursuing this course, we should make a new start and lay down a new basis for registration in the different respects where registration is necessary, in connection with which great expense is incurred, and that question is, to wit, whether the time has not come to give due attention to the possibility of national registration generally. I know that there was a time when this matter was brought forward in connection with legislation of the same kind. The consideration which was then given and the decision to make no change of that kind, was because the reason was given that the cost in connection with it would be too great. National registration is a thing which exists in quite a number of countries, and which serves as the basis of registration in more particular directions.

It must be compulsory registration?

Compulsory national registration.

Are you including the natives?

Yes, every person must make a notification, when he comes to live at a place, that he is coming to live there, and give all the details which the law demands of him, and when he changes his residence then he must at the new place, again hand in his name within a definite time. So you get a continuous registration of the population in general, and all the necessary particulars on each one’s card. I say that at that time it was not found to be possible to go into it, owing to the cost. But what do we find now? Here a Bill is introduced in connection with improving the registration, but the cost in connection with it is undoubtedly being increased. In the first place, we find that compulsory registration is being introduced in connection with the existing registration, but the machinery of the existing registration is not abandoned. That machinery with all the cost attaching to it continues to exist, and it is even being extended. I want to draw attention to the fact that the enumerators who undertake the registration, are continuing to go round to trace the unregistered people, and they will also continue functioning when the biennial registration no longer exists. In other words, we shall practically have a continuous registration of voters. The cost is not being reduced by this Bill, but the cost is being increased. I just want to point out that when we consider such an alteration, and if we were to decide to introduce a system of national registration, that it would not only simplify matters in this respect, but that in other respects also it would save expense. Take registration, for instance. If the state has access to the details about all persons who at a particular period live in a definite area, then you do not need to have the machinery of registration which costs the country thousands of pounds, and which would now, according to the Minister’s proposal, be continually going on. What is more, it will tremendously simplify the voting at elections because if we had compulsory registration of the population, then every person will have a proof of identification in his possession. There is nothing humiliating in the fact that every person has to have a proof of identification in his possession. If I own a motor car and want to have a driver’s licence, then in the Cape Province I must, under the motor ordinance, be in possession of a licence, to which a portrait must be affixed, which I must show whenever I am asked for it. There is nothing humiliating in that, and if there is national registration and everyone is obliged to have a proof of identification in his possession, then there is nothing humiliating in that. If then such a person goes to the ballot box to exercise his vote, nothing more is required. He can show his proof of identification; the official can make certain that he is the person, and he can exercise his vote.

It is a kind of pass system.

Think also how it will simplify the administration in our country, and how it will effect economy in different respects. If you have a registration of the population, how easy it will be for the police to lay their hands on anyone within a comparatively short time. It is no trouble to trace anyone, because everybody is properly registered. We have here a detailed registration of aliens under the Aliens Act, which was brought into force a short while ago. It has involved a tremendously large administration, and all those things can lapse when every person in the country comes under the Act and is obliged to register. There is an extended registration in connection with the defence of the country. A great part of it will be unnecessary if the state, at a given moment, knows which of its citizens are seventeen years old, and, therefore, come under the Defence Act. There is registration of natives, at any rate of natives in urban areas. Everyone must be registered, and report every month. To a great extent the money in that connection is already covered, and to a great extent it can lapse or be incorporated in the bigger concern. But if there is one thing which is going to cost the country a tremendously large sum of money every four or five years, both before it takes place and after, then it is the census returns. If we had national registration, then we would have a continuous census, and it would not be necessary to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds, as is done to-day, to create special machinery to undertake the census enumeration. What is more, we have already more to do in the country, and it will amount to more and more in connection with the drawing of a clear dividing line between white and non-white. You can do what you like, but the attitude that there should be no discrimination between white and non-white will never win through in our country. The will of South Africa, and the will of the white man in this country is that they should stand firm against that view. At the moment it gives rise to all kinds of troubles, but when we have a national registration of that kind which gives all kinds of correct data, then the matter is facilitated so far as the dividing line between white and non-white is concerned, a thing which is necessary in connection with separate residential areas, and which is becoming more and more necessary in the country. I ask again, in view of all this, whether the time has not come that instead of our doing patchwork of this kind, we should go into the whole question of registration in the country. The attitude which is taken up by the Minister of the Interior and his supporters in connection with this Bill is this, that such a great injustice is being done, especially to certain urban areas, because the registration of possible voters is not as good as it ought to be. That whole attitude is. I think, to a great extent false, in the first place because another stipulation in the law of the country compensates for any detriment that there may be up to a certain extent. Take this also from the political point of view, and then the detriment is not at all so great as it is represented to be. The allocation of seats to the different provinces is not based on the numbers of registered voters, but it is based on the adult white male population of full age, and see what the present position is between two provinces like Natal and the Free State. We know that Natal has a definite political colour, and Natal is represented in this House by more members than the Free State. I believe that it has two more members than the Free State.

One more.

Although the Free State has many more registered voters than Natal has, Natal has more representatives in Parliament than the Free State. If there is a detriment to a definite political party, then that detriment which is caused by faulty registration of voters in certain areas is to a great extent neutralised by other provisions that have been made.

Do you remember that the commission reported that there were 106 voters in the Free State for every 100 European men?

I want to point out that there are more registered voters in the Free State than in Natal, and yet Natal has more members in this Parliament. The provision about the allocation of seats on a different basis than registration compensates to-day, to a certain extent, for the detriment of bad registration. There is something else that I want to refer to. It has been said here that intolerable conditions are prevailing, injustice which is being suffered, and for that reason, you should not now take the amendment of the hon. member for Moorreesburg quite seriously, an amendment which says that if this Bill is passed, then an extra allowance must be made to the countryside, by increasing the margin from 15 per cent. to 20 per cent. both ways. I want, however, to point out that when the margin was originally introduced, namely, at the inauguration of the Union, the registration in the urban areas was even worse than it is to-day. I want to ask whether the country was not aware of that fact, when the margin of 15 per cent. was allowed, that registration on the countryside was, on the whole, better than in the urban areas? Were they unaware of the fact that owing to the residential qualification of three months, some people, especially in the urban areas, could not get on to the register? I can point to the fact that precisely the same arguments as those which are being used to-day by the hon. member for Kensington, and precisely the same proposals which he is now making, and which the Minister of the Interior has accepted, were used and moved when the Union came into existence. The hon. member par excellence in the Parliament at that time, who supported the political view which is now being supported by the hon. member for Kensington, namely. Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, at the very first meeting of the Union Parliament moved that what the Minister is now proposing should be done, namely, that provision should be made for better registration in the towns, because the towns were being injured by bad registration and the residential qualification.

The three months clause which you refer to was introduced by you in 1926, it was not in force at the commencement of the Union.

You had better read the motion which was read by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick in the first session of the Union Parliament. He used the same arguments and moved the same thing that is being moved now, and he complained about the same thing, and yet he did it just as the hon. member for Kensington is doing to-day, not in the country’s interests, but simply in the interests of his political party. The House at that time, granted the margin of 15 per cent. with open eyes, knowing what the position in regard to registration was, and you cannot come and argue to-day that the worse registration in the towns prevents the margin of 15 per cent. being made larger under new conditions. And in connection with that it must be remembered that the registration of voters in the towns has actually improved since that time, because an improvement was from time to time made in the Electoral Law by legislation. It is a new argument that the margin should be made larger under present circumstances. In the first place, there is a better registration to-day, because machinery has been created in order to get unregistered voters on to the roll, and there is much more activity on the part of political parties than in those days. Provision has also been made that anyone can easily be registered provided he acquires the necessary qualifications just before a biennial registration, or while the biennial registration is going on. The whole biennial registration takes at least three months, and the provision is made in the Act that a person can actually now be registered even if he only acquires the necessary qualifications after the commencement of the registration. He can still get on to the roll. Moreover, interim registrations have now been increased, and now they take place every three months. What is more, provision is made that when anyone makes application to be registered during a biennial registration, then the application must be taken into consideration at the next interim registration, which follows soon afterwards. What has also been added to that is that registration or application for registration is practically continuous. You can at any time obtain a form from the magistrate, and hand it in, and it must be taken into consideration at the next interim registration. Improvement has been effected, all to the advantage of the urban areas, in the main, and therefore it is so much the more reason why we should give the countryside more protection even than that it had at the commencement of the Union. So far as the protection of the countryside is concerned, weighty arguments were used why, for instance, the density and sparsity of the population at a delimitation, should be taken into account. This is not a specific thing for South Africa, it is not something specially for the rural population in South Africa alone. As has been shown here, it is practically done in all countries in the world, and to a greater extent even than in South Africa. It has been pointed out that in New Zealand a margin as high as 28 per cent. is allowed in connection with the quota for the rural areas in comparison with the towns, and it is not optional there, but compulsory. Therefore it is not the case that the rural population of South Africa wants to demand privileges which are not given to the rural population of other countries in the world. I do not want to repeat all the arguments which have been used here, but one was mentioned which I want to repeat, and that is that the more seats you can allocate to the towns the larger will the constituencies in the rural areas become. Everyone knows how large some constituencies already are, and what inconvenience it causes to hon. members, and how difficult it is for members to remain in proper touch with their constituencies. It will now become still more difficult. But what I particularly want to emphasise is that there was a world depression after the last world war, and that the countryside at that time lost a larger part of its population. Perhaps it will be still worse after this war. Agriculture receives the special care of the governments in all countries, and receives special protection, and accordingly, we ought not to reduce the say to-day of the countryside, and of agriculture in this Legislative Assembly, but we ought rather to increase it. If the countryside is to get a preference, special consideration, in all countries in the world, then it is more particularly necessary in a country like South Africa, where there is another industry in the country which by its dimensions and its wealth and its political power, involves a danger of its dominating the country. It is the mining industry. Mining is a passing industry. It extracts the natural wealth of the country gradually, however much temporary wealth it may happen to spread about itself. What the country should protect is its permanent resources, and everyone knows that the interests of mining and the interests of agriculture, and those of the industries, conflict to a great extent. The mines buy supplies in our country. They do not import everything. They want to import, if they can get things cheaper from overseas. Therefore the mining industry is always out to get supplies cheaply, and especially also to withhold higher prices from the farming population. We have had experience of that in connection with the marketing legislation. Not only that, but because mining generally wants to buy its supplies as cheaply as possible, that industry has never been interested in a policy of the protection of home industries, because it would then have to buy goods from the home industries at a higher price than that at which it can import it from overseas. The interests of the mines and the interests of the farmers and those of the industries in the country conflict with each other to a great extent, and the danger is now so much greater that mining, by means of larger representation, will get into a privileged position, and that agriculture and industries in this country will suffer in consequence. Agriculture and the industries need protection more than ever before, and the platteland also needs more protection than it did at the commencement of the Union. I therefore heartily support the amendment of the hon. member for Moorreesburg.

I should have been considerably more impressed than I am by the proposal of the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) to institute a national registration system had he given us a little bit more information as to what is the purpose behind the proposal. The hon. member reminded us on several occasions of what are already specific purposes for which registration is required, for instance, in the cause of defence, but he never told us what general purpose he had in his mind in suggesting this. It is true that he did drop certain hints of what his purpose was, and those hints, so far as we can gather anything from them, seem to indicate that that purpose was a reactionary one. In some unexplained way the hon. member appears to think that a national registration system would assist his pet scheme of industrial and urban segregation between the races, and he also appeared to think that the system of registration and of pass laws which he referred to in this connection, and the carrying about of registration certificates, which applies only to the natives, could be beneficially extended in some measure or other to the European population as well. Those of us who have consistently objected to restrictive laws as applied to the non-Europeans would take up exactly the same attitude if it were proposed to apply them to the European population as well. It would seem that the type of mentality which presses for restrictions on non-European people can in appropriate circumstances apply these same principles to European people as well. Now it is a pity in my view that the issue which this Bill raises should in so large a measure have become a party one. I think one might not have been over optimistic in expecting that a measure dealing with such an important matter as the representation of the people might have been discussed in this House in an objective manner, and on its merits, and it is certainly not the fault of the Minister that it has degenerated in the way it has done.

Why did you worry about it?

The hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw) has just made an interjection which I shall deal with. He asks me why I am speaking on this matter.

This Bill does not concern native voters.

If the hon. member will consult the Constitution of this country be will see that I have a perfect right to speak and vote on this matter. If he thinks I am going to give a silent vote on this matter he is mistaken.

Your good sense should tell you that you should not speak.

I am much obliged to the hon. member for reading me a lecture on good sense. Might I suggest to hint that he avails himself of the opportunity of reading me a lecture when he has the floor, and that he should not try to do so while I have the floor. If this were a matter which affected purely the native people of this country, or their rights to vote, I do not think the fact that the hon. member for Beaufort West represents a European constituency would debar him from discussing a native matter.

Do you put him on the same level?

I shall cease speaking on matters of this kind when the hon. member for Beaufort West and others have ceased to speak on matters affecting my constituents.

The position is totally different.

As I said I had hoped that this matter might have been discussed on its merits. It was the subject of a unanimous report of a select committee and although we have been told that certain hon. members on that committee held views or made mental reservations which are not obvious from reading the report, nevertheless that fact remains, and the fact that the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) has moved an amendment which proposes another select committee, indicates that he himself sees the necessity of repairing his omission on a previous occasion to raise these matters which he did not raise at the last select committee.

Can you tell me how we could have raised them?

Now this Bill deals with three important subjects. The first one is that of compulsory registration of voters.

European voters.

I thank the hon. member for Beaufort West. I shall deal with non-European voters in a moment.

The Bill does not deal with them.

It does. In the second place the Bill deals with the reduction of the residential qualification from three months to one month, and thirdly, there is a provision permitting the delimitation commission to use current and provisional voters’ rolls in making their delimitations. These three matters actually have one common purpose, and that is to ensure that at the date of the delimitation of a constituency the European voting population shall as far as possible, having regard to the fact that there is only a delimitation every five years, reflect the social and economic composition of the population of that constituency. So far as compulsory registration is concerned, it provides for the largest possible number of voters being registered. The other two provisions dealing with residential qualifications, and with the voters’ roll being as up to date as possible, also ensure that recent changes in the composition of the voters shall be reflected in the delimitation. Now, on the subject of compulsory registration, the Bill as it stands provides that non-European voters should also be compelled to register, and I may say that I agree with the Minister when he says that he is going to move an amendment to take that provision out. It would obviously be unfair to impose on a person who is subject to certain qualifications a criminal penalty for not registering. It is difficult for these people to know whether they have the right to vote or not, and you might get many cases where a person who bona fide thought that he had no right to vote might be prosecuted for not registering. If there is any ground for criticism it would be that the qualifications of European voters and non-European voters should be brought more into line, but so long as the existing system lasts I think the Minister is correct in not imposing a criminal penalty on non-European voters who do not register. As to the merits of the purposes which this Bill has in view, that aspect must be viewed in relation to the social and economic system which we have. It is a fact that that system gives rise to contests between various strata of the population and various interests. And so long as we have the present position it must be the duty of Parliament to see that the interests of the community prevail over sectional interests, and the only manner in which that can be done is to ensure that the will of the majority shall prevail. I do not say that the will of the majority is the ideal method, but it is the only practical method to-day. It works well so long as it is accompanied by the democratic principle that the full rights of minorities shall be maintained and that they shall be entitled to attempt to sway by propaganda and argument the majority of the voting population. Any Bill, therefore, which tends towards making effective the views of the majority is one which should be supported by those who are concerned with the democratic principles. The opposition to this Bill has been based on the contention that it is unfair on the countryside and that it will lead to the countryside being under-represented. That contention is reflected in the amendment moved by the hon. member for Moorreesburg. There are certain considerations in connection with this contention which I want to place before the House. First of all, it is not obvious what the reason for discrimination between town and country is. At the time of the Act of Union one assumes that the provision giving a 15 per cent. bias each way in favour of the more sparsely populated areas, was due to the view that in the sparsely populated districts not such a large poll could be expected as in the more densely populated areas. That expectation has not been fulfilled. Polls in the country have always been higher than in the towns. I want to point out in relation to what the Opposition has said about the tendency of the rural population to drift to the towns, that that tendency is a perfectly familiar phenomenon in any country which is in the process of industrialisation. It simply means that a relatively larger proportion of the national capital resources are being devoted to industrial production than to agricultural production, and as a matter of fact the tendency is a beneficial one to the community as a whole, including the country population, because it relieves the pressure on the land, which increases of population would otherwise bring about, and it also means extension of the industrial market for agricultural goods. So it is vital to any country that the drift to the towns should take place. And if it is vital that the industries in the country should grow, it is not obvious to me why it is not in the social interest that the industrial population, who form the majority of the voting population, should not have the decisive voice, because they are performing duties which are vital to the economic welfare of the country. I do not see why the industrial population should not be fully represented. The present position is anomalous. As pointed out by the hon. member for Moorreesburg the last Census disclosed that 34.76 per cent. of the European population were in the countryside, and 65.24 per cent. in the towns. The hon. member used those figures for purposes different from what I am going to use them for, because if one goes through the list of the constituencies of this country, of the European constituencies, one finds that approximately 90 out of the 150 constituencies might be classed as predominantly rural constituencies, and only 60 as urban constituencies. Now the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) used these figures that I have referred to for this purpose. He seemed to think that the urbanisation of the rural population had gone far enough, and he said that in a European country 30 per cent. of the population was regarded as the lowest limit to which it was socially desirable for the population of the countryside to sink. I want to point out here, in reply to the hon. member for Moorreesburg, that the comparison that he took is utterly false, because he was comparing this country with other countries which are racially homogeneous. If one takes the total population of this country and compares the percentage of town and country, one finds that in the countryside there reside 68.62 per cent. and in the towns 31.38 per cent. That is the total population. The figures of the hon. member for Moorreesburg, in his comparison with foreign countries, represent only a section of that population. The countries where it is not regarded as socially desirable that less than 30 per cent. should be in the countryside, are countries where agriculture is on a peasant basis, and where that 30 per cent. represents the total population of the countryside and not a fraction of it as does the 34 per cent. which the hon. member for Moorreesburg quoted in relation to South Africa. A truer measure of comparison would have been to compare the European population with the employing and the landlord class of the countryside population in other countries. On that basis the proportion of the European population here in the towns would be lower. If the countryside is in fact unrepresented here— and I am sorry the hon. member for Beaufort West is not here because I wish to mention non-Europeans—the reason why the countryside is unrepresented, is due to the discrimination in the political system, due to the fact that the vast majority of the country population are excluded on grounds of race and colour from participation in our political system. That is the reason for it. Therefore, the analogy of the hon. member for Moorreesburg in his comparison of our population with the population in European countries is utterly false. I say incidentally that it is an absurd position, that 6½ million natives should be represented by three members in this House. Even admitting the soundness of the existing qualifications of native voters, and the principle of separate representation, it is an absurd position that 6½ million native people should be represented in this House by only three members. These three members represent the Cape only, which contains about one-third of the total native population of the Union. If it is correct that the Cape native voters should return three members to this House, I say that the number should be trebled if the whole of the native population of the Union is to be properly represented. If the whole of the native population of the Union were represented exactly on the same basis as the Cape, it would mean that you would have nine representatives in this House instead of three. I want the Cape system, by which three members are returned to this House, extended to the whole of the Union. I think I have made that quite clear, but hon. members opposite do not seem to understand it. Now, sir, as a matter of fact, the Opposition to this Bill would seem to be not so much based upon a desire to see the various economic and social interests in this country equitably represented and an equitable balance of political power struck between them, but rather it is due to their knowledge that if the town vote is increased there will be little likelihood of their getting power in this country. The urban population of this country is more cosmopolitan in its nature and it is nearer to the vital economic problems of life and is more concerned with economic problems than it is with cries of race and higher politics. As the towns become more and more represented the nature of the political issues in this country must change. I think that is a desirable tendency. As the towns become properly represented the tendency will be for this country to divide more and more on political and economic and social issues and less and less on racial issues. When that time comes this country will be able to throw over these political divisions worthy of a Balkan state, and we shall be able in this House to discuss objectively and intelligently the vital social and economic problems which confront this country and which are as important as those which confront any country in the world.

I, as a member of that select committee, like all the other members voted for compulsory registration of voters. I must say that the reasons might have been different with different members. With some it may have been that they were themselves above party politics; with others it may have been that they thought that they could obtain party political advantage by it. Personally, I was not at all in love with compulsory registration, and I still feel the same to-day. Some of us wanted to move something else, but the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell), as chairman, always prevented us. I do not say that as an excuse for our attitude, but only as an explanation. When we tried even very slightly to deviate from the prescribed road, then the hon. member constantly stopped us, and in consequence some of us, myself included, had to vote for a proposal which was not at all in accord with our feelings. I, for instance, wanted to debate the question of a register of the population, which has just been so clearly laid before us again by the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan). I tried to get that principle included, because together with the hon. member for Piquetberg I was strongly convinced that a register of the population would have been better and more effective, and also much cheaper than all this patchwork about which the hon. member for Piquetberg spoke so clearly. Before I go further, I want to draw the attention of the House to this fact, that this subject which the hon. member for Piquetberg has raised, and which I and others tried to get included in the report of the select committee, which is now being dealt with here, has already been debated in this House before. In 1935, on my own motion, a select committee was appointed, not only in connection with a register of the population, but also in connection with another subject, namely, compulsory voting. That was discussed in 1935, and then it was not a subject of party politics, but now it is treated as a matter of party political concern. For that I blame the hon. member for Kensington, who was chairman of the select committee which recommended compulsory registration. I do not know whether the hon. member for Kensington always had the political aspect of the matter at the back of his head, when we were dealing with this matter in select committee. But the impression which he made on me by his speeches outside this House, and by the articles which he wrote in various newspapers, is this: “Now I have got them.” During the session of the select committee he did not deal with it; he did not even think of party politics, but the impression which he has now created is that his object always was the party political gain which he could get by it. No one can get away from that. His attitude is: “Now I have got them.” Is that the proper way of dealing with an important question like this? I must say, to my regret, that even the Minister, in introducing this Bill, gave me that impression, and perhaps he also made the same impression on others, that he was following in the footsteps of the hon. member for Kensington. I am sorry to have to say it, but I must express my honest opinion, that the Minister, in introducing the Bill, followed in the traces of the hon. member for Kensington, and that he is also saying: “Now I have them.” I sincerely hope that I am wrong, and if I am wrong, I apologise in anticipation. But I express the honest impression which was made on me by the course of events. Let me briefly repeat. During the handling of this matter in the select committee, party politics were never brought forward. I am certain of it that it, for instance, never occurred to the mind of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. Johnson). We never thought about political gain there, and if immediately afterwards we find that the chairman of that select committee, who was responsible last year for this blue book, that the hon. member for Kensington came forward with his political agitation: Johannesburg will get ten seats more, and the Minister of the Interior is now following in his steps.

If that is true, why then did the select committee not vote on the proposal?

I would like to explain the position to the Minister. I voted for the proposal because in the circumstances it was the best thing. I personally was convinced that a registration of the population was the proper thing, but the chairman of the select committee constantly stopped us and managed to prevent that question being touched upon. I hope that the Minister will understand me clearly and will appreciate that attitude. I want further to give him the assurance that at that time there was no question of party politics. I will not say that some hon. members did not think that they could get party political advantage out of it; possibly they all thought so. But there is also another point in connection with the matter, and that strengthens my suspicion about the attitude of the Minister. The question was not that it was necessary to introduce a Bill immediately to bring compulsory registration into force. That is in the first place clear from the speeches of the hon. member for Kensington and his seconder, the hon. member for Germiston (South) (Mr. J. G. N. Strauss), when he introduced the motion that the House should decide to appoint this select committee. The hon. member for Kensington introduced his motion in February, 1939, and both in his speech, but especially in that of the hon. member for Germiston (South), it was clearly stated that the object was not actually compulsory registration, but the object is compulsory voting. It is said….

Why did you not recommend it to the select committee?

The hon. member for Germiston (South) was also a member of the select committee. He tried to bring it to the notice of the chairman, namely the hon. member for Kensington, and he was put off in the same way that I was put off in connection with the population register. I do not mean to say that the hon. member for Kensington acted wrongly, but my allegation is that after these things took place we suddenly found the hon. member for Kensington taking up, I think, an unworthy attitude. I do not want to detain the House with many quotations, but the Minister unfortunately only read a part of our report. It says, in addition—

That is the answer to the question of the hon. member. Here the select committee clearly says that Parliament must first of all express its views about compulsory registration. Why was the opinion of Parliament not asked about this recommendation? Now the Minister will say that this Bill is being introduced now, but it was not necessary to test in that way.

Where is Parliament asked in the report to express such an opinion?

On page 7 of the report of the Select Committee on the operation of the Electoral Act.

Last year’s report, or that of 1935?

On page 7 of the 1939 report. The Minister himself quoted a part of it in his speech, but what he did not quote is the very point why the select committee, in anticipation of a decision of Parliament in regard to compulsory registration, found it unnecessary to go into the desirability of compulsory voting. Therefore the select committee simply used the report to get an opinion of Parliament about that matter.

You can also interpret it differently.

I was a member of the select committee, and I will give further proof of what I am saying here. In the report of 1935 the same thing is said, namely—

You cannot have compulsory voting before you have compulsory registration.

Precisely, and the intention of the committee was first of all to hear what Parliament thought about compulsory registration, and if Parliament approved of it, to introduce compulsory voting then. The Minister can take my advice or not, but I think that it is very unwise and a bad thing to introduce frequent amendments of the Electoral Act. I agree with the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) that if things have to be amended we should put the matter entirely in order once and for all, and not do patchwork such as the Minister is trying to do now. That is not in the interests of the country or any party.

You hold that view because you are not getting everything that you want. Do you not want a part?

That is not the point. The point is that compulsory registration should precede the compulsory vote. In other words, the compulsory vote is the necessary consequence of compulsory registration. If then it has to come, why make two bites at a cherry? Why should the time of Parliament be taken up with a proposal to, pass an amendment, when shortly afterwards, we know, possibly next year, another drastic amendment will have to be made in the Electoral Act? Why not put the whole matter right now?

Why do you not move such an amendment?

At its best, this side can only make a little criticism.

You introduced another amendment.

I am coming to that. What I have said up to the present is in support of the amendment. The amendment, of course, wants this matter to be referred to a select committee.

With a special object.

With a special object. The terms of reference can be extended. If the hon. member wants to refer the Bill to a select committee, with instructions to deal with the matter in its entirety, I am prepared to vote with him in favour of it. Then we shall be removing the stigma which has been laid by the hon. member for Kensington on this House, and to which the Minister has given a semblance of truth. Then we shall be removing the stigma that this matter is being exploited for a political purpose, and that it has not been introduced in the interests of the people. In reality this Bill is not a matter of party politics. We are making it so. It is a matter of a different kind. Hon. members are making a party political matter of it. Future advantage is being hoped for by a certain party, but in reality there is no ground for it. Who can say to-day what the effect of this Bill is going to be in Johannesburg, for instance, so far as parties are concerned? No one knows it. Thousands of people have gone to live there who probably support the Government, but possibly additional thousands have gone there who support the Opposition. It is, therefore, childish of hon. members opposite to deal with this matter from a party political point of view.

You are doing it to all.

No, there were members on both sides on the select committee.

You charge us with wanting to make political capital out of it.

Because the hon. member for Kensington, not only in this House but especially in the country, made a tremendous amount by the articles which he wrote, of the great victory which his party would now be able to obtain in consequence of the work of the select committee, of which he was the chairman and the important personage—he had saved his party out of all its troubles. To my regret the Minister has apparently been dragged along in the matter by the hon. member. But in reality it is not a question of party politics. The Minister will possibly remember how one or two weeks ago I said something about Johannesburg, and I then showed that the ministry consisted as to one-half out of Johannesburgers, and I proved that the chief portfolios were in the hands of residents in Johannesburg. In connection with that, I want to point out that in consequence of this Bill, ten more seats will certainly have to be given to Johannesburg. That is a fact, apart, from party politics. Johannesburg is famous as the town with more brains per square inch than you find in any other part of South Africa. That may be true, but it is certain that Johannesburg has more Ministers per square yard than any other part of South Africa have per thousand square miles. Johannesburg is already a dominating factor in politics. I do not say this because I want to speak slightingly about Ministers, or because I want to be personal. The matter, to my mind, is far higher than any politics or any person. That is not the point. The point is, what is going to happen with the future of our country in regard to this matter? It is certain that with all of us there is the feeling that this Bill will give ten more seats to Johannesburg and they will have to be cut off the rural areas. A great deal has been said in connection with it, and I do not want to repeat myself. I am trying to keep the matter out of party politics, and I do want seriously to ask the Minister to consider what the consequence to the country of this thing will be. The result will clearly be that it is going to change the structure of our social life. South Africa is a country which has to express its thanks for its existence as a white man’s country to our farmers, English-speaking as well as Afrikaans-speaking. South Africa is a country of farmers. Now I am not speaking of races—let me rather say that South Africa is a country of agriculturists. That no one can dispute. The whole of our history is bound up with it, and the development of the existence of the white man, with his culture and his politics, owes its origin, its source, to the rural population. That is so in South Africa more than in any other country in the world that I know of, and you are cutting off that source of religious, cultural and free existence, and then you are not going to injure only the party on this side, but also that on the other side. But this is not a question of party politics, but a matter of our very existence. Everything depends on that. Now the Minister may differ from me, and go on with the Bill. I expect him to do so but I may tell him that there will be similar protests to those made in this House, not only by members of my party in the rural areas, but also by members of his party. They will feel just the same as we do. What is the position to-day of the people in the villages? If you want to gain courage for the struggle of life, in cultural matters and in other matters, then you must go to the people in the platteland. Then you feel inspired, and I am sorry to say that of recent years the status of the people of the country has depreciated. There was a time that the farmer with his gun, was the creator of the wealth of the country, a source of power, but to-day the status of the farmer has drooped, and I fear that this Bill will contribute a great deal to ruin us, not only depreciating the economic and political status of the farmers, but also the culture of which we are all so proud. I hope that I have made it clear what I wanted to explain to the House, that this Bill ought never to have been drafted. As I understand it, and the Minister can correct me if I am wrong, the Bill came into existence owing to the unworthy attitude of the hon. member for Kensington. While we should keep the Bill out of politics, he has dragged politics into it, but possibly that is because he wanted to show what a big man he was. I have a right to suspect this, because other members of the select committee will feel just as I do, even the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North), that we always intended to be honest about it. What we are protesting against is the dishonesty of certain hon. members. I hope that it will be clear on this understanding, that we will keep the matter out of party politics, because it is not a party political matter. We ought to revise this Bill now, in order to go into all sides of this question, so that next year and possibly again the year after that, it will not be necessary to bring forward any amendments of the Electoral Act, and cause all kinds of trouble. But I think, above all, that a select committee is the best means of ascertaining what the consequences of the Bill will be on the platteland, so far as culture and particularly the future of the platteland, especially in the villages, is concerned. Therefore. I cannot do otherwise than ask the Minister to postpone the Bill. If it has been introduced for party political reasons, then I want to point out that the election is still a long way off. I am certain that there will be no election within three years, as matters stand now, and it is quite possible that the Prime Minister will then say that he will allow the election to stand over owing to extraordinary circumstances. But whatever the position may be, the Minister may, by this haste, injure the matter and do much harm. I am certain that by leaving time to consider this serious matter calmly, it can yet be saved, and it may be the salvation of the whole of the people.

It is rather amazing to note the reception which this Bill has had, and strangely enough although the Minister has introduced the Bill in this House he apparently is not the villain of the piece. The hon. gentleman who, since September 4th, has developed a cloven hoof, is the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell), the hon. member who was unanimously appointed chairman of that Select Committee which was set up to consider this Bill. And what is more, not only was he unanimously elected to that position, but he was complimented on the way in which he performed his duties, and during our deliberations and cogitations the hon. member was very efficient indeed, and apparently gave the utmost satisfaction to every member of that commitee irrespective of party; and yet to-day we find that because he functioned as chairman of that committee he is the villain of the piece.

No, because of the speeches he made after that.

I am not responsible for any speeches which the hon. member has made since the last session of Parliament.

You should hold him responsible.

I have no objection to members of the Opposition holding him responsible for anything he said—I think he is quite capable of fighting his own battles, but the point I want to make is the inconsistency of members of that committee who gave their unanimous support to the report which we drew up and yet to-day they are condemning the hon. member for that report. It is a matter for condemnation that such a state of affairs should exist in political circles. I cannot for the life of me understand how some of my ex-colleagues of the old United Party can justify their attitude to-day. It seems to me that they have very agile minds and are able to adapt themselves to new circumstances on every and any occasion.

Why are you so friendly with the Dominion Party now?

If the hon. member has a bone to pick with the Dominion Party let him do so; why pick on me? I am working and associating myself with the Dominion Party to-day because the Dominion Party are doing their utmost to assist the Government in its policy of seeing the war through. But the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. Labuschagne) is associating with people whom last year he condemned foot, mouth, root and branch.

What you mean to say is that he is picking a Purified bone.

He may possibly consider that his new associates have purified him, although personally I hold an opposite view. The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) yesterday expressed astonishment at the attitude of sundry members of the Select Commtitee. Personally I think he was justified in expressing astonishment at the way in which they had jumped since that report was compiled and presented. And when one considers how harmoniously the committee worked, how it seemed to everyone that each and every member of that committee was endeavouring to compile and bring about something which would be a great improvement on the existing law, I think he is quite entitled to be astonished at being hauled over the coals for doing what every member of the committee approved of at the time. What does the Bill ask? It seeks to remove the anomalies which are existing in the present law, and it also seeks to simplify the Act. Now, judging from my experience, and from talks I have had in the lobby or outside with members and other people who have fought elections, I find that practically every one has a grouse about something in the Act which debars him from doing this, or makes him do the other, and they feel generally that the Act should be considerably improved and simplified and made more efficient than it is to-day, and I agree with them. I feel that this Bill is a very great improvement on the existing Act under which registration and matters appertaining to elections are on a very unsatisfactory basis. And I feel that this Bill will simplify things very considerably. But I also feel that with a Bill of this nature one is entitled to expect the Opposition to help one in producing an Act which is going to be of benefit to all sections of the community, something which is just, fair and equitable. And in asking for their co-operation in that way I do not think one is asking them to do more than their plain bounden duty. I feel myself that with a measure which is dealing with electoral reform, it is the duty of every member of this House to add whatever little brains and intelligence he may possess to the improvement not only of the old Act, but also the new one if possible. It is up to them to give of their best to make an improvement in the existing conditions, and in my opinion electoral reform should be above party politics.

Tell Kensington that.

When I listened to the arguments which hon. gentlemen on the opposite benches put forward on this matter, when I listen to their reiteration of platteland, platteland, platteland! I begin to wonder if there are any interests in this country which are entitled to receive consideration other than those of the platteland.

You are against the platteland.

Surely we are entitled to consider all the other interests involved as well as those of the platteland, but, apparently, my hon. friends over there are not prepared to give any consideration to the other interests, and there are certainly a lot of them, which require consideration. I want to say this, that some of the most vigorous opponents of this new Bill are my late colleagues in the United Party. I want to say that had not the split on September 4th taken place a Bill would have been presented to this House for electoral reform by the United Party, and those self-same gentlemen opposite would have supported it and advanced arguments in favour of it.

Nonsense.

Yes, every one of them.

I am told that is not so. Well, I have been in this House long enough to realise what happens when the party whip is sounded, and I am going to say that, nonsense or no nonsense, it is my honest and conscientious conviction that had not that split taken place, an electoral reform Bill would have been presented to this House—it might possibly have been slightly different, but, in the main, it would have been the same as it is to-day—and those hon. members who were formerly in the United Party would have voted in support of it and would have spoken to a man in favour of it.

What about the amendment?

The amendment! My voluble politically minded friend over there is exceedingly clever in jumping from one branch to another, but I think that he would have accepted the Bill without the present amendment. Of course, to-day we are told that this Bill goes further than those hon. gentlemen over there expected it would. I think they are basing their change of front entirely on that consideration. Now, Mr. Speaker, there is one thing that we can on this side of the House claim in presenting this Bill. We are not interfering or endeavouring to change the Act of Union, The amendment which has been proposed has been proposed not only with the desire to delay this Bill, but it has been introduced also with a view to changing the basis of representation. The present basis is 15 per cent. under and over the load, as the case may be. The amendment is intended to increase that to 20 per cent. Now, Mr. Speaker, I know that politics can excuse a lot, but how my hon. friends over there Can justify a changing of the Act of Union on the basis of 20 per cent. instead of 15 per cent., is beyond my comprehension, because it cannot be done on the grounds of fairness and equity.

Why not?

There is no question about that. I do not feel myself that they are justified in asking for that increase.

Why not?

Well, Mr. Speaker, there are many people I have come into contact with in the towns who say the quota should be reduced and that 15 per cent. under and over is not a fair basis to work on; that it does away with the principle of one person having one vote, and one vote having one value.

What do you say about it?

I will tell you what I say about it if you wait until I get to it, One realises that conditions in this country are quite different from what they are in some of the older countries overseas where you have a very large and closely settled population. I think that, in the main, most of the people in South Africa, English-speaking people particularly, have accepted the basis laid down in the Act of Union, recognising that the one vote one value would penalise the country districts more than the towns in as much as the population in the platteland is very scattered, and the towns are small and the constituencies very large, and if the basis of representation was worked on the principle of one vote one value, it would necessitate country members having to represent enormous areas for the constituency. One recognises that in many cases they are doing that to-day, but unfortunately this is a very large country. That position is inevitably due to the sparsely settled population which we have in our countryside. I do not see how you can possibly legislate on a basis which will give equal representation to the voter in the towns and to the voter in the country. On the other hand, we have got to be exceedingly careful that we do not penalise the townsman too severely in the interests of the country, I think that is a fair and reasonable view to take of the situation. One allows a certain amount of latitude and makes allowance for the country dweller, but one cannot afford to penalise the townsman too much, and that is where, on the question of fairness, I object to the criticism of some hon. members who represent the platteland constituencies. How are you going to fix your representation? Are you going to fix it on the basis of adult persons or on areas? I know some hon. members opposite would like it determined on the basis of areas, and they would feel very happy indeed if that were done, but that would be an absurd attitude to take up, and certainly we in this House cannot possibly give consideration to anything of that nature. I think that the basis in the Act of Union, which took areas into consideration as well as adult persons, or men, as it was then, was fair and right and just. I think that is a proper basis to work on I do not think for a moment that we are entitled to interrupt, or interfere with that basis to-day. That basis reacts detrimentally to many of the towns, much more so than was visualised when the basis was laid down in the Act of Union. The hon. minister himself instanced the case of Brakpan as being a glaring example of this unfair representation. I do not propose to go into details of the representation of the various Rand constituencies, or the Transvaal constituencies generally. I should, however, like to make comment on the difference between Brakpan and Ventersdorp, for example. There we have more than 6,000, more than double the number of voters in Brakpan than we have in Ventersdorp. I do not think that any fair-minded person can justify a position of that nature. On the other hand, one has got to be fair and recognise this, that that sort of thing, in a period of years, can inevitably come about due to the nature of the constituencies on the Reef. There, large numbers of people shift about from one part of the Reef to another, due to the demand for labour and other considerations of that nature. When you come to the Cape I do not think the same position applies to the same extent. I should like to take the position of East London. There you have a more or less stable population. You have a fairly stable population in East London. In East London (North) you have got 9,500, whereas the quota laid down at the last delimitation was only 7,077, with a maximum of 8,139 and a minimum of 6,015. Well, Mr. Speaker, one need hardly mention, in dealing with the towns, the minimum, because it is always a case of a maximum or nearly approaching a maximum, with the result that in the intervening registrations the quota is very considerably increased. In my own constituency I am to-day some 1,500 over my maximum quota. Now I cannot see why there can be any possible justification for increasing the basis of representation from 15 per cent. to 20 per cent. when the position is such as it is in the towns in comparison with the country constituencies to-day. If you increase it to 20 per cent. the position will be that within twelve months it will be at least 50 per cent., and by the time the next Delimitation Committee has to sit you will have approximately 100 per cent. in many of the large towns. Now that cannot be considered when we are framing new legislation. I feel that the townsmen must not be penalised to that extent. Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to point out what is the cause of the increase of population in the towns. To, a very large extent it is the migration of Afrikaners from the platteland to the towns. I am told by people who should know, that on the Reef the miners who are Afrikaners to-day comprise anything from 60 to 80 per cent. of the total. I know in an industry of which I have a great experience that a large proportion of those employed in the industry to-day are Afrikaners. What I want to know is this. Are we going to penalise the Afrikaner when he moves from the countryside to the town and say to him: If you go into the town to earn your livelihood because you cannot get your livelihood in the countryside, your vote is only going to be one-half the value it would be if you stayed in the countryside? Is that a fair position? I contend it is not. I also, want to draw attention to the fact that some of my hon. friends over there, particularly the hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Wentzel) and the hon. member for Potgietersrust (the Rev. S. W. Naudé), were jeering at some of the representatives of the platteland on this side of the House and daring them to try to justify this Bill. I want to say to those hon. gentlemen and to others with the same feelings, let them come to the towns and justify it to the Afrikaner population who reside in the towns. In my constituency half of the voters are Afrikaners, and I want to say this, that there is not a single one of those gentlemen over there who can justify to those Afrikaners in my constituency the fact that his vote is only worth half of its value to the voter living in the town to what it is in the country. That is not only unfair but totally unsound. Again, when it comes to jeering at the platteland representatives on this side of the House, and suggesting that they cannot defend this position, Mr. Speaker, I have never known a case that could be so easily defended as this. As long as one stands for what is fair and just one can justify any measure which is put before this House, and this new Bill is fair and just in my opinion. Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Pretoria (District) (Mr. Oost) in speaking this afternoon said that I feel exactly as he does. Well, I had some conversation with the hon. gentleman this morning, and speaking together in the Lobby I must admit that we have got a lot in common, but whether we have the same things in common when it comes to speaking in the House, I am not quite so sure. I am very positive that there is at least some difference between us when we are inside these precincts. There is one thing I have in common with the hon. member for Pretoria (District), and that is the necessity for more honesty in politics. We have certainly got that in common, and he and I both express the same opinions.

You ought to discuss that in your caucus.

The hon. member knows a little more about caucuses than I do, but I can tell him that things don’t leak out of our caucus to-day as they did a few months ago. When my hon. friends are finished enjoying themselves over there I would say, referring to the hon. member for Pretoria (District), it is rather peculiar that he differs from many of the other members on his side of the House. The new Bill, to most of them, goes too far, but for the hon. member for Pretoria (District) it does not go far enough. He not only wants compulsory registration but compulsory voting, and I don’t mind telling you that I am in agreement with him, up to a point, but I think that one has got to hasten slowly in connection with a thing like that. We must get compulsory registration fixed on a very sound basis before we dream of establishing compulsory voting. There is no doubt whatever that we get a good deal of opposition to compulsory voting—people don’t generally take kindly to compulsion of any description—and I am very positive that if compulsory voting is attached to these registration forms they will kick very much harder than they are going to kick now. It has been suggested that our finger-prints should be taken, but I don’t think that is necessary. I had intended quoting figures showing the differences which exist between town and country constituencies, but the hon. member for Durban (Umbilo) (Mr. Burnside) yesterday gave several instances of this nature, and I don’t think it is necessary for me to do so. Before sitting down I would appeal to hon. gentlemen opposite to help us to make this a real electoral reform measure, which will be acceptable to the bulk of the people of this country, instead of endeavouring to destroy it, as they have endeavoured to destroy every measure introduced into this House this session.

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. Johnson) had a great deal to say about the inconsistency of members. I do not want to go into that, but merely want to remind him that people who live in glass houses must not throw stones. The Government party is probably finding it difficult to defend their case, and they are therefore making a great fuss of the fact that hon. members on this side sat on the select committee when the question was considered. They make out that those hon. members were in favour of the Bill, at any rate in principle, but that they are now changeable and now do not want to support the measure. The hon. member who has just sat down rightly said that there were new conditions prevailing to-day. I will come back to that later on. He also said that this measure removed certain absurdities which would be in the interests of all sections of the population. I would like to give the assurance to hon. members opposite who represent rural seats, such as the hon. members for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie), Potchefstroom (Mr. H. van der Merwe) and Carolina (Mr. Fourie), that the measure will most certainly not benefit the rural areas. On the contrary, if this Bill is passed it will be the death-knell which will announce the funeral of the countryside. What will the position be? It is laid down in the Constitution that the maximum number of seats in this House shall be 150, apart from the three native representatives. You cannot therefore add any more seats, in other words, all the seats which are added to the towns in future will be at the expense of the rural areas. We saw recently in the Sunday Times how, according to the last registration, the Rand will have to get eight to ten seats more at the next delimitation, and if this Bill in its present form goes through, the Rand will possibly get sixteen additional seats altogether. That will be at the expense of the Transvaal country districts in the first place, and also at the expense of the country districts in the other provinces. Therefore this Bill will have the effect that the towns, and especially Johannesburg, will have a predominating share in sending members of Parliament to this House, and in the election of provincial councillors. Hon. members on the other side, who represent country constituencies, must consider how they can justify that to their constituents. They cannot justify it. One asks oneself why the Bill is being introduced at this stage, and why there is so much haste. I think there is only one reply, namely, that the Government party fully appreciates that it does not enjoy the confidence of the countryside. An attempt is now being made by this Bill to weaken the representation of the countryside. That is the real reason for this Bill. The previous speaker said that the existing system was unfair and unsound. I do not know why the point is being so carefully avoided that in New Zealand, for instance, an advantage of nearly 30 per cent. has been given to the countryside. Surely it ought to be unfair and unsound there also. I said that this measure was introduced, in the first place, because the other side fully realised that they did not have the confidence of the rural districts. They had therefore to try to transfer the equilibrium from the countryside to the towns, even more than is already the case. Why? They realise that the countryside is the birth place of nationalism. It has always been so, and they also realise, notwithstanding the rapid improvement in things during recent years, that the birth place of imperialism is mainly to be found in the big centres. They are therefore trying to take steps to weaken nationalism as against imperialism. That is the object of the measure. We know what has happened since the 4th September. There has been a definite change in the political views of the country, in the political composition of the different parts of the country. We know that since the 4th September nationalism on the one hand and imperialism on the other are standing much more clearly in opposition to each other, and that the dividing line between the two views has become much sharper. The Government, therefore, wants to force this Bill through in order to defend the imperialistic point of view, in the broad sense of the word. They want, in this Bill, to transfer the balance from the countryside to the towns. That brings me to the point that certain hon. members on the select committee approved of the measure in principle, and are now charged with having turned a somersault. But the Government forgets that there has been a tremendous change in circumstances since the 4th September. Hon. members here who belonged to the United Party, believed that they had, to a great extent succeeded in persuading the English-speaking people in South Africa generally, to assist in upholding the attitude of South Africa first. Now we have found out that the old struggle between imperialism and nationalism is not yet ended, and as we find that the large majority of the urban members on the other side have not adopted the attitude of South Africa first, we have every reason, even apart from other considerations, for refusing to support this Bill. The changes since the 4th September justify us in refusing to give the towns still more representation than what they already have. We have found out how much confidence we can put in our hon. friends over there when it comes to a choice between South Africa and the Empire, and in consequence of that we are not prepared to support a Bill which will give the towns a further advantage over the rural areas. Certain amendments which are proposed in the Bill are generally welcomed, but those amendments are nothing but the sugar to make this bitter pill to the countryside easier to swallow. We find, when we analyse the measure carefully, that there can be no doubt at all that notwithstanding the statement that this Bill is intended to put us on a, sound democratic basis, the real object is merely to benefit the towns. Just read Clause 3 (b), where the requirement in regard to residential qualification is reduced from three months to one month. That is absolutely and exclusively in the interests of the towns; the rural areas will not in the least benefit by that. In those areas you have a settled population, but in the towns you find many people who do not live at one place more than a month. Then we find the provision in the matter of registration. That again is only of importance to the towns. On the countryside it is of no importance, or in any case not to the same extent as in the town. Then we also find the provision in the matter of compulsory registration. The result will be that thousands more people will be registered than has hitherto been the case. That will principally be the case in the towns, and again it will be at the expense of the rural areas. The Minister said that it was the intention to put our electoral system on a more democratic basis, but I ask the Minister, does he expect to attain that object by this means? If we introduced compulsory registration, does he expect to put the exercise of the franchise on a more satisfactory basis? I do not think so, and here I must agree with the hon. member for Pretoria (District) (Mr. Oost), namely, that compulsory registration will be of no use without compulsory voting. I do not say this because I would inevitably be in favour of compulsory voting, but in order to show that the Minister’s argument is simply camouflage, because if you do not make it compulsory to vote, it will be of no use registering people. Registration, as such, has nothing to do with the vote. You exercise your vote on the day when you vote, and not on the day when you are registered. We shall find that more particularly in the towns hundreds and thousands of people will be registered who will never exercise the franchise. They will thus be used to give the towns more seats, although they will never exercise the vote. You already find this so to-day in Johannesburg, that owing to the shifting of the urban population it is extremely difficult to trace the voters. You find, for instance, a constituency with 10,000 voters, and you will only be able to trace 6,000 out of the 10,000. Accordingly, 4,000 do not exercise the vote. If the Bill goes through, you will possibly have a further 6,000 voters registered, and to these 16,000 voters new constituencies will be given, but out of these 16,000 voters perhaps only 10,000 will be traced. This compulsory registration is, therefore, only a blind to get more seats for the towns. I want to assure the Minister that if he thinks that the exercise of democratic rights, that is to say the franchise, will be put on a better, sounder, basis without introducing compulsory voting, then he will not attain his object. But the object is not what they want to make out, namely, to put the franchise on a more democratic basis. The object is to register people in order thereafter to use their names in order to be able to give more seats to the towns at the expense of the country, that is what is behind it, and we cannot subscribe to that principle. Hon. members have already referred to the fact as to why the countryside —I do not want to say should be benefited —but as a matter of fact should be taken into consideration. It has of late years been a characteristic that the population of the rural areas is constantly diminishing, and if this tendency continues, it may happen that the Witwatersrand will have 40 to 50 constituencies, and the rest of the Transvaal possibly only five or ten seats. I do not say that that will happen, but it may happen and I am pointing out the danger. I say that no country member has the right to vote for this Bill, except under the safeguard which the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) has moved. We do not for a moment say that we will not grant the rights for which the towns apply, but what we do say is that the towns should also bear the rights of the countryside in mind. My hon. friend here will in addition indicate how the area of 26 constituencies on the Witwatersrand is not even as large as one constituency in the Cape Province. It will not be in the interests of the country if merely small spots are represented in the House, and for the other areas, practically not to be represented. I do not want to detain the House any longer, but I think that we are fully entitled to object to this Bill. We will tell them in the country districts what there is behind this Bill, even if we are accused of party politics. I personally am convinced that this measure aims at nothing else but to reduce the seats of the rural areas, in favour of the towns, and I, as a country representative can never approve of that.

After the many, long and interesting speeches on the Bill I intend delaying the House for only a short time. I propose first of all to look at the amendment which proposes an increase from 15 to 20 per cent. in favour of the rural areas. The amount of the increase is perhaps not of so much importance as what the principe of the increase is. I appreciate that this has no association with the Bill because the Minister has very wisely kept this Bill to one purpose, that of compulsory registration, and the other clauses of the Bill which I have read with interest are simply an improvement on the general position, and are very desirable. I do not propose to touch on them for the moment. In order to see the position as it really is to-day we want to look at the quotas because from the quotas we can deduce the correct position; and it is interesting for us to do so because it is upon these quotas that a great deal depends, and the quotas being elastic the action taken on delimitation may be almost one way or another. I shall deal with the Transvaal. The quota for the Transvaal is 5,996. The maximum is 6,895 and the minimum is 5,097. It is rather remarkable that we get almost to the maximum in most of our constituencies in the North. What does that mean? That is our quota now at the delimitation, but that does not remain. It piles up with the influx until we get to the next delimitation when the position is dealt with. Consequently, your expanding cities, your large centres, your industrial areas with the removals from the various parts of South Africa to these centres, are very greatly affected. It makes all the difference, and your quota works very much against you. Now the whole of the quota taken altogether in the Witwatersrand area works out at 8,800. I know the figures given by the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) in a measure almost startled the House, and rightly so, but a greater point should be made of the fact that here we have a quota of under 6,000, and yet we have at the moment an average of 8,000. It does show that these central constituencies are largely overloaded. One cannot hope that this will not continue. It unquestionably will be maintained so that the load on the urban areas will be there all the time, and it is as well to bear that in mind when we deal with the matter of the country at large. Some hon. members on the other side of the House have been putting the position that the bias should be increased to 20 per cent., and that the amendment should be accepted because of the drift from the country to the towns. I admit that there is a good deal in that. But we have that drift to the towns all the time, and the towns are being loaded by that drift, and consequently they get larger and larger numbers and the other thing is not required. Another reason put up as to why this amendment should be accepted was given by the hon. member for Lydenburg (Mr. N. J. Schoeman) that owing to the removals from the platteland the areas were becoming so large. That is more of a personal matter. The expense of working an election is very much greater. The distances that have to be covered are enormous. I think perhaps there is something in that too. But if you compare the disabilities which you have on the platteland with the disabilities in the cities you will find that the platteland is a haven of delight as compared with the position in the cities. And it is brought about by this. Your platteland is filled with politicians. They are born into it. Everything is ready for your elections; your organisation and all things of that kind are there ready for you. I would say to my hon. friends that when you compare that with the position in your cities you will find that the platteland has a tremendous lot to be thankful for in that regard, and that the balance of this, even in the large areas, is still in their favour. The hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) this afternoon made a statement with regard to the New Zealand quota for the country districts. He left the impression on my mind that while we were 15 per cent., New Zealand was 28 per cent. That is not correct, of course. I hope I did not misunderstand the hon. gentleman, but if I did, I want to put it right. South Africa is truly 30 per cent. and New Zealand is 28 per cent. It will be found in New Zealand, Canada and Australia that all these calculations are complicated.

South Africa is only a possible 30 per cent.

That is so. Canada was also quoted as showing greater advantages than this country does. The complications of the calculations are in a measure different, but it will be found—and this is the only point I want to make—that our 15 per cent. each way compares favourably with any country in the Commonwealth. If you cut out Australia, it compares more favourably than all the others. Taking all the countries together, it compares very favourably with the other countries of the Commonwealth. I would say to hon. members opposite, leave it alone. In New Zealand they had 33⅓ per cent. each way in 1871. They began an agitation for an increase, just the same as our friends over there are asking for more. In 1877, it was brought to 18 per cent., and it was increased in 1889 to 28 per cent., and it stands at that to-day. So I say that there is a permanent and reasonably fair thing in this connection. And I am sure it would be a wise judgment to leave it as it is. I hope, therefore, that the amendment will be withdrawn. The point before, the House is where did this Bill come from? I cannot for the life of me understand where all these politics come into it. You hear bitter speeches coming from one side and the other. What about? This is not a Government measure. It did not come from the Government, and it did not come from our friends across the floor. It is the united opinion of this House as represented by a select committee. That select committee was representative of the whole of this House. If it were not. I can say that its report as presented to this House would not have the same value or weight or carry anything like the same influence as it does. Hon. members will agree with me that it is a very rare thing to get a unanimous report from a select committee on a matter of this kind. The first thing that suggests itself to me is that the opposition is political. That is almost the first suggestion, yet you get a select committee from this House with every party represented on it and that select committee brings in a unanimous report. To my mind that is everything. That is sufficient in itself to pass this Bill, because it is almost unique. Have hon. members ever seen before on a question of this kind a unanimous report from a select committee being mixed up with the political situation. I think we have not. Therefore, no one can over-estimate the value of the report of this select committee. One remembers very well how this report was received. It is true that there were two hon. members who raised some objection to it. I think one was the hon. member for Newlands, now the Minister, and the other was the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren). Beyond those two hon. gentlemen there was no objection whatsoever raised in the House. That was unique in a committee of this character. I now come to the question of the Bill itself. Who is affected by the Bill? This Bill does not, affect any particular section of the country. It does not affect your well-to-do men—I think you call them capitalists over there — and it does not affect your poor men or any one of that character. I will tell you whom it does affect. It affects the shirker, the man who does not care, the man who has got no interest in the country. The man with an interest in the country ought to be on the voters’ roll and he should see that he gets there. It does not affect the people who belong to this side of the House. It affects men who owe income tax and do not pay it, and those who have agreements under the hire-purchase system and do not nay. The House has seen advertised a number, so and so, for a motor-car. The motor-car has been purchased on the hire-purchase system and has not been paid for. That is the class of people who will go on the voters’ roll. Will any hon. members opposite say that that is the class of people who belong to this side of the House? Of course not. They would belong to the other side of the House. A very important factor was stated here the other afternoon by the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside). He does not want to send a Bill after a man who leaves his wife. Neither do I. If this Bill has that effect and locates the man who owes money to the state or to an individual. I shall not curse the Bill on that account. In that respect probably it is quite, a good thing. If this Bill has the effect of locating people who are hiding from justice and that kind of thing, I shall not condemn it. In that respect there is something to be said for it apart from the good it may do by locating these people. I believe in all probability that it may be helpful in regard to income tax or poll tax defaulters, and on that point alone I would support the Bill heartily, instead of offering condemnation, because that does not interfere with the right of the public. That is all I have to say. I hope the Bill will be passed, and I hope in all the circumstances the amendment will be withdrawn. In any case I hope the Bill will be passed, and knowing, as I do, that our hon. friends on the other side of the House are not looking at it any more from a political point of view than we are, they will admit that it is not a political Bill. It is a Bill for the advancement and for the good of the country, and if we can come to that conclusion, there will be more universal support for it than we seem to have at the present moment.

The hon. member who has just sat down, asked us in quite a childish and artless manner: Where do the politics come in?

He should ask the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell),

Yes, he need not go very far to find out where the politics come from. His colleague who sits next to him, can tell him everything. He could even go to certain members of the Cabinet, and if they would be honest, they could tell him how they have been going about during the past few months saying to people: We are now sitting on those seats; you will never put the Smuts Government out again, because we are now going to introduce a Bill which will be of such a nature that the Witwatersrand and other big towns will get additional seats, with the result that we can put the rural districts in their place. In consequence of that the Smuts Government and the Smuts policy were to have the victory in the country. My hon. friend cannot be so artless and innocent as not to know about all those things that have been going on in the country. People like the Minister of Justice went from one place to the other using the argument that the people only had to support the Government, because that was their only hope, there was no hope of getting another government, because the backbone of the platteland would be broken by a Bill which was to be introduced. He made no secret of it.

You are too suspicious.

My hon. friend who made the interjection cannot pretend to be so innocent either as to be able to tell me that he does not know about all those things, and that we are suspicious.

Where did the Minister of Justice say that?

I can name at least ten persons to whom he said it.

Did he say it at a meeting?

He did not specifically mention this Bill at meetings, but he said that measures would be introduced which would assure their continuing in office.

Did he refer to the rural areas?

He said that the Government would make sure that Johannesburg and other big towns would get the representation that they had not had in the past, and that those who represented the platteland would therefore have to realise that’ there was no longer any hope for them. There could be no question about that. The whole country is full of that story, and it has its origin on the other side. Accordingly, my hon. friend can understand that this Bill is not merely a question of the administration of the Electoral Act. There is a much broader aspect of the matter which should be taken into consideration. I can understand that members of the Select Committee regarded the matter from the administrative point of view, and went into the question how administrative difficulties could be got rid of. They did not try to go into the broader aspect of the matter. I do not know whether that attitude was deliberate, but it appeared to me to be childish and innocent that even the Minister, in introducing this Bill said that the Select Committee was unanimous, and that therefore it was not necessary to say much about the Bill, and that he hoped it would be passed unanimously. Either he never himself considered the serious implications of the Bill, or he tried in that way to hide them. One would have thought that he had not considered the Bill sufficiently, especially when he told us that he had only now grasped the implications of the inclusion of the coloured voters in the Bill; that it had only just come to his notice, and that he was therefore going to amend that clause. That shows that he did not consider the implications of the Bill too seriously. The Bill itself is undoubtedly of a far-reaching nature, and will have far-reaching consequences. New principles are being introduced, and on the other hand we find that things about which there was friction in the administration of the old Act, this Bill is extremely indefinite about. Take the omissions which exist to-day in connection with the postal votes. I believe that the postal vote has on the whole been a success, but we know how much it has been abused in the past, and what openings there were for intimidation, for which this Bill is not making any provision even yet, and that is certainly a matter which ought to be fully considered by a select committee. The Bill, in itself, creates the impression as if the other thing was just dragged in head and shoulders, and that it had not been carefully gone into, and that the great thing which this Bill aimed at was not so much to improve the administration of the Electoral Act, but to get a larger amount of representation for a few of the big towns, or at any rate one big town.

Was not that also the intention of the Select Committee?

The Select Committee did not consider the matter from that point of view, but only had to deal with administrative matters, and just because the broader aspect of the matter has now come up for consideration, especially owing to the speeches on the other side, it is necessary for us to go fully into the question of the policy which should be followed in the future in connection with the great question of the relations of the towns on the one hand, and the countryside on the other. It is high time that the matter was looked in the face, and that we got to clarity on the subject. There is not the least doubt that the way things are developing, in the country now, and this will be encouraged by this Bill, we are very fast putting the whole Government of South Africa into the hands of a few big towns. Ultimately one will have just one or two big towns in the country which will be governing the whole country. Circumstances have developed very strongly on those lines since the National Convention felt so long ago that certain measures should be taken to prevent one or two of the big cities dominating the whole of the country. To-day it is far more necessary to take steps of that kind. I think most people will agree with me that the development possibilities of the Rand are still enormous. Possibly we are only on the eve of great developments there, and if things go on as they are doing now, it will simply mean that Johannesburg, possibly along with Cape Town, will govern South Africa, and if Johannesburg governs, then it means that excessively great powers will be put into the hands of certain big interests in Johannesburg. I do not want to mention the Chamber of Mines only, there are also other big interests, but those interests will in this way get a preponderant influence in the government of the country, and then it will simply mean that the farmers in the country districts will become the hewers of wood and the drawers of water of the big interests. The latter will have all the say. They will control the inland market, and they will simply dictate to the rest of the country. Johannesburg, a big town, has no fixed population, but a floating population, and the great interests will manipulate things, and the vested interests of the countryside, which in every country forms the more stable element of the population, will simply have to carry out what a few big towns have to say. Undoubtedly, we_ are dealing here with a matter of the very greatest importance to South Africa. The Minister must not think that we are carrying on a petty agitation, but the welfare of South Africa is affected by this matter, and it would be fatal if the whole matter was regarded from a party point of view alone. Unfortunately, a party matter has been made of this, by the kind of talk on the other side that the Government will be able to maintain and keep itself in office by this measure. I make an appeal to hon. members opposite, especially those who represent rural seats, just to investigate where it will lead to, and whether they are prepared to be dictated by a few big towns. I make an appeal to the members from Natal. Are they satisfied with the position that merely Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town should rule South Africa? That is what it amounts to, and we must regard this Bill from that point of view. In this connection we must review all the relations between the rural areas and the towns. The argument was used in the past that the platteland was being compensated to a certain extent by the fact that the registration in the towns was poor. That, however, is not a sound argument. I do not believe that the interests of the platteland should depend on whether the registration in the towns is good or not, and therefore I welcome the amendment which touches on the real question. We must hold the balance evenly between the towns and the rural areas. Nothing can be said in principle against the basis that all people in the towns who are entitled to vote, should be registered. It is quite natural that if people can make a claim to the franchise, they should be registered. No one can blame the Government for taking steps to see that all the persons who are entitled to be voters shall be registered. But the whole matter that lies behind this Bill is a special attempt to get voters registered who have clearly shown that they attach no value to their vote, and who do not want to vote. They have not taken the trouble to be registered, but now to get more seats for certain political interests, they must be compelled to register. From that point of view the measure is wrong, and cannot be justified. We do not object to the fact of the people being registered as voters, but here a new principle is being introduced to force people who do not want to make use of their right to vote, to register, and all for political purposes. That definitely appears to be wrong. When once there is compulsory registration you would also subsequently have to have compulsory voting, the compulsory vote, because otherwise it means nothing. Then you will also have to see that a man does actually vote, and so one step follows the other and it becomes worse and worse. I, therefore, believe that it will be a good thing to refer the Bill to a select committee, so that the broader aspect of the matter, so that the whole relation between the rural areas and, the towns can be considered. It is of the greatest importance to the whole of the people of South Africa that we should not dispose of this matter too hurriedly. We should not simply put the government of the country into the hands of a few towns. Owing to the development of the last few years, the relation, the balance between the countryside and the towns has already been disturbed to such an extent that the towns have already got into a very strong position, and instead of the Government doing something to restore the equilibrium, instead of coming to the aid of the countryside so that the equilibrium can be retained, this Bill is doing just the opposite. It will give the towns, which already have an overwhelming influence, a still greater influence on the national life. It is going in the opposite direction to what was intended by the National Convention. Therefore I hope that the Government will not regard this matter as if we Were simply making a little opposition. We are dealing here with a matter which deeply affects the whole of the national life. This step is going to shock and unsettle the countryside population tremendously—and I include the small villages in the countryside—as soon as they realise what the consequences of this policy are going to be, namely that South Africa will be governed by a few big towns. I do not know whether the Minister has come to a final decision of the question but it seems to me that the Government is in a hurry to put this Bill through, and notice has already been given that the second reading must go through to-night. The Government takes no notice of anything and wants to force it through. The people in the countryside will feel this very deeply, and I want to tell the Minister, and especially the hon. members opposite who represent the rural areas, that this step of theirs may have far-reaching consequences. Let us, therefore, refer the matter to a select committee to go into it. The relations between the countryside and the towns, and the inter-relations between the different provinces are to-day subject to all kinds of absurdities, which are not being touched upon here at all. Even the amendment of the hon. member for Moorreesburg in itself does not get rid of the absurdities. Take, for instance, the position in the Free State—which is quite absurd—in connection with the position of the other provinces, and we are now busy committing a further big injustice to the Free State, which is practically entirely a platteland province. That is another aspect of the matter, and the select committee can enquire what can be done to put the relations between the different provinces on a sound basis, and to get rid of absurdities. As I am speaking of the Free State, may I just mention a few figures? We must remember that the Free State is almost exclusively a rural province, and the object of the Act of Union was to make the quota smaller for the country representatives than for those from the towns. But what are the facts? The Free State, with its rural population, to-day has a higher quota than any other province. If we look at the last delimitation, then the quota of the Transvaal with its large urban population, including Johannesburg and Pretoria, did not even reach 6,000, it was 5,996.

That is the minimum.

No, it is the quota of the province. There is a minimum and a maximum quota, but if we take the general quota of the Transvaal, for the whole province, then it is merely very little more than Natal, which has 5.850. As I have said, the Transvaal has a quota of 5.996, the Cape Province, where the coloured people are added, has a quota of 7,077, but in the Free State the quota is 7,321. Therefore, the quota of the Free State is 7.321, while that for the Transvaal is 5996. The minimum of the Transvaal is 5.097, and the figure for the Free State is 3,223. It is an unnatural state of things for a rural province to have the largest quota.

Is the reason not….

Yes, I know what the reason is, it is the anomaly that the seats are allotted to the different provinces on the basis of the enfranchised population, while the provincial quota itself is calculated on the basis of the registered voters.

Of the European citizens of the Union.

The adult Union citizens. That is what the Union quota is based on, but the provincial quota is not fixed in that way. There the actual registered voters are taken into consideration, and that is to a great extent the cause of it. But there is also another reason why the Free State rural seats have such a high quota in comparison with all the other provinces. You have many rural seats in the Free State with more voters than urban seats. Take, for instance, Durban, there are seats which have fewer voters than the countryside seats in the Free State. You have Durban (Greyville) there with 6.518, Durban (North) with a Quota of 6.375, and Durban (Umbilo) with 6,378. Now take my seat in the Free State, Winburg, with 6,774 voters, it is a country seat, and yet I have more voters than any one of those three.

And so have I.

Now, they refer to the point that the towns are being unfairly treated compared with the countryside, but I want to point out that the average number of voters that are required to have one representative in Parliament is 7,027 in the Free State, and that is higher than the Transvaal, and higher than Natal, because in the Transvaal it is 6,530 and in Natal 5,410. Only in the Cape it is a little more, namely, 7,168. It is a very unsatisfactory state of affairs that the rural population should be treated in that way, and that they should not get the benefit which was intended at the time by the Act of Union.

It is because the people there have better registration.

That is true, but it is not so much the registration. It is more due to the fact that the Free State has no big towns on to which you can off-load a part of the quota. We only have Bloemfontein, and we cannot off-load much on to it. But we have no towns like Johannesburg or Pretoria. When once you have the quota for the Free State, then it has to be almost proportionally divided, because there are no towns to lighten the quota for the platteland a little.

Is not the reason that you have a registration of almost 100 per cent.?

No, the registration does actually have something to do with it, but the great reason is that when once you have the quota for the Free State, which is not fixed by virtue of the registration but on the basis of European Union citizens—if it were done by virtue of the registration, then it would not be the Free State which got fewer seats, but Natal — then the seats would be calculated according to the number of registered voters. I say that the Free State will not get less than Natal, because we have 4,000 more registered voters. But inasmuch as we are given the seats on the number of Union citizens, and not by virtue of the registration, the registration in this connection means very little. Therefore, if we get a concession of 20 per cent., then it will still not assist us very much in the Free State. We must rectify that anomaly, and I think that we will have to do so in the way it was done in New Zealand, where they laid down a fixed figure. Where there are no big towns to come to the assistance of the countryside, the quota must be made more or less the same in the different provinces. I am only mentioning this as a possibility, and I certainly think that if the Free State, and also Natal, had known that they would be treated in this way in the course of years, that they would lose their representatives in that way in comparison with other provinces, you would have had great trouble in getting them to enter the Union. When we see what Sir Edgar Walton wrote about the inauguration of the Union, then you will find that while Natal had far fewer citizens than the Free State, Natal was firm and said that if they got fewer representatives than the Free State then they wanted to have nothing to do with the Union, although they had a far smaller population, they also got seventeen members. What is more, it was proposed at the National Convention that Natal and the Free State should retain seventeen representatives whatever might happen. There was a great deal to be said for that, because we had the example, for instance of Australia, which was to retain a definite number of representatives which they were given, and the motion that Natal and the Free State should retain seventeen representatives, was passed, as a matter of fact by the National Convention. But the Prime Minister at the time tried to get it altered. At first he could not manage it, but subsequently he proposed it again, and then he succeeded in his object. If that had not occurred, then those provinces would have retained seventeen seats. I have no time to go into that now, but I am only pointing out this anomaly of the allotment of the seats to different provinces. I am not referring to this to detain the House, but it is a very important question for the people of South Africa. I heartily hope that the Minister will yet consider the matter more fully, and that he will say that he is not going to take any notice of it, because it is a party political agitation. But it goes much further than a party political agitation, and if we do not succeed in getting the equilibrium restored between the countryside and the towns, then that also will cause trouble in South Africa in the future. We cannot yet realise to-day what the effect of it will be. I want to make an appeal to the representatives of the countryside, including those on the other side, to assist us so that we can get fair representation for the Free State. If it is said that we are dealing with a political matter here, then I do not believe that hon. members opposite will succeed in their object, because if they have a political object in this matter, then they must remember that the people who flock into the towns are not all supporters of that side. It will possibly lead the towns in a different direction than what they think. It is for all who represent tradition, and who attach any value to our democratic system, to see to it that the established section of the population on the countryside should come into its rights. I hope that my hon. friends will seriously consider this, and not only regard the matter from a party political point of view.

In dealing with an Electoral Bill one should keep in view the fact that democracy may be described as a system of government operated by counting heads instead of cracking them. We have been listening to a discussion as to whether this Bill was going to affect the principles of democracy; whether it was going to affect the policy of giving equitable representation to every part of the community. Hon. members opposite have been opposing the Bill because they seem to be afraid that it will have the effect of minimising the representation of the people whom they claim to represent. In reality there is nothing of a political purpose in this Bill. It simply rectifies certain anomalies which were never contemplated under the Act of Union.

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

Mr. Speaker, when the House adjourned, I was remarking upon the fact that the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) had virtually repudiated the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) because at any rate almost the whole of his speech this afternoon was devoted to something quite different to the amendment before the House; and something extraneous from the Bill before the House. Not only was the hon. member not satisfied with the Bill at all—it is too moderate—but he concentrated on suggestions to the House for establishing a national register, a complicated, extensive and expensive measure which would not only be difficult to get through the House but to carry into effect. The proposed national register would have the effect not of facilitating registration— the only object of the Bill is to do away with certain anomalies and facilitate the registration of voters—but would secure that the citizens of South Africa would have to carry a pass as the native population has to do. In regard to that there was no such proposal before the Select Committee and the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) never made such a proposal when he moved his amendment, and it quite obvious that he never thought of it. The member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) having devoted most af his speeches to his proposal for a national register, suddenly remembered that the hon. member for Moorreesburg really moved an amendment on some other lines, and for reasons quite different from the reasons given by the hon. member for Moorreesburg, he supported the hon. member’s amendment that the discrimination which exists at the present moment between the rural areas and the urban areas should be increased to 20 per cent. either way. The reason the hon. member for Piquetberg gave in support of that proposal was quite different to the reason for discrimination laid down in the Act of Union. In the Act of Union, provision was made for a discrimination of 15 per cent. either way because of the sparsity of population and the huge distances to be covered in the rural areas. It was felt that in fairness to those resident in the rural areas provision should be made by which the Delimitation Commission could load in favour of the rural constituencies up to the amount of 15 per cent. and load against the urban areas up to a similar percentage, making the maximum 30 per cent. There was no question at all of differentiating between one type of voter and another, and the reason which then existed has, to a considerable extent, been done away with. Although there is a sparsity of population in the rural areas and although we have large distances to cover, at the same time we have increased transport facilities to-day. We have the railways and motor-car facilities to such an extent as materially to improve the position in so far as the rural areas are concerned. Take one illustration. Take the time that it used to take in 1910 to ascertain the result of an election in a rural area and compare it with the time that it takes to-day, and hon. members will see that facilities for travelling are very much greater to-day, and to that extent the reasons actuating the National Convention no longer apply. All that we are concerned with to-day, however, is to carry out the recommendation of the Select Committee to facilitate the registration of voters and to make it compulsory, in a mild way, and to have the delimitation based not on what may be an old voters’ roll, but on the very latest roll available. I believe the reason why the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) did not deal with that was that he realised that the hon. member for Moorreesburg and his friends were really, to use a colloquilism, on a bad wicket, in raising the question. They were committed up to the hilt to the bill before the House. They never in the House last session dealt with this question when the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) introduced his resolution calling for a Select Committee, which made it perfectly clear, and all the speakers made it clear, that they wanted to deal with existing anomalies and with compulsory registration. There was a reference to compulsory voting and the hon. member for Moorreesburg in reply to an interjection by the hon. member for Kensington said that he had not yet decided on the question of compulsory voting. The fact remains that in the House of Assembly when the resolution was moved, and the hon. member for Moorreesburg and his friends spoke in support of the resolution, not a single suggestion was made for altering the discrimination laid down in the Act of Union. But now, at the last moment, they come along and say, “We did not make any suggestion because we did not have the power.” They had the power to make a suggestion in the House when the debate was on. They could have moved an amendment to the resolution of the hon. member for Kensington. The fact is they did not contemplate the idea, nor did such an idea then appear to be reasonable to them, and, therefore, they supported the resolution. The same thing happened, in the Select Committee. It is fatuous for the hon. member for Moorreesburg now to come along and tell us that he could not move it in select committee because it would have been against the rules. Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, the courageous and bold member for Moorreesburg, who is always ready to tear up the agreement about Simonstown, dismiss the British Navy, and say we are going to defend ourselves against every country, whether it be Japan or Germany, suddenly becoming meek and mild in select committee, and not having the courage to make a suggestion for fear that it would be ruled out of order by the chairman. I submit it is fatuous for him to shelter behind an explanation of that kind. What is more, we know that the terms of reference to the select committee were so wide that anything could be introduced which would help the committee in its deliberations, and I go further, and I say that the hon. member for Morreesburg knew perfectly well that even assuming that the terms of reference were restricted, there was nothing whatever to prevent him from moving in the House to extend those terms of reference. The fact of the matter is that he had no intention, no desire, to move anything of the kind, because he and his party realised that the discrimination which already exists is possibly more than fair to the rural areas. Now, sir, the position has changed, and hon. members on that side talk about party politics. I submit, with all respect, to my friends opposite that their attitude in this matter is one of opportunism.

And yours?

No, sir, we are trying to carry out the Act of Union and to rectify anomalies which exist. Hon. members who voted in select committee and unanimously voted for the recommendations of that committee, now come forward and advocate an amendment which is intended to kill the Bill. And what is the reason which they put forward? The hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) gave a reason quite different to that of the hon. member for Moorreesburg. He suggested something which my hon. friend, the member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. Schoeman), touched upon last night, that in fact the farmer and the rural voter is more valuable than the urban voter, and that therefore a greater value should be attached to the voters in the rural areas than to those in the towns.

Do you suggest the contrary?

No, sir, we don’t suggest anything. We are prepared to allow that discrimination which exists at the present moment to continue. I say that the rural voter, the farmer, in my opinion is as good as any townsman, and the townsman, whether he be a worker or anything else or belongs to any section of the population, is equally as good as the person who lives in the rural areas. What is the real trouble at the present moment? Our friends opposite want to load the dice against the towns, and the reason for that is that there has been, according to their own figures, such an exodus from the rural areas to the towns, that the rural areas have unfortunately been depopulated. To-day we have only 34 per cent. of the population in the countryside, leaving 66 per cent. in the urban centres, and the reason why my friends opposite are now suggesting increasing the discrimination against the towns, is not because they want to look after the rural areas, but because they see a dwindling of the population on which in the past, they have relied to put them into power. They want now to entrench that political power regardless of the extent to which the population of the rural areas is dwindling. I say without hesitation, that the remedy for that is not by artificial measures, to discriminate more and more in favour of the dwindling voters in the rural areas, but to see that the people in the towns, the Afrikaans-speaking people in the towns not only get on the roll, but get every facility for exercising their vote.

Will you do that?

Yes. On the Witwatersrand to-day virtually over 40 per cent. of the population is Afrikaans-speaking, and before long it will be 50 per cent., and the policy of hon. members opposite should be to see that these people get on the roll. This Bill shows that we on this side are not politically-minded in connection with the matter. The real remedy is to see that the people in the towns get full opportunity to develop themselves and to improve their lot, and by improving their lot they will improve the position of people in the rural areas. The reason for the depopulation of the countryside to-day is due to our friends opposite, who have done nothing at all to deal with the problem of poor white-ism. The conditions there are so bad that there is this exodus to the towns. The policy of hon. members opposite should be to improve the lot of the people in the country, and then they will not want any artificial methods of discrimination.

I wish to reiterate what other members have already said that I am sorry that such a great and important question as the one now being considered by this House should be treated like an ordinary party political question. It should not be a party political question. The subject is one of the greatest importance to the country as a whole, and it is of just as much importance to members opposite representing platteland constituencies as it is to members on this side of the House, that the matter should be considered from the wide aspect of the interests of the nation, and not from the point of view of party politics.

Parties are ephemeral in their nature, they are here to-day and gone to-morrow, but it is in the interest of the country that a sound basis should be laid down in regard to the question of the relationship betweeen the platteland and the towns, and for that reason it is so regrettable that this matter is being dealt with from a party political point of view, and that possibly is the most cogent reason why we should have a select committee appointed to go into this matter. We have another good argument in favour of the appointment of a select committee, because last year a select committee was appointed consisting of members of this side of the House, of the other side and of members of the Labour Party, and that committee produced a unanimous report. In a cool atmosphere, where there was no question of party gain, that select committee deliberated and came to a unanimous decision. It has been stated in this House that that select committee had extensive powers and could have taken other decisions, or submitted different recommendations; but unfortunately that select committee was restricted in its powers because the instructions given to the committee were “to enquire into and to report upon the working of the Electoral Act.” The powers were very restricted — they were restricted to the working of the Electoral Act and nothing else. So far as the Electoral Act was concerned, I agree that most of the recommendations were essential, but they only concerned the operation of the Electoral Act. If the Electoral Act has to be amended, very well, but if such recommendations are made, and one finds that they interfere with vested interests, and are in conflict with the policy of the country which up to the present has been accepted as being the desired policy, then we must reconsider the whole matter and make arrangements to provide for the altered circumstances. The select committee should in the first place have been granted greater powers. We now have a unanimous report before us, and it has been made clear that it is necessary to appoint a further select committee to go into the wider aspect of the relationship between the platteland and the towns. For the sake of people outside who possibly may not know how a select committee is constituted, I want to point out that the Government has a majority on such a select committee. We are not asking for a select committee on which the Opposition will have a majority, but we know that if such a select committee is appointed it will have to have representatives on it of the platteland, and we shall then get a report on which it will be possible to take action in the interest of the country as a whole, instead of our fighting this matter in this House on party political lines. I want to ask the Minister whether this is a party question. Is he prepared to give the members on his side of the House the right to vote as they please, or is he going to say that this is a Government measure, and that they are expected to stand by the Government. I should like him to tell us whether he regards this as a party measure, or whether he considers that it is a matter which should be regarded from a wider aspect. If this Bill is passed we shall be in a peculiar position. I want to point out first of all, however, that although a unanimous report was presented, no opportunity was given to this House to discuss that report of the select committee. We have never had the opportunity of referring to the unsatisfactory provision which is to the detriment of the platteland. The select committee sat last year and only had the power to go into a few aspects of the whole matter. We did not discuss its report in this House, which one would think should be done before legislation is introduced. Now we have this peculiar position that because certain people resident in certain constituencies fail to do their duty, do not feel it incumbent upon them to become registered as voters, they are to be compelled to register, which, of course, will be to the detriment of those people who have felt it to be their duty and have taken the trouble to become registered. The people on the platteland who have felt it to be their duty, and who have registered, are now to suffer under this provision, as compared with the people in the town who have not registered. We have heard the argument of one vote, one value, but that is not the question at issue at the moment. The mere fact that a person will be registered does not mean that he is going to vote. If he has not taken the trouble to become registered, he will in all probability not regard it as his duty either to go and vote. Consequently one gets the position that in a constituency a large number of people will have their names on the voters’ roll and because of that more constituencies will be created, and more constituencies will be allocated to the towns especially, but those additional people are not going to vote, and the only result will be that the platteland will be detrimentally affected. So there is no question of one vote, one value. All we are doing here is to lay down an unsound basis at the expense of the platteland, and of the population on the platteland, which will be made to suffer under this, and the platteland is the permanent section of the population. In one respect I am somewhat in agreement with the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge). If a great influx takes place from the platteland to the towns, those people going to the towns will not all be supporters of the Government. The position will be, however, that once they are in the towns their interests will be different from what they were in the past, and they will no longer consider matters from the point of view of the platteland. So far as parties are concerned, the position will eventually amount to this, that in the urban constituencies the party now sitting on this side of the House will become stronger. We may perhaps look upon the people in the towns to-day as generally being the English-speaking section, or the Imperialistic section, or whatever one may care to call them, but if a large influx takes place from the platteland into the towns this side of the House will become stronger in the towns. But that does not mean that because this party grows in strength in the towns the platteland interests will be better looked after, because the interests of those people will no longer be the interests of the platteland; on the contrary when they live in the towns they will have other interests. The great question is not a question of party gain, or party advantage, the great question is whether it is in the interest of the country that the platteland shall be detrimentally affected for the sake of the towns. I am quite in agreement that every voter should register. I do not object very much to compulsory registration. There are many reasons which cause people not to register. One of the main reasons in the Transvaal for instance is that as soon as one is registered and has one’s name on the voters’ roll one has to pay poll tax. Many people are afraid to register because as soon as their names appear on the voters’ roll and they are twenty-one years of age they have to pay poll tax. In addition to that the voters’ rolls are often made use of by people to obtain addresses in order to collect money, and those people who have debts are afraid and consequently do not register. That, however, is a matter I do not want to go into. I consider that the State should see to it that every citizen does his duty and properly registers himself. But if one finds that as result of compulsory registration so many people are registered in a certain area that the whole policy of the country is upset, then the time has come to go further into the question and to see what is necessary in the interests of the country. The figures which have already been mentioned here are astounding. We find that in 1911 the platteland population constituted 48.2 per cent. of the total population, nearly half of the total, and the urban population was 51.8 per cent. So that the two were more or less equal. They were more or less the same, whereas now the platteland population has dropped to such an extent that it is only 34.2 per cent. of the total so that only one-third of the population of the country are resident on the platteland to-day, and two-thirds live in the towns. I should like to know from the Prime Minister, and I hope he will be able to give me the information, why the National Convention considered it necessary, when the relationship was 50 per cent. platteland, and 50 per cent. of the people lived in the towns, to provide for an extra, 15 per cent. play in favour of the platteland? The only reason, and that would be the only sound argument, is that it was felt even in those days that as we had a permanent population on the platteland, a section of the population which might possibly be looked upon as being more responsible, they should be the deciding factor, and should give the lead in the legislation of the country. Why otherwise was this provision made seeing that the relationship between platteland and country was about fifty-fifty? Yet provision was made at the time of Union for the platteland to have a 15 per cent. play so that it would have a definite majority. The Prime Minister in those days was in favour of this being done, and he and the Leader of the Opposition are the only members who sat on the National Convention who are still here to-day. I should like to know what the reason was, and as we may be able to take that reason as a test I should also like to know why that position has been changed? The responsible element of the country should be the deciding factor, and I am convinced that the Prime Minister will agree with me on that point. This is not a matter of party interest, but in those days all sections agreed, and I feel that those conditions should be maintained to-day. The hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) has now proposed to fix a percentage of 20. We do not insist on that 20 per cent.; the Select Committee should go into that question, to see what the relationship between the platteland and the towns should be, whether it should be 20 per cent. or 25 per cent. or less. That makes no difference. That is a matter they can go into. We have been told that in New Zealand it is 28 per cent. in favour of the platteland, but the Question has never yet been gone into and that is why it is so necessary to have a Select Committee which may go into all the aspects of this matter, so that we shall not do anything just for the sake of an election which may take place in two or three years, but that we shall do something for the sake of the future of this country. Then in regard to the 20 per cent. play which we want to give the platteland, it is also interesting to bear from hon. members that they want each vote to have the same value. That, however, was not the basis on which Union was established, because we find that it is laid down in the Constitution that the Cape Province which had 167.546 voters — that figure is mentioned in the Act of Union —got 51 seats—that is without reckoning the coloured vote, so that that was only the number of white voters, which meant that every representative in Parliament in the Cape Province would represent 3,285 white people in the Union. Now I come to Natal. At the time of Union there were 34.784 voters in Natal, and Natal was allocated 17 members. This meant that in Natal each member had 2,000 electors, as against 3.285 in the Cape. Here we already have a difference of 1,050 in favour of Natal, but we find the same thing again in the Transvaal, where with 106,493 voters they were allocated 36 members. This works out at 2.960 electors to every member. In the Free State again they had 41,014 electors and those 41,014 electors elected 17 members, which meant that each member had 2,421 electors. This goes to show that at the time of Union it was realised that it was impossible simply to put a lot of electors together and tell them that they could have one representative, but certain interests had to be taken into account. Natal with its small population of about 34,000 whites was allocated 17 seats because it was felt that the interests of that province justified such a position, justified their interests being looked after so that they would not be detrimentally affected for the sake of the large provinces. So the provincial aspect of the matter has also to be taken into consideration. I am quite convinced that if the members of those days had realised that the number of seats would drop below 17, they would undoubtedly have objected, but the Free State, and even to a lesser extent, Natal, could never have imagined that the number of representatives for their provinces would ever be less than seventeen, as will now be the case. That being so, it is necessary to appoint a select committee or some other body—I shall go into that later—or, for instance, a commission to go into the whole matter. If we consider the question, we find that Natal, according to this proposal, would originally have had only twelve members instead of seventeen. Natal would certainly not have agreed to that, and would not have gone into Union on those conditions, and for that reason I say that it will be in conflict with the interests of the Free State, and of Natal, and of the whole of the platteland if this Bill is passed. But the delimitation will not only allocate a number of seats to the towns; it will also affect the whole of the provincial system. What about the Transvaal? There, provincial members are determined in the same way, and that also applies to the Cape, as they are determined for the Union. And I should like to know whether the provincial councils — any provincial council — has been consulted, because their rights are also affected. It is necessary that this should have been done, because let us see what the effect is going to be in the Transvaal. As a result of the tremendous influx on the Rand one is going to have a position of affairs there, that the number of seats on the Witwatersrand will be so increased that the Witwatersrand will control the whole of the Transvaal. It will not be so serious in the other provinces, but in the Transvaal the Witwatersrand will control the roads, the hospitals, the education and everything, of the whole province. We know that the executive committee which is to all practical purposes the cabinet of the provincial council, will be voted for and elected by the members of the provincial council, and all the members of the executive will be representatives of the Witwatersrand.

No, we have proportional representation there.

That may be, but it may possibly happen then that one of the members of the executive committee will not be representative of the Witwatersrand. There is no proportional representation in the election of members of the provincial councils, it is only the executive committee which is elected on a proportional representation system, and as the Witwatersrand will have a majority in the provincial council they will be able to pass any proposal coming before the provincial council even though it may not be recommended by the executive committee. Consequently, the Transvaal will be entirely dependent on the Witwatersrand, and that was never the intention of our Constitution — it can never have been the intention. For these reasons it is necessary that we should appoint a select committee to make a proper investigation. I want to point out that we are not only going to get compulsory registration, but we are going to get amendments affecting the whole of our Electoral Act; other members have already gone into this question, and the matter will be still further dealt with by other members, so it is not my intention to say too much on this subject, but the question is a vital one; it is a question of the amendment of the actual basis laid down at the time of Union — it is an amendment of the basis that the platteland shall have a majority. I, therefore, hope that the Minister will go into this matter, and I want to ask him to give consideration to the question whether he does not consider it essential to have all these major subjects thoroughly investigated by having a commission appointed on which the provincial councils too shall, be represented, as their interests are so deeply affected, so that we may lay down a sound basis for the future. I feel that the Minister will agree that the position is as we have stated it to be; that it was found necessary at the time of Union to lay it down that the platteland should he the deciding factor, so far as legislation is concerned. Assuming we are able to have everybody registered, it might be laid down then, for instance, that the towns should have 40 per cent. of the representation in Parliament, and the platteland 60 per cent.; or it might be put on the basis of 55 and 45 per cent., but let us lay down a basis, because it was the intention that the platteland should have a greater say in Parliament than the towns. It is not a question of parties, but other countries have also found it necessary to lay down such a basis. I support the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Moorreesburg, but I want to say again that we are not tied to this suggestion of 20 per cent. The figure of 20 per cent. has only been nut in to show that the differentiation should be greater, in order to give an advantage to the platteland, and to give effect to the intentions of the Act of Union. Many people will say that our object is to give an advantage to the Afrikaners, but that is not the position. We have English-speaking representatives here, for instance from Fort Beaufort, Queenstown and from constituencies in Natal, which are platteland English-speaking constituencies. So it is not a question of Afrikaner interests, but a question of the interests of the platteland. May I also point out that members of the platteland, when they come to Parliament, do not represent only the interests of the farmers, because in practically every platteland constituency one has a few dorps where interests prevail similar to those of the towns. One has shops there, and hotels, and factories, and even mines, and one comes across difficulties in connection with rates of wages and things of that kind which have to be attended to just as they have to be attended to in the towns. A member from the platteland, therefore, does not represent only the interests of the farming industry on the platteland, but he also represents the interests of the towns, but in the towns one does not come across agricultural questions affecting monkey nuts, mealies or other farming questions, and the representatives of the towns are, therefore, not able to represent the platteland’s interests. On the other hand, the interests of the towns are also appreciated and dealt with by platteland members. Consequently, when hon. members come to this House, they represent certain interests and it is in the interest of the country as a whole that certain interests should get a stronger representation than other interests. That is to say the interests of the platteland should have more representation than the interests of the towns. There is another matter into which such a commission, if it were appointed, would be able to go. We find, for instance, that great objections are raised in connection with provincial councils in regard to roads passing through native areas, hospitals for natives and matters of that kind. All these are questions which have developed since Union, and consequently those are matters into which a select committee, or even a commission, would be able to go. I hope therefore that the Minister will not force this Bill through the House because if he were to do so it would be used against him as a well founded argument, because his papers and his supporters all state that they are going to push this Bill through in the interest of the Party. It would be a scandal if that were done.

It is not so.

I am pleased to hear that the hon. member for Rondebosch (Dr. Moll) does not agree with that point of view, and I know that there are several hon. members opposite who feel exactly the same about this as we do. That being so, we should stand together in regard to this matter; let us go into all the aspects of the case because there is no hurry, there are no elections to be fought next year. That being so, there is ample time to have the matter gone into thoroughly, and if a select committee, or a commission is appointed, the whole question can be gone into before the next session of the Parliament. If that suggestion is not agreed to and if this Bill is passed as it stands, we have to take it that it is the object of members opposite, and of the Government, not to do what is in the interest of the country, but that the only aspect of the matter which has any value in their minds is to see that the Government of the day shall be enabled to remain in power because they know that failing that the Government will not be able to remain where it is.

We plattelanders on this side of the House also wish to express our view about this Bill. Members opposite seem to think that we should be ashamed of doing so. We want to be quite clear on the position and we want hon. members to know where we stand. This afternoon we heard the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) proposing an amendment by which he tried to evade his responsibility as a member of the select committee of last year; on that select committee he voted in favour of what is now being proposed in this Bill. He is now asking for another select committee to be appointed. Who can tell us that if such a select committee were appointed he would not again evade his responsibilities, keep away from the meetings of the select committee, and if another report from that committee were to come before this House who can tell us that he would not say again that he did not agree with the report because he had been absent when the resolutions were taken? That may quite possibly happen again. Last year we had a select committee on this subject, and now another select committee is being asked for, and the hon. member has raised the point that it should be a recommendation of that select committee that the play of 15 per cent above and below the quota should be raised to 20 per cent. The hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Tom Naudé) stated that such a proposal could not have been placed before last year’s select committee, but undoubtedly they had the opportunity of making such a proposal when the motion for the appointment of such a select committee was introduced in this House, but they failed to make that proposal. No, what hon. members opposite are doing is nothing but an attempt to make party capital out of this whole question.

We proposed it in 1937.

I am speaking of what happened here last year. All of us know that the various parties are represented on such a select committee, and we also know that the members of a select committee keep in close touch with the other members of their party. Consequently, when a select committee produces a report we must take it that such a report gives expression to the views of the different parties represented in this House, and if that is so, and bearing in mind the fact that this select committee expressed the unanimous view of its members, we want to know why hon. members opposite are now objecting to the proposal contained in this Bill.

Should we abolish Parliament and simply allow the select committee to remain?

Possibly my hon. friend may be unaware of the fact but the object of a select committee is to assist this House in facilitating its work. That does not mean to say that the select committee should report and that this House must be obliged to accept that report, but a select committee has the effect of creating greater uniformity in the work, and of presenting Bills to this House in a more acceptable form. No, hon. members opposite are trying to tell us that by introducing compulsory-registration we are trying to deprive the platteland of certain rights. Where do they get that from?

That is what the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) says.

The hon. member for Potgietersrust (the Rev. S. W. Naudé) should not always try and hang statements on the peg created by other people’s speeches. Let him try to use his own common sense. Does this Bill in any way propose a change in the quota? Nothing of the kind. The constitution is not interfered with in any way whatsoever.

Is it not the intention to reduce the number of platteland seats?

That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about the rights of the platteland and the rights of the towns. Platteland seats have changed since days gone by and they are continually changing. Why did not hon. members complain in the past; why should they say now that it is this Bill which is causing that change? This Bill has nothing to do with it. The quota of the town as against the platteland remains unchanged. If there had been any question of this Bill affecting that matter I take it those of us representing platteland areas would have objected, but as that is not the case there is no reason for any abjections to be raised here. The other day we had a Bill introduced in this House proposing the establishment of an industrial corporation; we were all in agreement with that proposal, as it would give the people of the platteland an opportunity of obtaining work in the towns. We are going to encourage those people to accept that work so as to enable them to make a better living for themselves in the towns. We are sending them to the towns, but this is what we say to them: Go to, the towns to make a better living, but you are not going to have your full vote when you are in the towns. And those are our own people. We have to encourage them to make a better living in the towns, but at the same time we tell them that when they are in the towns their vote will not have the same value as their vote had when they were on the platteland. We turn them into voting cattle there, and if they are not voting cattle then they are cattle without a vote. No, that should not be our object, and I certainly would not support such a principle for a moment. The hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) even wants our people to carry a pass. We do not quite know what he means by that, but I am surprised to hear proposals of that kind being made by the Opposition, an Opposition which wants us to believe that they are a democratic party. No, I cannot see why we should use our people for bargaining purposes, and that is exactly what the hon. member for Moorreesburg would achieve by his motion — that our people would be used for bargaining purposes in order to obtain more votes for the platteland, or rather to obtain a greater representation for the platteland. Our own people are to be used as bargaining pawns. The people that we want to encourage and whom we are obliged to encourage to, go and make a better living in the towns are to be used as bargaining pawns for the purposes of that hon. member’s party. No, we must not turn our people into white niggers. They are people who have always occupied an honourable position and we must encourage them to maintain that honourable position, even though they have to migrate to the towns in order to make a better living there. We must help them to improve themselves and not to deteriorate, and if we were to carry out the views put forward by the Opposition we would be helping to ruin those people. We would bring that about by creating an inferiority complex among them — make them have an inferior opinion of themselves. I should like to know from hon. members opposite why they want the quota to be changed at this stage. Why exactly do they want that to be done at the present juncture?

Well, why has this Bill been introduced at this juncture?

I shall tell my hon. friend why this Bill has been introduced. If this play in the quota is changed from 15 per cent. to 20 per cent. does it mean that the change will last for ever? The Opposition wants us to believe that if we do that sort of thing to-day it will be a perpetual thing which will affect the people for ever. The hon. member for Pretoria (District) (Mr. Oost) even went so far as to say that this Bill would destroy the nation’s cultural future. Mr. Speaker, when we are dealing with matters of this importance, and when we pretend to, be in earnest we should at least try to be serious. I say that such a change will not be permanent, but only of a temporary nature. If we start interfering with the Act of Union, Parliament will interfere with it again next year, just as one hon. member told us happened in New Zealand. In New Zealand, so the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Henderson) told us, they change the Constitution about every few years, and that is what will happen here as well. Hon. members opposite have to admit that whatever we may do, we have to face the position that the towns in the near future will have the majority in regard to the members of Parliament.

And you want to help that even further along?

This sort of opposition which hon. members carry on here will do nothing to stop it. The towns will have a majority in Parliament, and once they have it and we fail to act sensibly as agriculturists, we shall get into difficulties because the towns will be in the majority. It is our duty, as people of common sense, to see to it that we do not create feelings of enmity between ourselves and the people of the towns. We have our Constitution to-day, and if we treat that Constitution frivolously in order to serve the interests of one or other party we shall find that the same sort of thing will continue happening, and that is a thing which neither South Africa nor any other country should lightly agree to, to touch its Constitution. The hon. member for Marico (the Rev. C. W. M. du Toit) spoke here about the members of the military forces who are being registered, and who may possibly be registered in two places. I only want to say this, that I hope the people who are in military camps — I naturally do not want them to be registered in two places — will be given the choice to decide where they want to go and vote, so that they can be registered there. They should be allowed to apply in the usual way for registration, or if they leave the place where they are domiciled they should be notified that their name has been removed from the roll, and I contend that if that should happen the soldier should have the privilege to say where he wants to be registered, either at the new place or at the old place.

Are you worried now about your seat?

My hon. friends over there are very much more worried about their seats than we on this side of the House are, and that is why they are putting up such a strenuous fight against this Bill. The hon. member for Marico further said that the franchise was a privilege and that for that reason there should be no question of compulsory registration. But now we have this peculiar position, that one hon. member on the Opposition benches speaks one way, and then the next one speaks in a different way. The hon. member for Brits (Mr. Grobler) contradicted him. He said that the Franchise was not a privilege, but to record one’s vote was a privilege. And so it goes right through among hon. members opposite. The one asks for compulsory registration, and the other one does not want it at all. And then we find that the hon. member for Piquetberg, supported by the hon. member for Pretoria (District), wants to go even further and wants a population register. He does not want all this patch-work. He says, “Why not go the whole hog?” He even wants us to carry a picture of ourselves about with us to show where we come from. No, we do not know what the Opposition wants, because they are always contradicting each other, and I want to tell hon. members this, that if they, want to come and conduct an opposition here they should tell us clearly what they want, and what they want to do. What is actually implied by a population registration?

At whose request was that Commission in regard to the population registration appointed?

I am not talking about that. I am talking about the speech by the hon. member for Piquetberg in which he suggested a population register and my point is that a population register implies a much more serious degree of compulsion than compulsory registration under the Bill which we have before us at the moment. Why are hon. members objecting to that. Because surely the hon. member for Piquetberg is their Leader, or is he only expressing his own view?

You do not understand him.

The hon. member who has just interrupted me served on the select committee, but he understood so little of the discussions that went on there that he did not even know where he should vote, and apparently he now again wants to vote with the other side. Then we get members opposite who complain bitterly that they have to cover such long distances in their constituencies in order to address meetings.

And you do not have any meetings at all.

I would advise them to go and lodge their complaints with their own electors on the platteland; let them go and tell their electors that they are too far away and that they do not want to come and address meetings. Why come and complain here? Go and tell your electors that you do not want to visit them in their homes, and that they live too far apart for meetings to be held. If they want to hold meetings in my constituency they can do so, or otherwise they can come and attend my meetings when I address my constituents.

Will you send us an invitation, and give us a ticket?

The hon. member for Marico want even further than that and he told us that we should only assist those people who appreciate their privilege, and that privilege according to him is the Franchise. The hon. member for Pietersburg in turn said that it is our own people whom we want to force under this Bill to have themselves registered. The hon. member for Marico therefore contends that our own people do not appreciate the Franchise. That is the only way we can take it. What does he mean by casting such a reflection on our own people and our own nation? They are Afrikaners, and they are as good as any of you, and as good as any of us. There is no necessity to insult them. But there is another side to this question as well, which I want to point out to the Opposition, and it is this — they know as well as we do that there is a great influx of Afrikaans-speaking people from all parts of the country to the Witwatersrand, and to Johannesburg. If those are the people who should not have the full Franchise, then it means that our own Afrikaans-speaking people will be treated in that fashion. They will be the people who will be deprived of the Franchise because of the fact that they move about from one place to the other. Many of them are people who do not remain at once place for three months on end.

It is the Jews who roam about and not our people.

The hon. member who has just interrupted me does not know what the position is. During the last general election I sent a man to Johannesburg because there were 200 of my voters in Johannesburg who had to be traced. They were Afrikaans-speaking people who had gone there to look for work. They went there to improve their position, but they did not remain rooted to one spot, and the result would have been that they would have been unable to record their votes. They were Afrikaans-speaking men and all of them were good Afrikaners. Now the hon. member says that it is not our people but the Jews who roam about. I know what I am talking about. The hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman) told us here this afternoon that the position on the Rand may change in the course of one day — in one day people may change their political adherence. We know that. If that is so, then how can we be accused of trying to obtain party political advantages out of this Bill? We have that charge made against us all day long, but the hon. member rightly stated that the position there may change in one day. So that charge must drop. Every one of us knows that there are gaps and anomalies in our system of registration, and this Bill is merely an effort to cope with some of those anomalies and defects. We are now accused of all sorts of things although we are only trying to improve conditions through this Bill. Every one of us when dealing with questions of registration in his constituency makes a fuss because people do not register on their own initiative. And now we come here and we want to help hon. members over there in connection with registration. At each party congress delegates are appealed to to see to it that all the men and all the women are registered. We are trying now to facilitate the work and hon. members come along and accuse us of all kinds of things. The object of this Bill is to make the Electoral Act more effective, and to make the system of registration more effective, yet the Opposition sees a bogey in that. Hon. members opposite will possibly not agree with me when I say that we cannot expect the platteland to carry a large population because if it should carry a large population we would have the most serious condition of poverty imaginable in this country. It would create serious poverty among the population. Rather let us help people to be employed in industries in or near the towns. Now we are told that we are depriving them of their rights, but my contention is that it would be far better if we were to assist those people to obtain employment. If this side of the House is accused of trying to score party gains by means of this Bill, we can charge the other side with trying to score through the defects in the present Act. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) stated that this side of the House was inciting the platteland against the towns. It is the other side of the House which is doing so by coming at a time like the present with the amendment they have introduced. I can foresee our getting all sorts of difficulties very soon as a result of this amendment. Our farmers should try to maintain friendly feelings towards the town people, but hon. members opposite are endangering those good feelings. The hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Wentzel) talked about the Anglo-Boer War and about all kinds of other things, but we know what was the cause of the Boer War.

The foreigners were.

The hon. member has given the correct answer, but hon. members over there now want to give the franchise to the foreigners and keep it away from their own people. The hon. member for Middelburg (Mr. Bosman) has cast doubts on the honesty of purpose of this side of the House. I want to tell him that honesty is not the prerogative of any particular side of the House. Our opinions may differ but neither side should accuse the other of not being honest.

We have no knights of the truth here.

The hon. member is so scared of the knights of the truth that he does not know where to hide himself. He even dreams of these knights of the truth and all he can say is “knights of the truth.” This Bill does not aim at furthering anybody’s rights, it is only proposing to make registration compulsory. What harm is there in our trying to facilitate matters? The accusation made by the other side of the House amounts to this, that we are giving rights and privileges to people, which they did not possess before. Those people had all those rights before, but it is quite likely that they did not avail themselves of them. How then can this measure be bad? We are told that this Bill will have a terrible effect on elections and that the platteland is going to suffer tremendously. This Bill is not going to drive any electors from the platteland to the towns. It leaves the position as it is. The charge made aginst us is that this Bill is going to change and deteriorate the position of the platteland, but the Bill is doing nothing to change the position in any manner-no change which cannot be brought about to-day is contemplated by this Bill. If the organistion of hon. members opposite had been right and sound in the past, and if the organisation on this side of the House had been, right and sound, the Electoral Act would not have been needed at all. Why then cast all sorts of aspersions against members on this side of the House? This Bill to my mind gives expression to the views of the Select Committee which dealt with this position, and on the Select Committee there was a unanimity of opinion. I heartily support the Bill.

The hon. member who has just sat down as well as the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) have definitely done a great injustice to the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) by the attack which they made upon him. I do not know where hon. members were on the 18th March, 1937, when the hon. member for Moorreesburg made a proposal in this House in support of the attitude which he had taken up even at that time. If hon. members will study what happened during the discussion of the Quota Bill they will see that the hon. member discussed the proposal and made a certain suggestion.

We are now talking about 1939.

But the impression they are trying to create is that the hon. member for Moorreesburg has now suddenly been struck by an afterthought, and that it had never before entered his mind, and that the hon. member for Moorreesburg did not dare to make a proposal before the Select Committee in accordance with the views which he holds to-day. The hon. member is being accused of never in the past having made any representations in regard to this matter. But as long ago as 1937 he proposed that the platteland should be given compensation through the fixing of a quota of 12½ per cent. because the women would in future also be taken into consideration in connection with the quota. This is what he said—

Was this before, or after the Select Committee had met?

Now it is being represented that the hon. member for Moorreesburg has never yet raised this matter, but he made representations in this House which surely are of more importance than just raising a matter behind the closed doors of the Select Committee. So far as this Bill is concerned, it would appear to me that we have the old position here again, that every change does not necessarily mean an improvement. We find that the general tendency of this Bill is to introduce certain amendments which will have the effect of causing a weakening of the Electoral Act. Let us first of all take a few of the minor points and deal with the more important points later on. First of all I want to point out that in future it will only be necessary for one witness to sign an application for registration. There is undoubtedly a temptation there so far as the law is concerned. For instance when incomplete claims are submitted to an election official, that official is given certain powers which may tempt him to abuse those powers. The outstanding provision in the Bill is the one dealing with compulsory registration. The second outstanding point is the residential qualification in constituencies. That qualification used to demand that a man lived in a constituency for three months, whereas now he will only have to live there for one month. A further outstanding provision is that which lays it down that in the fixing of quotas the delimitation commission will even be able to use the provisional rolls.

These most important points are undoubtedly of a drastic nature, and they are certainly of such importance that we should take proper account of them before passing this Bill. There is a slackening off of the Electoral Act and I am afraid that the officials who will have to carry out this Bill in regard to the registration of voters will experience a great many difficulties. I am now referring to the question of compulsory registration, and I am afraid that those officials will in future be disposed to take refuge behind the provision that the electors are obliged to see to it that their names are put on the voters’ roll, and the result may be that the officials will think, “Well, the responsibility is now on the electors to see to it that their names are on the roll, and that being so there is no need for me any longer to go out of my way to ensure their being properly registered.” I am afraid that this will lead to a slackening off of the Electoral Act. As we have been told by the hon. member for Moorreesburg, the figures which hon. members opposite pride themselves so much on, as a result of which the Witwatersrand would gain such a great advantage, are not as encouraging as they imagine, and it would appear to me that they are even now somewhat sorry that they have come along with this Bill, because they are not going to get the benefit which they originally imagined. That being so it seems to me that this provision about compulsory registration is no longer so necessary to their minds as they originally thought it was. I say that they may yet deplore the fact of having introduced this Bill. It has been stated here, and that also appeared from what the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. H. van der Merwe) said, that they thought they were going to score a great advantage by this Bill. Well, if I were allowed to give this Bill a title I would not call it what it is now proposed to call it, but I would call it the “Urban Areas Elections Favouritism Bill”, because that is the object of the Bill. I have not the slightest doubt about that and I should like to show why I believe that to be the case. We have been told over and over in this House, and we know that it is the object of the party opposite, the object of the Government, to force this Bill through the House. The Government are here at their own behest— by grace of themselves. They know perfectly well that they are not here by the grace of the electors of the country. They know perfectly well that the electors of this country do not want them here. We know perfectly well that they are occupying the Treasury benches without representing the country in the constituencies on whose behalf they are here. That is perfectly clear. And therefore they are going to force this Bill through the House with no other object except to be able to remain in power, and they are going to force this Bill through the House merely for the purpose of entrenching themselves deeper in the position in which they are now. We know that the Prime Minister has assumed the position of Prime Minister against the wishes of the people —he has taken up the position of Prime Minister against the wishes of the people, and he is going to use this Bill in order to dig himself in, so that he may remain in power after the next election. That is the object, and that is the object of the Bill—to keep that party in power. The means which are being applied here to achieve that object are not legitimate means. The means which are being employed to have the provisional roll used by the delimitation commissioners in fixing the quotas, are not legitimate. This is an illegitimate way of carrying out that object. What do the provisional voters’ rolls imply? The names of a large number of voters which should not be on those rolls appear on those provisional lists. And under the provisions of this Bill these provisional rolls are to be used for the determination of the quotas. And the further provision that only one month’s domicile will be required to enable an elector to be placed on the roll is going to open the door to serious abuses. We know what is happening in the large towns such as Johannesburg, and we have already been told that it will be Johannesburg which, as a result of the amendment of the Act, will obtain a large number of additional seats. How are we going to get those additional seats? We know from experience that farmers and young men from time to time go to the towns—not to speak of married men who are out of employment—in order to get work there. They go to Johannesburg and it happens repeatedly that thousands of those people go to Johannesburg and stay there for at least a month in order to look for work. Those people who will not yet be permanent residents there will be placed on the voters’ rolls with the object of securing a larger number of voters for the Rand. I really believe that that will be one of the means which hon. members opposite will make use of. The hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) spoke about certain advantages being obtained for the Platteland by artificial means, but if ever artificial means are to be employed to get more members on the Rand we have an example of what will take place under this Bill. And it will be quite easy for them to do so. We know their methods, we know the old S.A.P. methods, and I can imagine how they will set about things immediately this Bill has been passed. A number of recruiters will go about attracting people to Johannesburg. The Unity Fund will be made use of in order to employ a number of recruiters on the Witwatersrand to get those young men who go and look for work on the Witwatersrand for a month put on the voters’ rolls.

Just like the storm troops.

Yes, we know how they set about things. They will proclaim the attractions of the Rand, and they will attract the young men to the Rand by telling them of some new mine or other kind of work being opened and those people will go there, and after a time they will find there is nothing doing, but when that time comes their names will already be on the provisional voters roll. We know the old S.A.P. methods. We know how they use the Defence Force for those purposes. How easy it will be to get a whole lot of people who are in a constituency just for a month put on the voters roll—they will have the qualification.

Potchefstroom will do so.

Yes, he will have that advantage, but they will do it in other areas as well in the same way. I know the methods which those people use for political purposes, and I remember only too well how they exploited the native vote all over the place when the natives still appeared on the ordinary voters rolls. I remember how the natives were exploited in a manner which was disgusting. I know the way natives were put on the voters rolls even though they did not have the necessary qualification. Natives as black as the ace of spades came to vote—one after another— till one could not tell them each from the other.

And all of them were called “January”.

Yes, they were all called January, or some name like that. I know of natives who could not read or write being taken into private rooms to be taught to make their cross, or to write their names. But that was the way the native vote was abused, so that we never knew where we were, and I am very much afraid that this Bill will be exploited in the same way.

Even dead natives voted.

The injustice done by things like this, by methods of this kind, is serious. These young men that I have mentioned who will be put on the voters’ rolls in this way will be deprived of their votes. For instance, after they have been a month in the big towns they will be registered, although they are not domiciled in the big towns; they live on the platteland, and when they return to the platteland and want to vote they will be told: “No, you cannot vote, you were registered in town.” and in that way they will be deprived of their vote. When the elections come, those people will not be in Johannesburg; they will be back on the platteland, because they will not be able to find work in the large towns. They will not be able to vote on the platteland and they will be unwilling to vote in the large towns. So in that way they will be deprived of their vote. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Mr. Johnson) is not in his seat at the moment, but he did a lot of boasting and he made a great point by saying that in his constituency there were from 60 per cent. to 70 per cent. of young Afrikaners domiciled there, and he told us that the majority of these people were Afrikaans-speaking. Those young Afrikaners are not in the majority in the big towns because if they were in the majority there, and if they had their votes in the large towns, the hon. member for Port Elizabeth would never have been a member of this House. The people whose services are being used in that way are not people who are going to help us, on this side of the House. If they are young Afrikaners they will be deprived of their vote in some way or another. I feel that another class of people who will be registered on the Witwatersrand will be mostly the foreigners arriving there, people who have no interest in South Africa; they are not patriots — they are people who do not know anything about patriotism. Those people whom hon. members are so concerned about — the people who are not being registered to-day — do not take much interest in the national life of South Africa. They are only temporary people, walking about there looking for temporary gains, and my hon. friends who are so insistent on their being registered want them to be placed on the voters’ rolls because it is costing them a lot of money out of the Unity Fund to-day to get them registered, and if those people are compelled to register, a lot of the Unity Fund money will be saved. That is why they are so concerned about getting those people put on the voters’ rolls. But once they are on the voters’ rolls, as an hon. member said, those people will not take the trouble to go to the poll, but hon. members opposite, with the large number of motor-cars at their disposal, will call for them and take them to the polling booths to record their votes. It does not matter whether they want to vote or not, they will be taken to the polling booths, and that is the way in which hon. members opposite expect to score. I say that that type of person is not, worth having on the voters’ roll. Those people who have not sufficient patriotism to see to it that they are registered are not worth having on the voters’ roll. And that is one of the reasons why I am not prepared to put myself out to vote for this Bill in order to give those people an opportunity of bringing their influence to bear in respect of the affairs of this country. There are a few other provisions in this Bill which I should like to say a few words on. First of all, there is the provision laying it down that more than one polling booth can be set up in one voting district. I should like to draw the Minister’s attention to this point, and I should like to hear from him why he makes provision in this Bill for an extra polling booth for women only being established in a voting district. Why for women only? I do not begrudge the women this privilege, they are welcome to it, more so to-day than they were in the days when a large number of natives with a very unpleasant smell used to force themselves in among the women to go and record their votes. But I do feel that that provision is not required to-day for women only. I have a large polling district where one area is probably larger than the whole of the Witwatersrand, and there is only one polling booth there — that is all we are entitled to under the present law. I should like the Minister to look into that point. He should make a provision that the arrangements for an additional polling booth being established should not apply only in the case of women, or women voters only, but that provision should be made, especially in the large constituencies such as my constituency, where we have about twenty voting districts, and which is twenty thousand square miles in extent, that more than one polling booth shall be made available for the electors in general, irrespective of whether they are women or not. I do not wish to detain the House any longer, but I just wish to utter one further word of warning. Hon. members opposite are busy digging a hole for this side of the House, and they are busy building a castle for themselves, but they must beware lest that castle tumbles about their heads. I am opposed to this Bill, and I am honestly convinced that after our experience of the 4th September last we are no longer able to trust that party which is now in power to carry out this Bill in the interest of South Africa. They will carry out the provisions of this Bill to their own advantage, and I do not trust them to do so in the interest of this country.

I represent a constituency which at the time of the last election had 8,400 voters on the voters’ roll, and of those 8,400 voters 7,909 recorded their votes. I mention this number in order to show that so far as numbers are concerned, I represent one of the large constituencies. But so far as I am concerned, it is not a matter whether my constituency is in the privileged position of having a large number of electors or not, or whether this particular provision is a matter of party politics or not, the question so far as I am concerned, is what is best for the people and for the country? And it is on that basis that I wish to deal with this matter. But before I say a few words about the Bill itself. I should like in passing to make a few remarks in connection with what the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) said here last night. Without accusing the other side of being inspired by party political intentions I cannot refrain from saying this in connection with the documents written by the hon. member for Kensington from which we had some quotations last night; in those documents he stated that urban electors should be protected against the ignorant poor whites, and I want to say that I wish to draw the hon. member’s attention to the fact that he belongs to a nation which is largely responsible for the fact that we have those poor whites; I should hesitate, if I were in his place, where his nation has contributed towards the ruin of those people, to repress them, and then to turn round and to accuse those people of being ignorant poor whites. But that really is not the point that I wish to talk about. I shall try to confine my remarks to the merits of this Bill. It is the custom in this country, and in any other country as well, according to circumstances and as circumstances change, to bring about amendments in the existing legislative provisions. In some cases it is most necessary that this should be done; it is useful, and it has to be done. As a matter of fact, one finds that there is hardly any law on our Statute Book where one does not find a marginal note “Amendment of Act so-and-so”. In this Bill now before us there are certain provisions making amendments for which I am definitely grateful. For instance, we have a provision here in which it is laid down that a man or a woman who is ill will have the privilege, which did not exist in the past, of being able to record their vote if they are confined to their bed within the constituency where they have to vote. Under the existing law if they were confined to bed ten yards outside the constituency they were able to record their vote by post, but they could not do so if they were in the constituency itself. This new provision lays it down that if a man or woman is ill and has a medical certificate he or she is able to record his or her vote, in addition to which the vote is called for at the address given. Another provision is that a blind man — if the proposed clause is agreed to — may obtain the services of a trustworthy person to vote on his behalf; that trustworthy person will make a cross on his behalf, while under the existing law the blind man is more or less obliged to make his choice public, and say whom he voted for. Very often such a blind person is dependent on others and is liable to get into trouble. For that reason I feel that this is a sound provision under which he can have his vote recorded by a trustworthy person. There are some other provisions which I am not in favour of. Among those is the provision that in future people on changing their domicile are able to have their names placed on the roll after having been domiciled in their new place of residence for one month, instead of three months as was required under the old law. Under this new provision it will be quite easy for abuses to creep in. We heard this afternoon from the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) that if in the past a person was one day late for registration under the biennial registration he had to wait two years before he could be placed on the roll again. The hon. member told us that provision had been made so that a qualified voter could be registered every three or six months. So, the original objection has been removed, and for that reason I cannot agree to the proposal that people should be able to have their names placed on the voters’ roll one month after they have taken up domicile in a new constituency. Such a provision lends itself to too much abuse. In spite of the fact that an Act is amended from time to time it happens very rarely that a change is made in the main principle of an Act. We are dealing here with a very important principle, and when the important principle is amended, such as in the Act of Union, for instance, this should only be done by a two-thirds majority of both Houses. I was saying that in spite of the fact that an Act is amended from time to time it is not easy for the principle of an Act to be amended, and that in respect of the Act of Union itself amendments should only be made by a large majority being in favour of such amendments. In this Bill now before us we find that certain amendments are being suggested, and these amendments are indirectly going to amend the main principle on which Union was established. The hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. H. van der Merwe) stated that the amendment which we have suggested was going to affect the main principle of the Electoral Act. I shall try to prove the opposite. I say that by accepting this amendment we are not going to touch the underlying principle of the Electoral Act. In the main principle of the Electoral Act of this country we have one definite principle laid down, namely the principle of greater representation for the platteland. In other words we have it laid down there that one platteland voter shall have the same voting power as one and one-third voter in the towns. In other words, three platteland voters have as much representation as four urban voters. That is the underlying principle of the Act of Union which is provided for by this 15 per cent. play above and 15 per cent. below the quota laid down by the framers of the Act of Union. But the main point which is lost sight of by hon. members opposite is that the drift from the platteland to the towns has increased. In 1910 48 per cent. of the population was on the platteland; in 1936 only 34 per cent. of the population was on the platteland, and we have good reason to believe that that drift is very much greater to-day. I say that in view of that drift this 15 per cent. play must necessarily be increased, failing which the advantage given to the platteland elector will be reduced, and that was a definite advantage provided for the platteland voter at the time of Union. That principle which was accepted when Union was established should be acquiesced in by us particularly if we bear in mind the picture put before this House last night by the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) who told us the names of the men who had drafted that Act of Union, men for whom we had the greatest respect and still have the greatest respect, and if those men in their wisdom considered it necessary to give the platteland relatively greater voting power than the towns then I say there must be something in that attitude adopted by those men, because it is not only in South Africa that that principle has been introduced; it exists in other countries as well. The only difference is that the consideration as between the platteland and the towns in other parts of the world is larger than the play provided for in South Africa in 1910. The principle, however, remains the same. And now that the population is moving from the platteland to the towns, seeing that in 1936 we only had 34 per cent. of the population living on the platteland as against 48 per cent. in 1910, if we are to maintain the same proportion of 15 per cent. below and 15 per cent. above, it will mean that the voters of the platteland will no longer enjoy the same advantage as was provided for in 19 10; as a matter of fact we would actually be giving the electors of the towns a definite advantage. If it is worked out it will be seen, taking into account the removal of voters, that the voting strength of the platteland electors as a result of this drift to the towns is no greater than the voting strength of the urban electors. In fact it is somewhat smaller. It works out that 18 electors on the platteland are equal to 17 electors in the towns if we take the drift from the platteland to the towns into consideration. If we want to keep pace with the principle laid down at the establishment of Union, the principle of an advantage being given to the platteland electors, we must increase that voting power, and in that case the platteland elector to-day should not represent one and one-third of a town voter, but one platteland elector should be equal to one and fifteen-seventeenths of a town elector. In other words, if that principle were to be carried to its logical conclusion one Platteland elector should to all intents and purposes have the voting strength of two electors in the towns. That would be carrying the principle to its logical conclusion — the principle laid down at the time of the establishment of Union. I have stated that in the Bill now before the House unless the amendments proposed by the hon. member for Moorreesburg is agreed to, we shall be violating the principle of preference being given to the Platteland, and we shall not be giving effect to what was in the minds of the framers of the Act of Union, nor shall we be carrying out the custom existing in other parts of the world. Those principles can only be maintained — and those principles have been laid down for very good reasons — I do not want to go into those reasons again because they have been clearly enumerated here, and it has been clearly explained why the Platteland should have a greater degree of representation than the towns — but if we want to carry that principle to its logical conclusion then we should raise that percentage. The only question is to what extent should we raise it? If one takes into account the numbers of electors who have moved from the Platteland into the towns, the total play, the total bias should not be 30 per cent. but 42 per cent. That is to say we should provide for 21 per cent. below the quota, and 21 per cent. over the quota. The hon. member for Moorreesburg in his amendment proposed 20 per cent. below and 20 per cent. above. The provision in regard to compulsory registration means that the removal of voters from the Platteland to the towns will be used for the purpose of violating that principle of our Constitution, if the contention is correct that the townspeople more than other voters are not anxious to have their names placed on the voters’ roll. Under compulsory registration those voters who have moved from the Platteland to the town will be placed on the voters’ roll and although I am not very enthusiastic about compulsory registration, the result will be that the voters who move from the Platteland to the town will be placed on the voters’ roll, and for that reason we are obliged to accept the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Moorreesburg so as to maintain the principle laid down when Union was established. I say again that according to the figures, if we want to keep pace with the numerical strength laid down at the time of Union, this amendment should have read 21 per cent. and not 20 per cent. For that reason I say that the amendment is fair and reasonable, and I have much pleasure in giving it my support.

I rise to support the amendment of the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus). But before I deal with his amendment I cannot refrain from drawing the attention of the House to what the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. H. van der Merwe) has said. When we are dealing with an important Bill like this, a Bill which may have such serious consequences, we should consider it on its merits and we should not get up here and try to make jokes like the hon. member for Potchefstroom tried to do. I take it he was joking, because there was not a sound argument in the whole of his speech against the arguments used by the Opposition. He spoke about the franchise of members of the Defence Force, or men under military service. That is one point which I wish to mention in connection with this Bill and to which I should like this House to give its attention. We know that under this Bill it will be possible for a person to get his name placed on the voters’ roll within a month. Assuming the delimitation commission visits Potchefstroom where there is a military camp, with the result that four or five thousand military people are registered there. Well, the delimitation commission takes that into account and it may then be that it decides to establish another constituency there. Those troops go away and we shall then have the position that we shall have a representative in this Parliament without any electors. It will mean that we shall have a large area of bare ground which will have a parliamentary representative here. That is a point we cannot get away from, and I feel that this House should bear that in mind. Now there is a point I wish to put to the Minister. He was present in the House when the right hon. the Prime Minister got up and gave his reasons why he was in such a hurry with the legislation which he wanted this House to pass during this session. He told us that he did not propose during this session to introduce any important Bills as special war measures had to be disposed of, and he wished to finish those special war measures, and that was one of the reasons why he deprived private members of their Friday afternoons. I now wish to show this House and the Minister what happened on that first Friday which was taken away from private members. The whole of that Friday afternoon was taken up by this House in discussing the question of the pay of members of Parliament, and this Bill now before the House has nothing to do with the welfare of the people, nor does it aim at doing anything to improve their position; all it aims at is to give this Government the opportunity of remaining at the head of affairs somewhat longer. The first Bill concerned the financial interests of members themselves, and now the Government comes along with this Bill to enable them to get more constituencies in the towns because they know that in three years’ time we shall have a general election and they want to have additional constituencies in the towns so as to make it possible for this Government to be returned to power. The main reason for the introduction of this Bill is that which has already been mentioned by this side of the House—it naturally is nothing but a last straw which is being clutched at by this Government in an attempt to prolong its life. The Government does not want an election now knowing that there are insufficient people to support it and return it to power, and for that reason it takes refuge in Bills of this kind which we are now dealing with.

We have heard that before

Yes, and the hon. member will have to hear it a hundred times before he understands it, because it takes him a long time to appreciate anything sensible. We on this side of the House without exception agree with one thing said by hon. members opposite. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. Johnson) stated that we wanted a greater degree of political honesty. I want to tell him that not one of us does not heartily agree with him, nor is there anyone on this side who will not support him if he should make an attempt to get his own side put in order. All of us want to deal with the matter honestly and straighforwardly when a Bill is brought before this House, and we do not want the Minister to try and hide facts from us—we want him to tell us honestly why a particular measure is being introduced. The objection of the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) to the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Moorreesburg is that the choice of members for the introduction of this amendment has been a very unfortunate one. There is no need for me to defend the hon. member for Moorreesburg. Quite enough has been said here to prove the importance of this amendment, but I want to ask hon. members opposite whether they do not think that the fact of the hon. member for Kensington being opposed to this amendment constitutes a good reason why every Afrikaner in South Africa should support the amendment. I remember when I was still at the university the hon. member for Kensington attended a dinner at the university; this was during the war and during his speech on that occasion he did not say one word that was favourable to South Africa, he only spoke about British Imperialism. In the Government which we have now he sees British Imperialism on top, and now he wants to keep this Government in power, and that is why he is opposed to the amendment by the hon. member for Moorreesburg, but the hon. member is terribly anxious to see this Bill pass through this House. What is going to happen, or what may happen in practice if this Bill is put into force? We want to ask hon. members opposite to bear this in mind. Is there any hon. member opposite who can tell us that in any town in South Africa an Afrikaans spirit prevails? Of course not. Sometimes when one walks about the big towns one can imagine oneself in little England, and if this Bill is given effect to the towns will obtain an even greater influence over the government of the country. The hon. member for Potchefstroom fails to realise that this Bill will be the cause of a reduction in the number of platteland seats, and an increase in the number of urban seats. If one increases the number of urban seats the result will be that in the legislative body of South Africa there will be a strong representation of the un-Afrikaans spirit which one finds in many of our towns. Thousands of immigrants come into this country, and most of them proceed to live in the large towns. Those immigrants who have just come to this country are not animated with the Afrikaans spirit of the old population of South Africa, and if one wants to govern this country along the best lines possible one has to adhere to and take into account the old customs and traditions of our ancestors. I feel that one of the reasons why this 15 per cent. bias was accepted at the time of unification was to ensure that the spirit of the Platteland population should prevail in this country, that it should be reflected in this House. Has one ever heard the repesentatives of urban constituencies putting up a plea for the Platteland? Ever since yesterday I have been listening here to see whether any urban representative was going to say anything about the white section of the community, especially on behalf of the poor. I am even overlooking the fact that the hon. member for Kensington sneeringly spoke about the ignorant poor whites. That is not the sort of pleading I am referring to. Those so called poor whites, those ignorant poor whites, I want to tell the hon. member, were brought to the position in which they find themselves to-day as a result of urban influences being too strong for them, as a result of urban influences having sucked the blood out of them, and having turned them into poor whites. I want to tell the Minister that we are gratified at the fact of his having agreed not to apply compulsory registration to the non-European voters. That goes to show that the Minister possibly has no great confidence in his own Bill, and as a matter of fact we know why the Minister has withdrawn that proposal. Platteland representatives opposite were dissatisfied with the Bill and the Minister compromised and told them that he would leave out the coloured voters, but if he did so they were to remain silent and only the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. H. van der Mewe) was to be allowed to tell a few jokes.

I am sorry to have to disappoint you, this matter was not before the Caucus.

I am beginning to doubt this so called democratic Government more and more. It has been shewn that there has been a great falling off in the Platteland population, and that the urban population has increased. I do not want to repeat why this is detrimental and why this Bill is so undesirable, but I believe that the Minister fails to realise the extent to which the Platteland population is drifting to the towns. Let me take the period from 1911 to 1921. In those years the drift from the Platteland to the towns was not as great as it is to-day. I have taken a number of fiscal constituents of the Platteland, or let us call them magisterial districts. In the Cape Province I have taken seventy two magisterial districts of the Platteland, and in those the population in fifty six areas has decreased while in sixteen other areas there has been an increase in population. In Natal I have taken thirty fiscal areas, in sixteen of which the population has dropped while in fourteen there has been a small increase. In the Free State I have taken twenty five divisions, in seven of which I have found a reduction and an increase in eight. In the Transvaal generally there has been a small increase, but those increases have been nothing in comparison to the increases in the towns. From 1911 to 1921 the population of the Platteland has increased from 617,956 to 676,111, in other words, in round figures by 59,000. The urban population in the same period increased from 658,286 to 846,331, an increase of 200,000. In other words the population of the Platteland increased by only 9 per cent. while the urban population increased by 28 per cent. I should like to quote from some “afterthoughts” on the Poor White Congress of 1923 and also from the official census returns. I have here an “aftrthought” by Dr. Malan, and I want to quote this to show the extent of the drift of the Platteland population to the towns. This is what Dr. Malan says—

Now the Minister will be able to see from that that about 45 per cent. or 7,000 people have drifted to the towns every year, and if the Minister wants to carry on as he is doing now and every five or ten years do what he is doing in this Bill, it will mean that the Platteland’s interests will within a measurable distance of time be without any representation. Dr. Malan goes on to say—

Every year, at a time when the drift to the towns was not as large as it is to-day, 7,000 people marched to the towns. I read further—

I do not think the Minister or the Government have realised the extent of the trek of the white population to the towns. And then Dr. Malan goes on—

I want the Minister to bear these arguments in mind, and to realise the dangers which are mentioned here. Before I conclude I wish to say again that I appreciate the fact that the Minister has left the coloured people out of this. We are dealing here with white voters and with white people only, and when I say this I want to say at the same time that it tends to show the extent to which the Government has deteriorated, the extent to which it has progressed in this House where we are concerned with white voters, when native representatives are able to get up here and talk in favour of this Bill. This is something which we on this side of the House and hon. members on the other side of the House cannot tolerate, and what is worse is that the person who got up to speak, the hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno) went so far as to let it appear in his speech that he wanted the natives to be treated on the same basis as the white population. I want to ask hon. members opposite whether they are prepared to allow this Bill to be passed with the assistance of the native vote? Are they prepared to allow the native representatives to speak here and to vote on matters which only concern the white population?

What does it all mean?

I do not know whether the hon. member said yes. I know that the native representatives are here in accordance with the Act; but this goes to show all the more clearly that we may pass laws here which may have very bitter results and which afterwards may put us in a position where natives may be able to tell us what kind of people shall have the right to be placed on the voters’ rolls end how the voters’ rolls are to be compiled. I want to register my protest against members who do not represent one white voter coming here to tell us what sort of bills should be passed— bills which only concern white electors. The hon. member who spoke here said that if they did not have the right to talk on bills affecting white people we should not have the right either to speak on Bills affecting natives. Of course we have the right to talk on such Bills seeing that we are the guardians of the native and what is more we have to pay the money on behalf of the natives, And seeing that we have to pay for them, and seeing that we are their guardians we are also entitled to talk about them. As against that we have the fact that the natives do not pay anything on our behalf—they do not keep us alive. We want to register our emphatic protest against native representatives coming here and interfering—I do not even want to talk about the war—but interfering in matters which only concern the white population.

I wish to oppose this Bill. I do not only wish to oppose it on certain definite points, but I consider that this Bill should be condemned by any person who calls himself an Afrikaner. I am pleased to see the Afrikaans-speaking section of members opposite present in their seats. There are two Afrikaans-speaking members there and I know that they feel very uneasy.

Not so uneasy as you feel.

The hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. H. van der Merwe) got up here and started off by making excuses.

You must have been dreaming again as usual.

The hon. member said that we need not think that there was any reason why they should be ashamed of themselves.

Do you call that making excuses?

Yes, he is quite right. If they fail to speak on this Bill they should be ashamed of themselves. But where I do not agree with the hon. member is where he said the wrong thing. The Minister of the Interior is a moralist sometimes. He told us that we should not think of politics in dealing with this Bill—we should bear in mind the actual position prevailing in the country. May I remind the hon. the Minister of what their boss, the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell), said many years ago? I should like to engrave this on the minds of my fellow Afrikaners, because this is what the hon. member for Kensington, the Government’s boss, stated. I have here a SAPA message, and the hon. member speaking on the 8th November, 1939, five months ago, said this—he said this even before the Minister knew that he was going to introduce this Bill. Even in those days the hon. member for Kensington knew what was going to happen. This is what he said—

This is what he said at a meeting of the general Council of the Women’s South African Party. They are having competition to-day among certain members of the Government party to speak and express their views at these meetings of some women’s council.

Yes, they are our strongest supporters.

He further stated that compulsory registration and the removal of certain anomalies in the Electoral Act would give an additional eight or ten seats to the Witwatersrand. And this is what the hon. member said—

I have already stated that that is what the Government’s boss said.

Who is the Government’s boss?

The hon. member for Kensington.

As usual you are talking nonsense.

It is not nonsense.

It is, but if that is so I would advise members, if they want anything from the Government to go to the hon. member for Kensington.

Is the hon. member for Potchefstroom a stranger in Jerusalem? Surely we know what the hon. member for Kensington has said, and we know what his attitude is. Now the hon. the Minister of the Interior comes here passively, patiently, compulsorily, and willingly on the instructions of his big boss, and he carries out the instructions given to him, given to him as long ago as the 8th December. And he actually succeeds in telling us without blushing— and we know that he often blushes — that what we have here before us is not a pure political set up being played against the country. We of the platteland are going to oppose this Bill and we are going to do so because it is unfair, not only that certain political advantages shall be given to that party over there, but because we do not want those political advantages to be handed over to a band, yes, I say a band, of former robbers — people who are prepared to suck this country dry like oranges and then throw it aside.

You are saying some nasty things now.

It is for that reason that I make such a serious appeal to hon. members opposite. The hon. member for Frankfort (Brig.-Gen. Botha) who is an Afrikaans-speaking member is so occupied with the business of the khaki knights that he does not understand this Bill. I am sorry that I cannot depend on the hon. member’s support. I am afraid he has not had the time to read this Bill. Hon. members opposite do not appreciate the seriousness of this document — this death-dealing document for the Afrikaner nation which they are subscribing to. I do not doubt the bona fides of my friends over there, but I deplore their ignorance, and the terrible confidence which they repose in people who cannot be trusted. There are two Transvaal members over there; we need their assistance. If this Bill is passed, what is going to become of the Afrikaner children? I want to tell them this, they are busy handing over the Afrikaner children to the mining magnates of the Rand who are even worse than the Shylocks of this country. They should realise that one may go a certain length in the sacrifices one makes, in order to gain party political advantages, but one cannot go too far, and if those hon. members over there are prepared to give the power over the Transvaal into the hands of those outlanders — because the people we have in this big City of Johannesburg are mainly outlanders — if they are prepared to be dominated by outlanders and by foreign capital — if they are prepared to allow the future of our children to be placed in the hands of that type of person, then they are busy handing over our children to people who will turn them into poor whites and crossing sweepers.

The hon. member does not know what he is saying.

Yes, I know it only too well, and then the hon. member for Kensington comes here and talks about ignorant poor whites. I want to tell him that those ignorant poor whites are better people than many of his supporters and many of his mining magnates in Johannesburg. If one were to analyse those two people one by one and if one were to put a mirror in their insides one would find that the poor white man is the gentleman, the aristocrat, and not the other man. We are poor to-day; I admit that we are all poor, but we are poor as a result of the methods which are again being used against us with the object of strangling the Afrikaner, and making our nation a nation of servants and slaves. This is not a new thing, we have known it for the last hundred years, and even at this late hour I want to make an appeal to my fellow Afrikaners on the other side, because they do not realise what is going on. Even though the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. H. van der Merwe) has defended the Bill I still want to ask him to vote on the right side. I am somewhat nervous however, because after he had spoken I noticed the hon. member for Kensington and the hon. member for Pretoria (City) (Mr. Davis) and the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) going over and shaking hands with him, and I do not know whether he is really proud of those congratulations, so I am not sure, whether we shall be able to persuade him. We have been pleading here this evening, and we have been giving sound reasons to show why this monstrosity called the “Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill” should not be passed. But while we were doing so there have been only seven and sometimes even five members on the Government benches. The people expect us as the Opposition to convince those hon. members of the error of their ways, but how can we convince them if they are not here. May I be allowed now to make an appeal to my fellow Afrikaners over there? I want to describe this Bill as the “Urban Constituencies Favouritism Bill”.

That is the correct name — all the other things are only varnish put over the top. I look at this Bill in relation to the Industrial Bill. I look at it in relation to the War Measures Bill. I look at it side by side with all the other Bills which have been introduced in this House since this present Government was formed. Before the present Cabinet was formed the anglisation of our country was the great object, and ever since the Cabinet has been sworn in, that has been the motive and all measures introduced here since that time have been introduced with the great ideal of anglisation in view. The moment we leave this House we see an example of that — we see the Union Jack hoisted from the main pole of the Government buildings in place of the Union flag.

What do you think should be there?

The Union flag has always been there. This Bill now before the House is a Bill which is in conflict with every conception of right and justice. We are dealing with a condition of affairs which was specially admitted and laid down when Union was established — it was laid down by the National Convention. It is a well-known fact that the Anglo-Boer War was waged because of this great question. It was waged on behalf of those foreigners whom the Government now wishes to turn into Union citizens, people who have entered this country illegally, and on whose behalf they now want to create new constituencies. Here are the very people to whom President Kruger refused to give the franchise — they are the people on whose account the Anglo-Boer War was fought. I ask my fellow Afrikaners whether they are going to swallow this to-day. I know that the hon. member for Frankfort fought for this self same cause in 1899. In those days he waged battle for the preservation of the right of the Afrikaners to have a say in South Africa. In those days he was opposed to foreigners having a say here, and now I want to know from him….

In those days it was a question of the franchise — this is the question of registration.

Who are the uitlanders, am I an uitlander?

No, but has the hon. member ever been in Johannesburg? He will be able to find out if he asks the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Henderson) how many people there are in Johannesburg who should not be there at all. The number is about 44,000 and those are the people to whom they want to give the franchise.

Nonsense!

To-morrow or next week those people will get the franchise if this Government remain in power. I say that in this problem of the domination by the uitlanders in this country there is nothing new; we have had it for generations in this country, and hon. members should not imagine that they will get away with it as easily as all that. We have to think before we vote, and I want hon. members to remember what the hon. member for Griqualand (Mr. Gilson) said about people who voted against their own nation. If hon. members bear that in mind….

The hon. member is really straying rather far away from the subject.

I bow to your ruling if you say so, but I want to point out that if hon. members vote for this Bill it is their own nation which will be trampled down and if others want to stand up for their nation I think I am entitled to make an appeal to my fellow Afrikaners to ask them to stand together. I see only one course here, and they are sticking to that course. And that course is that the voting power of the platteland has to be broken down, and that the voting power shall be concentrated in the towns and eventually they will give the uitlanders the franchise, and they will send them to a constituency for a month, where an election is to take place, and so it will go on, and when the time comes for the Prime Minister to disappear from the stage there will be no more Afrikaners left on that side, because the three who are left will also run away. By that time the uitlanders will be so strong that they will be able to carry on without the help of the Afrikaners. I assure this House that I am not a false prophet when I say that it is the Government’s object systematically to anglicise this country so that when the day comes when the Prime Minister will not longer be there to take the lead as an old Boer general, and when the few Afrikaans-speaking members will no longer be on that side, the English-speaking section will have to be strong enough to use the Afrikaners as the hewers of wood and the carriers of water in their own country. There is one thing which we can do.

Saddle up!

Yes, we shall saddle up. We have done so before to-day and we shall attack them again. What surprises me more than anything else is that we have been told that this Cabinet is a War Cabinet and that it is composed of all groups and all parts of the community. That is a solemn declaration which has been made to us. Do hon. members imagine that such a War Cabinet should interfere with such an important question as our Constitution, and drag it out of its context? Surely it was provided that the platteland was to be given a certain degree of preference, and now this War Cabinet comes along and, let me say in parenthesis, while the Minister of the Interior is present, that they have come along here with a Bill which nobody has asked for with the exception of the party organisers and also their great boss, the hon. member for Kensington, but they fail to do what the people want them to do. This Government fails to do what the people have requested of them, they have failed to carry out the promise made by the Minister of the Interior, that the legislation in connection with the Indian question which has been standing over for many years would be disposed of this year.

We cannot go into that now.

That is so, but it is the Minister of the Interior who told the people outside that only the most urgent legislation would be brought up and yet they come along here with a Bill to oppress the Afrikaner, and to secure a lever in their own hands so as to finish off the Afrikaner once and for all.

Are you not ashamed of yourself?

I should be ashamed of myself if I were the hon. member for Potchefstroom and if I sat where he is sitting. I wish the hon. member for Potchefstroom would get up and demand the introduction of the Bill dealing with Asiatics during this session. I say that this War Cabinet has not the right to introduce the Bill now before the House, a Bill which aims at interfering with the Electoral Act. I ask the House whether it is the correct thing for a War Cabinet to occupy itself with the amendment of the Electoral Act? We have heard a great deal about this being the unanimous report of the select committee. I want to say that I distrust the whole of this report as much as I distrust the hon. member for Kensington. There are hon. members here whom I warned last year that they should keep their eyes open because the hon. member for Kensington was a snooper” — he will snoop among them and he has succeeded in getting this done in a tactful manner. The select committee were so busy that they were unable to go into all the aspects which they had been instructed to go into. What was submitted to us when the select committee was appointed was that they were to go into the question as to how all the minor defects in the Electoral Act might be remedied. I ask hon. members who were members of the United Party in those days whether the position was not put before us in that way, that the select committee was intended to go into certain anomalies such as those in connection with voting by post or sick persons, or blind persons, whether the Electoral Act could be amended in such a way that it would answer its purpose more effectively without making those people suffer, and whether it could be amended so as to make it work more easily. That was the instruction given to the select committee.

I made perfectly clear what my object was.

Yes, the hon. member explained what his object was above ground, but not what he intended doing underground. I say that I reject that report and everything connected with it, and the people of South Africa will reject it too. We do net want to be pushed into a condition of affairs where we shall have to sign our own fate for the rest of our lives, and I say again that this War Cabinet has not the right to occupy itself with a matter such as this. I can foresee that ere long the incorporation of countries like Basutoland and Swaziland may take place, and perhaps even other territories further North, in an effort to consolidate their forces. That well known policy which we have learned to understand in the last hundred years will be pursued again. They will give a few representatives to the protectorates so that they may obtain the necessary majorities in order to keep on governing us.

What about Southern Rhodesia?

No, they will not get Southern Rhodesia because Southern Rhodesia is too much afraid of bilingualism. All we have to tell them is that we are going to force them to talk Afrikaans and that will be the end of it. There is just one other point I want to deal with and that is this question of the drift to the towns. To my mind the Government has a totally wrong conception in regard to the balance between the electors of the Platteland and the electors in the urban areas. The Platteland to-day is under-populated to a certain extent in regard to what I would call its normal population. After the great depression, and the wonderful progress made in regard to industries and also the great progress of the Gold Mines, tremendous numbers of people drifted from the Platteland to those towns, and in those towns they have found means of livelihood for themselves. But to-day another process is going on, and I do not know whether the hon. member for Kensington knows anything about it. To-day the big traders who are sitting on the front benches on the Government side are dismissing the poor people who are in their employ, and those poor people are returning to the Platteland in order to make a living there. That is actually going on. Large numbers of people are being dismissed in Johannesburg and those people have to return to the Platteland so as to go and live there. If things become normal on the Platteland I anticipate that a large number of those people who have been in Johannesburg temporarily will return to the Platteland, and that is what I think will happen.

Then they will be registered on the Platteland.

Why be in such a hurry then with this Bill. It looks to me as though hon. members opposite want to register those people while they are in the towns, so that they may delimitate constituencies on the basis of the numerical strength now available in the towns, and when an election comes eventually those people will no longer be there. The only object of this Bill is to get new constituencies established for the towns, and to get over the next election, because constituencies will be taken away from the Platteland. The Government which is in power to-day has from the very start proved that it is a Government of the towns, a Government of the Housewives League, but not a Government of the Platteland, and it is again busy proving the same thing to us. Those Platteland seats which will be cut out as a result of this Bill will have the effect of the Platteland not being properly represented. I am not thinking now of the trouble which members have in holding meetings in their constituencies. I am not thinking of the sacrifices they have to make to keep in touch with their electors, but I am thinking of the damage that is being done to the large public of the Platteland because they will have practically no representation left. A member of Parliament representing a Platteland constituency knows that if his colleague representing an urban area gets one letter to reply to, he gets 100 and more to reply to. I say that a member of Parliament is unable to do any more work than he is doing if he is representative of a Platteland constituency. If eight or ten Platteland seats are cut out in the Transvaal I say that those people on the Platteland will no longer have the representation to which they are entitled. They have the right to expect something better and to ask why this Government is treating them like step children and why it is taking away their representation. That is what they will ask and we shall tell them why it is being done. We shall tell them the whole story and it will not be the story which the Minister of the Interior has told us here to-day. We shall tell them the whole truth. An hon. member opposite asked that we should help them to turn this Bill into a good Bill. I wonder who that reasonable member was?

It was the hon. member for Carolina (Mr. Fourie).

They can show their good feelings by starting off to accept the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Moorreesburg. We should bear in mind that when the Union was established the western border of white civilisation was the western border of the Transvaal. Where does that border lie now? There were great deserts where to-day we find Vryburg, Kuruman, Gordonia and such constituencies.

How many voters do you represent?

I can tell the hon. the Minister that I represent a type of elector such as he does not get in his constituency. I want to tell him that I have more than 5,000 tip-top Afrikaners as my electors. They are the type of people the older ones of whom have gone through thick and thin for their country, and the younger ones are the sons of those well-known people of whom this country is proud. My hon. friend has not that type of elector in his constituency. And what is more, all of them are pure white.

They have not been blended.

I do not like to boast but I am extremely proud of the electorate of Delarey. I do not think there is another constituency in this country which can produce as clean and independent a crowd of young Afrikaners as my constituency can. Let me tell my hon. friend that recently the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) and the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) held a meeting in my constituency, and at the end of the meeting they said to me….

I do not think that really has anything to do with the Bill before the House.

I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, that I should have transgressed. As we have been hearing a lot about the theory of one man one vote I should like to say what those hon. members said to me, and I can call the hon. member for Gezina and the hon. member for Wolmaransstad in testimony of the type of voters there are in the Delarey constituency.

What will the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) do if he goes there?

I am quite willing to go.

No, the hon. member need not come, because he will never succeed in convincing the people of Delarey that his geese are all swans. The hon. member would feel more at home in the Castle or Salt River constituencies. Those are constituencies where he can make people believe anything. Even though we on the platteland do not represent so many votes, I ask hon. members to look at the quality of the votes. There is one thing I must honestly admit, and that is that I have a higher opinion of the electors of Kensington than of their representative. There are some very good people in Kensington. I hope the people will wake up. When we have carried out what is proposed now, I hope the effect will be that the people will get frightened and will wake up. We are going to vote here against a monstrosity. We shall be out-voted, and when we have been out-voted the matter will be taken to the court of appeal, to the electors of South Africa. It takes them a long time occasionally to give their verdict, but when they give their verdict I shall be sorry for my hon. friends opposite.

I do not like this Bill, because I think it is a measure which has made its appearance in this House in a very unpractical and unnatural way. I became suspicious about this Bill because it was introduced in such a pious and ingratiating way by the Minister of the Interior. He tried to soothe the baby, and tried to propitiate us by saying from the outset: I hope this Bill will have an easy passage. I do not like this Bill because it has the enthusiastic support of the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell), and I do not like the Bill and I am suspicious because the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. H. van der Merwe) became so very hysterical when he was defending the Bill. These are all signs to me that there is danger lurking in this measure. When the wise fathers of the National Convention were sitting it was one of the greatest matters which made their job difficult, and in all their wise deliberations they incorporated this section 40 into the South Africa Act, especially sub-section (3) of section 40, which I would like to read out and stress in order to refresh the memories of hon. members in connection with it—

1. (a) community or diversity of interests;
2. (b) means of communication;
3. (c) physical features;
4. (d) existing electoral boundaries;

And then I want to emphasise the following—

1. (e) sparsity and density of population in such a manner that, while taking the quota of votes as the basis of division, the commissioners may, whenever they deem it necessary, depart therefrom, but in no case to any greater extent than 15 per centum more or 15 per centum less than the quota.

With regard to the motive that there is behind the incorporation of that clause, I can only read one thing into it, and it is that the fathers of the National Convention were determined to give expression to a conception which had become a tradition in all countries of importance. I say that it is traditional, and as hon. members have shown, specific provision has also been made in countries like England, Canada and New Zealand, to guarantee the permanent section of the population, which can be found in the country districts of almost every country against the predominance of elements who go to the towns, but only remain there possibly for a short time, possibly only for a period of prosperity, when everything goes well, but who desert the town as soon as there is a reaction, just like rats which leave a sinking ship. That is the danger which the members of the National Convention foresaw when they drafted the constitution, under which the four colonies agreed to form the Union of South Africa. We cannot get away from the fact that conditions in South Africa are identical with many of the cases in older countries. The rural population, English-speaking or Afrikaans-speaking, remains the permanent section of the population. Hon. members have stressed here that this Bill is possibly aimed not at having the exclusive effect of reducing the power and say of the Afrikaans-speaking section on the countryside, but in my constituency I only recently had a conversation with a farmer with an English name, and we discussed this matter, and he pointed out that it would be a sin and a shame if we should actually reduce the influence of the permanent section of the population of this country. The rural population, the permanent section of the people, has always yet been the soul of any nation, and we cannot reduce the say of that section in this House. I make bold to say that many hon. members opposite, English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking, subscribe to every word that I am saying here, namely, that South Africa cannot permit the inconstant section of the population, as long as there is a benefit to be got, as long as there is anything to be obtained, to have the dominating say in the country. I want to say emphatically that the result of the measure of the Minister of the Interior will be that the equilibrium of power will be put on the section of the population which is not permanent, and that is a dangerous step, because if in a wave of enthusiasm you should possibly do it, possibly for a temporary party political advantage, you will have to work doubly hard to retrace your steps again. We are dealing with a Bill which is of such drastic importance to the future of the country, that you should think twice before you pass it. The motive which is probably behind the Bill has been clearly brought to light by the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell), who at the time led the deputation to Pretoria, while, as is whispered, influence was also exercised by the Minister of Justice. I hope that the Minister of Lands, who has become an influential person in the Cabinet, will take a little notice of this, and will ask himself the question where the Bill will ultimately lead us to, if you decide to reduce the vested permanent section of the population of the countryside, which, without wanting to reflect on the urban population, has always hitherto constituted the aristocracy, whether of English-speaking people or of Afrikaans-speaking people, of any nation, if you proceed to reduce the influence of that section in this Legislative Assembly. No one can argue away that in the history of any people the country population has always hitherto had an ennobling influence on the people, because the rural section of the population is more conservative in its ideas than the urban population, and the rural population has to a great extent always hitherto set the direction in every country to the development in a national way, which every nation should adopt. Take, for instance, a country like Scotland. There the rural areas are divided up into certain constituencies, but not the towns. A town like Dundee is allocated three members of Parliament, without the town even being divided up, but the rural areas are considered so important that they are divided up and each part has its special and individual representative. We are not opposing this Bill in a frivolous spirit, and I want to appeal to the Minister of the Interior to allow the spirit of the National Convention to live again here. Rather let him, in the interests of South Africa, even advise his colleagues to convene, if possible another National Convention to deliberate on this weighty matter. Let the different provinces, which constitute the Union to-day, send delegates, and let them go into the Bill and agree to what extent security can be given with regard to the representation of the countryside, in view of prevailing circumstances. It has roughly been indicated that the rural population, which almost constituted 50 per cent. of the total population in 1910, amounted in 1936-’37 to only 34 per cent. of the population. The percentage of the population of the countryside has been tremendously reduced, and this is all the more reason for the matter to be considered. The amendment suggests that allowance should be made for the interests of the countryside, and that it should be prevented that the countryside might subsequently have an inferior position in this House. Section to of the constitution as drawn up by the National Convention considered certain possibilities, but owing to the alarming drop of the rural population as against the urban population, the time has come to review the section. A new compromise is required, a new guarantee to the countryside that it can retain its wholesome influence on the people as a whole, and can continue to indicate the national line which the people of South Africa can take. The hon. member for Kensington referred to the unanimous report which was made by the select committee last year, a select committee which received the following terms of reference from this House—

The hon. member himself, by implication, admitted that this Bill practically fell outside of the scope of the terms of reference. In the committee’s report that is also clearly admitted, because at the end we find the following recommendation — I hope that the Minister of the Interior will take special notice of the words—

The other factors support my argument, that we should not introduce a Bill of such a comprehensive nature in such haste. That, in itself, is a warning that the Minister of the Interior should have the Bill carefully gone into before such a drastic amendment is made. The matter is of so much importance, that a national convention would not be out of place to deliberate this matter, but if the Minister of the Interior thinks that this request goes too far, then a special commission can be appointed, or another select committee, to go into the matter and to report on the things which were not included in the terms of reference to the Select Committee of last year. For these reasons I want to emphasise again that we are not opposing this Bill in a frivolous spirit. The matter is far too serious. It is of so much importance that you dare not introduce such a measure purely for party political gain. It is of such drastic importance that you possibly cannot, in the heat of the moment, foresee the result of it, but you will possibly deplore the step, and it will be difficult to go back on it. For these reasons I have risen to express these few thoughts. I admit that in a certain respect the Bill does not satisfy me. We are constantly creating more new machinery. We already have machinery for the registration of aliens, and machinery for registering our voters, and we have machinery to register people liable to duty under the Defence Act. I do not know whether the Minister of the Interior should not rather accept the suggestion of the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan), to start a system of national registration now. In the long run that will work out cheaper, and it will then be easier to get a hold on the activities in the country, and a grip on the movements of the population, and also to fight the evil which has revealed itself so effectively of late years, that of aliens slinking into the country in an illegal way. It is alarming to learn from the Minister that 44,000 aliens who have not been naturalised are already in the country. With the white population that we have, we are running a danger that the character of the people of South Africa will ultimately be entirely changed if we do not take care. I fear that the evil which this Bill has in view, and which in my opinion is a real evil, will possibly ultimately be a factor which could be used to try and change the character of the population of South Africa entirely in the long run. For this reason I want again to emphasise that the Minister and his colleagues should seriously consider allowing this Bill to stand over, and appointing a new select committee, or an interim committee to go into the factors and things which have to be threshed out, and which the select committee of last year was not able to deal with. More than anything I want again to plead that the suggestion of the hon. member for Piquetberg should also be considered then. The hon. member for Kensington, as has been rightly said, is behind the measure. When the United Party still sat there like a solid phalanx, the hon. member looked very unhappy, but since the 4th September, his face usually glows with satisfaction and joy, because he is now in a position to make his powers better felt in the party, because he is now in a position to force the Government to bring forward measures such as the one we are now dealing with. I hope that hon. members opposite who represent rural interests, will go thoroughly into this whole question, and that they will realise what the result of legislation of this kind will be. We hope that they will realise that to force legislation of this kind through the House before the whole question has been gone into, will lead to very bad results.

At this late stage I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister to give effect to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus). I merely want to point out that the Bill as it stands now is unjust and unfair, it is one of the most unfair and unjust Bills we have ever had before this House. Hon. members on the other side of the House have pointed out that we had a select committee which dealt with this matter, and they contend that to appoint a further committee, would simply mean that the matter would be postponed indefinitely. I want to emphasise that such is not the purpose of this amendment. Our only aim is to satisfy all sections of the community in respect of this Bill which is of such importance. As far as the Select Committee is concerned which went into the matter. I want to say that I regret that I am unable to agree with what hon. members said in connection with the work of this Select Committee. I do not think they went into the matter fully. We heard from various members that the Select Committee did this and that. There are members who served on the Select Committee who somewhat neglected their duties by not being able to attend the sittings of the committee regularly. The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) was Chairman of the Select Committee, and has been described again as the villain of the piece. Or I would say in Afrikaans “die skurk van die spel.” That sounds stronger in Afrikaans, but I must admit that the hon. member for Kensington misled the committee to some extent, because if we study the Bill, we find that the recommendations of the Select Committee were based on the legislation of Australia. We know that the hon. member for Kensington came from Australia and he should be au fait with the legislation in force there. We also find that the Select Committee recommends that the system of compulsory registration as it is applied in Australia should be carried out here. And then the committee states that compulsory registration is working satisfactorily in Australia. As a result of this recommendation we find that the Bill before the House has been based on the Australian legislation. What is the position in Australia? I want to refer to a report of a select committee appointed by the Commonwealth of Australia. I have before me the report of the select committee and on that report the legislation of Australia was based. What does the report say? It is clear from the report that the legislation in Australia was not the success hon. members try to convey to us. In Australia they have a Federal Parliament and also Parliaments of the different States. In Australia they have voters’ lists for the Federal Council, and also voters’ lists for the individual States. I want to quote from the report—

That means that one of the States of Australia, the father of compulsory registration did not apply compulsory registration, and I am not surprised because there would be so much abuse of the Act that the position would become untenable. I want to mention one case. According to the report I am quoting from, 50 dummies were allowed on the voters’ list in one boarding-house. That is one case that was discovered, but many other similar cases can be quoted. Now I want to point out that the report before me clearly shows that compulsory registration was not a success in Australia—in any case it has not been proved that compulsory registration was a success. And yet our Select Committee comes along and bases its recommendation for compulsory registration on the legislation of Australia, and the way the legislation is carried out there. I think I am entitled to say that the Select Committee dealing with this matter did not go into the question thoroughly and that they never had before them these documents which supply a mass of information. If they had these documents before them, then they neglected their duty by not studying them carefully, but they allowed themselves to be misled by the Chairman who, I think, was au fait with results of such legislation in Australia. I, therefore, hope that hon. members of this House will not be carried away by the report of the Select Committee, but will pay attention to the report of the Committee which enquired into the matter in Australia. That report clearly shows that registration will not be improved by making it compulsory. That is apparent from the report of the Australian Committee. But there is another aspect of the case. If compulsory registration in our country has to be based on the example of Australia, then it will mean heavy expenditure. According to the report of the Committee it is costing the Parliament of Australia approximately £9,000 for the compilation of the compulsory registration forms alone. It is done by officials of the Post Office, Messengers of the Court and also by Police Officers, and then other people are appointed to carry out the provisions of the Act. From 15 shillings to £1 is paid for people supplying information for every 100 voters placed on the list. It will be a new field for “jobs for pals.” People will make application to get additional voters on the lists. Therefore, I hope that as far as compulsory registration is concerned the House will pay attention to the whole circumstances and will thoroughly inquire into the matter before agreeing to this proposal. There is something else I want to refer to. Compulsory registration will be useless and will not help us at all without compulsory voting, and I want to ask hon. members on the other side whether they are in favour of the introduction of compulsory voting? That would be the natural result of this step. Once we introduce compulsory registration, compulsory voting will follow. I hope the Minister has read the report of the Australian Committee. But it seems to me the Minister’s only aim is to put through this legislation. I can give the hon. the Minister the assurance that this Act will not turn out so well for his party as he may think to-day. The Government we have now will not remain in office long, once compulsory registration has been introduced. There will be more voters on the rolls, but the result will be that the Government now in office will not remain in office long. Let me say this, the Communists and Socialists sitting on the other side together with the United Party, still form an independent party and they will fight hon. members on the other side, and many of them will have to hand over their constituencies to Labour members and Socialists. But in addition the platteland will be incited against the towns and you will have an agrarian party and a town party. If there is anything which will be to the detriment of the people of South Africa, it is when the people in the cities are up in arms against the platteland, and vice versa. We will find that the interests of one section will be promoted at the expense of the other section. Our leaders in the past have always warned us not to incite the platteland against the towns, and vice versa. Coming next to the proposed amendments in the Electoral Act, I want to say at once that it is very unfair to give the same representation to a constituency where you have one person per square mile, or even less, whilst in the thickly populated areas you have 2,000 per square mile. You find that the average community is 4.24 persons per square mile, and in Cape Town you have 20.29 persons per square mile, coloureds included. But what is the position in a big constituency like mine? I have the figures here, and one finds for instance that in Kenhardt 0.66 person lives on a square mile, or less than one person per square mile. Is it fair and just in view of this position that the same basis of representation should apply all round? I only want to say that the members of the National Convention recognised that fact, and they differentiated to the extent of 15 per cent. But I maintain that the changed conditions, where many people have flocked to the towns, make desirable a wider margin between the towns and the platteland. That is not something new in South Africa, it is not a differentiation only applied in South Africa. Reference was made to New Zealand, but that quotation was not quite correct. I want to read the provisions in the Constitution of New Zealand, namely—

We are always referring to other countries, and here we find that in the first instance in New Zealand there was a margin of 33⅓ per cent. Afterwards they went back on that, and Parliament altered the provision and laid down a quota of 18 per cent. They came, however, to the conclusion that that was not fair and just towards the platteland, that it was unfair towards the rural population which has to carry the whole country, and they went back to 28 per cent. There we have an example to follow. Where that is the position in other countries I hope the Government will not act hastily in this matter, but that the Government will instruct a select committee to go into this matter very carefully. I want to assure hon. members that this provision is going to do an injustice to people on the platteland and it will cause difficulties in future. It will also cause a lot of dissatisfaction on the platteland. We must bear in mind the position and cannot allow the towns to dictate what has to be done in the country, because the settled population of the Union should have control. Here you have the position that many people have migrated from the platteland and they go to the towns because they feel dissatisfied and believe that they are not treated justly. The position of the man on the platteland cannot be compared to that of the town dweller. If you look at the housing schemes you will notice that money is spent on….

The hon. member cannot discuss that matter.

I am only comparing the two, and I say that the rural inhabitant becomes dissatisfied because his rights are watered away and given to the people in the cities. In passing, I want to point out that we have housing schemes and there the people in the rural areas find that they are not enjoying the same privileges as the people in the towns. We must prevent such things happening and we must not do anything which will increase the dissatisfaction of the people in the rural areas. I want to say that if the Government tries to remain in office by a re-division of seats, they will not succeed. The Jameson government tried that. I want to warn the Government of to-day that they may attempt to change the constituencies under the Act, but it will be of no avail. Let us be fair in this matter and not try to exploit the Bill for political purposes. Let us appoint some of our best members on both sides to introduce a Bill which will be effective and will give satisfaction to the people. If the Government will be wise and act accordingly, they will receive a larger measure of support from the people. Then the people will see that the Government is out to do justice and they will be satisfied and the Government will strengthen its position. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to reconsider the matter and to submit to the other members of the Cabinet the suggestion to refer this Bill to a select committee, because some of the matters which are brought before this House now never came before the select committee, and they are matters of vital importance to the country.

I regret to notice that the hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno) is not in his seat, because I do not only want to express my amazement but also strong disapproval that he saw fit to participate in this debate. I cannot deny that the hon. member has the legal right to speak on this Bill and to vote on it. But I want to ask with what moral right he takes part in the discussion on a Bill which does not affect a single voter of his? He excused himself by stating that the franchise enjoyed by the natives in the Cape, should be extended to the other provinces, but there is no justification for the discussion of that matter on this Bill. His voters are not touched by this Bill, either directly or indirectly, and I can only express the opinion that if native representatives interfere in connection with these matters and vote on them, they show that the experiment of granting separate representation to natives with these rights was a mistake, and that it was wrong to give representation to the natives in that manner, because they have a say in connection with-matters which do not affect the natives in any way. There are certain provisions in the Bill which I do welcome, particularly the provision made for persons who are physically disabled. They will be placed in a position to exercise their franchise. Yet I cannot approve of this Bill and cannot sanction the big principle contained therein. I am opposed to the principle of compulsory registration. The Bill will cause inconvenience to the public, and there is no justification for it. Not only will it be compulsory for every boy and girl when they reach the age of 21 to see to it that they are enrolled, but they have to make sure that their names appear on the voters’ list at every biennial registration. By this legislation we are going to place an unnecessary burden on the public, particularly the public on the platteland. In our thinly populated areas and in the outlying districts, far away from registration offices, it will cause inconvenience, loss of time and expense to the public, to comply with this Act, and this Act is not justified at this juncture. It is certainly not justified in a country which is thinly populated, where you have a small population in a large area. Why is this Bill introduced into the House at this juncture? There is no indication that the people in the country desire this Bill. I am not aware that the public has ever indicated that it desires legislation of this nature. What I do know is that certain hon. members on the other side have brought pressure to bear to get this legislation, and it is significant that the members who are behind this Bill, are members who to-day want to carry out the policy of Cecil Rhodes. It is not a secret that these members who are supporters of the policy of Lord Milner, such as the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) and the hon. member for Troveville (Mr. Kentridge), are the strongest supporters of this Bill. We know what the policy of Lord Milner was, namely, to break the back of the Afrikaner. There are also members on the other side who pose as supporters of the political views held by Kruger, Steyn and Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr, and probably they will take it amiss if we tell them to-day that their actions are opposed to the policy of those men, those statesmen. And yet you find them under the same political blanket with people who to-day extol Lord Milner’s policy. We know the difficulties President Kruger had to overcome. It is also well known what the cause of all the trouble in the Transvaal in 1896, and again in 1899, actually was. The trouble was caused by foreign adventurers on the Rand, who were continually out to stir up the population of the Rand against the old population of the Transvaal. You who know the history, will realise that we are again moving in that direction. We find that in and outside this House unhealthy pressure is exercised on the political life of the country by powers and influences concentrated on the Witwatersrand and in our big cities. There is no country and no nation we know of which tolerates that a small section should give this undesirable lead in connection with the political life of the nation by means of their influences and their capital. Instead of that public interests, national interests, should be promoted. We find hon. members on the other side who always speak of “home” and who, when we argue that the rural areas should have better representation, do not want to bear in mind that in the very country they call “home,” the rural areas have a stronger representation than the towns. That is the case in England, in America and in New Zealand, for instance. In those countries they do not allow the legislative power of the nation to be concentrated in the towns. To-day we find that there are already 25 to 27 seats in Pretoria and on the Rand, and once this legislation is passed, and we have a new delimitation, we will find that in the Transvaal the towns will have more say than the whole platteland together. Two towns will dominate the position in the Provincial Council. Of late the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) has been telling us that political justice should be done, and then he gets up in this House and lectures us. He saw fit to lecture the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) and to remind him of his duties, and to rebuke him as far as his membership of a select committee was concerned. He does not find fault with what he has done in voting in favour of the proposal, but he rebukes the hon. member for Moorreesburg because he did not attend the meetings of that committee and did not, at a later stage, make it known that he did not agree with the proposals of the select committee. He threw out his chest, figuratively speaking, and said that he was grateful not to be as big a political sinner as the hon. member for Moorreesburg. I want to advise the hon. member for Kensington first to put his own political house in order. There is a lot to be put in order before he can come along and lecture other hon. members. We know how he was thrown out of the caucus twelve months ago.

Order, order! That has nothing to do with this discussion.

If you will allow me, Mr. Speaker, I want to point out that the hon. member for Kensington made an attack on the hon. member for Moorreesburg and rebuked the hon. member because he did not fall in with the decision of the select committee.

That was in respect of this Bill, but the hon. member is now discussing matters which have nothing to do with this Bill.

I only want to point out that the hon. member for Kensington is not consistent in his attitude when he finds fault with the hon. member for Moorreesburg for not raising his voice against the decision of the select committee before, whilst we find that the hon. member for Kensington is present in this House and remains quiet when the Minister of the Interior adumbrates a policy he does not agree with. What he condemns in the hon. member for Moorreesburg he is guilty of himself. For that reason I feel I have to point out that the hon. member for Kensington is not the right and proper person to rebuke the hon. member for Moorreesburg for what he has done. I want to refer to one provision in the Bill, namely that a voter who has been in a constituency for one month can be placed on the voters’ roll. I feel that this provision can lead to serious abuses. We may find that before a general election a whole lot of labourers, railway workers or others, are sent to a particular constituency in order to tip the balance in such a constituency at the election. For that reason I am opposed to the clause in the Bill which enables a man to be placed on the voters’ roll of a particular constituency after having lived there for one month. I also want to support the amendment of the hon. member for Moorreesburg. We know that at the time of Union a margin of 15 per cent. over and under the quota was allowed as between town and country. If that principle was right in 1910, it is just in 1940, and if 15 per cent. was a fair margin in 1910, when 48.3 per cent. of the population was living on the platteland, then a 20 per cent. margin is a fair margin to-day when of the white population in the country only 34.7 per cent. is living on the platteland. It goes without saying that in the delimitation of electoral divisions the number of voters must be taken into account, but that is not the only factor to be taken into account. You also have to take into consideration the vastness of the constituency. If we do not take that factor into consideration it must obviously follow that in the long run the platteland will suffer. Therefore I am somewhat surpised that we have heard so little from the hon. members on the other side who represent the platteland as to their opinion in connection with this matter. The only member on the other side representing the platteland who has spoken so far is the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. H. van der Merwe). I must say that he succeeded very well in misrepresenting the position and the attitude of the Opposition. And if he does that when we are present we can well understand what will happen when he is alone on the platteland. He says that we are prepared to grant the franchise to the Jews, but we are not prepared to give the vote to our own people. I want to ask him and any hon. member on the other side where he gets that story from. Has any hon. member on this side opposed the granting of the franchise to our own people? We do not want to withhold the vote from any person over 21 years possessing the necessary qualifications. All we insist on is that the balance between town and country should not be disturbed. For that reason I submit that this matter should be referred to a select committee. There are many matters to be enquired into by that select committee. We are dealing here with the question what the effect is going to be if we do not have a higher margin over and under the quota, and what the Provincial Council of the Transvaal will look like after the next delimitation? We find that the rural areas in the Transvaal have a larger number of voters than the urban areas in Natal. There is another matter requiring investigation, namely, the manner in which coloured voters are enrolled though not possessing the necessary qualifications. There is nobody to supervise, on behalf of the state, interim registrations, and to go through preliminary registration lists in order to delete the names of coloured people who are not entitled to be enrolled. It is left to party organisers to see to this. I think that all these matters should receive the attention of a select committee, and I therefore trust that, whilst dealing with this matter, we are not going to do the job half-way, but we should review the whole matter in order to get once and for all a satisfactory Act on our Statute Book.

I rise to support the amendment of the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) for various reasons. The hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. H. van der Merwe) asked why we should complain. He says that a unanimous report was issued by the select committee which dealt with this matter and that now we do not want to carry out the decisions of that select committee, notwithstanding the fact that we had members on that select committee. A week ago we had the case of a select committee which sat last year, and which submitted a recommendation, with one dissentient, and when the matter came up before this House in the evening and it was discussed here, the whole select committee, barring myself, voted against their resolution in the select committee. Therefore we should not hear such a lot about unanimous recommendations of a select committee. Furthermore, the hon. member asked what compulsory registration had to do with the increase in the number of seats. I want to refer the hon. member to clause 40 of the South Africa Act. That clause lays down that the delimitation commission should take into consideration community or diversity of interests, means of transport, natural characteristics, existing electoral boundaries and sparseness or density of population. It was laid down how they should deal with rural constituencies. The hon. member for Potchefstroom asked why we should complain about the vastness of constituencies. Some hon. members on the other side are very enthusiastic about one vote one value. Is that just? On the Rand you have 26 seats to 2,263 square miles, whilst Worcester alone covers 1,641 square miles, and that is not the worst case. The electoral division of Kuruman is 14,059 square miles in extent, without including a part of Vryburg and of Taungs falling under Kuruman, and it is very difficult to give attention to such a constituency which is six and one-third times as big as the 26 constituencies of the Rand together. Now, the Rand will get more seats and the rural divisions will have to be enlarged still more. It will be impossible to look after them properly. That is already impossible to-day in these large constituencies. Is it fair to allocate more seats to the towns at the expense of the platteland? The Free State has 15 seats on 49,647 square miles, and Natal 16 seats on 24,857 square miles And then you have a constituency like Zoutpansberg, 18,173 square miles in extent, sending one representative to this House. We all say that this matter should not be viewed from a party point of view. It is imperative that certain anomalies in the Electoral Act should be removed. The platteland shares that feeling. The hon. member for Lydenburg (Mr. N. J. Schoeman) has quoted a letter from a Farmers’ Association in the northern part of Lydenburg, strongly protesting against the handling of this matter on party political lines, and expressing the fear that the balance as between constituencies would be disturbed, thereby increasing still more the influence of urban areas. Hon. members must not blame us when we are very suspicious of this measure. We know what the hon. member for Kensington said on the 30th October, when addressing a meeting in Johannesburg. He spoke of the most needy and ignorant poor whites who had a vote. It hurts us when a man comes from another part of the globe and insults poor whites. Why are these people poor and ignorant? The hon. member for Kensington and his friends are the cause of their poverty. Didn’t they cause a war in South Africa, and destroy the farms of these people, destroy their cattle, didn’t they burn down their homesteads? To-day they are still suffering as a result of that war. As the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. Loubser) pointed out, we observe the spirit of Cecil Rhodes and Joseph Chamberlain and Alfred Milner behind it all. In those days there was also a lot of talk about the franchise on the Rand. This agitation today also comes from the Rand. It is said that the Rand does not get its fair share. The same thing was said on the Rand before the Boer War, and when the franchise was offered to them, they refused. A war had to be made to break the neck of the Boer. The Boer nation to-day is still suffering from the results of that war, and views this measure with considerable suspicion. An attempt is made to alter the Electoral Act in order to subdue the rural population, cut down their influence on the country and promote Imperial interests. I appeal to hon. members on the other side who represent rural constituencies. The scheme is that the Imperialists should be in a position to place their heel on the neck of the plattelander. They speak with contempt of the people of the platteland, but we never hear of the coloured people who have votes of the same value as the votes of the aristocratic farmers on the platteland. We are suspicious as far as this legislation is concerned. What Alfred Milner could not achieve by force, they are now trying to accomplish by constitutional means. The back of the farmer must be broken. He must be pulled down and once he is there they will see to it that he remains the underdog so that their interests and not the interests of the country will come first.

I think every Afrikaner listened with the greatest contempt to the scornful remarks of the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) when he spoke of the unfortunate poor backvelders. I may tell the hon. member that possibly they are poor financially, but they are rich intellectually, whilst the people to whom he is referring, may be rich financially, but they are bankrupt intellectually. As far as South Africa is concerned, the hon. member is bankrupt spiritually, because he has no soul for South Africa. If there is one thing certain it is that the object of this Bill is to allocate more seats to the urban areas at the expense of the rural areas. That is the object of this Bill, and now the hon. the Minister has to justify his proposals in this House. The Minister referred to the “major points” and in that connection he posed as the defender of democracy. He appeals to democracy in order to violate the first principle of democracy. The Minister said that the object of the Bill was to carry out the principle of one man one vote. That is what the Minister told us in justification of his Bill. He comes here as the defender of democracy and he violates the first principle of democracy, individual freedom. My opinion is shared by the Minister of Commerce and Industries, who is in the same Cabinet as the Minister of the Interior. Last year when the hon. member for Kensington introduced his motion, the then Minister of the Interior, now the Minister for Commerce and Industries, gave his opinion that compulsory registration, I quote from Hansard—

Now, the hon. the Minister wants to pose as the protector of democracy, but his colleague in the same Cabinet ridiculed this proposal. That is not all. What did his predecessor say further—

The hon. minister of the Interior is faithfully copying the dictators by imposing conditions on the liberty of democracy. He poses as the protector of democracy but in reality he is a poor imitator of a dictator. I regret that the hon. the Minister of Commerce and Industries is not here, and I also regret the absence of the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. H. van der Merwe), because he made great play of the so-called unanimous report of the select committee Now. I want to ask him bow the Minister of Commerce and Industries, if he proposes to vote in favour of this Bill, can square such action with the statement I have quoted. I want to ask the hon. the Minister of the Interior whether he is counting on the support of the Minister of Commerce and Industries — or did they make arrangements to pair him off to-night?

I am banking on the support of the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus).

That is his business. If the Minister of Commerce and Industries is prepared to vote in favour of this Bill, we can only come to the conclusion that all this talk about democracy is nothing but camouflage. We have the speech of the hon. the Minister made last year when he strongly disapproved of compulsory registration, but to-day his own colleague moves a Bill such as the one we have before us now. I want to refer once more to the speech of the hon. the Minister of Commerce and Industries. He said—

That is what we practically force these people to be, and then the Minister goes on and says—

Well. I want to read a little bit further. I do not want to take un the time of the House by reading the interjections, but the Minister said—

That is a statement made by the Minister of Commerce and Industries last year, and hardly 12 months later the new Minister comes along and does exactly what his predecessor disapproved of in the strongest terms. There must be some reason for it. Why this change of front within such a short span of time? That is the question the country will ask. We have seen how strong the Minister of Commerce and Industries can be. We know the strong attitude he took up last year in connection with the Asiatic Bill His attitude compelled the respect of this House, and it was due to his determined attitude that the hon. member for Kensington and the present Minister of Finance were thrown out of the caucus. In justice to the Minister of Commerce and Industries we have to refer to his speech last year and to protest against the attempt of the hon. the Minister of the Interior to undermine his prestige in the manner he has tried to do so. The Minister of the Interior was a colleague of the Minister of Commerce and Industries at the time, and we cannot allow the Minister of the Interior to leave his colleague in the lurch at this stage. We cannot allow the Minister of the Interior to undermine his colleague.

I must really laugh.

The hon. member for Kensington may laugh. He is the kind of man who would laugh if his own house were burnt down, but he has no home in South Africa because South Africa is not his country. I want to say that the Minister of Commerce and Industries is not alone in his opinion on this matter. We here feel exactly as the Minister of Commerce and Industries felt last year. The Minister of the Interior, who poses as the protector of democracy to-day, is in actual fact democracy’s latest enemy. His own colleagues protest against this Bill. I have a circular letter here, sent out by the Democratic League of South Africa. This is not a society of plattelanders protesting, but these are urbanites, and I want the hon. member for Kensington to take heed of the protest of people who have no hidden motives when they talk of democracy. The league has issued a circular letter which was printed in both languages, and I want to read it to the House.

Your friends, the Taylors, and Mr. Solly Sachs opposed this.

I am not at all surprised that the hon. member for Troyeville calls Solly Sachs my friend. I do not know the number of political friends the hon. member for Troyeville has made in South Africa — he has belonged to so many parties. But that is the danger that such people will have a say in this country.

You are just like him.

Unless this Democratic League receives assurances in connection with this Bill for compulsory registration, they are not in favour of the Bill. They are not in favour because it amounts to a regimentation of the people. The league is of opinion that such an infringement of the civic rights of the people should not be dealt with by this House and the Senate, except after a referendum in which the people of the country can express their opinion. That is particularly the case when we are waging a war for liberty and democracy. I believe that these people belonging to the Democratic League, who aim at liberty and democracy, have come to the conclusion, as I have come to during the last few weeks, that liberty and democracy have become a tool in the hands of the governing party in the country. When they want to justify their actions, they pretend that they are fighting for liberty and democracy, but when they come in this House, they trample on that liberty. I want to give the hon. the Minister the assurance that his predecessor, and we on this side of the House, are not the only people who think as this Democratic League does. There are hundreds and thousands of people in South Africa who share these views. But I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether this is his best effort in the interests of democracy, whether this is the best he can do to live up to the ideals of democracy, or is it a fact that the Minister once more wants to exploit democracy as a smoke-screen to hide what he is really aiming at? I want to level this accusation against the hon. the Minister, because this Bill comes from the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) and my accusation is that they want to use democracy as a smokescreen to promote Imperialism in South Africa. The hon. member for Kensington has always fought for imperialism in South Africa. The hon. member for Kensington possibly will admit what he is aiming at when he advocates the passing of this Bill. He has always cherished the ideal that South Africa should play second fiddle and that the Empire should come first. I want to go so far as to admit that when this Bill is passed, it will give a temporary political advantage to the Government supporters. I say a temporary political advantage, because they need not think that they will always remain in office. For that purpose they are now taking away seats from the platteland, but their advantage will be a shortlived one. Yet, what will remain is the fact that they are undermining the nation. The result will be that the representatives of the permanent population, of the conservative element of the population, will decrease, and they are giving this political power to the floating population. Now I ask hon. members what they can expect from the floating population living mostly in the towns? Do you want to contend that they are as permanent as the rural population in South Africa? No, the danger I see in this Bill is that the influence of the permanent population of the country is undermined, and that the power is handed over to the floating population. What has that section of the population done in the past? Simply because a few people were deported, as the Minister will remember, they only elected two members of the South African Party on the Witwatersrand in 1914, and the Transvaal Provincial Council was under the control of the Labour Party which had a majority. Where we have the warnings of world statesmen who point out to us the danger threatening the world after this war, the danger of Communism, I ask hon. members where that Communism will take root? Not in the rural constituencies, but in the constituencies where you find agitators such as the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) used to be, and such as the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) is to-day. When these agitators preach Communism we are in danger of losing our whole democratic system for the sake of temporary political gains of the party on the other side. I say that the political advantage your party may gain, and the aim of the hon. member for Kensington with this Bill, namely, to further British Imperialism in South Africa, will be destroyed. Democracy as well as British Imperialism will go by the board and we will have Communism. When we start undermining this great principle and the foundation of our nation, we must seriously consider what the results are going to be. We have already had the example of hon. members who do not think so far, but I want to remind the House that not only South Africa is threatened by revolution, because 20 years ago we had a similar world war, and the people who suffered most economically after that war, are those nations which have turned to dictatorships and Communism. We have this safety valve in our Constitution, but you are going to weaken that safeguard. What safeguard have we in South Africa that we will not move in the same direction and have Communism here? I ask the hon. the Minister whether he is not aware of that danger, and I put that question to the Minister without Portfolio, a Minister who I think is a man who takes a serious view of these matters, because he is an Afrikaner of high standing, and he will abhor the idea of being governed by the ideals of the scum of South Africa. The House should remember the difference between the population in the rural areas and in the towns. Let me quote the hon. member for Troyeville, as an example. He has already belonged to half a dozen political parties and the House will remember that the hon. member for Umbilo was elected to this House as a Socialist. That shows how capricious they are, because to-day he is the greatest capitalist and supporter of Imperialism you can get. It shows that he is aimless, that he is swayed one way or another. But on the platteland the position is quite different. You have people there who were followers of the late General Botha and to-day they are still following the Prime Minister because they had confidence in the late General Botha, and because the Prime Minister was his right hand man they still trust him to-day.

Do you approve of that?

My whole argument is to point out how this safeguard is weakened and I am pointing out to hon. members what that safeguard was which was established at Union. I say that in those days they placed confidence in a certain person and they stand by that. That is the conservatism of the platteland.

What has that to do with the Bill?

I am of the opinion that it has everything to do with the Bill, because to my mind there is a safeguard in our Electoral Act and to-day the Minister of the Interior is weakening that safety valve. Hon. members may have a few additional representatives here and they are thriving on the patriotism which has been worked up to a pitch in respect of Great Britain, but that period will pass and people will think normally again. For that reason I say that the political advantage they gain from this Bill is of a temporary character. Why then interfere with this safety valve which will give you only a temporary advantage? The price South Africa will have to pay for this legislation is too high. It is a price we will have to pay for British Imperialism which is supported in South Africa.

As a representative of the platteland I consider it my duty to raise my voice in the House against this amendment of our Electoral Act. Vested rights are being interfered with here, and the Minister of the Interior who is in charge of this Bill is trying to defy us by these revolutionary measures which he is now proposing. I want to say to the Minister what has been repeatedly said by members on this side, that the Afrikaner has on a previous occasion taken up arms on this question of the franchise, and we shall be quite prepared to do the same thing in protection of those interests in future. This is nothing but a political government coup to make use of this opportunity for the introduction of the Bill which has not been asked for and which is now being introduced by a Minister of the standing of the Minister of the Interior, solely and exclusively with the object of dominating the country by giving the towns a greater say and greater representation in this House. What is being done here is impracticable and undesirable and members opposite cannot possibly approve of this Bill being passed. Who of them wants the representatives in the House of Assembly to be people who have no rights of ownership? It is the rural population which owns land in this country, but the representation in Parliament has now to be handed over to the townsmen who do not own any land. This sort of thing cannot be tolerated, and we shall fight it tooth and nail. And then the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) impudently tells us that the progressive merchant must be given preference over the ignorant poor white! This remark implies such a serious insult that we cannot allow it to pass, and I want to tell the hon. member for Kensington that he should rather tell this House something about Australia where there are children who reach the age of seven years before they wear any clothes, and where in the forest areas father and mother, children, grandfather and grandmother, live in caves with the kangaroos, not to say anything about the electors of Botany Bay.

The hon. member must confine himself to the Bill.

I am mentioning this because the hon. member for Kensington made an allegation against that section of the community which lives in the rural districts, and he is the last person who should do a thing like that. Now greater representation is going to be given to vagrants and townsmen in places such as Johannesburg. Practically every street will have its own representation in Parliament. There will be a member of Parliament for Eloff Street, President Street will have its own representative, Market Street will be represented and Commissioner Street will have its own member.

What about the magistrate?

Possibly we shall also have a member for Blackwell Street. Compare this with the platteland which constitutes the most stable part of the population, and which will continue to do so. There are about 700,000 white inhabitants on the platteland out of a total white population of about 2,000,000 and those 700,000 are now to be made subservient to the street representatives of the towns of the Witwatersrand. This is an inhuman thing, it is undesirable and it is a sacrilege. The platteland has such extensive interests, it has important vested rights which are now being interfered with, and I want to register my strongest protest against the Minister of the Interior introducing this Bill which constitutes a disgrace to the country. I want to ask him to withdraw this Bill and to refer this question, as it should be referred, to a select committee which can go thoroughly into the matter before we proceed any further with proposals of this kind.

Mr. Speaker, this debate has taken two days and a portion of a morning, and I would say that hon. members opposite, in view of the arguments which they have adduced in the course of that period, must indeed feel thankful for the existence and presence of the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell). Without that sinister figure, according to the Opposition, a great deal of what they have said would have lacked a lot of fire. It is perfectly clear that the vast bulk of the criticisms, barring one or two minor exceptions, against the present Bill have been directed against clauses 2 and 21 of the Bill, namely, those provisions which are designed to deal with under-registration and its corollary under-representation. Now, I would say this, sir, that it is very clear indeed that certain hon. members opposite, quite a large number of hon. members opposite, have allowed the political element to be imported into this debate. So far as hon. members on this side of the House are concerned, they have discussed the matter calmly, dispassionately, and from an objective standpoint. I regret that hon. members opposite, not all of them, but a great many of them, have sought to impute motives. They have made wild accusations and have quite omitted to deal with the Bill on its merits, and in the light of the history of this piece of legislation. The Opposition criticism began on a fairly mild note due to the fact, no doubt, that the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) had to start, and he was in a somewhat delicate position, but as yesterday afternoon wore on and the debate entered its postprandial stage, it became more spirited, and it is obvious that hon. members opposite, having acquired a certain amount of inspiration in the course of the interval, started to make a number of accusations. It was certainly at that stage that the Opposition criticism could no longer be called objective, but extremely subjective.

And objectionable.

My hon. friend says it was objectionable. I do not use that term myself, but, at any rate, it was at that stage that charges were made and the basis of the criticism of hon. members opposite is that the compulsory provisions of this Bill will act to the detriment of the platteland. That was the initial criticism: that these provisions would be disadvantageous to the platteland. At a later stage, that charge was magnified into one of saying that the Bill would be the deathknell of the platteland; it would kill the platteland and lead to conflict between the platteland and the towns.

That is correct.

We were told this afternoon that this Bill is a brutal act, that it is a deathblow to the countryside. Parallel with that criticism there occurred a line of criticism to the effect that this Bill had been introduced with a sinister object.

That is correct.

That it has been introduced with some hidden motive, some sinister political motive behind its introduction. The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren) referred to it as a slim, cunning plan to enable the Government to remain in power. Even the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) this afternoon endorsed those views. I can only say that all these criticisms to which I have referred, namely, that the Bill was designed to hurt the platteland and that the motive of the Bill was one of political gain on the part of the Government—both those motives are due to entirely fallacious premises.

You say that without a blush?

I say that those criticisms are based on entirely fallacious premises.

What about the statements of the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell)?

I am not concerned with what the member for Kensington said outside this House, or what numbers of hon. members have said outside this House. I am concerned with the merits of this Bill, with the history of this Bill and with the deliberations of hon. members opposite who were on the Select Committee, which is really the father, the originator, of this Bill. Now I want to remind hon. members once again, and remind them forcibly, that when they make these allegations of sinister motives, and when they seem to impute motives into this Bill, that the Bill, and particularly clauses 2 and 21 to which objection is taken, is the result of the unanimous report of the Select Committee which sat last year. That was a Select Committee which had on it representatives of all sections of the House. It has been pointed out time and again that the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus), the hon. member for Bloemfontein (South) (Mr. Haywood), and the hon. member for Pretoria (District) (Mr. Oost), and other hon. members sitting opposite, were members of that Select Committee. That Select Committee recommended that the principle of compulsory registration should be given legislative effect by this House.

No fear. It was never mentioned in that report.

Can the hon. member deny that? Does the hon. member seriously deny that the Select Committee recommended that compulsory registration should be introduced? If he does then I regret the hon. member must have a short memory.

Too long a memory, I am afraid.

In paragraph 3 of the Select Committee’s Report it says that there seem to be only two ways of effecting a more complete registration. The first is to make the registration compulsory, and then I skip a number of sentences and I read on—

I emphasise the words “the introduction of such a system which is recommended by the Committee.”

Read on.

It reads—

There is a recommendation that compulsory registration should be introduced and it is now being introduced. One would have thought that the hon. member for Pretoria (District) (Mr. Oost) to be logical and consistent, in having recommended the principle, would endorse it now that he has a chance of doing so. Not only that, sir, but the hon. member for Pretoria (District) and the hon. member for Moorreesburg were members of the Select Committee to inquire into registration, compulosry population registration and voting in 1935. That Select Committee also recommended that the principle of compulsory registration should be introduced. The hon. member was a party to that recommendation.

Compulsory voting?

The extraordinary thing is how in these strange days, days of plastic politics, hon. members’ views seem to change with the time that they crossed the floor. Well, the hon. member says a rather unkind thing. He says that his views had changed since the 4th September. I would like to remind the hon. member that the 1935 Select Committee, of which he was a member, recommended that the registration of voters should be made fully compulsory, that is to say in addition to the present provision for compulsory registration at the biennial compilation of the electoral roll, it should be made compulsory for every individual qualified to be enrolled as a voter, to take the necessary steps within a specified period to ensure that his or her name is submitted to the authorities for registration. And then it says—

What about compulsory voting, the two were linked together?

I am not concerned with compulsory voting. I ask this House and I ask the country whether, in view of the recommendations of these two select committees, that compulsory registration should be introduced, it is justifiable, it is reasonable to suggest when it is introduced, that it is being done for some sinister political motive? The whole thing is ridiculous, and unworthy of hon. members opposite, and particularly unworthy of the hon. members on that Select Committee.

Are you willing to carry out all the recommendations of the Select Committee?

The hon. member asks me whether I am willing to carry out the recommendations of every select committee or commission. Well, so far as the Government is concerned, quite obviously the Government must be governed by circumstances, but what I and the Government expect is this, that if an hon. member of this House has been a party to a decision of a select committee, and he is given an opportunity of implementing that decision in this House, he should do so and not make fatuous and vacillating excuses for changing his mind. And, Mr. Speaker, I think that is what the country can expect from hon. members of this House. The electorate of this country, sir, does not expect that hon. members of this House should have this chameleon-like complex.

Is that fair? How do you know we did not have that in mind?

Well, there are a number of political riddles in this House, and I personally would not like to be responsible for what the hon. member for Moorreesburg, or any other hon. members, may have had in their minds when they took the decision. We, on this side of the House, and hon. members opposite who formerly sat on this side, can obviously not be presumed to assume that there were mental reservations when members of the select committee took that decision.

Do you accept our explanation that we could not deal with that in committee?

The allegation is made against the Government that it is doing an improper thing; it is introducing this Bill because of wrong motives, for political gain, and doing something unseemly. I fling back the challenge and say we base our whole proposals upon the recommendation to which certain members opposite were partial. If compulsory registration means the death of the platteland then I say the hon. member for Moorreesburg, the hon. member for Bloemfontein (South) (Mr. Haywood), and the hon. member for Pretoria (District) (Mr. Oost) and others are responsible for that. The hon. member for Moorreesburg says he had mental reservations, that he had no opportunity of bringing his conditions before the select committee.

It was not referred to us.

What was referred to the select committee was the whole subject of the electoral laws.

You know better.

Read it.

It was the whole subject of the electoral law. The terms of reference are—

[Interruptions.] The Opposition, sir, are always at their best when they are somewhat noisy, and when they are not considering matters on their merits. Now the hon. gentleman seeks to argue that because the committee had to deal with the electoral law it was not competent for that committee to consider an alteration of section 40 of the South Africa Act.

It would be ruled out of order.

If the hon. gentleman will refer again to the title of this particular Bill he will see that it is an Electoral Laws Amendment Bill, and section 21 of it amends section 40 of the South Africa Act.

You had better ask your chairman.

The terms of reference to the select committee were to consider the electoral law, and it was perfectly competent for that committee to have considered this question of the alleged reservation of the hon. member, if he had wished to do so.

Not according to the chairman of the committee.

In the course of this debate it is somewhat remarkable that only five members en the front bench intervened. One of them was the hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw). He took the line that the Government was not entitled to rely upon the select committee’s recommendation, because he said that this House is not bound by any select committee.

Of course not.

If this House is not bound by any select committee, then I would ask the hon. member for Moorreesburg and members opposite what value they attach to their amendment, about which they have talked for two days and a little more, an amendment which seeks to appoint a select committee to go into this question again. One of the underlying fallacies of the arguments of the hon. gentlemen opposite is that the additional voters who may be placed upon the roll as the result of this Bill, will necessarily be supporters of the Government. The Government is accused of trying to strengthen its position by ensuring the registration of these additional voters. May I remind hon. members that in arguing thus they are being most inconsistent. Their claim in the past has always been that the voters living in the platteland are all their supporters.

Yes.

Well, I will start from those premises. It is perfectly obvious that one of the reasons for the increase in urban population is the drift from the rural areas to the towns due to industrial development. Now we are seeking through this Bill to give these rural inhabitants opportunity of registering. If hon. members opposite are correct in their premises, those persons who do drift into the towns will be their supporters, and if that is so, what have they to fear? There is another aspect of this matter to which the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. Johnson) drew attention very effectively, namely that when an Afrikaner lives in the platteland hon. members opposite always profess great solicitude for his welfare, and they are very keen that he should have the vote; they are almost equally as keen that he should vote for them. Now many of these Afrikaners are drifting to the urban areas.

But more from overseas.

My hon. friend must make himself more acquainted with the immigration figures. A great many of these Afrikaners are drifting into the towns, and hon. members opposite wish to deprive them of the forcefulness of the vote which they held when in the rural areas. Under present conditions if an Afrikaner has a vote in the country districts it has a certain value. If he goes into an urban area and gets upon the register, under present conditions his vote is much less in value. In order to dispose of this bogey that there is something sinister in this Bill, let me refer hon. gentlemen to one of the organs of the opposition Press. I am not going to refer to Die Burger, because certain hon. gentlemen opposite have said so many unkind things about that organ, that they would not like to have that quoted against them. I am going to quote to them the organ of the Leader of the Opposition. Die Vaderland, backed by the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog). In dealing with this Bill in a leading article on March 27th, Die Vaderland said this [translation]—

This is alleged to be a most sinister, a most subtle plan in order to benefit the Government, yet the organ of the Opposition states in a leading article its decided opinion that so far from benefiting the Government, it is going to benefit the Opposition. Then, sir, may I just say this, that in the course of the debate, as a kind of red herring, a great deal has been said in order to work up a so-called atmosphere against the platteland, an idea has been created that there is antagonism against the platteland.

Evidently.

It is a perfectly unworthy suggestion, sir, and the evidence which has been adduced is not correct. The hon. member for Moorreesburg yesterday quoted certain figures in an attempt to show that the delimitation commissions in recent years had not been keeping to the principle adopted earlier. His suggestion was that in the 1910 delimitation they kent to an overload of about 14 per cent. and an underload of 14 per cent.

No, I quoted certain constituencies.

Well, the actual figures show that at the 1910 delimitation the average load for urban constituencies was 7.7 and the average underload for rural constituencies was 3.5. It varied in some places. Tn the Cane it was 3.8, in the Transvaal 5.1, and in the Free State 88.

Some places were 14.6.

Yes, Wakkerstroom was 14.6. I am giving the average, but the average to-day is very much higher indeed.

No, you are quite wrong; prove it.

Well. Hon. members complained bitterly about the size of platteland constituencies. They told us that members representing town constituencies did not realise their difficulties, but may I remind them that since Union the average platteland constituency has become considerably smaller. At the time of Union there were 82 rural constituencies, but under the 1937 delimitation there were 89.

The work has increased very considerably.

Yes, but hon. members also know that the means of transport have improved out of all proportion since the beginning of Union. The difficulties in the way of the voter recording his vote has decreased. I know that the hon. members for Victoria West (Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen), for Marico (the Rev. C. W. M. du Toit) and for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) complained that now-a-days constituencies were so large that it was a terrible trouble, that it was terribly difficult for members having to travel round their constituencies. Those unfortunate members, especially the hon. members for Victoria West and Marico, alleged that they had a great deal of discomfort and inconvenience travelling round their constituencies. I sympathise with them, but it is a curious fact that these two hon. members spent most of their time throughout the year travelling through the constituencies of the Union delivering speeches and lectures all over the place.

Do you want to prevent that?

What has that to do with the matter?

I think that question is more appropriately put to the hon. members for Victoria West and Marico. Now I want to deal briefly with the amendment of the hon. member for Moorreesburg, but before doing so may I just mention in passing the intervention into the debate of the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan). I want to say that I was extremely surprised at his suggestion. He dealt with the question of population registration. He actually went further. I would remind him, of course, that this question of population registration was dealt with by the 1935 select committee of this House, of which the hon. member for Pretoria (District) (Mr. Oost) was a member, and that committee having taken evidence and considered the matter very correctly, decided that it was unable at present in the absence of further enquiry to recommend it.

It said at present.

Well, I do not know whether on the principle that when a select committee recommends something the House should not accept it the hon. member for Piquetberg now recommends something which the select committee turned down, in the hope of the House now accepting it. The hon. member for Piquetberg seemed to go rather further. He suggested that we should introduce a system under which all Europeans, coloureds, natives and Asiatics should carry a form of pass, and when they changed their address they would have to go to some office and alter their pass. I would like the hon. member to adumbrate his theories in the Platteland. I have always understood that particularly in the Platteland districts any idea of a pass system was particularly abhorrent, and it was very surprising to me to hear that suggestion come from the hon. member to-day.

You are carrying a pass at present. You have your motor licence with your photograph on it.

Which photograph did you give?

I know that there is this registration system in Germany. But I leave it at that. Now let me deal briefly with the amendment. This Bill, as I have explained, is designed to remove an anomaly in our existing system under which certain sections of the country can become grossly over-loaded at certain times. Now what the hon. member opposite suggests is that we should remove one anomaly and replace it by another. At present under our existing system we can have a maximum difference of 30 per cent. between rural constituencies and urban constituencies. The hon. member wishes to go further than that, and wants to make the maximum difference 40 per cent. The actual position to-day is that there are a great many constituencies throughout the country which are not loaded to the extent of 20 per cent. But as was pointed out to the extent of 80 per cent. and over. The average load of the Rand constituencies at present is between 30 per cent. and 40 per cent. If there was a general election tomorrow the Rand would carry that load of between 30 per cent. and 40 per cent., and would have to compete with constituencies underloaded to the extent of between 20 per cent. and 25 per cent.

That was some time ago, that is not so now.

It is worse to-day. Let me give round figures to show what an anomalous position might result. If I take the 27 seats on the Witwatersrand, including Vereeniging, these seats have 237,000 odd voters. The 27 rural seats have 148,000 voters. The position therefore is that 148,000 rural voters have an equal voting value as 237,000 voters on the Rand. But the Rand is to carry 90,000 more voters for the same number of seats.

Well, that was the agreement at the time of unification.

That is the anomaly which this Bill is designed to remove, that is the anomaly which the select committee wanted this House to mitigate. We shall never be able to overtake all the anomalies. There necessarily will have to be differentiation between urban and rural constituencies. But at any rate we have to try and mitigate that position. But hon. members opposite have now resiled from their previous position—that is those who were on the select committee.

No, no, we deny that.

They now want to change the Act of Union by introducing this new system. I can only tell hon. members that the House has in recent years on two occasions had to consider similar amendments to the Act of Union. There was a time, in 1937, when the hon. member for Waterberg moved an amendment, or rather at the committee stage moved an instruction on the Electoral Quota Bill and he asked that this House should have leave to consider the advisability of amending section 40 of the South Africa Act to provide that in no case should urban constituencies depart from the load to an extent of less than 12½ per cent.—in other words, in every case in an urban constituency there should be a load of at least 12½ per cent. The House debated that question and eventually took a decision entirely similar to the decision we are asked to take to-night. It took a decision on the 27th March, 1937, and 13 members of this House voted in favour of that proposition, and 59 against it. It was a decisive defeat. The United Party Government of the day rejected that proposal and I am interested to see that among those who voted for the rejection of that proposal are a number of members who to-night want the House to accept the same proposition which they voted against then—among those members are the hon. member for Wodehouse (Mr. S. Bekker), the hon. member for Witbank (Mr. Bezuidenhout) who was extremely vocal, the hon. member who to-night in a paroxysm of zeal suggested that this Bill was some plan on the part of the Imperialistic Jingoes to down the Afrikaners. Among those members, too, who voted against that proposal were the hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Conroy) now sitting somewhat disconsolately on the Opposition bench, and there was the hon. member for Vryburg (Mr. Du Plessis).

Yes, but what happened since—what happened on the 4th September?

Precisely. I imagine that the hon. member has given the whole show away. He admits voting that way two years ago and now he asks what has happened since, what happened on the 4th September.

You have lost our confidence.

Will you look at the names of the Natal members who voted on the other side?

Yes, I shall look at them. I have all the names here—13 of them. No, the Natal members were not among them. No, no, the Natal members were always the isolationists. They were not among the unlucky 13. But I find the hon. member for Brits (Mr. J. Grobler) voted against the resolution — the hon. member who was so eloquent to-night. And then also the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. Labuschagne) who became really vitriolic to-night, and Mr. Liebenberg who was a member of the Select Committee, and then also Mr. Oost—the hon. member who has since gone west. And the hon. member for Zwartruggens (Mr. Verster), and finally may I say that a motion in specific terms was put to this House on the 9th February by the hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. Le Roux) who moved that the delimitation commissioners, in determining the electoral divisions should give consideration to sparsity or density of population in such a manner that they may give 20 per cent. above or below the quota. And I find somewhat curiously that when we came to take a decision the motion was defeated by 58 votes to 34, and among those who voted against this proposition was the hon. member for Vryburg (Mr. Du Plessis), Mr. Havenga, Mr. Fourie, Gen. Kemp, the hon. member for the Orient (Mr. Oost) and Mr. J. F. T. Naudé. When we realise that this sort of thing can happen in two years, I can only say in the words of the hon. member for Smithfield, well, well, well!

Question put: That all the words after “That”, proposed to be omitted, stand part of the motion.

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—61:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Baines, A. C. V.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Blackwell, L.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Burnside. D. C.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, H. C.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Faure, P. A. B.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander. A.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Hemming, G. K.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Klopper, L. B.

Lawrence, H. G.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Moll, A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Neate, C.

Nel, O. R.

Payn, A. O. B.

Pocock, P. V.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Rood, K.

Shearer, V. L.

Steyn, C. F.

Sutter, G. J.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Zyl, G. B.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

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

Noes—44:

Bekker, S.

Bezuidenhout, J. T.

Boltman, F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Bosman, P. J.

Bremer, K.

Conroy, E. A.

De Bruyn, D. A. S.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Erasmus, F. C.

Fagan, H. A.

Geldenhuys, C. H.

Haywood, J. J.

Hugo, P. J.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Liebenberg, J. L. V.

Loubser, S. M.

Naudé, S. W.

Olivier, P. J.

Oost, H.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Pirow, O.

Quinlan, S. C.

Rooth, E. A.

Schoeman, N. J.

Serfontein, J. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. P.

Van den Berg, C. J.

Van der Merwe, R. A. T.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Venter, J. A. P.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel. J. J.

Wilkens, Jacob

Wilkens, Jan.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

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

Question accordingly affirmed, and the amendment dropped.

Original motion put, and the House divided:

Ayes—61:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Baines, A. C. V.

Bawden, W.

Bell. R. E.

Blackwell, L.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Burnside, D. C.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, H. C.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Faure, P. A. B.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg. A.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Hemming, G. K.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper. E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Klopper, L. B.

Lawrence, H. G.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Moll. A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Neate, C.

Nel, O. R.

Payn, A. O. B.

Pocock, P. V.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Rood, K.

Shearer. V. L.

Steyn, C. F.

Sutter, G. J.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Zyl, G. B.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

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

Noes—44:

Bekker, S.

Bezuidenhout, J. T.

Boltman, F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Bosman, P. J.

Bremer, K.

Conroy, E. A.

De Bruyn, D. A. S.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Erasmus, F. C.

Fagan, H. A.

Geldenhuys, C. H.

Haywood, J. J.

Hugo, P. J.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Liebenberg, J. L. V.

Loubser, S. M.

Naudé, S. W.

Olivier, P. J.

Oost, H.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Pirow, O.

Quinlan, S. C.

Rooth, E. A.

Schoeman, N. J.

Serfontein, J. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. P.

Van den Berg, C. J.

Van der Merwe, R. A. T.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Venter, J. A. P.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Wilkens, Jacob.

Wilkens, Jan

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

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

Motion accordingly agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time; House to go into Committee on the Bill on 8th April.