I am sure that hon. members have listened with great regret to the letter which you have just read, sir. We have all the highest appreciation for the long and distinguished services of Mr. Visser, but all that we can do in the circumstances is to refer the letter to the Standing Rules and Orders Committee. I move—

I second.

Agreed to.

When the vote for the Governor-General last came up in this House, we tried to point out the large sum of money which was annually spent in that connection. This House will agree that there is a tendency to create small bodies in order to carry out the work better, and in that connection I am thinking of the War Cabinet which Great Britain has appointed. Year after year we joke with each other here in the lobbies and elsewhere, and even members of the other place talk jocularly about the other House and the work that that House does. I think that the Senate is absolutely missing its vocation. When we were taught about the Senate at school, the teacher told us that the Senate was appointed to go into and to improve hasty legislation of this House, but we know as a fact that if the Prime Minister, or one of the other Ministers introduces a Bill into the House, that it not only goes through by the majority of votes in the Government, but that the Senate simply automatically approves of it. I ask whether during the last ten years, it makes no difference which party may have been in power, there was a single case where a Bill was moved by the Government, which the Senate rejected or considerably amended. I have gone into the figures for the last ten years and I find that from the 17th January to the 31st May, 1930—I want to point this out to show what work the Senate does in view of the large sum of money it costs—as I say from the 17th January to the 31st May, 1930, the Senate sat 47 days, and the House of Assembly 89. But I want to point out in addition that they were not sitting days, because you will see if you examine the minutes that on various occasions the Senate merely met to pass a motion to adjourn until the next day or the next week. I want also to give the figures for the following years. In 1931 the Senate sat for 39 days and the House of Assembly for 83. In 1932 the Senate sat for 29 and the House of Assembly for 89. There were two sessions in 1933. During the May session the Senate sat for 13 days and the House of Assembly for 21 days, and in the second session the Senate sat for 40 days and the House of Assembly for 85. Then I want in addition to say that there are no night sittings or anything of that kind to be added in the case of the Senate, they generally meet for a little while, and I point this out, because I would like the House of Assembly to see what work is being done by the Senate. So it goes on, and here we are voting a sum of £44,585 for the Senate. We hoped that this amount would be reduced, but there is an increase of £300 on the previous year. I think that the time has come to draw the attention of the people to this. I want, with all deference, to say that the Senate is no longer a place where overhasty legislation passed by this House is stopped, but it is a place to which people are appointed whom the Government wants to reward for their support. We know that the Minister of Finance resigned some time ago over the appointment of a Senator.

What item is the hon. member speaking on?

I am speaking on salaries for Senators. The Minister of Finance resigned at that time because the Government appointed someone as a representative of the natives which he did not approve of. Now the Minister of Finance is a member of the Government, and this makes me think at once of the Senators who have of late been appointed mainly by virtue of their acquaintance with the needs of the coloured races. The only explanation we can give to their appointment is that it has been done by virtue of the big role which they have played in doing something for the British Empire. With a view to the great expense which is attached to this institution, I want to ask this House whether the time has not come to change the Senate, at any rate either to abolish it entirely, or so to amend it so that it will contain a small number of representatives, and in such a manner that it may be a more effective body, a body which will be raised above party politics, to go into what this House has done and to approve of it. Then I want to bring something else to the notice of the Prime Minister. We know that the Prime Minister is now no longer an Afrikaans personage, but he wants to play the part of a world personage, and this brings me to the pomp and circumstance which we have at the opening of Parliament, while there is a war going on. We did think that that pomp and ceremony which I and others consider ridiculous, would surely be curtailed a little in view of the war. I want, however, to come to another matter. The Prime Minister must not now give me the answer that it was done ten years or so ago. We are surely progressing, and when we see that our money is spent on all this pomp and ceremony, and when we, in addition, know that our freedom is doubted by the present Government, then it is the more reason for us to see to it that that pomp and ceremony does not give the appearance of our liberties being curtailed. I do not know how much is actually being spent on this pomp and ceremony, but if that expenditure has to be incurred then we might at least expect that these ceremonies would assume a typical Afrikaans spirit. When we look at the last opening of Parliament, then it struck us that it showed anything but an Afrikaans spirit, and possibly it was in conformity with the spirit which hon. members opposite brought into the House of Assembly and the Senate. I say that that spirit was not a South African spirit, because when we looked about at the soldiers then we saw nothing but Union Jacks with an Afrikaans flag here and there. The Prime Minister must recognise that we are a free country, and that we have the Statute of Westminster. If the Prime Minister went to England and he saw nothing but South African flags there in the British Parliament, with a Union Jack here and there, would he not think that there was something wrong with that opening ceremony? [Time limit.]

There is a small amount on this vote in the estimates about which I would like to have a little more information. Under item J we find an amount of £1,000 as a contribution to Afrikaans reports. I would like to know what those reports deal with, what those reports actually are and what their object is. I would also like to know to whom this money was paid out. Last year a similar amount of £1,000 was voted, and I suppose that it was paid. I would like to know to whom it was paid, and to whom this amount will be paid this year. I also would like to know when we may expect to see the results of these amounts which are being paid out. I think that we ought to get this information from the Minister concerned before we can vote this amount again.

I would like to make a few remarks with reference to the allowances which are paid to Senators, and especially with regard to the appointment of those Senators who are appointed specially in consequence of their knowledge of the needs of the coloured races. Two years ago we had one of the greatest fusses in the country about the appointment of a person who was appointed on the ground of his knowledge of the coloured races, and against whom there was an objection, mainly by the present Minister of Finance, because that individual, in his opinion, did not have the knowledge which the constitution demanded. The persons who have been appointed now are practically unknown to me. There are three of them, Mr. Heaton Nicholls, Sir Alfred Hennessy and Lt.-Col. Murray of the Free State. So far as the first person is concerned, we all know that he has the necessary knowledge according to the provisions of the constitution. This side of the House cannot make any objection to him. So far as the other two persons are concerned, I may say that they are unknown to me, and it looks a little strange for me to speak about their appointments. But just because I do not know them I have tried to look up all available newspapers to see what actually the competency of those persons really is. In the first place, I read the Johannesburg Star, and there I found the following—

Then I skip what is said there about Mr. Heaton Nicholls, because we have no objection to him. Then the paper continues—

What he actually did in connection with the coloured people is not stated, but listen further—

Those are according to the Star, the qualifications of Sir Alfred Hennessy by virtue of which he has been appointed as a Senator to represent the coloured races. The paper adds—

I was not satisfied with the Star alone. I also referred to other newspapers, which are a little nearer home. This one had a splendid portrait of Sir Alfred Hennessy, and I thought the writer would probably be au fait with his qualifications. This paper says—

That is all that was written about the capacity of Sir Alfred Hennessy as a representative of the native races in South Africa. These people were apparently very well acquainted with Sir Alfred, judging by the information we are given here, but they say absolutely nothing about the qualifications which made him eligible as a representative of the coloured races of South Africa, and when we make the comparison between his appointment and the appointment of Senator Fourie, with the knowledge which he had of the coloured races, then it reminds me of a speech which the present Minister of Finance made here about two years ago, and I would like to quote a few extracts from that speech. I would like to know from the Minister of Finance whether the recent appointments coincide with the principles which he then laid down in his speech. At that time, inter alia, he said the following—

He further said—

It was therefore with him a question of principle, and he added—

I am not going to read the whole quotation because I have not the time to do so. The Minister further stated—

Then he deals with a question which came up nine years ago in connection with another appointment, and he refers to the answer which the then Prime Minister gave about the knowledge that the person concerned possessed, namely—

He says—

Then he goes on—

I could continue and quote further from the speech, which towards the end becomes more drastic. In Senator Fourie we had a person who was born in South Africa, and the Minister of Finance protested strongly against that appointment. He (Senator Fourie) had been Administrator of the Cape and had to deal with the coloured races day after day. On the other hand, we have a person who is unknown to me, but of whom his own newspapers can say nothing more than that he was chairman and founder of some insurance company or other, and of an automobile club, and chairman of the Unionist Party. Now I want to ask whether this person has been appointed by virtue of his competency as chairman of the Unionist Party, or what? Where is this leading to? Is it simply because the Unionist imperialistic feeling is so strong now that hon. members on the other side are being stampeded by it? [Time limit.]

I do not know whether the Prime Minister will possibly adjourn the House for a little while to give the Minister of Finance an opportunity to realise the position in which he has been placed by the speech of the hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen). I do not know whether the Senate vote has not come on a little too quickly for the Minister of Finance, but it is my intention to continue speaking about the opening of the House of Assembly, and possibly the Minister of Finance can in the meantime consider whether his conscience will allow him to continue remaining a member of the Cabinet. I referred here to the opening of Parliament, and to the unAfrikaans spirit of that opening. I do not think I can do better than just to read out a question which I put to the Minister of Defence on the 2nd February, and to which the Minister of Defence replied. I asked—

I am sorry, but I was wrong, because the answer was—

At the opening of Parliament, although the majority of the members are Afrikaans-speaking, it was the Cape Town Highlanders who were on duty. I further asked—

The reply was—

Then I asked—

The reply which the Minister gave was—

Before you were born.

Then the name is very old now, and it is time that it was altered, because we now are a free country, which has its own defence force and its own regiments. My objection is to our using the banners of another country at the opening of another Parliament. I would like us to use our own banners in our country at our own ceremonies. If the hon. member prefers the Union Jack, he can go and sit in Westminster. I also asked—

1. (a) Whether any other regiments, or sections of other regiments, were on duty at the opening ceremony; if so,
2. (b) whether the Union flag or any other banners were used by them.

The Minister’s reply was—

1. (a) Yes.
2. (b) No, only units on ceremonial duty carry colours. Other regiments on duty on this occasion were lining the streets, which is not a ceremonial duty.

We are now apeing what Great Britain does. If her regiments carry flags, then our regiments must also carry them, but with us it is an exotic custom, and the ordinary person does not understand those foreign ceremonies which are being carried out here. I therefore say that if we have no flags that we can use, then we must use the Union Jack until we have flags. In addition I asked—

And the reply was—

The hon. member is now discussing the characteristics of the colours of South African regiments. He cannot discuss that under this vote.

May I not speak on this subject?

No.

On what vote then may I speak about the flags that are used at the opening of Parliament? I would like to speak about the exotic nature of the ceremony.

The hon. member can debate that on the Defence Vote.

But I would like to speak about the banners which the regiments use at the opening ceremony. I want to point out that we have never yet had a regiment which has been given the Union flag, and occupied the chief place at the opening of Parliament. I want to speak about the banners that they carry.

Order, order. The hon. member is now discussing banners in general. That does not come under this vote.

Then can you tell me when I can discuss it?

May I ask, has a member of the Opposition not the right to speak on a matter like this?

It must have some connection with the vote which is before the Committee.

Surely in connection with the Senate it is the Prime Minister who replies, and under whom the vote falls?

But what the hon. member raises must fall under this vote.

May I just point out that it will contribute a great deal to a proper understanding, and that it will expedite the work if you, as Chairman would tell the hon. member in such a case that the point, can e.g. be debated under Defence.

I must follow the Standing Rules and Orders. The hon. member can raise it under the Defence Vote.

I am only suggesting that the Chairman in such a case should just say to the hon. member concerned, “There will be another opportunity for debating that.”

We would like to have clarity. The hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. Van Nierop) was discussing the ceremonial opening of Parliament, and surely that comes under the Senate Vote? He wants to know whether other regiments could not be used at the opening. If it were merely a matter of defence, or a debate on the particular regiment, it would be another matter.

The hon. member discussed the character of South African banners in general. I think the hon. member can discuss it under Defence.

May we have the ruling of the Speaker on this? I would like to have the decision of the Speaker on the point whether in dealing with the matter of the ceremonial opening of Parliament, no debate under the Senate Vote can take place about the question of bags and banners which are used by the units of the Defence Force on such an occasion.

The hon. member did not speak on the flags which are used on the occasion of the opening ceremony.

The hon. member referred, first of all, to the ceremonial opening, and then spoke about the flags which are used by units of the Defence Force in connection with the opening. In his question, to which he referred, he also asked whether we could not use other banners and flags.

If the hon. member for Mossel Bay desires to discuss that point, he may proceed. I think there was a misunderstanding.

If I may proceed then I want to ask the Prime Minister where the banners are used, and we on our side have no objection to the banners as such, because they belong to some country or other, but because the banners which are used ought to be banners of South Africa as a symbol of our freedom and independence. I further asked whether he would see to it that at the next opening of Parliament only regiments would be on duty which did not need to carry any flags or banners which originated in another country. This proves to you that we, in our questions, do not even object to the regiments having such banners, but that we asked that at the opening, if there is in future to be an opening ceremony, the regiments at the next opening should carry flags of our own, and not those of another country. The Prime Minister replied: No, it is not possible at the moment to say what regiments will be available at the next opening op Parliament. But we can now ask him here, even if he does not yet know what regiments will be available whether he will give the promise that no regiment will be used which carries banners of that kind. Then I also asked whether the Government was prepared to replace the other flags in connection with the opening by Union flags. I think it is a reasonable request that we should use our own flag. I want particularly here to ask the hon. members of the Dominion Party on the other side whether it would be unfair to ask England, when Parliament is opened there, to allow the Union Flag to occupy the chief place at the opening of their Parliament? I ask, is it not an insult to South Africa if we cannot give the chief place here to our flag, and accordingly I asked that the Union flag should be used at the opening of Parliament. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. Van Nierop) forgets that when you are dealing with the Dominion Party it is always a case of heads we win and tails we also win. My friend the hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen) tried to make a point here in connection with the appointment of Sir Alfred Hennessy, owing to his knowledge of the coloured races. But in my opinion he left out the chief point, namely, the appointment of Senator Murray, who is a personal friend of mine. To prove that that is so I want to say that months before the 4th September we nominated him as one of our candidates whom we would be prepared to elect when the new Senators were to be appointed, but not on the ground that he had such an outstanding knowledge of native affairs, but because we thought that it was fitting that he should get into the Senate. Now after the 4th September, my friend Senator Murray came and after he had first of all accepted the nomination, he declined it. But in the meantime the Minister of Propaganda, the Minister of Justice, had gone there and that clears up the whole difficulty for us. We see to our astonishment, that the same Mr. Murray is now being nominated by the Prime Minister owing to his excellent knowledge of the natives, but I do not believe that he has more knowledge of natives other than that of the native working in his home. I looked at the newspapers to see whether the Minister of Finance would not resign. A year ago he resigned because Senator Fourie had been appointed owing to his knowledge of the coloured races. He then said it was a constitutional question. But when Mr. Murray and Sir Alfred Hennessy were appointed, who did not have a tenth or a fiftieth part of the knowledge of colour questions that Senator Fourie had, he remained silent. I want to know whether his honour is not concerned in the matter now if he is a man of such strong principles. Then surely he ought to have resigned now also. But it is clear, the duty and honour in their cases are only given expression to when it suits their book, and so the Minister of Finance remains silent.

I rise here to protest most strongly against the disparaging remarks by the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. Van Nierop) about the Cape Town Highlanders. I have the honour of having known that reigment for a number of years, and I know them for the excellent service they have rendered. These men have fought for the country and have died for the country on different occasions. It is a horrible thing for any hon. member to stand up in this House and make disparaging remarks about a regiment which has given of its best. Its flag was presented to the regiment because of its great services in the past. Since then they have served in South-West Africa, a great portion of them have served in France and in Egypt, and many of their bones lie there. I strongly protest against anything of a disparaging nature being said about such gallant men.

When I sat down I was just making quotations in connection with the two persons whose appointments we had before us, namely, Senator Fourie and Sir Alfred Hennessy. I pointed out that in one case the person was not born here; he had been appointed here as an accountant. He was for ten years secretary of the Unionist Party, and in addition we had not the least proof that he had ever had anything to do with the concerns of the coloured people or of the natives. There surely ought to be proofs that such a man has some knowledge about these matters. But on the other hand we have Senator Fourie, who was born here, who in the Karoo districts as a child, and subsequently as an attorney, came into close touch with the coloured people. Then subsequently he lived in the Eastern Province, where he came into close touch with the natives there, and as Administrator of the Cape Province he had for years to look after the interests and the education of the coloured people and the natives. That surely puts him far higher than this person who has now been appointed. Now I come immediately to the question which must arise in the mind of everybody: What is the qualification of those persons who are now being appointed over the qualifications of Senator Fourie, and why did the Minister of Finance resign at that time and not now? The Minister of Railways also did so at that time, but I understand that he really followed suit, but the Minister of Finance did it on his own account. I am not coming here to catechise the Minister of Finance, but to convince myself, and the Minister of Finance should give me the assurance that the capacity of these persons place them on such a level that it has nothing to do with the action in 1938. It was so striking, to my mind, that the Minister of Finance, for whom I had great respect even before he resigned, asked the consent of the Speaker to make a speech before the Junior Chamber of Commerce. That was about fourteen days before his resignation. He said in that—

That is the point to which I want to come. It appears to me, at any rate, that the man in the street, and especially the person who has no further knowledge of this appointment, is commencing to be uncertain about the principle which the Minister of Finance gave expression to here. He said here that the public would eventually have to judge about it, and I would like the Minister to say what the knowledge is which he has of those persons, because our knowledge of them is possibly superficial, and it is possible that they have far more knowledge — that we do not know of — than Senator Fourie, and that there is therefore no good reasons for his resigning. We shall be glad to hear them, because when he spoke about Senator Fourie he thought that his knowledge of the affairs of the coloured people was not sufficient. I had to go to the newspapers to find out something more about this Mr. Murray, and it is not in our newspapers but the newspapers of their party, which say—

That is all. You will not blame me for pointing out that it merely says that he is sympathetic, but I see nothing about what the man has done for the natives, so that we cannot judge what he has done. Then we also see here that he once visited Basutoland, and it states here—

There is nothing further said about him.

Ask the Minister of Finance for more particulars about him.

Yes, I want to ask the Minister of Finance. He will be able to tell me to what extent the qualifications of that person are higher than those of Senator Fourie. If we have no further information, then we must surely come to the conclusion that that speech of the Minister of Finance last year is making us doubt a great deal, therefore I ask him to give us a little more information. He also used these beautiful words in that speech as well—

If that really was the honest conviction of the Minister of Finance at that time in regard to the appointment of Senator Fourie, which we know caused so much unpleasantness in the country, and also in the United Party, and I say this because I also tried to explain these things away on the platforms—then we must now get an explanation of the Minister of Finance. I had a great deal of trouble to remove that impression, because in my heart I was convinced that that appointment was justified, and I said that I had to differ from the Minister of Finance. If it is a fact that the Minister of Finance at that time could not agree to the appointment of Mr. Fourie on the ground of his general knowledge, what then about these two persons? None of the newspapers could tell us about their capacity in this respect; none of the newspapers could give us reasons why they could be appointed on the ground of their special knowledge of the needs of the coloured races. In the case of Senator Fourie, we had the position that his official position particularly brought the needs of the coloured people and of the natives to his notice. He had practical knowledge of them every day. He was born in the country, he was an attorney here who daily was concerned with the interests of natives and coloured people, and as Administrator of the Cape he had to look after their interests. I only want to say this, that it could be said of all of us on this side in general terms, that we feel sorry for the natives, and I therefore hope that I and others will also be considered for appointment as Senators on the ground of our special knowledge of the needs of the coloured races.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. members for Vredefort (Mr. Conroy) and Victoria West (Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen) have been having fun, and I think it is about time we had a bit of fun too. They have been trying to ridicule this side of the House. The hon. member for Vredefort implied that the Minister for Finance was not a man of principle because he objected to the appointment of Senator Fourie, but now does not object to the appointment of Senator Murray. But why does not the hon. member for Vredefort tell us something about himself? He, sir, tries to show the Minister of Finance as a man who has no principles, but, sir, I remember, not so long ago, when the hon. member was sitting on this side of the House and felt that he could not go to the other side, because the principles of that side were only worth “3s. 6d. an inch.”

Order. The hon. member is going very far now.

The point which I wish to bring out is this, that criticism is levelled at this Government by members on the front benches, who accused us of not being able to reply. I am trying to make that reply and could say a lot more, but of course, if you will not allow me to go any further, I shall sit down.

I am very much disappointed with the hon. member for Boksburg (Mr. Klopper). I did not know whether I should be in order, but I wanted to move that the hon. member should be granted an extension of time. I am afraid that I must disappoint him, because I do not want to continue in his style. I want in the first place, to say something in regard to what the hon. member for Mowbray (Capt. Hare) said here. In answer to the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. Van Nierop) he said that that regiment had rendered great services to South Africa, and when we asked where, he replied: In South West, Egypt and France. I will not go any further into his speech, but I hope that the hon. member will save himself future indignation by sending that regiment to the opening of Parliament in Egypt, it can also go to France, with that banner, at any rate. According to what he said, they have definitely not served in South Africa yet. But I want particularly to express my amazement at the silence of the Minister of Finance. The year before last, as a member of the Opposition, I sat here and listened to him, and even if we did differ from him, just as his colleagues on the other side differed from him., yet we all got the impression that he was a man with the courage of his convictions, and that he had the firmness to express that conviction clearly. There was particularly one sentence in his speech which affected me deeply, and that is when he said that he protested against the appointment of Senator Fourie, “with every fibre in his body.” It gave me the impression that, when a man protested with every fibre in his body, that was the maximum protest which he could make. But now that hon. minister remains silent. We differed from him, but we received the impression that he was a man of principle, and a man with the courage of his convictions. But if the Minister remains silent on this occasion, when that principle for the sake of which he left the Cabinet at that time is being attacked, then it makes us think that he is not a man of principle in the broad sense of the word, that he is not going to stand or fall by that principle, but it seems to us that be is not a man of principle, but only a man of Empire principles. At that time it was apparently not for the benefit of the Empire that that appointment should be made, but on this occasion it fits in with Empire principles, and that is why the Minister is now remaining silent. If it is not so then the Minister should reply to this complaint which is being made against him. Let me quote what is said in the South Africa Act in connection with this matter. Sub-section (II) of Section 24 says—

They are appointed owing to the knowledge they have acquired from official experience or otherwise, and now we hear that the official experience of one of these persons is that he is chairman of the Royal Automobile Club. That is his official experience of Native affairs. This is a matter which affects the Act of Union as such, and I think that every one of us should protest against this breach of the Constitution. I remember that the Minister of Finance said at the time that the appointment of Senator Fourie was a breach of the Constitution, but that man who at that time fought against the breach of the Constitution, now remains silent here. We are dealing here with an important matter which affects the South Africa Act, and I want to point out that the tendency to-day is, when Empire interests are at stake, to throw the South Africa Act aside, in order in that way to neglect the basic principle of our national life, and then those are the people who talk in the country districts about South Africa first. We find that even the Prime Minister in the country speaks about the “Pad van Suid-Afrika.” Is it the right road for South Africa to follow to deviate from the principles of the South Africa Act? My knowledge of the persons who were appointed in the Free State is such that I do not know that there is a single person in the Free State who would tell us that those two Senators have a special knowledge of Native affairs. When Senator C. J. van R. Smit was appointed, everybody realised that in him we had someone who had a special knowledge of Native affairs, but no one knows that in the case of the two persons who have now been appointed. So far as the qualifications of Senator Murray are concerned, the position is that he was a man who was on the list of candidates for election to the Senate. After the 4th September, however, there were no longer any people in the Electoral College left who would vote for him, and there was then only one elector who could select him, and that was the Prime Minister. He did select him, and his highest qualification is that he was a supporter of the Prime Minister. I hope that Senator Murray will keep his eye on his only constituent, and see that he does not work against the interests of South Africa.

I suggest that this debate has lasted long enough. There are just a few points that I wish to touch upon.

We should also like to hear the Minister of Finance.

Is that necessary?

Most definitely.

The hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. Van Nierop) opened this discussion by making an attack on the Senate, and he formulated his attack in this manner, that the Senate, on account of neglect of duty because it does not meet often enough, and does not reject sufficient Bills, should be abolished. I do not know whether he wants us to take him seriously on this point. When the question of the continuance of the Senate is raised, the matter is of such importance that we expect it to be raised from members on the front benches. We have a whole galaxy of brilliant front benchers before us, and one would have thought that such a serious subject would have emanated from them. I do not believe the hon. member intended us to take him seriously, nor do I believe that he expected us to take the other point mentioned by him seriously. In regard to the opening of Parliament, he objects to the “Cape Town Highlanders” having taken part in that function. He refers sneeringly to them, and he asks whether there were no Afrikaners to take part in the ceremony.

I spoke about their flag.

I shall come to the question of the flag. The “Cape Town Highlanders” is the name of a regiment whose existence dates back to the olden days of South Africa, and it has been the policy of all governments to preserve those historical names, whatever associations may be connected with them. Our Afrikaner section of the population expects us to respect their traditions, names and historic associations. We apply the same measure to the other side so far as their names are concerned. The “Cape Town Highlanders” to a very large extent consists of Afrikaners to-day, but the regiment maintains its old name. In the Transvaal we have the well known regiment of the “Imperial Light Horse.” They are no longer “light,” there are no more horses there, nor are they “Imperial” to-day. The words contained in their nomenclature no longer apply to the conditions prevailing to-day, but, as a matter of respect for old traditions, even if the names do no longer apply to present day circumstances, we retain those old names. And the same applies to the old flags. The Cape Town Highlanders have a flag of their own and similar banners are used by various older regiments in this country. We have no objection to that. It is usual in the Defence Force to have those old flags used on ceremonial occasions.

Would you have any objection to the Vierkleur being used on occasion?

That is a different matter. Hon. members must realise that it is the custom with the Defence Force today not to use national flags on such ceremonial occasions, but the regiments are at liberty to use their old individual flags. It is for that reason and for no other reason that at the opening of Parliament the regiment which takes part uses its own flag. We have no objection to that.

It happens to be the Union Jack.

I do not think that either the Union Jack or the Union flag should be used on every occasion; those flags are above such things.

Is the Union Jack our flag too? How is it that you use that?

It was not used. On the occasion under discussion the Union Jack was not flown, but the flag of the regiment concerned was flown. The objection raised by the hon. member is not against the use of the Union Jack, it is against the private flag of the regiment having been flown.

It is the Union Jack with further ornamentation.

The hon. member asked whether I would see to it that this should not continue to happen in future. This has been happening for years. It is a custom which has been perpetuated and it is the custom of the Defence Force, and I see no reason why I should make such a promise. That is also the reason why some time ago I refused to make such a promise in reply to a question which was put to me. The hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen) has discussed the question of the appointment of certain Senators, and he made an attack in particular on the appointment of Senator Hennessy who he alleged did not possess the necessary qualifications and the necessary ability to be appointed to the Senate in accordance with the Constitution. I know Senator Hennessy very well and I have known him for years, and it is because of my knowledge of him that I am convinced that if there is one man in this province who is familiar with and has sympathy for, and has done a great deal for the coloured population of this province, he is that man.

What has he done?

I am convinced, and I believe the Minister of Finance was convinced, that Senator Hennessy, on account of his knowledge, and his sympathy with efforts for the improvement of the lot of the coloured population, is just as suitable, if not more suitable, than anyone in the Cape Province.

What has he done?

The hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Conroy) has dragged the name of Senator Murray into this debate. I am sorry he did so, and the question must have arisen in the minds of many members of this House while he was speaking: “Who knows more about the natives, Senator Murray or the hon. member for Vredefort, who is a member of the Native Affairs Commission?” The hon. member says that all Senator Murray knows about the natives is what he knows about those in his employ. Well, that applies to other people as well, and I am sorry that the hon. member for Vredefort has raised this question in that form. I do not think it was becoming of him to have done so. I am convinced that in both cases, that of Senator Hennessy, who was appointed because of his knowledge of the conditions prevailing among the coloured people of this province, and that of Senator Murray, who was appointed because of his knowledge of native conditions in the interior, the Government had the best grounds and the best reasons for making these appointments.

The right hon. the Prime Minister dealt with a few points which were raised insofar as they affect him. There are a few points which affect me as well, and which I want to deal with. First of all the hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw) asked for information. Provision is made on this vote under (j) for a contribution to the report on African affairs. This provision was made by my predecessor last year, I understand, as the result of an agreement between the different parties. The object was to provide an amount in the same way as other governments in Africa are doing to make it possible for a report to be produced annually on matters of common interest to all who are interested in the continent of Africa. This report is submitted then and is issued by the Imperial Parliamentary Association. The first portion of that report has not yet appeared, but a great deal of preliminary work has been done. The first instalment has actually been paid by us. I understand that the first part of the report will appear in the course of this year. It is the intention to have an annual publication. A great deal has also been said here in connection with certain appointments of Senators and those appointments have been compared with the appointment of Senator Fourie. There is no need for me to add a great deal to what was said by the Prime Minister. I only want to say that so far as Senator Fourie was concerned this was a question of the appointment of a man who had been defeated at the elections and who was unable to find another constituency, and who was appointed by the Government as a Senator in order that his services might be retained in the Cabinet. Another Senator resigned so as to make his appointment possible. I regarded this in the circumstances as a violation of the Act of Union and I shall always take up that same attitude in similar circumstances. In the cases to which the hon. member referred we were only concerned with new appointments. The Government had to appoint three people, and we had to decide who would be the most suitable people. I am prepared to accept the view that my hon. friend opposite would have been able to find people who would have been more suitable, but the Government as a whole, every member of the Government, was entirely satisfied that these were good appointments, that they were appointments in accordance with the spirit of the South Africa Act, and that there was no question of the violation of any principle. I want to add to this, that these appointments gave satisfaction to the interests to be represented by these people.

They are satisfied. That is the test and the test having been complied with, I am not prepared to worry myself unduly over what is being said by these new champions of the coloured races sitting on the other side of the House.

After what the hon. the Minister of Finance has said, I feel that I must utter a few words of protest. This undoubtedly is the first time that I have heard from him that his objection to the appointment of Senator Fourie at the time as a representative of native interests was based on the fact that Senator Fourie was unable to find a seat to which he could be elected. Let me tell the Hon. the Minister that that definitely is not what he pretended on any occasion; he certainly never on any occasion expressed such a view. That is certainly not true.

I stated it repeatedly.

That is not true, What is true is that the Minister among other things said to me and to others, when he was still busy making all sorts of excuses, pretences and explanations: “Yes, but look here, the law demands that this man shall be specially selected because of his ability, and Mr. Fourie is not elected because of his ability, but he has been put into the Senate, or has to go to the Senate, because he is unable to find a seat”. When I asked him: “But what has that to do with a man’s ability”, he did not answer. I would advise the Minister not to take up this attitude because that is untrue, and he must not let us lose our respect for him even further. It has come out very clearly in regard to the appointment of these two people — and the Prime Minister may be quite genuine in his belief that both these people are very good representatives of the natives and coloured people — that the Minister of Finance is not consistent. The Minister of Finance was asked why he did not resign again. He was asked to mention good reasons why in this instance he had remained in the Cabinet, and had stuck to his Portfolio, while in the other instance he had been so ready to leave the Cabinet. He should have replied to that, but he failed to do so.

Mr. Chairman, I think it is time that the House was reminded that the appointment of Senator Fourie last year by the ex-Prime Minister was not the first occasion on which the ex-Prime Minister broke the spirit of the South Africa Act. It is time that hon. gentlemen who are now accusing the present Ministry of that particular breach of the South Africa Act, were reminded that the appointment of Senator Fourie, 12 months ago, was based on precedent. That precedent sir, was established by the ex-Prime Minister after the General Election of 1929, when he appointed a colleague of his, the present hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow), as a nominated native senator, in order to get over a certain difficulty in regard to the Cabinet. Hon. members who were in the House at the time will remember that the present hon. member for Gezina stood for Standerton against the present Prime Minister, and was defeated in that election. After he was defeated he found himself without a seat in Parliament and the ex-Prime Minister, in direct violation, as I have always thought and still think, of the provisions of the South Africa Act, made him a nominated Senator. And this question was put by me to him in the House at that time in the following manner—

The Prime Minister’s answer was as follows—

My next question was—

And this was the reply given—

Does the Minister of Finance agree with that?

I then put the following supplementary question to the Prime Minister—

And the answer was—

Now, two months before that Mr. Pirow made a public speech in which he had expressed his own opinion that every native in South Africa should by law be forbidden to drive a motor car, and I subsequently asked the Prime Minister whether, in his opinion, the hon. member’s knowledge of the reasonable wants and wishes of the native people of South Africa was evidenced by the fact that he had in a public speech laid it down that according to him no native in future should be allowed to drive a motor car. I went on to elaborate that question, and asked whether he could give me any further information as to the knowledge which the hon. gentleman possessed of the reasonable wishes and wants of the native and coloured people. I could get no information. My knowledge of the hon. member tells me that able though he may be, if there was one person in the whole of South Africa who was emphatically not the person who should represent the native people of South Africa, it was the hon. member for Gezina. But in spite or that the provisions of the South Africa Act were shamelessly abused by the Prime Minister at that time to fill a Cabinet vacancy.

What has that to do with this question?

The precedent thus set ten years ago was followed last year in the same manner to fill another Cabinet vacancy by the appointment of Mr. Fourie. This afternoon some of his followers with an air of unctuous rectitude appear here to attack the Prime Minister for the appointment of hon. members not to fill Cabinet vacancies, not for party purposes, not to get the Government out of an awkward corner, but for appointments made bona fide in the belief of the Prime Minister that such appointments would be in the interest of the coloured and native people.

What qualifications have they got?

They have infinitely greater qualifications to represent the coloured people, and they are infinitely more capable to represent the native people than the hon. member was ten years ago when for a brief period of three months he sat in the Senate. May I say that the reason for the hon. gentleman’s appointment was only too apparent, because he was appointed in July, 1929, but as soon as a vacancy could be created — as it was created by the appointment of Dr. Van Broekhuizen to go to Holland — as soon as such a vacancy was created, the natives of South Africa’ were condemned to do without his representation in the Senate, and he once more stood for this august assembly of which he had been so distinguished an ornament ever since.

I listened very carefully to the plea put up by the last speaker, and I have come to the conclusion that if I were ever to commit an offence I should not ask him to defend me. I was surprised to hear the answer of the Minister of Finance because I should have thought that his selfrespect would have prevented him making that answer. That was why I was surprised when he got up to answer. He states that we can test his attitude by the question whether the natives and the coloured people are satisfied with these appointments. That is to be the test, but a knowledge of those affairs has nothing to do with it. He knows as well as I do what the Act of Union says, namely, that people are to be appointed on account of their knowledge of native affairs; because otherwise we are going to get the same position that we have to-day, that the natives elect representatives who kwow nothing about their affairs. For if the natives had elected people who knew something about their affairs, these members would not have been here at all. In order to maintain the balance those people should definitely have a knowledge of native affairs. The previous speaker tried to distract our attention by making an attack on the former Prime Minister, but he did not succeed in doing so. The question is whether the Minister of Finance was honest when he made his speech, because he now comes along with the excuse that the coloured people and the natives are satisfied with these appointments. But if the past it was the method of appointment which he objected to. I should like to quote what he actually did say. In his speech he said that he would not have objected if Senator Fourie had been elected as a Senator in the ordinary way, or if he had been elected to the House of Assembly. But this is what he said—

That was the objection which he mentioned, but he did not rise here to-day to prove that the two members who have been appointed have any sound knowledge in accordance with the objections which he raised last year. He is satisfied now with those appointments but he did not tell us how he is able to harmonise these appointments with the conditions mentioned by him last year. The question which arises now is whether he has a conscience, whether he has any public feeling, because while he raised strong objections and opened his heart over that one unfair appointment, he now comes along and gives his approval to appointments in favour of which even less can be said. That is the question which he has to answer; the question is not whether the coloured people and the natives are satisfied, because they have no say in these appointments.

The Government appoints these people because of their thorough knowledge of the natives and certainly not because the natives desire them to be appointed. Now he comes along with the argument that the natives are satisfied with these appointments. I was always under the impression that the Minister of Finance was an honest man, and that he had really resigned because his feelings had been hurt and because he felt that the public had been unjustly treated. Now he rises here and admits that those two appointments were political appointments, that the people appointed were people holding the same political opinions as himself, and that they were not appointed because of their thorough knowledge of native affairs but because they were political supporters of the Government. If he resigned on a previous occasion, why did he not do so again? That is the question which he has not yet replied to.

The Minister of Finance defended himself this afternoon on the basis that Mr. Fourie was a thoroughly discredited politician and consequently he could not be brought back into the Cabinet in the manner in which he was brought back. That is what the Minister of Finance said this afternoon, but it is not what he said last year when he resigned. This is what he said then—

This afternoon his excuse is that he would not have welcomed his return. He said—

In other words, as an elected Senator having a thorough knowledge of the natives and the requirements of the coloured and native people. The Minister of Finance made it very clear last year that the only reason he had then for his objection was because of his being nominated as a nominated Senator for the natives, and the Minister must be held now to what he then said. But he found a defender in the hon. member for Kensington, and the hon. member for Kensington defended the Minister of Finance by saying that the Minister was quite correct in his attitude, because a similar sort of thing had happened nine years previously in the case of the hon. member for Gezina, but I want to tell the hon. member for Kensington that the Minister of Finance did not accept that last year as a good excuse.

Two wrongs do not make a right.

That is what the hon. member for Kensington tried to prove this afternoon. The hon. minister of Finance said last year—

In other words, no special acquaintance.

This is what the hon. minister of Finance then went on to say—

That was the hon. member for Gezina (Mr, Pirow).

And it was because of the breach of the Constitution last year that the hon. minister resigned. We are asking him now why he has not resigned in this case.

This is not to fill a temporary Cabinet vacancy.

It is a breach of the Constitution, and that is the only reason why he resigned.

This is not a breach of the Constitution.

No, Mr. Speaker, last year I had the privilege of listening to the hon. minister of Finance in this House. I am sure that many of us, when he had finished, felt that perhaps we were unfortunate in that here was a man who was gifted with a conscience that no one else possessed, at least he made it clear that he was honourable, and there were at least ten other members of the Cabinet whom he then left and who were not as honourable as he. I myself felt that perhaps it was a great shame that we had not that honour, that integrity, that the hon. minister of Finance had last year. Who can forget that unforgettable scene when the Minister stood with his hand on his heart, and told us of his great and honourable conscience? Mr. Speaker, we are entitled to ask him, that is all we do, we ask him to be consistent, we ask him to give us a reason here. After all, we know that Senator Murray is a very fine man, he is one of the greatest Caledonians in this country, but, Mr. Speaker, I don’t think that the hon. minister of Finance, or the Prime Minister, could have misunderstood the reading of the Constitution, and understood that when the Constitution speaks of the reasonable needs of the natives, that thereby was intended the natives of Scotland, but rather the natives of South Africa. I do think that the hon. minister of Finance should now clear up the situation by admitting that he was wrong last year and right this year, or he must leave us in the position of thinking that the idol of the Cabinet has feet of clay.

The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) wants us to understand that the reason why the Minister of Finance resigned on a previous occasion was because there had been a violation of the Constitution and he says that in this instance there has been no violation of the Constitution. The Minister of Finance in that speech made these remarks—

And then he goes on—

The Minister of Finance therefore in those days took up the attitude that Senator Fourie’s appointment was a violation of the Constitution and for that reason alone he resigned. And he said this—

“I leave my colleagues on the ground of conscience and principle.” If there was one man in this House for whose white justice and political honesty, and for whose Christian principle I had the greatest respect it was the Minister of Finance, but in this instance he has shaken my belief, my trust, in him. I should have thought that he would have taken his courage into his hands and that he would have said to his Leader, for whom I know he has the greatest respect, that the Constitution was being violated and trampled upon, and that for that reason he was going to resign. I am sorry he did not do so, because I had great expectations of the Minister of Finance for the future, but I fear that in this respect he has shaken my trust in him, and he has made me doubt the reasons for his resignation on a previous occasion. I believe that the best reason why he is satisfied to-day with the appointment of Sir Alfred Hennessy is because Sir Alfred Hennessy was chairman of the United Party. A man with a red colour policy is in the Senate now to represent the natives, and that is why he is satisfied. That is why he is not prepared to resign now, although the Constitution is being violated.

I feel that we are unfair to a degree to the Minister of Justice because there was a man in the Cabinet at the time who did exactly the same as the Minister of Finance did, namely the Minister of Railways and Harbours. He is not present in the House at the moment, but his conscience also seems to have undergone a change during the period of time which has passed between that resignation and the constitution of the new Government. I spoke about the Cape Town Highlanders earlier on, and I am not surprised that the hon. member for Mowbray (Capt. Hare) tried to distort what I said. But I am surprised that the Prime Minister also did so, and that he tried to indicate that I spoke with a sense of contempt for the people belonging to that regiment. It is for the very reason that there are Afrikaners in that regiment that I object to the flag they are using in South Africa. The Prime Minister told us that it was an old tradition and an old custom, and that was why it was being used. Is not the Union Jack an old custom and a tradition? And why did we get our Union flag? I consider that because of the same principle the Cape Town Highlanders should also have a different flag. The hon. member for Mowbray does not follow Afrikaans too well. Unfortunately we have such an, un-Afrikaans position in this House of Assembly that some hon. members here do not even understand the two official languages. I did not speak about the regiment, or about the people belonging to that regiment; I spoke about the name “Cape Town Highlanders.” Imagine! Here in the Union House of Parliament we have a regiment called the “Cape Town Highlanders” and an Afrikaner by the name of Van der Merwe occupies a post in that regiment and wears a Scottish kilt! If a regiment in England were to have a German name would that regiment be allowed to take part in the ceremony of the opening of Parliament? Here Afrikaner men belong to a regiment like that and they have to wear the Scottish kilt which the English overseas refuse to wear because they contend that only a Scotsman has the physical attributes to enable him to wear a kilt. The Prime Minister may have misunderstood me. I did not say that the Senate had neglected its duty, but I did say that the Senate no longer answers the purpose for which it was created. It was created for the purpose of stopping hasty legislation. Hasty legislation has been passed in days gone by by all governments, and my question now is whether the Senate has ever rejected a Bill introduced by any government during the last few years? My argument is that the Senate should be turned into a body which will answer the purpose intended by the Act of Union. There is another small point which I wish to bring to the Prime Minister’s notice, and that is a point in regard to the people who are given the best seats on the occasion of the opening of Parliament. I am raising this question, wether I am a front bencher or not, because I represent a constituency just as the Prime Minister does, and that being so I am entitled to speak here. If there must be a solemn opening of Parliament I want the people who are given the most important positions at the opening of Parliament to be South Africans. There are members who are not anxious to attend the opening because the spirit prevailing is not Afrikaans. But when we do attend the opening we find that the Afrikaners stand outside, and the nearer we get to the Senate Hall the more people from other countries do we find. In the Senate we find that the Admiral of the Fleet stands to the right of the Governor-General. He is not the Admiral of the South African Fleet. I am not referring to the individual or to the fleet, but why should the admiral of a navy of another country here in this country, in our free South Africa, have precedence at the opening of Parliament? Even the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) will have to admit that the German admiral will not occupy the position next to the King of England on the occasion of the opening of the British Parliament.

Your own leader has already answered that point.

It does not matter whether he has answered it. The hon. member for Kensington also goes back twenty years to get an answer, and then he tells us that two blacks do not make one white. If he really does not believe in two blacks making one white, then I want to ask him whether he does not agree that a change should be made here. Is he opposed to an Afrikaans system being devised for the opening of the Union Parliament? Is he in favour of people having to be attired in the ridiculous uniforms which they have to wear? When I speak of an Afrikaans spirit I do not mean a Dutch spirit, nor an English spirit, but an Afrikaans spirit. And if those members do not feel at home on the occasion of such an opening it is evidence to us of the fact that they should not be members of this House.

Do you want all of us to grow beards?

The hon. member looks bad enough without a beard; what would he look like with a beard? I do not want him to try to grow a beard, but I do wish that we, or somebody else, might succeed in inspiring him with an Afrikaans spirit, as has already happened to others of his fellow-countrymen. His former King also wore a beard. But that is not what we are talking about. All we ask is that at the opening of the South African Parliament a true South African spirit should prevail.

I was surprised to hear the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. Van Nierop). He is the last man who should speak in the spirit in which he did speak. He referred sneeringly to a particular regiment, and in spite of his effort to put that injustice right I contend that he referred contemptuously to this regiment. He showed a prejudice in favour of the Scotchman, so much so that he married a Scotch lady. In the circumstances we would have expected something better from him.

She does not walk about in a Scottish skirt, but in an Afrikaans skirt.

It ill becomes him to speak in the way he did and we deplore the attitude of that hon. member. But my surprise at the attitude of that hon. member is not as great as my surprise at the attitude of our former colleagues. The hon. member for Potgietersrust (the Rev. S. W. Naudé) spoke of Christian principles. The connection in which he raised this was difficult to follow, and it ill became him to speak in the way he did. When he speaks of Christian principles he should remember that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones. He throws stones at the Minister of Finance, and not alone he, but the hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen) and the hon. member for Germiston (North) (Mr. Quinlan) also threw stones.

Be careful.

The hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. Bekker) is a very good man as a farmer, but as a politician he is no use at all. I said that what surprised me was the attitude of our former colleagues. No hon. member dare say that the circumstances in connection with the appointment of Senator Fourie were in any respect similar to the circumstances in connection with the appointment of Senator Murray and Senator Hennessy. The circumstances were completely and totally different. In the case of Senator Fourie the Constitution of South Africa had to be amended in order to create an extra Cabinet seat for the particular Senator.

That is not so.

Yes, a thirteenth seat had to be created.

That had nothing to do with the appointment of Senator Fourie.

The hon. member for Victoria West, the hon. member for Potgietersrust and the hon. member for Germiston (North) supported the Government in respect of that appointment, but now in circumstances which are totally different, they attack the Minister. I am surprised to see that when a man steps across the floor of the House to the other side, he not only smothers his political conscience, but he also completely smothers his ordinary conscience.

I should like to say that I ask in all honesty, because I do not know those people, what were the qualifications or the ability of those people for those particular posts? The hon. member for Ermelo (Mr. Jackson) now wants to pretend that because we sat on the other side of the House last year and approved of the appointment of Senator Fourie, we should, therefore, also approve of these appointments of the new Senators. He spoke about “laaste jaar”, but he meant “verlede jaar”. I believe he spoke of the last year because he realised that it is his last year. I asked what the abilities of these people were, and the right hon. the Prime Minister thereupon answered: “The knowledge they have, the sympathy they have and the contributions they have made.” I know that the papers spoke about sympathy and knowledge, but what really are the special abilities possessed by those people? The right hon. the Prime Minister was very vague in his references to the contributions made by those people. I do not know what happened. There are certain rumours going about. Did those people make financial contributions? There is a rumour in circulation to the effect that fairly substantial offers were made by certain individuals. Somebody told me that one man went to the extent of offering £10,000 if he could be elected as a Senator. Were the contributions made by those people of a similar kind, or what were they? I also should like to know what the abilities of those people were. The Minister of Finance said that the test was whether the natives were satisfied. I do not believe that the Minister of Finance really meant this seriously, because I want to ask if in the event of the Government appointing the Prince of Wales as a Senator to-morrow to represent the natives, and the natives were satisfied with such an appointment, would that be a test? Would an appointment like that be in accordance with the constitution which lays it down that such a Senator must have special knowledge in regard to the natives and the coloured people? No, the test is not whether the natives are satisfied, and I do not believe that the Minister of Finance was serious when he gave me that answer. The right hon. the Prime Minister also referred specially to the hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Conroy), who was appointed as a member of the Native Affairs Commission. I am only a young member of this House, and I do not really know who made that appointment, and with whose approval it was done. I merely want to ask whether that appointment was not made during the period of fusion, and whether the Prime Minister did not approve of that appointment. If the hon. member for Vredefort did not have the necessary knowledge, as the Prime Minister now seems to allege, then I should like to know why the Prime Minister approved of his appointment. I do not know what the rules of the Cabinet are….

What has that to do with the Senate?

I am referring to the reply given by the Prime Minister that the hon. member for Vredefort did not have any special knowledge either.

The hon. member cannot go into that.

If I am not allowed to deal with that point, I shall sit down.

The Minister of Finance said that he did not have a great deal to add to what the Prime Minister had said. What did the Prime Minister say? What reason did he give which justified him in making the appointments? He spoke sneeringly about me, but I have not been appointed as a Senator. I was appointed as a member of the Native Affairs Commission during a period when he was Minister, and I take it that my appointment was approved of by him. Did he violate his conscience in connection with my appointment?

On a point of order, I was stopped from dealing with that point. Is the hon. member allowed to discuss that same point now?

The hon. member may proceed.

The right hon. the Prime Minister did not adduce any reasons; he simply glossed over the matter by a number of vague statements. He referred to me sneeringly because I had referred to Senator Murray. I only want to say that I think a great deal of Senator Murray as a man. I think so much of him that I voted in favour of him on the occasion when we nominated him as a Senator, but it was not our intention to nominate him because of his special knowledge of native affairs. Now the right hon. the Prime Minister says that there is no difference between him and me, but does the right hon. the Prime Minister not know that for the past forty years I have incessantly concerned myself with natives, and that I have more than 100 natives in my service, probably more than the Prime Minister. In any case, the analogy was quite out of place. But if the Prime Minister wants to make a comparison, he must have violated his conscience when he approved of my appointment. We expect the Prime Minister, when accusations are made, to disprove them, and to give specific facts for his actions.

To-day’s sitting day will no doubt go down in our historical records as the day on which Minister Hofmeyr was debunked. We heard so much in the past few years of the very high and great principles for which the Minister of Finance stood; we were told that he always stood for right and justice, and that such a thing as political expediency was unknown to him in whatever he took up. I remember when the hon. minister resigned as a member of the previous Cabinet he hurried to Johannesburg to address his constituents, and I remember his telling them that he was a man of principle, the only man of principle in the whole Cabinet, and he gave them to understand that all the other members of the Cabinet were men without principles, and were really scoundrels. In those days he even included the Prime Minister among the unprincipled members of the Government. After that we often heard statements from the Minister that he had stood up for his principles, that he had resigned because the constitution had been violated, and not because Minister Fourie at the time of the election had been defeated and had been brought into the Cabinet in that way, but simply because he was appointed on account of his special knowledge of the needs and requirements of the coloured races, which knowledge he did not possess according to the assertions of the hon. minister of Finance. That was the position. To-day, however, he replies to this debate and tells us that the great test is whether the coloured people and the natives are satisfied. Did the Minister of Finance on that former occasion go through the country to find out whether the natives and coloured people were dissatisfied with the appointment of Senator Fourie? And has he made a tour of the country now to find out whether they are so very satisfied with the appointment of Sir Alfred Hennessy and Col. Murray? The Minister of Finance was shewn up here to-day in all his nakedness. It must be perfectly clear to the whole country, and not only in this House, that he only adheres to certain principles, in accordance with what circumstances require. This reminds me of the story which the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) tells in this famous book of his. He tells us there of a meeting of the De Beers Company which was attended by Sammy Marks, who made a long and impressive speech on that occasion. Having finished his speech all the Directors sat perfectly still and looked at him. Not one word was said. Sammy Marks thereupon remarked, “Well, gentlemen, them is my principles.” When nothing was said he continued, “And if you do not like them I have others.” These words apply to the Minister of Finance. It struck me that none of the hon. members opposite got up to defend the Minister of Finance. Only the hon. member for Kensington, who has already secured for himself the name of the “handy man” of the Party opposite, got up to try and defend the Minister, but this was undoubtedly the weakest defence he has ever put up in this House. He did not really put up a defence, but he retreated and pointed to similar appointments in the past. I say in all seriousness to-day that never before has a man with so-called principles been shewn up to such an extent in all his nakedness in this House. I hope that in future the Minister will not rush to tea parties of old women of the United Party to tell them what a strong man of principle he is, and how he stands for everything that is beautiful and noble in our political life, and I hope that he will no longer warn our young people against political expediency, because if ever there was an instance of political expediency it came to light in connection with the Minister’s attitude in regard to these appointments. Let us see what actually did take place. These two people were appointed simply and solely for political considerations and the hon. the Minister when he saw that his Liberalism was safe in the Party had not the courage to resign. He said that he now occupied an important position in the Cabinet and whatever happened he was going to stick to his post. That sort of attitude we could expect from the Prime Minister—we have become accustomed to it in the past. But the Minister of Finance with his honesty and clean character, and everything he has stood for is certainly the greatest come-down we have ever seen. I am afraid it will take my hon. friend years to outlive it. I don’t think he will dare open his mouth again about the beauty and honesty of public life, because we shall remember this, and not only shall we remember but the country as a whole will remember. Let me conclude by saying that I am sorry the Government is appointing people in direct conflict with the Act of Union, and what is even more scandalous is that the Minister of Finance has swallowed all his beautiful principles for the sake of the post which he occupies to-day.

The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) went back many years in order to drag the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) into the debate again. I think the hon. member for Kensington should realise that the country has found him out. It is his own past which is responsible for the country having found him out. In his younger days he was regarded as a young capable member. He may still have a bit of ability but he is no longer young and if he still has any hopes left they must be vague hopes. I think the Prime Minister owes this House an explanation, not only on the ground of what is right and just to the country, but also from the point of view of what is right and just to the Minister of Finance. Definite questions have been put to the Prime Minister and the question put was “what was the reason for the appointment of those two Senators, because the Constitution demands that they shall have a special knowledge of native affairs.” Now I should like to know from the Prime Minister what the special qualifications of these people are? It should be quite easy for the Prime Minister to tell us that their qualifications are such and such, and what their special knowledge is, but instead of trying to give us that information he tries to make the position even more vague. The Prime Minister should realise, however, that this makes the position of his colleague, the Minister of Finance, very difficult, because he definitely took up his attitude of recent years and bound himself to certain principles in regard to these appointments. Now we ask the Prime Minister what the position of the Minister of Finance is in regard to those principles which he bound himself to follow last year. It should be quite easy for the Prime Minister, if those people have such a good pedigree in regard to the natives and the coloured people, to defend them; it should be quite easy for the Prime Minister to explain the position. Haye they ever contributed £1 to a native school or to a missionary society? Surely it would be quite easy for the Prime Minister to tell us—he should be able to tell us what was the reason for the appointment of those Senators. Perhaps the Prime Minister might tell us whether by any chance they have a native kitchen boy working for them, because we want to know on what their thorough knowledge of native needs and requirements is based, irrespective of their sympathy for the natives. It is now being said that the drivers of their motor cars are natives, but surely that is not sufficient reason to give such a person the necessary qualifications to become a native representative in the Senate. It is perfectly clear that these people should have a thorough knowledge of native affairs, and of the affairs of coloured people, and the Prime Minister should be able to tell us something about this; he should be able to tell us how they have shown their special knowledge in the past and how they obtained their special knowledge. It should be quite easy, and I ask the Prime Minister not to split hairs, but to tell us all this as the fair name of the Minister of Finance is at stake. The Minister of Finance last year bound himself to certain principles and we are entitled to know to what extent the Minister of Finance is adhering to those principles, or whether the Minister of Finance has also decided only to render service to the Empire. The Minister of Finance resigned last year because a man was appointed as senator who to his mind did not have adequate knowledge of natives and coloured people. The reasons justifying that appointment have been mentioned here over and over again. Now we ask the Prime Minister what justification there is for the appointment of those two Senators. I think we should have a clear answer, because the Minister of Finance will then better be able to decide whether he is going to remain consistent or not. He laid down certain definite requirements last year which he would be obliged to observe in future, and if these appointments do not comply with these requirements there is only one thing the Minister of Finance can do — if the qualifications possessed by those people are not adequate then the Minister of Finance should again resign. If the Minister of Finance allows this matter to pass by without further ado, then we are entitled to cast doubt on the so-called stand adopted by the Minister of Finance in the past. All we know about those two Senators is that they are strong supporters of the Prime Minister. They are good members of his party, and I feel that that is the reason for their appointment. It is not so much a matter of their having a good knowledge of native and coloured affairs, but that they are wholeheartedly supporters of the Prime Minister. If we take the test of the Minister of Finance, I say that we need not even put the test whether they are political followers of the Government or not.

But we are convinced that those two senators are also political followers of the Prime Minister. We ask the Prime Minister to be good enough to reply to us because we doubt very much whether those appointments were made in terms of the provisions of the Act of Union, whether those people have the necessary knowledge in regard to these affairs, or whether they were only appointed because of political considerations.

There is only one principle, which, it seems to me can justify the passionate onslaught of the last speaker (Mr. Bezuidenhout), and that is an anxiety to look after the welfare of the native races, but if there is one thing which is not behind the criticism which has been levelled at the appointment of these Senators, it is solicitude for the welfare of the native races, because I do not think members on that side of the House care for that at all — all they are anxious to do is to try and attack the Minister of Finance because of an alleged inconsistecy in his attitude.

They do not care about you.

The position which is envisaged by the provisions of Section 24 of the South Africa Act has been completely changed since 1936, because in 1936 the natives themselves were given the right to elect four representatives to the Senate, and the care which the Government before that date might have adopted in choosing Senators by reason of their knowledge of native affairs need not to-day be carried out with the same exactitude. It is entirely a matter of opinion as to whether a nominated Senator has or has not an adequate knowledge of the reasonable wants and aspirations of the native people. That is purely a matter of opinion, and any South African who has come into contact with the native people, and taken an interest in their affairs, seems to me to be qualified to fill that position. Now that there are four Senators directly appointed by the natives themselves, the same meticulous care in regard to the appointment of Senators representing the natives need not be taken.

I am surprised at the remark made by the last speaker who comes here and tells us that the provisions of the Act of Union need no longer be observed as the natives are now specially represented, or rather he says that those provisions need no longer be so strictly applied. If Parliament had intended abolishing those provisions it would have abolished them, or it would have made provision for an amendment of the Act of Union. I am surprised at a lawyer using such an argument. Now I come to the question of the appointment in 1929 of the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow). The Prime Minister then laid down certain principles which were accepted by him and they were also accepted by the present Prime Minister. That same principle was adopted on the occasion of the appointment of Senator Fourie. He raised no objections, at that time, to the principle that was to be applied that the person who would be appointed should have such knowledge of the native races as would ordinarily be possessed by an ordinary citizen of this country. The same principles applied when, for instance, the hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Conroy) was appointed to the Native Affairs Commission. I am surprised that such an argument should be used. The present Prime Minister and the then Prime Minister were in agreement in regard to the qualifications, but the Minister of Finance never agreed with them on the question of those qualifications and that was why he resigned. Now the Minister comes along with the argument that the coloured people and the natives welcome these appointments. I am surprised at the Minister of Finance coming here with that argument to-day. I was one of those young members who at the time listened with respect and admiration to the Minister of Finance when he made that speech. I was so impressed by his speech that I thought to myself: “Well, there is the greatest and the most honest man in South African politics,” but in those days the question at issue was that Mr. Fourie did not have those qualifications. The Minister contended that such a Senator should have special qualifications. Nor has Sir Alfred Hennessy got those qualifications. We in Cape Town have never known him as a man who takes particular interest in the coloured community. Since 1910 until Fusion of the Unionists and the old South African Party he was an opponent of the Prime Minister. He was then put on the political shelf. There was no position for him. He was Knighted and there was no opportunity of giving him any other reward. It was at the request of the Cape members of Parliament, all of whom are animated by the Unionistic spirit, that he was appointed as a Senator. The hon. member over there (Mr. Blackwell) who has been crewing so loudly is pleased at the fact that one of his spiritual friends has been appointed as Senator. No, I must say that if the Minister of Finance were honest he would have got up in this House and said that he was wrong on this previous occasion, or if he does not wish to say so he should have the courage to tender his resignation again because of these appointments. He said that the persons who were concerned in this representation had no objections. Did the persons interested raise any objections when Senator Fourie was appointed? Not one of the people interested in that appointment raised any objection and the only person who objected was the Minister of Finance because Mr. Fourie was not one of the old Unionists. But the coloured people as such and the natives in the Cape did not raise the slightest objection to him, and that being so I say that it is a case of far-reaching hypocrisy on the part of the hon. minister of Finance to rise in this House and adduce other reasons why he resigned from the Cabinet on that occasion. For that reason we have to conclude in future that the Minister of Finance is not a man of such high principles as we thought him to be in the past.

I wish to take strong exception to what the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. Davis) said here. He made the allegations against the Afrikaans-speaking section of the population that we do not take any interest in the natives. The Afrikaans-speaking section of the population in the past has always honestly and fairly looked after the interests of the natives and they have done so in such a way that they have no cause to blush. The natives have not in any way been exploited by the Afrikaans section of the people. If we were to go, however, to the reserves in the North, in South-West and the East, we would find that in every reserve there are members of his nation who are occupied in exploiting the natives and making money out of them. I have some personal experience of this, and I am able to prove both in this House and outside that the stock and cattle owned in those reserves, and even the land itself, is under the control of members of his race. The natives carry on farming there on behalf of the friends of the hon. member and those reserves are nothing but slave areas of theirs.

But what has that to do with the vote “Senate” which we are now dealing with?

I only wish to reply to the reflection which the hon. member has made against the Afrikaans-speaking people of this country, when he said that we should not take any part in the discussions concerning the appointment of Senators, as we did not take an interest in the natives. I want to prove that we do take an interest in the natives, and that we do so in a most honourable way, and that for that reason we want to see the best man appointed to look after the interests of the native, and not just those people who support the Government of the day, and who are busy exploiting the natives. I feel that the native problem in this country is a very great one, and it should be tackled in the right spirit, and for that reason we are anxious to see the right type of Senators being appointed. There is a tendency to appoint people who are really not qualified to occupy those positions, because they know very little about the natives, and take very little interest in them. It is because certain people are appointed who are related to the friends of the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) that I say that the interests of the natives are neglected because those people are not familiar with the reasonable needs and requirements of the natives. We feel that the best people to be appointed for this purpose are the people who have a real knowledge of the native, a knowledge which they have secured as a result of personal experience, and as a result of personal contact with the native. I can mention the name of Senator Smit who can speak the native language as well as a native can speak it, and who knows all there is to know about the native. That is the type of man I should like to see appointed. Those people who are qualified in such a way that they know the native’s language, that they understand his mode of living and so on, will not, ignorantly undermine the interests of the natives; they will do their best for the native, and that being so I am surprised, when I realise that the Prime Minister, with his great knowledge, knowing that those appointments must spell danger to the natives, yet resorted to making political appointments in order to favour certain people. We feel that we should express cur strong disapproval of those appointments which have only one object, namely that of promoting the political interest of that side of the House.

I wish to register a strong protest against the Minister of Finance who occupies an important position sitting quietly in this House and then eventually coming forward with such poor excuses, to approve of these two appointments of Senators while such a short while ago on the 9th September, 1938, he was the cause of such a serious crisis in the Cabinet on a similar question. We must bear in mind that this happened seven days after the important agreement was arrived at between the Prime Minister and the then Prime Minister to the effect that South Africa was to remain neutral; is it possible that on that occasion the Minister of Finance heard some whispers about this agreement, and that he was not prepared to serve in the Cabinet during the period of an Imperial war? If we bear in mind the speech which he made to the young members of the Chamber of Commerce, if we remember the high-falutin speech he made on that occasion about ideals and principles which had to be maintained, I ask him how dare he sit still and allow those principles which he was so anxious to maintain in those days go by the board to-day? No, I think that there was a great deal more behind that affair than the appointment of Senator Fourie. If he now approves of the appointment of Sir Alfred Hennessy and if he justifies that appointment, then I am unable to understand what has become of the Minister’s principles. He is the man who is such a strong Liberal, he is his mother’s blue-eyed boy, and he is the man who held forth so strongly against the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow), whom he accused of having left his country in the lurch. Here we are faced with a much more important matter, and we have the deplorable phenomenon of the Minister desetting his principles. I wish to register a serious protest against his attitude and against his action in this respect.

Vote put and agred to.

On Vote No. 3.—“House of Assembly,” £145,087,

There is one point which I should like to bring to the notice of the House, and that is that the Government — I believe it will have to come from the Government — should give its attention to some very important alterations to the House of Parliament. This House has latterly proved very unsatisfactory in regard to rooms, especially in connection with the library. First of all this applies to the building in which the library is accommodated, and that building at the moment falls very short of what is needed. Secondly, both the House of Assembly and the Senate are in need of additional rooms. A request was made the other day by members of the Government for additional rooms to be built on for the use of Ministers, as the rooms which were now at their disposal were inadequate. We hear from a good source that the Senate is also dissatisfied. There may be several ways of overcoming the difficulty. Personally I think the best way would be to, remove the library from the place where it is now and use that room for the House of Assembly and the Senate. The question arises, what is to become of the library then? I may say that this House has been sitting for a long time looking at Nabob’s vineyard — the grounds surrounding the house of the Governor-General — and we have made application to secure those grounds for many purposes. That application was turned down because the then Governor-General preferred to live here rather than at Westbrooke and for that reason they did not want to interfere with the grounds.

The hon. member must not go too far into this matter.

I only want to point out where the new library should be accommodated. The present Governor-General is apparently not anxious to live here. I believe that he prefers to live at Westbrooke, and I think he is very sensible. Possibly this is the time for us to take a piece of ground belonging to the Governor-General’s residence so that we may build a modem library there. Our present library is too small and antiquated and it is totally inadequate, but if we could have the ground adjoining Parliament we could put up a proper library there, and in the space where the library is at present adequate provision could be made for the needs of the Senate and of this House. This matter has been discussed by many committees in this House and they have given their attention to the question, but I am afraid that the committees will not get beyond the present stage.

The matter, however, is of so much importance that I want to urge the Government to take some action. If they do not take action nothing will be done. I hope the Government will give the matter its attention in the near future and make provision for the necessary accommodation for the House of Assembly and the Senate, and that it will also effect an improvement in the position of our library.

I should like to support every word spoken by the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer). All of us admit that the position in regard to our library is far from satisfactory at the moment, and the Senate as well as this House have serious complaints about the present situation. I know that the committee which has to deal with this question is occupied with it, and that their considerations are possibly in the direction indicated by the hon. member for Humansdorp. Anyhow I hope that that is so. My request to the Prime Minister is that if the select committee comes along with a report he will give that report his full support. We have the most valuable collection of Africana in South Africa, and, in fact, in the whole world, and it is practically hidden away in the cellars. That is an insult to that magnificent collection. A total re-organisation is necessary, and for that reason I want to ask that if any recommendations are made the Prime Minister will see to it that the necessary funds are provided.

In reply to the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) and the hon. member for Pretoria (District) (Mr. Oost), I want to inform hon. members that this question is being discussed now between a committee of the Senate and a committee of this House. The committee to which I have referred are preparing plans, and, I hope, as soon as the Senate re-assembles, that various schemes will be put before them and a decision will be come to. The importance of the position is the fact that the present library is not fire-proof, and we have got in the library valuable Africana, and they have to be protected. I cannot give the Committee any more information than that. I have my own views in connection with the matter.

I hope you will take the long view.

I am taking the long view. The proper view in connection with the matter is to have a library complete in itself, and absolutely fire-proof, convenient to the Houses of Parliament.

That is my suggestion.

I am very interested in the salary list (a). The upper portion of it seems to be entirely satisfactory. Indeed, I should be very pleased to change places on a financial basis with one or two of those on the top. I have no doubt that they are only reasonably compensated for what they do, and quite fully earn what they receive. My point is that when we get half-way down the list we come to the people who do not receive what I am satisfied they earn. The assistant-messengers start at £15 per month and rise by £15 a year until at the end of the fourth year they are getting £20 per month. They do splendid work in this place. I take it that we are all agreed that the general standard of the work performed by the servants of this House is amazingly good, and one hopes it may be possible to raise their salaries a little bit, or even a big bit, for that matter. There is distinct need for improvement in this respect. Next we come to sessional clerks and messengers. Their title is quite an imposing one, and inclines one at first to think of dignitaries of the courts, and imagine their offices to be something like chose of K.C.’s or at very least justices of the peace; but they are not like these officials when it comes to the amount of their incomes. A block sum of £3,300 per year as printed in the Estimates does not convey very much, unless we know how many have to share it. I hope the sessional clerks are reasonably paid, but I am certain that the sessional messengers are going pretty short in that connection. Their emoluments amount to about £14 per month for the period of Parliament, say, three or four months. After Parliament rises they have no recourse except to accept what they can get in the way of pick and shovel work at 6s. a day. That is our old friend £1 16s. a week, or £7 4s. per month. That does not seem from our point of view in keeping with the dignity of the House, as payment for people who serve us extremely well during the session, and who, after the session, are driven out upon the world, in actual fact to the top of the mountain, with a pick and shovel, to do work which men of 60 years of age are definitely not able to do. There are other anomalies in this service. For example, when we have been amusing each other very much and have insisted upon remaining together in this House until the early morning, on the principle, apparently, of “The more we are together the happier we shall be,” it may be all right from our point of view; but these men of whom I am speaking, if they stay until 12 o’clock at night, get an extra 2s. 6d. which is not commensurate with the misery they suffer in the process. If they stay until 1 o’clock a.m. they get one shilling more, on the principle, apparently, of the more they work the less the reward. If they stay from 1 o’clock to 5 or 6 o’clock the following morning they get 1s. 6d. for this extra five hours’ work, 3d. per time. That is an absolutely wrong computation. Personally I would not do it for £3 an hour, if I could avoid it, which sometimes I cannot. I would urge upon the Minister of Public Works, who unfortunately is absent at this moment, but who will shortly return, and who has a very kind face, that one hopes he will make some arrangement for these men who serve us so well during the session, so that they may draw 10s. a day for the remainder of the year. I feel that no South African, particularly any one who serves during the session in this place, which is the law-making home of our country, for the remaining nine months of the year should have to indulge in a sort of scramble for bare existence. That they do so, under the existing conditions, we know very well. Two of them died during the last recess, and the widows of both of them, of necessity, have petitioned this House for bread and butter. That is a distressing fact, and the thing should be altered. In regard to the library, which I seldom have time to visit, it is an excellent one. I notice that the Assistant Librarian gets £600 a year, and the library assistant only £300 a year. It seems rather hard lines that simply because his title is turned round the wrong way that a man should drop £300 a year. Something should moreover be done in the matter of the cleaners. On the permanent staff they are paid 11s. 9d. on an average a day. I would not care to do their work for £11 9s. a week. Their pay is £17 2s. 6d. a month, which is not sufficient. If hon. members do not agree with me let them ask any woman who keeps house. The temporary cleaners have to join with the messengers in the scramble for “relief work” at 6s. a day, for the greater part of the year. I am advocating that the lowest paid of our servants in this House should get more money. It is up to me to indicate how the money can be paid without increasing the vote. I am attracted to Hansard, item C, for which we pay £13,500 per year. That does seem to be a little bit high, or perhaps a big bit too high. I have picked up by chance numbers 3 and 5 of the weekly edition of Hansard. I see that number 3 contains 200 pages and number 5, 194 pages. A reasonable price for printing Hansard, I submit, would be £2 per page. That would amount on an average to £400 per weekly edition for the job, and for the 18 weekly editions during the session, which is not an unreasonable estimate, it would amount to £7,200. I am aware that the production of Hansard is not an ordinary printing job, in this wise. The speeches which hon. members of this House deliver from time to time, have to be recorded and translated and put into more exact English and Afrikaans in the process, in some cases. I, therefore, realise it is not an ordinary straightforward printing job, but I do not think that the other £6,000, for example, goes to the people who do that necessary work. I do not suppose that £4,000 of it goes in that way amongst all those who work on our Hansard. It seems to me that there is an amount of £2,300 over-payment. If that could be rescued and distributed amongst the temporary cleaners and the sessional messengers I think that would be a much better home for this amount of £2,300. Without tampering with the rate we pay, we could reduce expenses in two ways. Instead of printing thousands we could print a few hundreds to take home to show our wives, for they are, or say they are, awfully interested in it. We could print about 150 copies for that purpose, and another 350 copies for filing purposes. For the information of the nation and of the world, speeches throughout the day could be broadcast by wireless installation. As has been suggested in previous sessions by the present Minister of Labour, the installation of a radio would be an excellent thing. I suggest that we could reduce our cost if we printed only 500 copies of Hansard, and there is one other way in which it could be done. That would be, contrawise, to issue a lot more copies of the Hansard. There is a rather widespread idea, and a wrong one, that when you have printing done you can get hundreds of thousands of extra copies without any extra cost at all, but that is absurd. There must be some cost, such as the value of paper, the labour and the upkeep charge for running the sheets through the machine, and the reasonable profit and all the rest of it. But there is an ultimate price. If the ultimate cost of producing the last 5,000 copies —I mean the cost per copy above 5,000— worked out at sixpence per copy, I suggest that there should be some system organised of selling these weekly Hansards extensively throughout the country at 9d. each. Many thousands could be disposed of if the price were reasonable and the sales properly systematised.

It would be a best seller.

It would be a best seller if you and I were allowed to talk all day, instead of some other hon. members, who bore the House so terribly. I, however, seriously suggest that more copies might be printed, and the Government should make it possible to sell not merely a few hundreds, but many thousands of copies of the Handard. [Time limit.]

Vote put and agreed to.

On Vote No. 4—“Prime Minister and External Affairs,” £167,600,

May I avail myself of the half hour privilege to speak on this vote? I wish to start off by moving in connection with the Prime Minister’s salary that the whole of his salary of £3,500 be deleted. I wish to give the Minister the assurance that this does not actually reflect my opinion of his ability, but it certainly does reflect my opinion of the degree of confidence which he is entitled to receive in this country. The first thing I wish to say in this connection is that the Prime Minister occupies the position of Prime Minister here without any mandate from the people and for that reason we have every ground to raise objections to the Prime Minister occupying his seat over there. In this connection I should like to point out that it is the custom in this House, and it should continue to be the custom, that when there is a change of Government which is coupled with a change, a radical change in the party he represents, the Prime Minister should not just carry on but should test the opinion of the country on the subject. And this should specially be the case when in conjunction with the change of Government, and together with a radical change in the party, a further important step is being taken in regard to the Government’s policy. When in 1921 an important change took place that change did not take place in the constitution of the Government. The Government which was in power carried on, but a fusion took place, which brought about a complete change in the political situation, as between the then South African Party and the Unionist Party. The present Prime Minister who was also the Prime Minister in those days recognised his duty then, and he made an appeal to the country, and the country gave its consent. When in 1933 again there was not a change of Prime Minister, but when there was an important change in the political situation through the coming into being of the Coalition as a result of the fusion of the Government and the Opposition, he also recognised what his duty was and made an appeal to the country. But what took place in 1939 was that there was a change of Government, the Prime Minister resigned, and a new Prime Minister took office. The whole Cabinet resigned and a new Cabinet had to be formed. And not only that, the party which supported the Prime Minister was split from top to bottom. It was no longer the same party, and in no single respect can one continue to call it the United Party. They may retain the name, but the unit has disappeared, and in addition to that a step, a most important step was taken in connection with South Africa throwing in its lot in the European war. If ever there was an occasion when it was the clear duty of the Prime Minister to dissolve Parliament, and to make an appeal to the country, this was the occasion. As I have said, the Prime Minister occupies his position to-day without having a mandate from the people of this country. I wish to touch on a matter which has on a previous occasion been discussed by the House, but the matter is of such importance that I think it warrants my reverting to it. The point is that the Prime Minister acted wrongfully by simply accepting the decision taken by the Governor-General not to act in accordance with the request of the previous Prime Minister to dissolve Parliament after the 4th Sepember. I say that he had no right, he had no more right in those circumstances to accept the Prime Ministership, and simply to continue Parliament. It has been stated on a previous occasion that it is clearly set down in the constitution that the Governor-General, like the King in England, has the fullest right not to accept a recommendation of this character if it is made by the Prime Minister. It has been stated in this House that the Governor-Generalship in South Africa constitutionally is in exactly the same position as the Kingship in England, but it has not been indicated that on any occasion in the history of England has a King refused, when a Prime Minister asked for the dissolution of Parliament in order to test the will of the people, to comply with that request, and if the King of England has never refused such a request, I say that no Governor-General in any dominion has any antecedent or rather any precedent, of an example set by the King. Á very convincing reason would have to be produced for an action of that nature. The prerogative is there as it stands on paper, or as it exists to-day by custom, but as is the case with many a prerogative it is nothing but a dead prerogative. The King of England does not exercise it, and if he were to exercise it, it would in England be equivalent to a constitutional revolution of the first magnitude. I first of all want to say that if his function is to be regarded as something living, if the prerogative is to be applied, then the rule that the Governor-General, or the King where the Governor-General is his substitute, can do no wrong, falls away, that the full responsibility for all his actions does not rest on him but on the Prime Minister. If the King or the Governor-General can exercise the right to refuse to accept the recommendation of the Prime Minister, one cannot make the Prime Minister take the responsibility. He has to take the responsibility himself, and if he has to take the responsibility he cannot avoid criticism.

The next Prime Minister takes the responsibility, make your attack on me.

Yes, it is well that you should bear the responsibility. I said at the beginning that you had acted wrongfully, that you did not have the moral courage to go to the people and that you did not have the moral right in those circumstances to accent the position of Prime Minister.

That is correct: the accusation applies to me and not to the Governor-General.

I am pleased that the Prime Minister admits it. I want to remind him that the Minister of Finance made certain remarks when he reverted to this matter. He said that the King and also the Governor-General had the right to dismiss a Cabinet, and if he has the right to dismiss a Prime Minister and his Cabinet, then he also has the right to refuse the dissolution of Parliament. I want to say that that argument does not hold, simply because if one asks why the King or the Governor-General should dismiss the Prime Minister and his Cabinet if the Prime Minister refuses to resign, then only two reasons are possible — the first reason is that Parliament has accepted a vote of no confidence, and the Prime Minister may refuse in those circumstances to take any further steps, or to consider that vote of no confidence, and he may carry on as Prime Minister — in other words, the King or the Governor-General would set aside the legislative power. In such a case he would be able to step in, and he would also be able to step in if it becomes perfectly clear that the Government definitely no longer represents the country and yet refuses in those circumstances to test the feeling of the country. But what then is the object of the interference of the King, or of the Governor-General? The interference of the King or the Governor-General would take place in such a case to protect the people and not to dominate the people. That is one of the functions of the King, and it is also a function which the Governor-General has to carry out. The function is to protect the will of the people and not to interfere with the test of the will of the people, or the wish of the Prime Minister or of the Governor-General of the day. I think the matter is of sufficient importance to allow us to revert to it and to express these views about it. I further want to say this, that the Prime Minister is occupying his present position without any mandate from the people. He did not have the moral right to act as he did after the 4th September, but I feel that we have had sufficient evidence since the beginning of this session, and since the Prime Minister came into power, to say that he has not made proper use of the power which he is exercising without the mandate from the people, or rather let me say that he has abused that power. I only wish to point out the way in which he has treated this House, I only wish to show that he has appropriated unto himself powers which according to a judgment of the court, be should only exercise in extraordinary conditions; hut as there is peace in the country, and in view of the fact that all democratic countries are acting differently from what we are doing, and as he should have called together the elected Parliament of the country, and first of all have asked their consent to the acts committed by him, be has acted wrong-fully. I leave that point there. I also make no further comment on his actions in connection with the freedom of the people, the internments and the manner in which those internments have taken place. I only want to say this to the Prime Minister. He asked the House for the right, and he obtained the right to exercise certain powers, he obtained greater powers than any Government has ever had even under more difficult conditions than those prevailing in South Africa to-day. But I want to tell him that he is responsible, he bears the heavy and full responsibility for the exercise of those powers. Parliament will be sitting here for a few weeks longer and while Parliament is here we can keep our eye on the Government and we are able properly to criticise it in this House, but I do not know what is going to happen when Parliament is no longer in session, and when the Prime Minister has those extraordinary powers which he possesses to-day. All I can say is that the principal of this House, the principal of Parliament and of the Government, is the people outside, and Indemnity Act or no Indemnity Act, if it becomes clear that the Prime Minister, when Parliament is not in session, abuses the powers entrusted to him, then I say Indemnity Act or no Indemnity Act, the people will call him to account for his action. I am making these remarks because we have had experience of the Prime Minister and that experience makes it essential for us to utter a word of warning in regard to this question. Now I wish to touch on another matter, and that is the step taken by the Prime Minister not so long ago in connection with the Defence Force, that is to say the introduction of a new form for signature, and the taking of a new oath by members of the Defence Force. So far very little has been said about this matter in the House, although I assume that the Prime Minister is still going to hear a great deal about it. I only want to say that I feel that every one has observed with the greatest surprise the way in which this new form for signature, and this new oath have been introduced. If the Prime Minister in his capacity as Minister of Defence had intended causing a feeling of uneasiness and disquiet inside the Defence Force on this country, and inside the country itself; if the Prime Minister was out to create uncertainty, he could not have chosen a better way of doing so than the way he has actually decided upon. According to the first official announcement on this matter he converted the whole of the Defence Force into something else, despite the provisions of our Act. An announcement was made that in future nobody would be admitted as a member of the Active Citizen Force unless he first of all had taken that oath and had signed that form.

I wish to draw the hon. member’s attention to the fact that there is a definite vote on which this matter can be discussed.

May I ask, in view of the fact that this is a question of policy on the part of the Prime Minister, whether I am not allowed to discuss it here?

If there is a definite vote on the Estimates, it would be better to discuss this subject under that vote.

I do not wish to contradict you, Mr. Chairman, but it has always been the custom for any question of Government policy to be discussed on the Prime Minister’s vote, especially when a reduction of salary is proposed, and when the Government’s policy is under discussion.

But there is a definite vote under which this matter may be discussed.

On a point of order, may I be allowed to try and assist the hon. member. May I ask, Mr. Chairman, whether it does not make a difference when the Minister of Defence is also Prime Minister? Does not that give an opening for the discussion of defence questions when the Prime Minister’s vote is under discussion? I feel that the hon. member should be given the opportunity of making his charges against me here.

As the same Minister is concerned in the matter, I shall allow it.

In regard to the manner in which the Prime Minister acted here I want to say that if it was his intention to create uncertainty and disquiet in the Defence Force of the country he could not have done better than he did. I said that he wanted to convert the Defence Force into something different from what it originally was. Those people who offer their services to join the Defence Force will only be accepted if they sign that form, or take that oath. In regard to the training of officers, only those people would be trained who signed that form, and who took the oath, and in addition to that it is quite clear from the first announcement that the position of those already in the Defence Force would be further considered. In other words, a large proportion of those people already in the Defence Force who have made this their life’s work, who have made it their livelihood, have been placed in this position, that they will be in a state of uncertainty for some considerable time, and there are a large number of members of the Defence Force, meritorious people who in the past have rendered considerable service to the country, and against whose conduct nothing can be said, who will be left in this state of uncertainty; simply because they are not prepared to sign the form and to take the oath to say that they are prepared to go and fight outside South Africa and not for the defence of South Africa alone, they will feel themselves constrained to send in their resignations as members of the Defence Force. I say that that way of doing things entitles us to say that the Minister of Defence has acted either in an incompetent manner, or otherwise he has acted in a spirit of the greatest arbitrariness; he was either incompetent or arbitrary or both. But I further want to point out that what has really happened is that he has now actually split the Defence Force in two. The one part will be serving under the Defence Act in South Africa — that is to protect the Union in South Africa, and the other part will be used as volunteers to go to any part — whatever may be considered as constituting Africa. Now I should like to remind the Prime Minister of the fact that on the 4th September in this House he made a solemn declaration when he moved his amendment, and when he made a speech reading as follows—

What does he mean by overseas? Did he use the word “overseas”’ because he knew only too well that forces will in this war hardly ever be sent overseas, and did he use the word “overseas”’ only as a matter of slippery astuteness, while all the time he had in mind extending the war and allowing South Africa to take part far beyond the borders of South Africa, right up to the Mediterranean? He did not leave it at that, but in his speech he made a clear statement of what he had in mind. He made it clear what the difference was between him and the former Prime Minister, and this is what he said—

Here the Prime Minister gives his own interpretation, and it is that the question of participation in the war is not raised in his amendment, and he says that we are not going to send forces overseas as we did in the last war. I feel that everybody who heard his speech or read it understood him to mean that we were not going to use our force as we used them in the last war, as we might need them here in South Africa to protect our borders, as provided for in the Defence Act. Now I want to ask this again: when the Prime Minister on the 4th September adopted that attitude, did he then act openly, did he lay all his cards on the table for the people of South Africa to see what he was doing, or did he give that assurance in respect of himself and his new Government, solely with a view to easing the shock which his action caused in the country; did he do it solely with the intention of reducing that shock so that it would have a less severe effect on the people, and with a view to retaining the support of a section of the people to whose support he was not entitled, and who might be influenced by his argument that our participation in the war was simply a formal matter, and that we would act in accordance with the provisions of our Defence Act and only defend our country? I ask whether the Prime Minister in making this statement acted openly towards the people of this country, or whether he grossly misled the people? I only wish to point this out, that the Prime Minister by this new form and this new oath which has to be taken, wants to make South Africa take part in the war in a manner different from what is laid down in the Defence Act; that is to say, he wants South Africa to take part anywhere in Africa where troops may be wanted to go and fight, and I ask him whether in doing so he is not destroying the attitude adopted by him at the outbreak of this war? This is the attitude adopted by him in connection with this war: “The cry was. South Africa is in danger.” South Africa was in danger, and for that reason we had to go into the war, but if he removes our troops from South Africa to-day and he sends them to the Mediterranean for instance, or possibly to Palestine, or wherever he may think fit, it is clear evidence that South Africa was not in that danger in which he pretended South Africa to be. He stated that the troops were required here to defend South African territory; but he only adopted that attitude in the beginning to obtain support in order to enable him eventually to take a further step and to make South Africa take part in the war between the European countries. [Time limit.]

I should like to give my hearty support to the motion of the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan), but I am anxious to give him an opportunity of first of all putting his whole case, and for that reason I should prefer to speak later on.

I only wish to say a few words about a body which the Prime Minister has brought into being in this country, that is to say the body which the man in the street calls “the Khaki Knight Band”. I would ask the Prime Minister whether he realised at the commencement, when he was creating this body, what he was doing, and whether he thoroughly realised what were going to be the consequences of the establishment of this band? These khaki knights were established on the alleged statement that the call had emanated from a section of the public, from people who had left politics, and those khaki knights were to be a body of people outside politics. This again was an astute move to obtain support where support was not merited. But the khaki knight band according to all indications and evidence which we have to-day, is being used purely for party political purposes, and not only that, but it is being used as a body to besmirch people, to carry tales, to conduct an espionage service against individuals without these individuals knowing what the complaint against them is. It is nothing but an espionage system created by the right hon. the Prime Minister, a system not belonging to the state but to a definite political party. That is its character. I again ask whether the right hon. the Prime Minister knows what he is doing, and whether he realises the feelings that have already been created in the country by this sort of thing, and the feelings which will continue to be created in the future? It has come to light that they carry tales, that they make complaints, that they have received instructions to go and watch within the circumference of two hundred and fifty yards to see who is listening to Zeesen and who is not listening to the information officer of the Prime Minister, that they have instructions to enquire into people’s politics, and all this information is conveyed to the headquarters provided for the purpose. I am glad that our detective service which is a Government institution and belongs to the whole people is not used for this political purpose—that is if it is actually not being used for that purpose without our knowing about it—but assuming it is not used for that purpose and that the khaki knights are inspanned to do that work, then I rejoice at the fact, because if the detective service were employed to undertake that work it would be an abuse of our service and it would be a blot on their reputation. I only want to point out that the feeling which existed against the national scouts in the past still prevails to-day, and the same feeling is already making itself prominently felt against the khaki knights. Even after forty years the feeling against the national scouts of the Anglo-Boer War has not died down, and I say that if the Prime Minister had the courage to publish the names of the khaki knights to-day—he has not the courage to do so, he hides their identity—the position would be that not one of them would dare to pass the doorstep of a decent Afrikaner’s house. I am making this statement because I want to draw the Prime Minister’s attention to the feelings which he has created, and I want to ask him to stop this sort of thing.

It is fitting that on this occasion the votes of the Prime Minister and of external affairs should be discussed at the same time, because in consequence of the war policy pursued by the Prime Minister a considerable amount of dislocation has taken place in our foreign relations, politically as well as economically. Later on I shall say a few words about the amount which we are asked to vote as a contribution to the League of Nations, but I first of all wish to say a few words about the Prime Minister’s policy in regard to the war. I am not going to discuss the question whether we should have taken part in the war or not. That subject was fully discussed during this session. On the contrary I am taking up the attitude that South Africa has declared war against Germany and we are now at war, although we are at war against the wishes of the majority of the people, but in any case we are at war. Since the 4th September extensive preparations have been made in South Africa, and we are entitled to-day to ask the hon. the Prime Minister what the object is for which these preparations are being made. The hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) has already referred to the resolution of Parliament of the 4th September and I now wish to put the same question — what actually is the reason for the use of the word “overseas”? We had a statement by the Prime Minister that our Defence Force was to be used for the defence of South Africa. Subsequently we had another statement from the Prime Minister, and from other Ministers, more particularly from the Minister of Native Affairs on the occasion of his visit to England when he stated that South Africa would take upon itself the defence of all British territories throughout the Continent of Africa. Subsequently, we were notified that troops had already been sent across our borders — which information was officially denied, but we do know that troops have been sent across our borders to the North. Still later on we had the visit from the Commander in Chief of the forces in the Near East, Genl. Wavell, and since that time we have had this new oath under which members of the Defence Force have to declare their willingness to go and fight in any part of the Continent of South Africa. And above all, but not the least of all, the Minister of Finance came to this House and asked for an amount of £14,000,000 for the continuation of this war. I believe that it will be generally recognised that the question whether the Continent of Africa is drawn into the war will depend on the attitude of Italy and also of Russia. But assuming for instance that such an event should occur, and that for that reason preparations are being made in the Union, I say that the people and Parliament are entitled, and the taxpayers who have to contribute part of the £14,000,000, are entitled to know from the Prime Minister what his intentions are, what his policy is in regard to the continuation of this war. Will his policy confine us to the defence of British territories in Central Africa, or will Union troops have to go, together with other troops already in Egypt, and fight possibly alongside the Egyptians; and is the Prime Minister perhaps going so far that in the event of Italy becoming involved in the war, Union troops will be sent to Abyssinia to take possession of that country, and to prepare it as a future Protectorate for Great Britain? That is the point. The Prime Minister stated on the 4th September that Union forces would not be sent overseas to Europe, but is he perhaps going to send them over land? Did we have an instance there, as the hon. member for Piquetberg asked, of his playing with words? Are we going to get a position that we have to take part in an Imperialistic war in the Near East? Are the Union troops going to fight there? Is it possibly also the intention to send Union troops to fight there, not only with the Egyptians and the Arabs, but possibly also with the Turks? Is it the intention that the Union should take part in the fight for the preservation of the oil fields of Mosoel in the interest of the Empire? We are entitled to put that question. The people, Parliament, and the taxpayers are entitled to say that the time has arrived for the Prime Minister to inform them what his policy is. We are tired of vague statements, and we now want a definite declaration from the Prime Minister on the subject of what his policy is in regard to the continuation of the war. In Ehgland, France and elsewhere the respective Governments have taken their Parliaments into their confidence. Probably the Prime Minister will tell us again that in those countries they have an opposition which co-operates with the governments. That is an argument which we have heard repeatedly. Here in South Africa a section of the population, a considerable section, possibly the majority of the people, are opposed to participation in the war, and for that very reason, as we differ from the Prime Minister, it is his duty to take the people into his confidence, and to tell them what his policy is in regard to the war. I hope that we shall be given such a statement to-day by the Prime Minister. Now I wish to say a few words on another item on the Estimates, namely the contribution of £25,000, by South Africa to the League of Nations. Last year the amount was £24,000. I do not quite know how much it was in years before that, but I believe since the establishment of the League of Nations we have already paid an amount of £460,000, almost half a million pounds, as our contribution to this institution in Geneva.

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

Evening Sitting.

I want to avail myself of the extension of time on this vote, if you will allow me. Under this vote I want to bring to the notice of the Prime Minister a matter, which to my mind is of such importance that if I had the opportunity to do so, I would like to move a motion dealing with the subject. But unfortunately the Prime Minister has already deprived us of that possibility by taking away private members’ days and we cannot move such a motion. The matter I want to deal with is the relationship, between the Union and the Protectorates, the Administrations of the Protectorates of Bechuanaland. Basutoland and Swaziland. I want to bring this matter to the notice of the Prime Minister and intend to refer more particularly to the farmers who live on the borders in the north along the Molopo River, which forms the border between us and the Bechuanaland Protectorate. Let me remind the hon. minister that the class of people there, the farmers living in those parts, are no longer the type of old Voortrekker, the co-called squatters of whom we heard in the past. I mention this because there is an idea abroad, possibly not only in the mind of the Prime Minister but amongst many other prominent people in the country and outside the country, that those people living along the borders are farmers of whom one need really take no notice. Let me remind the hon. the Prime Minister that the people living there to-day are farmers who have settled down there and who have reached a stage that they can make a decent living there. They have developed the country to such an extent that they can look to the future with confidence, and expect to make a living there. I do not want to divulge secrets of a private nature as far as the farmers are concerned, but I want to tell the hon. the Minister that there are farmers there who collect £50 to £75 per month for their produce. Therefore, this is a class of farmer one should take notice of. I do not say that many of them earn as much, but there are quite a few. Now the position is that those farmers are attracted by the Molopo River which forms the border between the Union and the Bechuanaland Protectorate. The grazing they get there along both sides of the river and in the river itself is excellent, especially for cattle farming, and I regret very much that the Prime Minister has not yet carried out his intention of paying a visit to those parts. He will find that they have excellent grazing there along the river, but unfortunately there is no fence along the borderline which definitely lays down where the borderline between the Union and the Bechuanaland Protectorate is, with the result, as can be readily understood by those who have a knowledge of farming, that cattle from the Union often graze on the other side of the river where they get good grazing in the river and on the banks of the river, but the result is that such cattle are considered to be cattle having crossed the Protectorate border. I want to point out that unfortunately there is no definite border-fence and the river runs with great curves and if you have to follow those curves it often means a detour of ten miles. The bed of the river is hard and transport consequently follows the course of the river. Unfortunately the farmers on the Union side cannot move freely as a result of these long detours and so they take a short cut with the result, as already indicated, that they often save something like ten miles. If these people drive their cattle to the markets of Vryburg or Mafeking, they have to follow those curves, and when they take a short cut they are sometimes in the Union and sometimes in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, with the result that strictly speaking they commit an offence when driving their cattle to the Vryburg market, which is practically the largest market in the Union, and the best market as far as prices are concerned. They sometimes cut unavoidably through the Protectorate and they run the risk of being prosecuted under the Acts dealing with stock diseases, because they have moved cattle from the Bechuanaland Protectorate to the Union. Our friends of the Veterinary Department are always on the look-out to prevent the importation of stock diseases, but often they are too strict and a man is punished for something which is merely a technical offence under the Act. Another difficulty the farmers are faced with is in connection with big game. We find that big game moves from the Protectorate to the Union where, as I have mentioned already, there is no fence in parts, and as a result the farmers along the border are not only enticed, but compelled to follow up the big game doing damage to their grazing and their private fences; they then go through the river into the Protectorate and commit an offence as far as big game hunting is concerned. In 1934, six years ago, I already brought this matter to the attention of the Prime Minister of those days, now the Leader of the Opposition, when he was Minister of External Affairs. I brought the special circumstances to his notice with the result that he approached the Imperial authorities in order to effect the carrying out of the provisions in the South Africa Act of 1910 in respect of the incorporation of the Protectorates. We made considerable progress in that direction and our expectations ran high. The Prime Minister of the day took a keen interest in the matter, but unfortunately it appeared that the authorities in Britain were not sufficiently interested, with the result that they left the matter where it was, and our expectations were not realised. The Protectorates have not yet been incorporated. In 1938 the Prime Minister of the Union again reminded Great Britain of the importance of this matter to South Africa, and as a result they paid some attention to the matter once more and a Permanent Joint Advisory Conference was appointed to find ways and means to improve the relationships between the Administration of the Protectorates and the Administration of the Union with a view to incorporation. There even appeared on our Estimates an amount of £30,000, and that was an attempt to show to the inhabitants of the Protectorates our lively interest in them, and that we were prepared to arrange matters in a way in which the Imperial Government could not do it. The result was that this offer was turned down, mainly. I believe as a result of the influence of other people concerned in the matter, and that assistance we were prepared to give, was not accepted. The purpose of the Permanent Joint Advisory Conference was to create better feeling between the two Administrations and co-operation in respect of events inside the Protectorates, establishing better control by the two Administrations in respect of stock diseases, providing better markets for the people in the Protectorates and also other matters mentioned in the terms of reference of the Conference. Again our expectations ran high. We expected good results, at least better co-operation as a result of the setting up of this Conference. Yet certain things happened and developments took place which showed all but good co-operation. On the contrary, a feeling was created resulting in an agitation and increasing the difficulties of the border farmers. We find that the cattle of the border farmers is being taken and impounded if the cattle grazes only a little way over the border line, and then the cattle is removed to places from where it can only be taken back at great loss and expense. If proper co-operation existed it would be possible to eliminate these small matters which only irritate. This had gone so far, that in November, 1939, I was obliged to make representations on behalf of the farmers to two Ministers of the Cabinet, namely, the Minister of Justice as well as the Minister of Agriculture, because both these Ministers were concerned with the matter. Unfortunately, up to the present we have not had any satisfaction as far as that matter is concerned. A committee was appointed at that time. I am grateful to the Minister of Agriculture for appointing a joint committee to investigate the difficulties which have occurred along the border. That committee met at a certain spot along the river, and I was also present. The spirit displayed on that occasion was excellent. The farmers were able to submit their side of the case, namely, facts in connection with the cattle which strayed over the border, etc., and all this has been submitted to the committee. The committee was composed of two representatives of the protectorate, namely the commander of the Police Force and a magistrate. On the Union side we were represented by a member of the Veterinary Department and by a magistrate. They investigated matters on the spot, and I can inform the House here that the members of that committee told me that they were pleasantly surprised at the type of farmer they found there. They could hardly believe, and the Prime Minister may not believe it either, that one finds such a type of person there as they actually did find there. This is a type which should be given consideration. But again we were disappointed with the results of this investigation. We expected that all these things would end soon after the investigation, and that these small pinpricks would stop and would not occur in future. But what do we find? While the report of the committee is still being drawn up we find that prosecutions take place of a type which cannot be described otherwise but trivial, and border farmers of the Union are being charged. Cases have been made out against farmers about trivial matters which happened two years ago. For example, it is alleged that they had been shooting game, and this happens while we are awaiting the report of this committee. Farmers are prosecuted because it is alleged that two years ago they shot game. I should like to mention a definite case, as I think that I should draw the attention of the House to this matter. I won’t give the names of the persons concerned, but I am willing to give those names to the Prime Minister. A person of high repute is prosecuted because it is alleged that in 1937 he had been shooting in the protectorate. I do not know what the result of this case was, but he has been dragged before the court in the protectorate, and I think he was found not guilty. But I am sure of another case. Two young farmers were accused of housebreaking and theft because they are alleged to have stolen certain bottles of brandy in the police station, brandy which had been confiscated in connection with another case which was pending in the court. They were summoned to appear at a spot in the protectorate at which it was practically impossible for them to appear. It was a distance of forty to fifty miles somewhere in the desert, and this happens while there is a suitable place where the court meets on the border, on the Molopo, where they could have been tried, and where the alleged crime took place. But notwithstanding the fact that I myself made representations to the Minister of Justice, and he, as far as I know, made representations to the Administration of the protectorate that these people should be tried on the border, these farmers have been tried far away in the protectorate. Up to this day they have not consented to our representations. I had to receive the reply from the Minister of Justice that he could not take any action. I know that he could not take any action. But if he made representations, and I believe that he did make them, then the protectorate could at least have consented and tried these people at Werda instead of far away in the protectorate at a place called Tsabon. I do not want to make any allegations which I cannot prove. I should liké to read to the House a statement made by the attorney who defended those two Union farmers. They were found not guilty but they had to appear over there in the desert for this alleged crime. I may say that this attorney for the defence is not one of my supporters. He does not support my party, but he is a supporter of the party of the hon. the Prime Minister. He says the following in his statement—

This is the one concrete case that I mentioned, and I sincerely regret that instead of there being a feeling of co-operation between the Administrations, it appears to me that difficulties are being created. They have to send a troublesome official to this place, as appears from what I have read, and be plays up one section of the farmers against the other by prosecuting people in this manner and causing costs and damages, as you can imagine from what I have read.

What became of the committee?

The committee made recommendations. I asked the Minister of Agriculture at the beginning of this session if he would not lay the report on the Table. He has not done so for reasons which he has not yet mentioned, but I am grateful to say that he has given me an opportunity to go through the report of the committee. I want to say straight away that on reading the report I was particularly disappointed with the findings and the recommendations of the committee. I am sorry to say so, but I definitely have the suspicion that the committee did not act in an impartial manner. If one reads through the report one immediately gets the impression that this is a one-sided report and that the majority had no sympathy whatsoever with the farmers over there on the border of the Union. All that one can find in their findings is that the border farmers of the Union are the only people who are responsible for misdeeds. Not a word is said of the kind of thing which has already been stated, about the deliberate prosecutions, but mention is only made that the farmers of the Union intentionally allow their cattle to graze over on the other side of the river, and place certain gates in the wire fence through which their cattle can go to the other side. But they did not convince me that the wire fences which have gates and through which the cattle can go, are wire fences on the borderline. I fear that they never investigated the matter thoroughly. I should not be surprised if the wire fences in many cases are on the Union side and consequently these people never committed any offence. I am not quite sure of all my facts on this point, but I come to the conclusion that this is quite possible because I know that at the meeting on the Molopo River, when I was present, no evidence whatsoever was taken on the question where these wire fences were placed. I am under the impression that, at least to a considerable extent, these fences are partition fences which our farmers themselves erected, and that they are not really fences which run along the border. As far as the staff of that committee was concerned. I want to say with all respect to them — they probably had the best intentions — that they consisted of people who were prejudiced. There were two members on the Protectorate side and they naturally were out to protect the interests of the Protectorate. The third person was a representative of the Veterinary Department of the Union. We know that department. With all due respect. I think they are always out to look at things from one aspect only, and that is to prevent stock disease from entering the Union. I don’t blame them for wanting to protect the Union against the infection of stock disease, but still I say that that kind of person should not have been appointed on the committee. The only person whom you really could expect to be impartial was the magistrate who was appointed from the Union, but I am afraid that he alone against the other three certainly could not have done much, with the result that we have those findings and recommendations of the committee, which really means that now a give and take stock-proof fence should be erected along the border of the river, in the thorn bushes which stand along the banks of the river, and this fence should not be considered as the final borderline between the two Administrations, but one gets the impression that this is to be erected as a challenging line as far as the movement of cattle from both sides is concerned. [Time limit.]

I should like to bring the Committee back to the speech made this afternoon by the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) and to his forty-minute attack on the Prime Minister in regard to a diversity of subjects which led, him to the conclusion that this House should refuse to vote any salary whatever to the Prime Minister. We may keep the rt. Hon. gentleman in office as Prime Minister, but if he remains in office as Prime Minister, he is to remain as Prime Minister without a salary. The time at my disposal will not allow me to deal in detail with all the various charges which have been brought by the hon. member for Piquetberg against the Prime Minister. I may have time, however, to deal at least with two of them. The first amounts to this: that the Prime Minister and his Government are in power by entirely unconstitutional means; that they should not be there at all. They say that there should have been a General Election last September, and had there been such a General Election we can draw the inference from what they say, that the balance of power in this country might have been entirely different. In saying that the hon. member for Piquetberg has returned to a matter which has been ventilated on previous occasions during the present session, notably by the hon. member for Hoopstad (Mr. J. H. Viljoen). I understood the hon. member to make three propositions. He first said that the Governor-General was under a clear duty to dissolve Parliament. In support of that he said that the Governor-General stood in this country in the same position as the King does in England, and that there was no recorded instance of the King having refused to dissolve Parliament when advised to do so by his Prime Minister. And the third statement, a simple statement, wat that any prerogative in this respect which either the King or the King’s representative still possesses in theory, is a prerogative which exists in name only, a dead prerogative. He went on to argue, apparently, that the action taken by the Governor-General last September was wrong and unconstitutional. Now let me remind the Committee that Mr. Speaker gave a ruling on this point some weeks ago, when he laid it down that you cannot attack the Governor-General or any of his actions in this House except on a motion, a specific motion thereto designed. But he endeavoured to evade the effect of that ruling by saying that his attack was on the present Prime Minister. How that can be so is beyond my comprehension. The present Prime Minister was not Prime Minister when this fateful decision was taken. He was not the adviser of the Governor-General. That was an issue between the present Leader of the Opposition, the ex-Prime Minister, and the Governor-General. As I understand the position, after Parliament’s adverse vote on the 4th September last, the ex-Prime Minister, then being the Prime Minister, went to the Governor-General and advised him to dissolve, and the Governor-General rightly or wrongly — I will not discuss that for a moment but I will discuss it later — refused that dissolution. Thereupon the Prime Minister resigned and the Governor-General sent for the present Prime Minister and invited him to form a Ministry. How, therefore, the present Prime Minister, even if he wishes to do so, can assume any responsibility whatever constitutionally for the action then taken, is beyond me. I understood the Prime Minister to say that he was quite willing that any attack made should be made upon him. I fail to see how, even with his chivalry and readiness to invite attack, he can lay himself open to that when it was a matter between the Governor-General and the ex-Prime Minister, and we have the best authority, namely, that of the ex-Prime Minister himself and his chief legal adviser, the ex-Minister of Defence, in speeches made at the time, for saying that no criticism could be made against the action of the Governor-General. If that is so I ask why the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) raised this question in this House in this half-hearted fashion this afternoon? Either it is a live issue or it is not. Either the hon. member intends to criticise or he does not. If he intends to make an attack on the action of the Governor-General last September, then let him act in accordance with Mr. Speaker’s ruling and frame a motion and have the matter debated in this House. It seems to me that the hon. member was “willing to wound but afraid to strike”. Why raise the issue at all if it did not concern the present Prime Minister? What he did not say and what no constitutional pundit on the Opposition benches has said is that the Governor-General had to make his choice and decide upon the action he would take on receiving advice from the ex-Prime Minister in circumstances which were entirely unprecedented in the world’s constitutional history. I have never heard before of the King receiving advice to dissolve Parliament when the country was about to enter a war. Parliament had decided that we were to enter the war, and everyone knew in this country that to have a general election in those circumstances, having regard to what happened in South Africa 25 years ago, would be to plunge this country into the deepest misery and civil war possibly, certainly to turn this country upside down. It was in those circumstances, and in those circumstances alone, that the Governor-General decided to take the action he did. Will my hon. friends opposite deny that a decision to hold a general election last September was fraught with the gravest of potential consequences to South Africa? Do you deny that?

Yes.

Do you deny, and does the ex-Prime Minister deny, that even before the war there were movements in this country which caused the ex-Prime Minister the gravest concern and caused him to go round the country from platform to platform and in this House to denounce the people behind it? Does the hon. the exPrime Minister consider that this country is comparable to Australia, or Canada or to any of the other belligerent portions of the Empire? No, sir. In fairness to the hon. gentleman and to the Governor-General let us recall that the Governor-General had to make his choice in circumstances of the gravest concern. I think this country was beholden to the ex-Prime Minister and to the ex-Minister of Defence for saying clearly at the time that no criticism could fairly be levelled at that action. The second point I wish to deal with is the attack made by the hon. member for Piquetberg upon the bona fides of the Prime Minister in regard to the present war and particularly to the oath now administered to the members of the Defence Force who are willing to take it. He says in effect that this country has had a confidence trick played upon it by the Prime Minister. We were invited to enter the war under certain conditions and that those conditions are being shamelessly violated. I hope I shall be allowed to deal with that. To make his point the hon. gentleman referred to the resolution which Parliament took and to the speech which the hon. gentleman made in inviting Parliament to take that resolution. Paragraph 3 of that resolution says—

The hon. member for Piquetberg in framing his indictment against the Prime Minister has construed the word “overseas” as meaning anywhere outside of South Africa. Everybody knows—I do not pretend to be an authority on Afrikaans—but I know something about the English language, and the common acceptance of that word “overseas” means Europe or America or Australia, but certainly not the continent of Africa. You do not speak of going overseas when you speak of Lourenco Marques, you do not speak of going overseas when you go to Beira, you do not even speak of going overseas when you go to Nyasaland or Kenya. It is true you can go there by boat, but you can also go by land. [Time limit.]

I think this is the proper occasion, after our having listened to the learning of the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell), to say a few words which I think ought to be said here. I want at once to tell him this, that I differ entirely from him when he says that the Prime Minister is not the man who offended, and when he then tries to make out that the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) had raised this question in connection with an attack which he made on His Excellency the Governor-General. No, what was actually said, and I repeat it here, was that the decision of the Governor-General was not made in accordance with constitutional practice, and the man who is responsible for the fact that there was a breach of the constitution, which has been rightly admitted by him to-day, was the Prime Minister himself. The Prime Minister, starting from the point of view which we start from, and from which the hon. member for Piquetberg also did, namely, that it was an unconstitutional act not to accept the advice of the Prime Minister of the day, I say starting from the standpoint that the attitude of the hon. member for Piquetberg was correct, the Prime Minister was guilty of nothing less than a grievous breach of the constitution. His duty was, as it was the duty of myself and every man who wanted to do his duty to the country to uphold the constitution, his duty, I say, when he was asked to form a Cabinet as Prime Minister was to point out to the Governor-General that that was a thing that he could not undertake. That was the duty of the Prime Minister, and not to go and undertake the charge, notwithstanding that he knew that it would be a breach of the constitutional position of the Union, he nevertheless said that he would undertake the commission. He should have had the courage to place the interests of the country before the honour, or whatever it may be, of the post of Prime Minister. Now he may say as has already been said, that there were reasons for it. Reasons were given here to-night by the hon. member for Kensington, but let me say this, the less use that is made of those reasons the better it will be for him and others.

Why?

I say that it will be better for him and for others, because I do not know to what extent he contributed in placing the highest person in the country under the impression that if a rebellion did not come from this Afrikaans-speaking side, then it would come from the English-speaking side. I want to advise him to go as slowly as possible, so far as this matter is concerned. What did the Prime Minister do? He either advised the Governor-General that his action was constitutional—although I cannot accept that—or by the act of acceptance, of the duty to form a Ministry after the Governor-General had offered it to him, he implied that the Governor-General had in fact acted constitutionally—it cannot be otherwise. Now I want to point out to the Prime Minister that I have not risen to discuss this matter by way of a polemic, but in view of its great interest for the future, I must ask the Prime Minister kindly to give a little attention to what he has done. He will then see how very undesirable and very unprecedented what he has done was. He only had one duty after I had advised the Governor-General to dissolve Parliament, and that was to say to the Governor-General: “No, in the circumstances, as that has been the recommendation, I cannot and dare not accept it.” Because he has now created a precedent which, if we do not protest against it with all our power, can be so abused that it will never in future be necessary for the Governor-General to concern himself about the advice of his Prime Minister. Because what has happened? He was offered the position of forming a new Ministry, and he said: “Yes, I will do so.” Now surely the Governor-General was bound to infer from that that the future Prime Minister was in agreement with him that it was a fact that he had acted constitutionally in refusing to accept the advice of the Prime Minister of the country. I ask you, do you realise what is going to result from this? If in future the Governor-General does not want to take the advice of the Prime Minister, then you on each occasion give him the opportunity of doing so. It is just to prevent abuses of that kind that the constitutional practice has laid down that when the Prime Minister in the circumstances, as they existed here, advises the Governor-General to dissolve the House and proclaim a new election, the advice must be accepted. The Prime Minister is therefore actually the man who is responsible for this principle not having been followed and he realised it this afternoon when he said that he was the man who is responsible. He cannot get away from it.

What I said was, do not blame the Governor-General, blame me.

Precisely, that is right. You also are the Prime Minister who is sitting here to-day, you are the only person who can be blamed, who should be blamed for it, and who also will have to take the responsibility for it in the future. As I have said, I did not get up to indulge in polemics—I want to keep myself out of the dispute as much as possible—but I think that it was very necessary for the question to be raised here. I hope that it will be brought home in such a way that every one who may in future follow in the footsteps of the Prime Minister, in the position he was placed on the 4th September last, will carefully consider what he is doing before he does what this Prime Minister did.

I had not intended taking part in this debate, but in view of what has been said by the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) and referred to by the Leader of the Opposition (Gen. Hertzog), who has just sat down, I want to say a few words as a contribution to the point which might have seemed to be a somewhat academic one, but which has now become a point of very great practical importance. The hon. member for Piquetberg referred to the power of dissolution on the part of the head of the state, and if I understood him correctly, he denied the existence of any discretion on the part of the Governor-General in regard to acting on, or refusing to act on, advice tendered to him by an outgoing Prime Minister on that subject. If I understand the Leader of the Opposition correctly, his question practically gives the answer to the hon. member for Piquetberg’s point, because the Leader of the Opposition specifically, and I submit rightly, voiced no imputation or charge against the head of the state, but put the responsibility for whatever action was taken in respect of the matter on the Prime Minister alone. I am sure, sir, there is no man more happy or more ready to assume fully the discharge of that responsibility. The Leader of the Opposition ascribes all the blame to the Prime Minister, and in doing so it seems to me he concedes the very point which the hon. member for Piquetberg denies, and that is that there does exist among the remaining prerogatives of the Crown in this country, and in the other countries of our Commonwealth as well, a discretion to consider advice that is given upon a dissolution of Parliament. The matter has already been raised in this House this session, but if I may say so without any disrespect by lesser luminaries of the Opposition, and I deplore that the Leaders of the Opposition should have seen fit again to raise this dangerous issue; I do submit that to impute the non-existence of a vital safeguard of our democracy like this remaining prerogative, is in times like this playing with fire. The hon. member for Piquetberg has denied the existence of such a prerogative right in the head of our state, but he cited no authorities, nor could he, because, with respect, the balance of accepted constitutional authority is most strongly against the doctrine that the Crown no longer possesses the power to refuse a dissolution at the request of a Prime Minister who happens to have lost the support of the majority in the House, or of the majority of his own Party. I am not going to weary the House with a reference to authorities. They have already been referred to in the course of a previous debate, but I would say that with no single clear exception the balance of authority is strongly in favour of the accepted common law doctrine that the head of the state does have a discretion to consider whether or not he should accept the advice of his Prime Minister to dissolve Parliament. I may mention in passing the twin pillars of constitutional practice, Sir William Anson and Professor Dicey, and among practical statesmen with long, almost unrivalled working knowledge of the constitution, men like Lord Asquith, all these hold the same view — with only one partial exception, namely, Professor Berriedale Keith, the professor of Sanscrit at the University of Edinburgh, who is more voluminous than dependable, there is no constitutional authority who can be cited for the proposition that this right does not exist.

Your leader denied it.

You may leave that to my leader. The constitutional position may be accepted as one which keeps alive the safeguard vital to the existence of the democratic principle itself. The remaining constitutional prerogatives of the Crown are few; they may perhaps only be two, namely, the power to dismiss a Ministry, which the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) concedes, and what I term its corollary, and that is the power of the Crown, in certain circumstances to refuse advice in regard to a dissolution. I look upon that power as a corollary to the accepted power to dismiss a Ministry. It is not necessary for me to go into the circumstances of what happened last September, or to seek to apply those circumstances to the doctrine which I have enunciated; the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) has already referred to it. My main purpose in getting up this evening is to make the point first that that discretion to accept advice tendered in regard to dissolution does exist, and that in certain circumstances it is not only in the power of, but it is the duty of the constitutional head of the state to exercise that discretion. If the question were to-night at issue, I should be prepared to support those who hold that the circumstances last year were such as would abundantly have justified the head of the state in exercising his discretion in the way of refusing the request for a dissolution. The circumstances in which such a request may be refused, are roughly those in which the outgoing Leader of the Government may not have the support of the majority of members in Parliament, or the support of the majority of members of his own party. That these facts were present last year is not the subject of doubt. The principle upon which the constitutional head of the state exercises that discretion, is the principle by which he is made, by virtue of his position, a trustee for the constitution, a trustee for the nation as a whole. As the hon. member for Piquetberg this afternoon put it, the head of the state is there in order to protect the national will, the will of the nation as a whole; and, sir, to me it is vital, it is of supreme importance, that we should retain within our constitutional framework that safeguard against abuse by a temporary majority in Parliament, or any government that might hold sway. This country will continue to practise what it preaches in helping to maintain the democratic machine intact, and without the potential right of the head of the state to function as truee for the nation, democracy would be as highly and as dangerously capable of perversion as it has proved to be in countries like Germany and Russia. To me the raising of this question is no academic matter, and the raising of it by the hon. member for Piquetberg and its support by members of the Opposition, I deplore very much, because I deplore anything which threatens to weaken that vital constitutional safeguard. We do not wish it to be possible in this country, working under our democratic system, for any one Parliament or any one government holding a majority, to be able to act arbitrarily, and to be able to perpetrate what is in effect a minority dictatorship through being in a position to say that whatever advice it tenders to the Crown at any time, must be followed. [Time limit.]

When I was here last and when I made an interjection about the sacred things of the Afrikaner people, I was suspended. I see that when I stand here I may not fight for the sacred things of the Afrikaner people, and therefore I had better go on to other matters. In this House and everywhere in the world, the object is to be consistent. There are, as far as I know, few persons who have remained consistent, and amongst them we find the present Prime Minister, who is also the Minister of Defence. I thought that the Minister of Finance was a person who would also remain consistent, but now I am convinced that he is a person who hypocritically told us those things in Johannesburg, and that he did so for political purposes. Why do I say now that the Minister of Defence is consistent? Consistent, because he always postpones things and always breaks faith. What I am saying here I must substantiate. The first case was when we were plunged into war in 1914, and when Nakob was shifted into Union territory. That is why he was dubbed Lord Nakob by the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition. All those things we have passed through and he has remained consistent. At Bloemfontein he said at the congress of the party which has melted away—

Where is he sitting now? Has he served him loyally? He remained consistent in being unfaithful to the hon. member for Smithfield. He did not stand by that policy of neutrality which the hon. member for Smithfield had imposed on him. On the 25th August, 1938, I was present in this House when he said what we find in Hansard. It has already been quoted, but I want to quote it again—

He repeats this—

I voted with him, and that is why I followed him as my deputy-leader. But has Great Britain been attacked, and has she been put into danger? No. Here once more he was consistent in his own way, what did he do on the 4th September; did he follow his leader? He stabbed his leader in the back as deeply as he could, and those persons who followed him loyally were deeply shocked. I knew that the Prime Minister was consistent in that way, and I thought that I would give him another chance, but that chance has gone by. He was Minister of Defence in 1912; he drafted the Defence Act and put into it that it would be the duty of the citizens to defend the Union, but within South Africa. How consistent also he is to-day in connection with the boundaries. To-day it is said that we must go far beyond the boundaries of South Africa. Again I say that there is one person in South Africa who has remained consistent in his acts, and that is the Prime Minister, who to-day is also the Minister of Defence. We know that he was given the title of Lord Nakob, as I have already said, but in addition to that he has been given the title of commandant-general of the knights of truth. As such he has issued a message, or in his capacity as commandant-general he has approved of this message of the knights of truth. I notice that at the start there is a representation of a ram and of a mealie cob, and on the other side it is full of portraits of the Prime Minister from his youth until he reached his present age. But what is so remarkable to me is the way in which he juggles with words and figures here. He is again being consistent, of course, in his own way. What do we read in this message? We find the following—

Why then were we kicked out from the other side; why did the United Party take that resolution at Bloemfontein that we should be kicked out because we had voted against the war? Yet the Prime Minister says here that there is so sign of war, and hon. members on the opposite side believe it. It makes one think that they are blind deliberately, as long as they just can follow the Prime Minister for the sake of the Empire. What further struck me in this message is the following—

What are the mealie quotations? Is it true what that Prime Minister says to the people in that message? The Prime Minister’s words and actions are not consistent. He says one thing, and acts in a different way. He is a kind of juggler, a kind of conjurer. [Time limit.]

The hon. member who has just risen (Mr. Blackwell) has of late been playing the role of jumping up immediately, as soon as the Prime Minister is attacked, to play the role of the devil’s advocate, and in this case he was subsequently assisted by a junior. Well, if the Prime Minister is always to be defended in that way, and if another attempt is made to justify the constitutional action during the crisis in the way in which the hon. member tried to do it, by saying that if we had not gone to war, then there would have been trouble in the country, and if the hon. member further wants to make out that in war time we cannot hold an election, then I am sorry for the Prime Minister. As if we have never yet had an election in war time! I would like to remind him of the election of 1915, when feeling was running much higher, just after the rebellion. We had an election then, and we could easily have had an election now. There is nothing strange at all in an election in war time. Attempts are being made here to justify the constitutional action, but the kernel of the whole matter surely is this: It is not merely a matter of constitutional practice, but to my mind the heart of all democratic government is this, that if a government remains in office, there must be certain grounds to justify it, that it at least represents the majority of the people. That proof does not exist.

What about the byelections?

I am even prepared to face the question of the byelections. They knew very well that there were a few S.A.P. areas where they could venture it. In the Free State there is an area of that kind in Bloemfontein (City), but when the actual test came in Hoopstad and Winburg, nothwithstanding the fact that there was still a difficulty between us and the followers of the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog), they did not even venture to nominate a candidate. The fact is this, that not one of the hon. members on the other side can say, not one of the old members of the United Party on the opposite side, can say that he is sitting there on the same basis on which he fought the last election. The only persons who are sitting on the other side who have the right to sit there, and who to-day are standing on the basis that they stood on at the last election, are the Minister of Mines and his group, and possibly the three native representatives; but not one of the others went to the country on the basis on which they are now sitting there. They were elected as representatives of the United South African National Party. After what they had done here and after what has taken place here, you can say about them what someone said about the Holy Roman Empire, namely, that it is neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire. The members of the old United Party are neither United Party people, nor are they South African and certainly they are not Nationalist. They call us the “either/or” party in a mocking way, more particularly in the English newspapers, and what we might call them would be the “neither-nor” party. They are neither the one nor the other. They are not South African, they are not united and they are not national. If they call us “or-ites” we can call them “norites”, because they are neither the one nor the other. They have entirely sacrificed the interests of South Africa on the altar of the empire. They went to the country as candidates of the United Party, a United Party which consisted of old S.A.P. supporters and of Nationalists. How many of the old Nationalist Party members are still sitting there? Have they any right to the name to-day? There are a few splinters that have blown off, but that is all. They are not united, they are not South African, and they certainly are not national, because they have in their ranks all the un-national elements of the country. That being so, it is as clear as day to me that the Prime Minister does not dare to go to the country for a mandate to-day. He has plunged the country into war, but could not even get a proper majority for that in his own party. He had to drag in the Dominionites and the native representatives in order to get a majority. No wonder that he is sitting there to-day without the consciousness of having the majority of the people behind him. Consequently he does not feel able to go to the country and to say: “Look here, we are at war, you must make sacrifices and we need your money and your work.” The Minister of Finance made it clear that he did not feel at liberty to ask the country to make sacrifices, but the casual taxation of the mines which is so necessary for the upbuilding of the country, has now to disappear in smoke and powder and be used for war purposes. The Minister of Defence, in addition, did not have the courage of standing up strongly for the Defence Act, but he had in all sorts of ways to drag in new oaths, etc., because he did not feel able to act in the constitutional way, and because he did not know that he had the people behind him. If there ever was a time that we had the right of moving that the whole of the salary of the Minister should be deleted, then it is now. Before I sit down, I want to move—

I do this not because in principle I am against an information officer. I believe that it is necessary to have such a person, but I do it as a protest against the way in which the present information officer does his work. It is inter-connected with the policy of the knights of truth which is being followed. I am informed that the other day one of the knights of truth, one of the khaki knights, was imprisoned in the Free State because he had stolen sheep. I do not know whether an appeal would have been made to the Minister of Justice to put a stop to the forced internment. I, however, make this proposal because a scandalous abuse is being made of our broadcasting service, which is not a Government concern in the full sense of the word. The broadcasting service exists for the public, and private money has been invested in it, and it is being used for party political propaganda. The information officer has to inform the public, but he is doing his best to lie to the public from one day to the other. That is why I move the motion.

The hon. member for Winburg (Dr. Van der Merwe) has moved the deletion of this item of £750 in the salary of the information officer. Apparently, sir, he has continued the attack made upon that office by his leader, or former leader, the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) some six weeks or two months ago. He, like his ex-leader, has signally failed in his attacks to give us any information in support of his charges. I challenge the hon. member for Piquetberg to give one single instance. [Interruptions.] I would ask the hon. members opposite if they cannot allow me to deal with the hon. member? I challenge the hon. member to give one single instance of where the Government Information Officer has used his broadcast powers for party political purposes. That office was established and has been used ever since its establishment to meet German overseas propaganda. We will treat the hon. member for Winburg more seriously when he can stand up and instance one single broadcast that has been used for party political purposes. I challenge him to do it. I challenge him to give us one single instance of a single broadcast by the Government Information Officer to which he takes exception. I am now going to resume, if I may, dealing with the speech of the hon. member for Piquetberg. When I was, interrupted by the time limit I understood his charge against the Prime Minister to be that he had led the country “down the garden path,” and had got the waverers to endorse his war policy by false pretences, by the assurance contained in the third paragraph of the resolution passed last September, that troops would not be used overseas. I do not think the hon. gentleman was here when I last addressed the Committee. I said that in the connotation of every English-speaking person in South Africa the word “overseas” would not mean “Africa”. It means Europe or beyond. If you look it up in a dictionary or in any ordinary connotation that is borne out by the facts. If it is denied I ask hon. members to look at the speech made by the rt. Hon. gentleman in moving this motion. One portion of that speech has been quoted by the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan). Let me refer to another portion. This is what he said—

“We shall have to look after South Africa and our vital interests in Africa.”—

Does the hon. gentleman expect this House to treat him seriously when he stands up and makes a full-blooded accusation of false dealing against the Prime Minister of this country in regard to the oath which our troops are now being invited to take, which involve them in service anywhere on the continent of Africa? Surely, from the terms of the resolution itself and from the extract which I have quoted from the Prime Minister’s speech, it was perfectly obvious that what this House decided in September last was that we should not commit ourselves to any European adventure, but undertake responsibility, so far as the defence of our interests in South Africa required it for the whole continent of Africa. The Prime Minister is doing nothing more, and he has done nothing less. Let me deal now with the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog). As I understood his speech to-night, he now, for the first time, definitely commits himself to the statement that the action which the Governor-General took last September, was an unconstitutional action. I ask the hon. gentleman two questions. If that is his view, why has he waited until the 8th April, to express that view? Why, if he believed that this Government was unconstitutionally in power, if he held this view on a matter of the gravest constitutional moment, why did he not raise it at the time in September last, or at least at the beginning of this session? Why have we had to wait for a belated ten minute speech on the Estimates for such a submission? But I shall go on. He not only says that the action of the Governor-General was unconstitutional, but he indicts the present Prime Minister as a sort of accessory after the fact.

No, before the fact.

I shall come to that too. He says he is the villain of the piece because he profited by that action to step into the shoes of the ex-Prime Minister, and he even went further to make the appalling suggestion that the action of the Governor-General was not influenced solely by considerations of what was proper and constitutional, but that behind his action was the sinister figure of the present Prime Minister. Surely he could not have weighed his words when he made that covert attack on the gentleman who occupies the office of Governor-General, a gentleman who was his own appointee. Because it was the ex-Prime Minister who said, “We must at last have a South African Governor-General,” and the present occupant of the office was his own appointee. The hon. member then went on to wag a rhetorical finger at me, and said, “I strongly advise you as an English-speaking member not to talk as you have done—I advise you not to talk of what might have happened had there been a general election last September.” I must confess that I am getting somewhat tired of the tendency which is growing up in this House to corral us, or to kraal us—to kraal certain members in this House and say they should not take part in particular discussions. We had the hon. member for Beaufort West the other day telling a small section in this House that they should not take part in a particular discussion on the Electoral Bill. On other occasions we have heard it said that Jewish members should not take part in certain discussions, and now we are told that English-speaking members should not point out the consequences which we think might have arisen if the Governor-General had precipitated a general election on the 4th September. I may in some members’ opinion be wrong in what I say, but I have the right to say it none the less. Now, I want to say this. The hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) saw fit again to make accusations without any evidence whatsoever to the Unity Fund. He referred to the Truth Legion and he said that the members of that Legion would be regarded and were in the same position as National Scouts. He gave no evidence of that. He again made vague charges in the most general terms. If he has anything specific, if he thinks that these people are acting as a Government espionage service, let him prove it; if he can supply any evidence let him do so, but we are not interested in these vague general charges, however ponderously they may be delivered by the hon. member for Piquetberg. In regard to what the hon. member for Winburg (Dr. N. J. van der Merwe) said about the Union Unity Fund he seemed to think that the Unity Fund and the Government’s Information Officer live in the same building and are one and the same thing. Of course there is no truth in that. The information officer of the Government has a definite function to perform which he is fulfilling very ably. The Unity Fund has nothing to do with the Government.

Do not talk nonsense.

Do you believe that yourself?

It is a privately sponsored fund and it does not get any money from the Government, so it is outside the purview of this discussion. Hon. members opposite do not seem to like this fund or its purpose, but I thank God that there is such a fund, and I thank God for what it is doing.

I am not rising to reply to the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell). His arguments are all of such a kind that the House should not give any further attention to them. When my time expired, I was just trying to indicate the treatment which is being given to Union border farmers by the Administration of the Protectorate, and I want just as briefly to point out now the treatment which those people receive from our Union Administration. I would like to point out to the Prime Minister, and I know that he will point out to the British Government, everything that they receive from us in the Protectorate, so far as the Union Administration is concerned. I pointed out how the farmers were being prosecuted in trivial matters, and how capricious the officials on the border were, and things of that kind. Then I want to point out what is being done for the Protectorate. We know that there is only a small white population there. There are only about 1,900 Europeans in the Protectorate, but there are over 260,000 natives. If the natives are to find a livelihood there in consequence of what those European farmers can do for them, then they will all starve, but they get work in the Union at fairly good wages which they are paid by us here. I can point out that in one year 11,100 natives, that we know of, came to the Union, and they got work on the mines at good wages or with the farmers, or in other ways; but what is more, the large number that we know about, the large number with which we cannot take stock, inasmuch as we do not know how they come over the boundaries. They get work here and in addition we have the Railway Administration, which manages the railway line in the Protectorate. We have appointed officials there at great expense, and these people have to suffer much inconvenience. Their children have to go there, and they are not being properly educated. They get no secondary education. The language rights of these people are being neglected, and they lose their Union franchise. When then they come back to the Union, they cannot vote, because they are not registered. I want, in addition, to point out that so far as marketing is concerned, so far as the exports of their stock are concerned, we are helping them a great deal. Although there is a limitation it is nevertheless a large deal that we are granting them. In 1937 they exported 5,100 cattle valued at £45,000. They exported hides to the value of £20 000, apart from the smuggling, about which we know nothing. They come over here, and it is a risk. It is illegal, and the cattle are put on our market, and whether it is legal or illegal the Protectorates get the benefit of it. And what do they import from us? A few blankets, some hardware and ploughs. That is all they take from us. With regard to defence also, owing to their situation in our midst, they get the benefit of our defence. Owing to the situation of Bechuanaland, Swaziland and Basutoland, they get the benefit of our defence, and I ask you, what does the Imperial Government contribute to that expense? I want to point out to the Prime Minister that we are at war here, and even when we come to the war and look at the tremendously large sums that we are spending, although it has not yet been proved that they are for our benefit, because it has been stated over and over again from this side that we are in this war to assist England and not in the interests of South Africa, I say we have already spent £14.000,000 for that purpose this year, and in view of that I ask whether that is treatment which we ought to receive from the Protectorate Administration which comes directly under England. With regard to the wire fencing which is recommended by the commission, I want to ask the Minister not to erect it. That would be a challenging attitude, it would mean that on both sides it would be said: Come over here, and then we will prosecute you. I have already made the suggestion, why cannot part of the Protectorate along the river be handed over? There is a long strip of from 40 to 50 miles where there are no inhabitants on the Protectorate side. Why cannot our stock go and graze there? Let us, if necessary, pay the Administration of the Protectorate a rent. Then we can draw a straight line and eliminate all the curves. Agree with the Administration, and pay them something for the right of grazing our cattle there. There are no animals grazing on the other side where the said troubles more definitely exist, except the animals that come from the Union, and the grass is being wasted and is not being used if we cannot do so. If such an agreement can be entered into, then you will be avoiding all these petty differences. Surely a boundary must be fixed ultimately, and if we cannot make an arrangement like that, then we shall have to continue living on an unfriendly footing. Let the two Administrations finally put up on the legal boundary a strong wire fence and then we will remain on this side and they on the other side.

The boundary is the middle of the river.

Yes, but it is a winding river, and we do not always precisely know where the boundary is. The ideal is the incorporation of the Protectorate, and I hope that the Prime Minister will make another appeal to the Imperial Administration to allow of that. There will always continue to be difficulties. We find that every time we ask them to tackle the matter, they say that there is some difficulty or other, e.g. an election, and that consequently they cannot tackle it. Now they will possibly say that there is a war, and, therefore, they cannot tackle it, but the day must come when it will have to be solved. So far as the Imperial Government is concerned, it costs them every year from £50,000 to £60,000, which makes up the difference between the revenue and the cost of administration solely for the Bechuanaland Protectorate. It is, therefore, a burden to them, and I do not know whether it will not be a burden to us, but then at any rate an end will be put to the difficulties that arise. I hope that the Minister will make an agreement with the Imperial. Administration, or that we shall succeed in being able to incorporate the Protectorates. I base my argument not on the large sum which we have spent on the war, but on the concessions which they are receiving, that they have referred to.

It was very amusing to listen to front-benchers on the Opposition side making absolutely inconsistent statements. We had the hon. member for Winburg (Dr. N. J. van der Merwe) implying that on the 4th September we should have gone to the country. I read in the paper this evening that the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) has stated that they were not ready for power. What do they really want? I have risen to reply to the attack made this afternoon by the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) on the Truth Legion, and I thought that that attack was very uncalled for, because the objects of the Truth Legion are very well-known throughout the country. I was very much surprised to hear that attack coming from the hon. member for Piquetberg in view of his alliance with the late remnants of the ones who saw fit to leave our party — the Hertzogites. Because, sir, I remember a matter of a few months ago the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog) delivered a speech in his constituency, practically the whole of which he devoted to an attack on the Broederbond and the Ossewa-brandwag. Does the hon. member for Smithfield remember these two movements? If he saw fit to make that vicious attack upon them a little while ago, why does he let his colleague, the hon. member for Piquetberg, attack the Truth Legion? I am sorry the hon. member is not in his place. He took these two movements so seriously that did he not propose last year introducing a Bill to maintain order and safety in South Africa? I would like to ask the hon. member whether he did not hand copies of this proposed Bill to the Press, and whether he did not tell the Press that it was introduced to curb the activities of the Malanite Press, and also the Ossewa-brandwag and the Broederbond. If there were such grave dangers last year that these two movements should have been controlled, and if the Malanite Press was such a danger, surely now that war has been declared does not the same danger exist? I would like to ask members of the opposite side how many belong to either of these two organisations.

What did he say about the Ossewa-brandwag?

I am asking questions of you people over there.

The hon. member must address the Chair.

I would ask how many of them belong to these two organisations. I do not hear any reply at all. From the knowledge that I have quite a number of them belong to these two organisations, and, sir, quite an interesting thing with regard to the Ossewa-brandwag is that they have an emblem or badge of an eagle with a laurel wreath gripped in its claws. That is the symbol that I have seen a Nazi representative sitting in this gallery wearing exactly the same symbol. You ail saw him sitting there wearing the same badge that the Ossewa-brandwag has adopted. The only difference between this and the Nazi’s badge is that instead of having the swastika in the laurel wreath they have the waggon wheel. I would like to ask hon. members opposite where these badges were manufactured. They all know where they were manufactured. These badges were manufactured in Germany, brought out here and supplied to this movement. I would like also to ask the hon. member for Gezina, who has also gone out of the House, who was the person who greeted him at Bloemfontein aerodrome on either the 5th or 6th September with a Nazi salute?

Were you there?

We bear a lot of idle talk from the opposite side. I call them conscientious objectors. There are quite a number of them on the opposite side of the House. During the Boer War they objected to fighting as they were conscientious objectors, and they were down here in the Cape sheltering under the Union Jack. In the last war, from 1914 to 1918, they were also conscientious objectors, and now in this war, when they all possibly realise that it is a life and death struggle as far an the world is concerned, they have brought this bogey of neutrality forward. To my mind that is only another cloak to protect themselves as conscientious objectors. I urge upon the Prime Minister, who is Minister of Defence, that be should take all steps to suppress these organisations. If the hon. member for Smithfield saw fit to suppress them before war was declared is it not more essential to-day to have these organisations wiped out or brought under complete control. In this evening’s Press we read a statement that the hon. minister of Native Affairs was involved in an accident. Don’t you think it possible that some of these organisations, these Nazi activities, might be behind that? That is what we have to put up with. These organisations with their Nazi leanings and activities and with the espionage that is going on, are certainly causing a lot of trouble. I would not put it beyond them to try a trick of this description. I ask the Prime Minister to deal effectively with these organisations, and I ask hon. members opposite whether they can deny the statements I have made about these organisations.

I do not like replying to the hon. member for Rosettenville (Mr. Howarth). I think that what he said here was intended more as a joke, and that he was not serious. But I only want to tell him that he does not know that numbers of the great Empire-lovers drive about with Union Jacks on their motor cars which were made in Germany. But I have got up with a certain amount of hesitation to revert to a question which was raised here by the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) and in regard to that I would like to refer to certain statements made by the hon. member for Cape Town (Gardens) (Mr. Long) in connection with this question. We have, of course, historically only had the one known case in Canada which shows a certain amount of agreement with what has happened in South Africa, namely, the well-known Lord Byng incident. The hon. member for Cape Town (Gardens) made the statement that Lord Byng, when the crisis in Canada arose, committed the greatest crime in the eyes of the Canadian people, in having telegraphed asking the British Government for advice in that crisis, and that Mr. Mackenzie King and the Canadian people made a protest against it. They protested against that action on the part of Lord Byng. The second point which he mentioned was that in England during the past century the sovereign did not refuse to dissolve Parliament when he was advised to do so by the Prime Minister. With reference to that I want to show that constitutionally he is not right in saying so. According to constitutional practice the King still has the right of refusing a dissolution, but constitutional law is being built up and all countries are following constitutional practice, and if a certain constitutional practice has been followed for more than a century then it becomes a part of the constituional law. The third point to which I want to refer is that he said that the case in South Africa differed as the poles from the case in Great Britain, because in Great Britain the King had the right of consulting the Privy Council about a dissolution. You will allow me to inform you that I without having asked for it, received a letter from Prof. Barriedale Keith with reference to the points that were raised by the hon. member for Cape Town (Gardens) and with your permission I would like to put it on record. He sent me a letter which he had addressed to a review, and I want to read it out here—

I may point out that a similar question was put by Sir F. Hall—

Mr. Amery replied—

Prof. Keith goes further in his letter—

Well, I wanted to read out this letter to show that the theory which has been raised here to-day by the hon. member for Piquetberg is constitutionally supported by some of the greatest constitutional writers in English literature. I want again to refer to the case mentioned by Alport. The hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Egeland) referred to the authorities here. Alport published a pamflet under the title “Kingdoms in Partnership”. Alport says in his book “Kingdoms in Partnership”—

I think it is very plainly and clearly put by Alport, and that is why I quoted it again. With all respect, I want to say that in my opinion, if the Prime Miniser of to-day were leader of a stronger party which was sitting in opposition, and he had given the advice to the Governor-General in September of last year, then it might possibly still have been defended constitutionally that it was in order for the position of power to be assumed without an election, but the Prime Minister was not even the leader of the Opposition, but the deputy-leader of a party. He therefore gave advice to the Governor-General which I say it again, with all respect, was in my opinion in conflict with most of the authorities on constitutional law.

What was my advice?

It was of course, to put you into the position of power of forming the Government without going to the country, and getting a mandate from the people to put you into that position of power. I want to repeat that it is not merely a matter of political place-seeking. The hon. member for Kensington tried to throw up a smokescreen, but very noteworthy words were used by the Leader of the Opposition, the previous Prime Minister, and I think that a dangerous precedent has really been created, a precedent which is very dangerous not only to South Africa, but which will yet in future be deplored by other dominions.

I should like to refer to what the hon. member for Hoopstad (Mr. Viljoen) has just said. He has read to the Committee a letter from Professor Berriedale Keith, pointing out that I made a misstatement about Lord Byng’s having consulted the Imperial Government before he refused a dissolution to Mr. Mackenzie King. I should like to say that this letter from Professor Berriedale Keith was brought to my attention only this afternoon. I at once went and consulted Mr. Speaker as to what my proper course was in having made a statement to the House in all innocence, which was shown to be incorrect. Mr. Speaker advised me that the proper course would be to put the matter right and admit my mistake on the second reading of the Appropriation Bill, which I intended to do. The hon. member for Hoopstad has now read this letter, and it is quite obvious that this statement which I made that Lord Byng had consulted the Dominions Office before he refused a dissolution to the Prime Minister, was an incorrect statement. All I can say in connection with this statement is that the impression that that had been done has been a very general impression. I have not had time to consult the various books on the subject, but certainly it is a statement which has been made in a number of books dealing with this matter. The fact that questions were actually asked in the House of Commons of Mr. Amery, the then Secretary for the Dominions, and that he denied it, has certainly escaped the attention of the commentators on that question. I am sorry, Mr. Chairman, that I did mislead the House in that matter. I certainly did, and I wish to make full acknowledgment of that mistake and to ask the forgiveness of the House for having done so. At the same time, Mr. Chairman, the deduction that the Canadian precedent is one which applies without question to our situation last September, is not a deduction which is without doubt. I want to point out that when Mr. Mackenzie King asked Lord Byng for a dissolution of Parliament, he was still Prime Minister, and he himself went to Lord Byng and said he did not think that the business of the Government could be carried on in the circumstances which then prevailed. When the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog), the then Prime Minister of South Africa, went and asked our Governor-General for a dissolution, the circumstances as we know were wholly different.

He was still Prime Minister.

Yes, but he had been defeated in the House.

He was still Prime Minister, like Mr. Mackenzie King.

The whole point is whether there is any other member of the House, who, if he is asked to form a Ministry, is able to command a majority of the House. The root principle of these matters is whether the King’s Government can be carried on. Mr. Mackenzie King had advised Lord Byng that he did not think he could carry on the Government, and Lord Byng thought that Mr. Meighen was in a position — he was then the Opposition Leader — to command a majority and to carry on the King’s Government. That was why he asked Mr. Meighen to form a government, and refused the Prime Minister’s advice for a dissolution. But, in our case, the then Prime Minister had suffered a split in his party, and had actually been defeated in this House, and obviously not only had he no majority in the House, but the rt. hon. the Prime Minister had shown that he did command a majority. Therefore, the principle is that another member of the House who is able to command a majority in the House and carry on the King’s Government is entitled to form a Government, and that applies in our case, whereas it did not apply in the case of Mr. Mackenzie King. As I said when I spoke on this subject some time ago, this is certainly a matter which has been one of great controversy amongst constitutional authorities. As hon. members know, the Constitution of the British Commonwealth and the constitutional rules and conventions which apply to the various member states of the British Commonwealth are constantly in a state of flux. There is no one binding rule which can be laid down in these matters. It is largely a case of finding a course which is adapted to the circumstances.

A case of practice.

Yes. Even so, the hon. member for Hoopstad (Mr. Viljoen) will realise that it is very seldom you can say that history actually repeats itself. The circumstances are always slightly different. It is a very dangerous thing to quote one precedent from a country and say that it applies with absolute rigidity to circumstances which apply in another country.

It all depends upon what the needs of the Empire are at the time.

The hon. member will not lure me into agreeing to that. It is not a question of the needs of the Empire. It is a question of the circumstances in each state; what is in the best interests of that state; and what should be done for carrying on the proper constitutional government of that state.

Who is to be the judge of that?

In a case of this kind the judge is the Governor-General himself, undoubtedly. He has to decide whether he will accept the advice of his Prime Minister, or not accept his advice. In a matter of this kind it has always been the right both of the King and of the Governor-General, who is the King’s representative, in one of the member states of the Commonwealth, to decide whether the advice of the Prime Minister at the time must be accepted or not accepted. Hon. members will remember that I admitted quite frankly when the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) asked me, that the King in Great Britain has never recently refused the advice of the Prime Minister.

That is the point.

Professor Berriedale Keith says I am wrong; but I say that the circumstances between parties are different in the United Kingdom from what they are in this country. Against him, I need only appeal to the commonsense of the hon. members of this House. They know perfectly well that the differences between parties in our country are far more — I will not say bitter — but far more divided and deep-seated in the circumstances of each particular crisis, than they are in the United Kingdom. We, in this country, are not agreed on the fundamentals of our Government. We are not agreed that we must go on as a democratic country under a monarchy. Hon. members opposite want a republic. That, at once, makes a fundamental difference in the very root principles of our Government. That alters the whole circumstances as between the various parties in our country as compared to the United Kingdom, where these matters of root principles of Government are a matter of common agreement. [Time limit.]

I would like to have a little information from the Minister of Defence in connection with rifle associations in this country.

That comes under the next vote.

I intended only to discuss general policy, but I will do it under the next vote. Then I want to draw the Prime Minister’s attention to the increasing expense in connection with overseas Ministers Plenipotentiary in recent years. When he looks at Italy he will see that there is £1,000 more being voted, almost £2,000 more for America, namely, £1,758, and then in connection with New York there is a further increase of £1,373. In Holland the expenditure has gone up by about £1,000, and so also in Lisbon. I am not mentioning the case of Germany, because there there is of course a reduction. I assume that our German Ministry has been suspended and that it has practically been transferred to Stockholm. There is, of course, a certain saving, but other ministries, as the Prime Minister will see, have had much higher expenditure, and in the course of a year the amount for the different ministeries rose by more than £7,000. I assume that the Prime Minister will agree that that is a large amount, and I hope that the Prime Minister will go into it and will enquire what can be done to prevent the expense increasing from year to year. If we go on in this way we shall subsequently find that the cost which the taxpayers will have to pay will possibly become intolerable. What I particularly want to stress is that there should be a certain amount of control exercised over the expenditure. I do not know who is responsible for the expense rising from time to time, whether it is the ministries themselves or the Prime Minister’s office, but in any case there should be proper control. We cannot go on constantly increasing the expense. We cannot impose the burdens on the future population which they will subsequently find that they are unable to bear. I therefore hope that the Minister will give his attention to it. I know that his work at the moment is not easy, and that he has a great deal of other work to attend to, but I hope that he will see to it that the expenses connected with the embassies in future do not increase but diminish. If we go on in this way, and the cost of an embassy increases every year by £1,000, then he will realise that we must do something to avoid it in the future.

I would like, in the first place, to say something in regard to the League of Nations vote. I notice here that our contribution to the expenses of the League of Nations has increased by £1,000, from £24,000 to £25,000, and the total of our expenses in connection with the League of Nations will amount this year to approximately £30,600. That means an increase of £1,000. We are therefore spending £30,000 in connection with the League of Nations, and I want to ask the Prime Minister to tell us what we, South Africa, get from the League of Nations. Is the League of Nations asleep, is it defunct? What is going on there? There has been a war going on in Europe for the last six months, and what has the League of Nations done to effectuate peace in Europe, what has the League of Nations done for South Africa to stop our Prime Minister dragging us, in South Africa, also into the war? I pointed out on a previous occasion that we were subscribers to the Radio Convention of Geneva in order to perpetuate peace. What is the use of the Prime Minister asking us to support the League of Nations when Europe is in flames, and it looks as if the war is going to extend? And the first act which the Prime Minister does after coming into office, is to break the Geneva Convention, and to abuse our Broadcasting Corporation to arouse the war spirit in South Africa. It is a farce, but let me rather say it is a tragedy to increase our contributions to the League of Nations by £1,000, because what is the League of Nations doing for maintaining peace, and what are we doing, as a member of the League of Nations, to bring about peace? First of all the Prime Minister leads us into an unnecessary war and then he asks us to vote £1,000 for the League of Nations. I think we ought to move to delete this amount. What are we doing with that £30,000? Unless the Prime Minister states what we are getting for that £30,000. I am inclined to ask that that amount should be deleted. I want to say something in connection with what the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys) says, but I do not want to speak about our overseas representation as such, but if the hon. member is speaking about the increased expenditure on overseas representation, then he will find that it is to a great extent due to the fact that our contributions for our representation in Canada, Sweden, Belgium, Holland, the United States and Italy, plus the contribution to the League of Nations, I say he will find, if he makes enquiries, that the exchange alone in connection with our representation in the six countries that I have mentioned, has risen considerably. I am not now speaking of the total costs of exchange, but the costs of exchange rose last year by £4,754. That is in respect of a total amount of about £85,000, and there the rate of exchange was increased in one year by an amount equal to £4,754. Now I want to ask the Prime Minister in this connection—it is only a comparatively small item when we take it in connection with the exports of South Africa—but I am going to ask the Prime Minister when he is going to take steps to put an end to this state of affairs, and to detach our pound from the English pound, which is now tumbling down. If this war lasts four years, where will the English pound be standing then? Will it be down to 5s.? How will that affect our trade, for instance, with the United States? I do not want to speak about that now, but in connection with our overseas representation I I want to point out that the Prime Minister should consider giving South Africa a currency which is uniform with the inland value of the money in South Africa. When another country devaluates its currency, when they waste £6,500,000, I think that we should call a halt so as not to have our currency devalued by another country over which we have no control. I think that it is the desire of every country to stabilise its money at such a level that it is coincident with the prosperity of this country. I say again that I think that the time has come when we should detach our pound from British sterling. Then I want to refer to A.3. which provides £3,720 for additional expenditure. There is an increase on this item compared with last year of fully £1.000. Last year it was £2,655, and I would like to ask why we are spending £1,000 more on it than we did last year. Is it for books, is it for newspapers, or for pretty uniforms for the messengers, for petty expenditure, or is it for the etceteras? No, it cannot be for anything else but cablegrams. I want to ask the Prime Minister whether I am right in that, why otherwise is there an increase of £1,000, or is that only a small item in connection with our participation in the war?

For entertainment.

No, for stories.

I think my hon. friend in front of me is right. It is for stories that we are told about our connection with the British Empire, and about the war that we have to carry on. I think that my hon. friend in my neighbourhood here, said on Saturday that he was on the road of friendship, and I think that this expenditure was incurred for the old friendship. I want to ask the Prime Minister whether this expenditure is in connection with the old friendship for the British Empire, or whether it is the cost for cablegrams to England about what we are doing, and what we want to do for the war, or is it for uniforms. [Time limit.]

I do not want to do an injustice to the House, and therefore I will not reply to all the things which the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) said,. I think that the hon. member for Hoopstad (Mr. J. H. Viljoen) was right when he said that we need not reply to those empty nothings. But he did say one thing to which I want to reply. He said, in his speech, that the Governor-General had prevented civil war. Those were his actual words, his argument was that the Governor-General, by his action on the 4th September, had prevented civil war. Now I want to put the direct question, is the meaning of that argument not that the right of South Africa to remain neutral is not dependent on the Constitution, but that the right of South Africa to neutrality is dependent on the question whether he, and his satellites, want to rebel or not to rebel? That is a first point, and this is the second time that we have been told that if South Africa had remained neutral they would have rebelled.

I did not say it.

If you did not say it what did you speak about? He did say so, but the trouble with the hon. member is that he realises now what he said. I say that by those arguments the freedom of South Africa is being encroached upon. The hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog) said that the sooner the hon. member stopped speaking the better. I think that hon. members over there, and especially the Prime Minister, are on pins and needles when that hon. member rises. I say that he has made inroads upon the liberties of South Africa, and its right to neutrality when he used that argument. The objection I want to make is mainly against the Prime Minister. He got up here and in a sober manner said that he would like to assist the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) a little, and that he could just speak about the Prime Minister’s vote as well as about defence. When he speaks as soberly, as he did this afternoon, to the hon. member for Piquetberg, then we know there is something behind it. Does the Minister possibly intend to move the closure on the Defence Vote? Is that why he wants to help us? There has been a serious debate on the Prime Minister’s vote, and there will also be a serious debate on the Defence Vote.

He is no longer the Minister of Defence, but the Minister of Attack.

Yes, the hon. member is right. He is the Minister of Attack. I would like to support the hon. member for Piquetberg, and that is to delete the whole of the salary of the Prime Minister. I think that we are entitled to do so, because what we said before has again been confirmed, that this was not South Africa’s war, but Great Britain’s war, and because the Prime Minister was playing the role of the handyman of Great Britain, I think that it is a reasonable request that Great Britain should pay his salary and not South Africa. But there are important reasons why we object to this vote for the salary of the Prime Minister. Those reasons are practically historical reasons now. The Prime Minister is a man who is known in South Africa. Since the days that he has been in power, he has done what no one else has ever done in our history — he is a man who puts into gaol more of his own people than anyone else. He is known as a statesman who, comparatively speaking, has imprisoned more of his own people than anyone else, and we now again have had cases in this war where innocent people have been put into the internment camps under his control. He has had innocent people arrested and put into the internment camps, people whom he had to release later on, because as he himself said, they had been interned owing to false information. The Prime Minister tells us that he does not commandeer people. But we object to the fact that he commandeers the Treasury of South Africa in order to use the money for imperialistic purposes. There is no man in South Africa — and this is my second complaint against the Prime Minister — who has wasted so much public money as the present Prime Minister has done. There is no man in South Africa who has spent so many millions in connection with interests outside of South Africa with which South Africa has nothing to do, than the Prime Minister. Now he comes once more, although he stated in this House that he would only take part in a British war if England were attacked, and he commandeers the Treasury to wage a British war. In the last war he took £40,000,000 of South Africa’s money to go and carry on a war with which South Africa had no concern at all. Now £14,000,000 and more a year is being spent, and we do not know where it is going to end. It is one of the most serious charges which we can make against the Prime Minister. Not only does he not enjoy the confidence of the people of South Africa, but I do not think he is worthy of the confidence of the people of South Africa when we look at the millions which he has spent in a reckless way on wars with which the people here had no concern. There is, however, a third reason why we should delete his salary, in order to stress in that way that he is not entitled to act as the Prime Minister. He has no right to sit there, because after the 4th September he did not dare to make an appeal to the country. There is, however, a still more serious reason why he has not got the moral right to sit there, and that is that no man in South Africa has spilt so much blood as the Prime Minister. It has become a characteristic of him that he only governs South Africa in time of commotion. He has always governed with the sword. He cannot govern except with the sword, and he has never yet done so. In this case not only the treasury of the people is involved but also the blood of the people. There is no man in South Africa who has spilt so much blood, and speaking comparatively, there is no statesman in the whole world who has shed so much of his own people’s blood. When we see the conditions we are living in, then we have serious grounds for objecting to the Prime Minister remaining in office, and so we have every right to ask him to make an appeal to the country before he or anyone else opposite takes the word “democracy” on their lips again.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

The Prime Minister knows that the Afrikaner people do not want to swallow his war medicine, and that is why he is now adopting the method of giving it drop for drop in a little water. He wants to give that war medicine to the people drop by drop. He is now making believe that there really is no war, but he is gradually drawing the rope tighter, and at the meeting at Sea Point we find that he said on Saturday night—

What kind of appeals would there have to be made? Will the Prime Minister now stop talking to the people in that vague way, and will he tell them clearly what his object is, what he expects, where he expects an attack to come from, and for what he is going to make an appeal for to the young people of the country? The Prime Minister in his Sea Point speech said that our obligations went right up to Egypt. Those then are the people who went all kinds of colours when we said that the Prime Minister intended to finish up at the Mediterranean Sea. They denied it, but gradually they swallowed it drop by drop, as was the intention of the Prime Minister, to get the public to accept the whole of his war programme gradually. At the start, and even this year the Prime Minister did not go quite so far, but he is steadily going further and further. He is always trying to put the public under the impression that they are actually defending South Africa. At this time, when he is trying to create the impression with us that that money must be spent in the defence of South Africa, he does not use that money to defend South Africa against any attack, but he uses it or he abuses it, in order to employ it in the service of the Empire. We strongly object to that. Before I sit down I want to ask the Prime Minister this further question. He speaks here about 60,000 men who have joined up as volunteers. I want to know precisely how many of those men joined up to defend South Africa under the provisions of the South Africa Act, and how many of them offered to go and help the Empire at Kenya, Egypt or elsewhere. This is an important question for us to know. The Prime Minister wants to divide those people into two groups, and we would like to know how many come under each group, how many joined up to defend South Africa under the provisions of the Defence Act, and how many are prepared to go and fight elsewhere. I just want to say this to the Prime Minister: If he wants to go the length of commandeering the citizens of South Africa for service outside of the Union, as he has commandeered the Treasury, then he is going to make a very big mistake, so far as the Afrikaner people are concerned.

The hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) spoke as if he was the only man who could speak on behalf of the Afrikaner people, and where does that hon. member get the right of saying: “The Afrikaner people want this, or the Afrikaner people want that?” I think that the election results of late have shown that the Afrikaner people are standing by the Prime Minister. The Afrikaner people definitely has to fulfil its obligations, and to maintain its honour.

What obligations are those?

Obligations which the present Leader of the Opposition took upon himself at the Imperial Conference of 1926. Did not the Leader of the Opposition vote for the proposals of the Imperial Conference of 1926? They all sat there, and they undertook, as representatives of the British Empire, to defend the different parts of the British Empire in time of war. Did he and the hon. member for Fauresmith (Mr. Havenga) vote for that, or did they not? And then the young member for Boshof gets up here — an hon. member who can speak well, but who has not done much in the world yet — and he makes a charge against a man like the Prime Minister, who has gone through fire on behalf of his people. We on this side are amused when we listen to those speeches from the other side. When those hon. members hold meetings in the countryside, then the war policy of the Government is made a farce of. They say: You declared war, and where is the war? Now, on the other hand, we hear here that they say that our children will have to suffer in this war. What do they want now? There was a reference here to civil war, and they say that the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) said that there would be a revolution if we held an election. They also say that the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) said that there would have been a revolution if we had decided not to declare war. What did the late Prime Minister tell us? He told us and warned us against a revolution. What are those hon. members whining about then? It looks as if they were not listening to what the Leader of the Opposition said. When he introduced his motion he issued a warning and said that we must remember what happened in 1914, and he issued a warning that the same thing ought not to occur again. Those hon. members did not listen to it, or they forget those things. I did not believe that there would be a revolution, and I did not become afraid at that warning by the late Prime Minister, because I knew that the men who could lead a revolution were no longer on that side. There is not one on that side who could do it. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) is the only man who could have done it, but he has learnt his lesson and he will not do it again. I want to give all the honour to the hon. member for Bethlehem (Mr. R. A. T. van der Merwe) that is his due, but even he has learnt his lesson, and I think that the man who taught him his lesson was the Prime Minister. The hon. member for Boshof said that there was no one in the country who had put so manyAfrikaners into gaol as the Prime Minister had done.

Is it not so?

Yes, but if it had not been for the rebellion of 1914 he would not have put those people into gaol, and then it would not have been necessary for him to shoot Afrikaners.

Do you disapprove of the rebellion?

I disapproved of it at the time. The hon. member for Albert-Colesberg (Mr. Boltman) said the other day what his attitude was, and that no man of sense would approve of a rebellion. I said that a fire had occurred in our own house, and that we should put out that fire, because we cannot allow our own house to bum down. No. I think that we can consider ourselves fortunate. We have gone through those difficulties; we have done our duty to our own country and people, and we have upheld our honour. There was no trouble, and for that we are indebted to the present Prime Minister, who did his duty.

Do you approve of what he did in 1914?

I approve of it, because he was a member of the Government of the country, and he had to maintain order.

You simply swallow everything.

I want to warn hon. members that they must not go too far with their interjections.

The Prime Minister is accused of having had many Afrikaners shot. I want to say this, from my knowledge of the Leader of the Opposition, that if he were to suppress a rebellion then there would be much more bloodshed. No, I think that we have done our duty, and as I have already said, the people are standing by this party because the Prime Minister did his duty, and upheld the honour of our people. Sneering remarks have been made against the 60,000 Afrikaners who said that they were prepared to go and fight anywhere.

Did they say that?

We find that young Afrikaners opposite who may possibly some day be amongst the leaders of our people, speak contemptuously here about those Afrikaners who have offered their services voluntarily. I am astonished that to-day when the world is in danger, when civilisation is in danger, when the sovereign independence and freedom of the Union is in danger, should take up that attitude. Is there anyone who will deny that if Hitler wins the war, that the freedom of South Africa will be in danger? Who is there amongst them who would not like to see the Allies winning the war? I do not believe that there is one who wishes Germany to win. Merely for a little party politics they take up that attitude. There may be a single person on the platteland who does not know what he is doing, and who possibly wishes Germany to win, but I do not believe that there is one member of Parliament who wishes it. Now they speak about the Prime Minister having commandeered the Treasury to fight the war for England.

Is it so?

It is not so. This war was declared by us because the freedom not only of England and of the world, but also of South Africa was in danger. [Time limit.]

I did not intend to take part in the debate at this stage, but after having heard my old comrade (Mr. Steytler) speak, to whom I want to render all honour for his manly attitude in the old days, I feel that I must say something. I think that he also will admit that I never disappointed him at that time either, but now he says that no one on this side will to-day think of the Allies winning. My old comrade does not know what he is saying. We talk of a war into which we have been dragged against our will, and we want the people of South Africa to realise the position in which we find ourselves. All means are being adopted to stir the people up to a war spirit, to develop a war psychology and for them to cherish hatred and envy. I have evils, but I do not hate any person, because I believe in the great Providence for every individual, for every country, and I also believe in Providence so far as the fate of South Africa is concerned. On the 4th September the Prime Minister bad a great opportunity, but he missed it and he dragged our country into the war. We have always in the past taken up the attitude that South Africa should remain neutral, and the Prime Minister hardly a year before announced on a similar occasion that he also wished South Africa to remain neutral. Now it is said, as the hon. member for Kimberley (District) (Mr. Steytler) said, that the people are standing by the Government. No, the people are not given an opportunity of expressing their views. The Government is not prepared to allow the people to make their voice heard properly. The sovereign voice, those democratic principles, are not coming into their rights. They dare rot venture to go to the people, and to ask for the judgment of the people. I challenge the Prime Minister to go to the country and to ask for approval of his policy. We are now in a state of war, and yet it is not war. The Prime Minister has given the people a sugared pill to swallow. The sugar was that he said that he was going to send no troops overseas. Now we are certainly sending them overland, right up to the Mediterranean, because the Prime Minister draws the boundaries of South Africa at the Mediterranean. Ultimately our troops will probably land in Europe by means of canals and overland routes. We travel now by motor from here to London without actually going across the ocean.

At 10.55 p.m. the Chairman stated that, in accordance with Standing Order No. 26 (1), he would report progress and ask leave to sit again.

House Resumed:

The CHAIRMAN reported progress and asked leave to sit again; House to resume in Committee on 9th April.