laid upon the Table—

Report referred to Select Committee on Public Accounts.

laid upon the Table—

1. (62) Proposed sale of Annex Farm No. 75, Butterworth.
2. (63) Proposed grant of Lot 109, Amalinda.
3. (64) Proposed sale of five pieces of land at Kimberley.
4. (65) Proposed sale of Groenvlei, Knysna.

Papers referred to Select Committee on Crown Lands.

I think this afternoon I will devote attention at once to the question put to me by the hon. member for Dundee (Sir Thomas Watt) in his speech. The House will remember that the hon. member asked me a question in regard to a certain interview which I had with Mr. Stubbs, of the “Adelaide Observer,” and the hon. gentleman wanted me to answer certain questions or statements contained in that interview and to say whether they were correct or not. I may say that I felt a little amused at the question. I am glad to see him in his seat. Now the hon. member probably does not remember what I certainly thought everyone in this House knew and what I had repeated over and over again from platform and otherwise as to what my feelings are on this subject. However, I must say this; I feel that the hon. gentleman, being probably anxious to become a good Nationalist and finding perhaps that his scruples on secession blocked his way, put that question in order to get some enlightenment. I am going to answer his question, and I hope it will facilitate his conversion. I feel that the hon. gentleman may perhaps think that I doubted the sincerity of the object which he had in putting to me the question. Well, I need hardly assure him that I have none. I know he wants to be converted, and I am going to convert him this afternoon.

What to?

I will, however, say this as a prelude to my direct answers, that although I hold it—I say this because the hon. gentleman may all the more accept the sincerity of my answer—in common with a great many of the most distinguished English statesmen that any Dominion has the right to secede from what is known as the British commonwealth, such secession, as far as the Union is concerned, would be a flagrant mistake and a national disaster, should it be brought about under circumstances causing either the English, or the Dutch section, as a whole, to feel that the change thus brought about had been caused by the imposition of the will of the one section upon the will of the other. It may be of interest to the hon. gentleman to be informed further that not only is this my personal view, but it is the view held by the National party years ago. I hold, therefore, and have given free expression to it often, that only the very gravest national considerations can justify such a step being taken without the concurrence, as a whole, of the two great sections of our people. Nor have I the least fear that any such consideration will ever arise as long as each of the two sections abstains from any claim to superiority or dominance over the other. I am glad to hear hon. members opposite so fully in agreement with me; but let me say further—and I do not know, judging from the speeches in this House during the last few days, whether they will appreciate this so much—that no such consideration will arise provided that no attempt is made by either to use the British connection as a means to establish that superiority or dominance. Have I the full concurrence of hon. gentlemen opposite? I am glad; and I hope therefore that what I intend saying later on will come home with all the more effect to those who evidently are transgressors. I believe that never in the history of South Africa, never since the first occupation of the Cape by Great Britain, has the feeling of anxiety that such superiority or dominance may be established been felt less than it is to-day; and I speak with the fullest conviction when I say thanks to the Pact-Government. Having said this by way of preliminary instruction to my hon. friend the member for Dundee, I now proceed to answer his question more directly. The statements attributed to me in the extracts from the interview read by him to this House, which he wishes me to confirm or otherwise, I think to be the following—

After what I have already said I feel sure the hon. member can no longer feel any great anxiety on this question and I hope his scruples will have vanished. But I know it is always a good thing to have a statement like that repeated. Well, I am going to repeat it: I authorize the hon. member for Dundee (Sir Thomas Watt)—as I have authorized Mr. Stubbs—to go back to Natal to tell these good Natalians that he has heard it from me in this House, that I say, positively, that I have not the slightest intention of recommending secession. Now, from that interview I gather there is a second statement. I see the hon. member for Dundee is looking gloomy.

Oh no.

I am afraid he feels this is a little too much for his Natalians to hear—

Oh no.

Without feeling some compunction as to their votes cast at the last election. The second statement upon which I take it the hon. member desires my confirmation is the following—

I may say again, here, that after what I have stated I think the hon. member should have no more doubts and anxiety; but I know there is nothing that is so good to strengthen faith in the weak and faltering as repetition, and therefore I say this here again this afternoon, that I am in favour of the British connection being maintained. I am glad to see my hon. friend at any rate smiling here this afternoon; but behold! how suddenly he gets gloomy again. But here I am going to add—

You are going to qualify it.

There is no qualification. Let me here warn my hon. friend and his followers that whenever my hon. friend and his party followers should establish, or again seek to establish that superiority or dominance to which I referred here to-day, based upon the British connection, secession will inevitably become the watchword of those over whom they try to, or do, establish that dominance. My hon. friend will appreciate this.

Who is to be the judge?

The member for Caledon.

I am not so sure. Oh no! I would prefer quite another judge. I should much prefer to have my hon. friend the member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) as the judge of that than the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige). With regard to this, let me say that I have a hundred times more faith in the English-speaking South African’s fairness on this question than in that of the Dutch-speaking South Africans sitting on the opposite side.

Shame!

I hope the feelings of the hon. member for Rondebosch (Mr. Close) are different from his looks.

I think that was a shameful thing to say.

If the hon. member had been Dutch-speaking I could have understood his indignation, but now, of course, it is his sense of fairness—

Hear, hear.

Which you lack.

I am not ashamed to say it. As far as Dutch-speaking South Africa is concerned, it will get justice ten times sooner from the English-speaking people in South Africa, than from the Dutch-speaking members opposite.

Shame!

Just fancy the hon. member for East London (City) (the Rev. Mr. Rider), with his gruff voice, protesting against that.

He means it.

I am glad at any rate to see that there are some Dutch-speaking people for whom the hon. member can enter the arena.

True men, not traitors.

If there are others, well I am very glad, but I must say that our experience in this House has not been of the kind that the hon. member for East London (City) would champion the cause of the Dutch-speaking people. I may now briefly conclude my answer to the hon. member for Dundee by referring to the third statement which, I take it, he desires me to confirm. It is this: The Nationalists do not look upon secession as a matter of practical politics.

They cannot.

Since when?

I will tell my hon. friend why not. He and his party are no longer in power, overawing and Cowing the Dutch into submission or subordination to a Parliament and a Government which are not and were never the Parliament and the Government of this country, since it acquired self-government. That not being the case, and the Pact Government having come into power—a Government where the Nationalists and the Labourites all feel that it is a Government for all the sections of the people—

Oh blessed sight!

And a Government which considers itself as the trustees of the people of this country and no longer as the agents of any other, and, let me say a Government doing true, and not mere lip service to the motto “South Africa first,”—the Nationalists do not look upon secession as a matter of practical politics, so long as the Government of this country—no matter of what party—stands to its duty of making the welfare and the prosperity of this country its first consideration. I hope my hon. friend is satisfied, and I believe there is no other statement in that interview of which he required my confirmation, but if so will he let me know later on? Having cleared the decks I want to come to other matters concerning this budget. In the first place I want to say a few words with regard to the criticisms of the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger). At the same time I wish once more to compliment my hon. friend on his speech, and the manner in which he made his criticisms. I think the manner in which the hon. member approached this whole subject forms a very strong contrast to that of the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts), and several of the others, if not the majority, of those who have spoken in this House. Let me say this with regard to his criticisms, if we take away the fact that the policy of this Government is protection for its industries, and the opening up of markets for its products—if you take away this, or close your eyes to this—then there might have been a great deal in the criticisms of my hon. friend, but he forgets—and I think that is what the majority of hon. members on the other side forget—that he is no longer sitting on the Government benches; he forgets that his criticisms are those of a free trader.

I am a free trader, I admit it.

The moment you take that away then I say this, that nothing in the criticisms of my hon. friend really requires serious attention at this stage. My hon. friend has tackled the question of financial relations, but that is not a question I am going into here. That question will be brought before the House, and will have to stand the test of this House on its own merits. But I repeat that the only substance you can draw from the speech and criticism of my hon. friend would be that if you took his position and adopted his policy and wished to criticise from that point of view. Once again I must say we stand here as a totally different party, and what is more—and the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) seems to be quite oblivious to that fact—that we stand here on these two bases—protection for the industries of the country, and the opening up of markets for the products of the country. I must say I was a bit amused yesterday when the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) so pathetically called out—

Well, I wonder what he said just a year ago—

He was very pathetic, and I must say it is not the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger), who is wrong. Oh, no. It is as clear as daylight after the speech yesterday of the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) that he is as great a free trader as the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger), only, of course, at election times you must never enquire too closely into the policy and politics of a man, especially of the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts). I wish here again to say this, that the fiscal policy of this Government is one undoubtedly totally different from, and diametrically opposed to, that of the late Government, and if we are to be criticized, then it must be from that point of view if any good is to be done by any suggestions to be made later on in any Bill or in committee of the House. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) has asked me whether I can say whether in negotiating treaties of commerce, we would consult the British Government. It is absolutely a fair question, and I wish to remind him of this. The right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) knows it, and he will say whether I am stating it correctly, that there is an understanding made by him and the various representatives in London at the time from the other dominions that in the case of agreements any of the dominions contemplate entering into, if it affects the interests of any particular dominion that dominion will be consulted, and if it affects the interests of all the dominions, all the dominions will be consulted. It is therefore very clear that on every treaty entered into—for I can hardly conceive of any commercial treaty which will be entered into not affecting in some way or the other one or more of the dominions of Great Britain—they will therefore be consulted.

In advance?

Of course, in advance. Thereafter the agreements will be laid upon the Table of the House, and we have adopted from the very first that we are not going to enter into any treaties which are not to be confirmed by this House. My hon. friend the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) says they must be first consulted. Of course. But it seems to me that it is just there that my right hon. friend forgot what was going to take place when he moved his amendment to the motion now before the House, because it is very clear there is nothing before the House either from the Budget or from the tariff, which requires any agreement, or which contains any proposal with regard to an agreement. Any proposal that is to be made with any country desiring to enter into an agreement will, as I said, receive the consultation and the attention of the other dominions and Great Britain, and it will then have to be treated upon its merits. The proposals at present before this House have absolutely nothing to do with entering into any agreement or giving preference to any other country, or even to a dominion. So much for my hon. friend the member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger). I now come to the speech of the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts). I must say I sat listening, and listening very attentively, to the right hon. gentleman. The first part of his speech I may say, when you analyze it, was one long mere trifling with facts. The statements made by the right hon. gentleman as to facts and figures were ready enough at the time to arouse the merriment of the House, as they deservedly did. We must not forget that only a few days before it was admitted that we politicians are given to a little exaggeration, but this was done, not in a small measure, and at any rate, he rightly appreciated that what was done by him was not an exception. The second part of the speech was nothing else but a re-hash of what had come from these benches during the previous ten years. I didn’t have the pleasure of hearing the hon. member for Cape Town (Gardens) (Mr. Coulter) last night, but I think his speech must have been a delight to this House, judging from what one reads. Coming back to the right hon. member for Standerton, I must say that it was nothing else but what culminated in that speech last night, a jumble of glowing jingoism, legal quibbles, and patriotic paradoxes—that is really what it all came to. What his whole speech came to was a subordination of the fiscal policy of this country to that of Great Britain. That was the essence of the right hon. gentleman’s speech. Really, I feel that these gentlemen prate about the British connection and take every possible opportunity of dragging it on to the floor of this House, just as the right hon. member for Standerton did in his speech, indirectly, but it is so. If we adopt that policy it comes to this, that this Country has no free choice to arrange its tariffs as it should deem best. Let me say what I reprehend most, above all, in the speeches delivered in this House on the budget, is the reprehensible character of their instruments of attack—what have really been the main instruments of attack—racial feeling and the British connection.

Nobody on these benches raised either or even mentioned them.

The right hon. member for Standerton protests. I hope to return to him, and when I have finished with him I shall ask the House whether his protests are right or not. I may say in this debate the main reasons have been hidden by the hon. members speaking on the other side—the main reasons of the Opposition. I take it to be that one of the main reasons dominating their speeches was that they do not love the idea of this country ever entering into treaties with other nations. This was undoubtedly a fear they always evinced in the past, and I feel, so far as the speech of the right hon. member for Standerton was concerned, it was very much dominated by that fear. The second is, and it is part of that—it is really what caused that fear—there is still a feeling with the right hon. member for Standerton, above all, that you cannot have a British Commonwealth unless we stand in subordination to Great Britain. It is not many years ago when I had to fight the right hon. gentleman and his colleagues in this House, and even outside, when they sent one of their colleagues from the Treasury benches to teach the doctrine that we are subordinate to the British Government and the British Parliament, and so, consciously or unconsciously, that still predominates with the gentlemen on the other side. I want to implore of them that if they are sincere in maintaining the British connection, please do not let the Dutch-speaking people in South Africa feel that you are trying to establish that dominance over the country. If you had not got that intention, right and well, but do not, every time, as has been done in this debate, show, or let it come out, that that feeling is really still driving you. What I regret most of all in the methods of attach of the Opposition is this, that they impute motives to this Government. With what object? With the object of making these instruments of theirs—the instrument of racial feeling, the instrument of the British connection—all the more effective. It has been said in this debate that ill feeling towards Great Britain has mainly influenced this Government in coming forward with these budget proposals.

Who says so?

I challenge the hon. member for Standerton whether that was not the import of his speech.

It is sheer nonsense. I never did.

The right hon. gentleman protests that he never did. I shall later on ask him something else, and I hope that he will be able to say, “I never did.” The hon. member for Standerton tried to ascribe to this Government the intention of putting Great Britain, as far as fiscal policy and tariffs are concerned, on an unequal footing with other nations.

Yes, I did.

Did the right hon. gentleman have any right to say that? That is the question. Had you any right to say it?

Accept my amendment and it is all over.

Accept your amendment! No; what the hon. gentleman wants is not that we should accept his amendment, but that we should accept his policy, and we are not going to do it.

Accept the policy of that amendment and I shall be satisfied.

Of course, the right hon. gentleman cannot appreciate the fact that he is no longer sitting on the Treasury benches.

That is very cheap.

We have been to the elections upon this.

No.

The election has been fought on this.

You never mentioned it.

If necessary, I am quite prepared to have it fought on it again.

On the preference?

Yes, quite prepared.

Give us the chance.

Now I say this, it is not true, and the right hon. gentleman ought to know it. He is not suffering from defect of intellect, and anyone who reads what the Minister of Finance has brought before the House will see undoubtedly that on 22 classes of goods you have given an absolute preference to Great Britain. Can he mention any other country that gets that? Now let us come to the question of bargaining. Will the right hon. gentleman tell me in what manner England is put on an unequal and disadvantageous footing as compared with other nations?

Read the speech of your colleague.

No, I listened to the speech of my hon. colleague, and I must say this, that the right hon. gentleman, when he said that the Minister of Finance had changed his mind since he spoke, did not say what was correct.

I shall show it to you.

I don’t care what you show me from the papers; I know what the hon. gentleman said in my hearing.

It will be in Hansard, I hope.

May I rise to a point of explanation? The Prime Minister said that in the statement I made I was not correct, I was saying what is not true. I shall read the passage from the speech made by the Minister of Finance in regard to this point. I propose to read the statement which was given by the Minister of Finance to the press.

Perhaps I might give the right hon. gentleman time to look it up and I can go on in the meantime. I come to another point, and that is a subject which has been constantly imputed and has been imputed here again, though perhaps not so openly, in this debate. The question of secession has been imputed to this Government in connection with the budget or the tariff proposals.

May I interrupt the Prime Minister now? I have found the passage that I was searching for. It is sub-head (d) of the statement of the Minister of Finance in regard to the customs tariff. It reads—

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, is the hon. member (Gen. Smuts) in order in quoting from a newspaper a speech given in this debate?

I shall read it from Hansard. It is sub-head (d) of the hon. Minister’s statement in regard to the customs tariff, and it reads like this—

Yes, but where does he say a single word—

“Outside the British commonwealth.”

These are the flimsy pretexts upon which these charges are made, and made especially by the hon. member for Standerton from time to time. I shall this afternoon have to deal with a few other instances of this kind. As I have said, another charge constantly flung at this Government, inside and outside the House, and especially by the hon. member for Standerton, even in connection with these very tariff proposals, is that we wanted it merely in order that we might eventually get secession. Will the right hon. gentleman deny that?

It is a half-way house.

We look upon it as “a half-way house.” These are the words of the right hon. gentleman. I shall for a moment leave my right hon. friend there. I shall come to him in a few minutes. Now on the 20th of this month he made a speech at Worcester. He has been flying of late almost daily from platform to platform to encourage the faltering hopes of his followers and to make propaganda.

Where is the Minister of Justice at the present moment?

This House will see what the methods are which are resorted to by my right hon. friend in making propaganda and in trying to gain votes. I shall take his speech sentence by sentence. He said this—

That is not true.

I take it that the hon. member for Standerton spoke generally. Not many years ago he addressed this House on the preference question with Great Britain and told this House that the preference question could not be allowed to stand where it did. Oh, no, we had to get something more and Great Britain was to give something more. Does the hon. gentleman remember that?

I quite agree.

So it is not such a big sin, after all.

I got it, too.

He got it. He means what he calls in this speech—

I suppose this is what he got. He got the British Government, so far as the first one was concerned, to say—We will; the second has said we shall not; and the third has said—We may. So there we stand to-day; that is what he has got. See what he says next—

Well, I ask this House whether we can find any better reason for abolishing preference. I should say that was the very reason. It was the reason given by my hon. friend at the time he delivered that speech. He goes on to say—

Yes, he wanted to do away with some part of it. Whether this is right or wrong is a question to be decided upon the floor of this House, as a question by itself, and upon its merits. May I ask here if the mere fact that Britain wants to give us more preference is sufficient reason for us to say, “No, we shall not do away with our preference.” Is that sufficient? What the hon. gentleman seems to have forgotten is this, we are here to look after the interests of the people; we are not here as philanthropists, and least of all are we here to look after the interests of Great Britain; we are here to look after our own. I am positive that the less we meddle with the interests of Great Britain, the more those who are entrusted with the affairs of Great Britain will be thankful to us.

It is the question of our own trade we are dealing with.

Exactly. Exactly for that reason we say this policy that we lay upon the Table is the best policy for South Africa. My hon. friend had maintained that before and during the elections; he could not convince the electors he was right, but now that the electors have decided it, surely he should look upon the question as being settled. Let me tell my hon. friend this: Sentiment will make a very good cement, but it is a very very bad brick. If you want to build your Empire or Commonwealth, or whatever you may like to call it, then I tell you this, you are not going to build it out of the bricks of sentiment. As far as looking after the interests of other dominions or Great Britain is concerned, I would advise the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) to leave it to British statesmen and other dominion statesmen. He went on to say in his speech—

What the Pact Government says is this: “You are not only our friends, but members of our family, therefore instead of merely saying to you we shall let you in one day. South Africa says to Great Britain, as she has said for the last 20 years, you are let in.” She has enjoyed all the preference that could be given to her, but now we find that the interests of the country demand that the preference right shall be curtailed; and by the proposals now before the House this is what the Government intends doing, and I hope this is what the House will support the Government in eventually doing. Let us now listen to this delightful sentence—

I think hon. members will allow that what was meant by this was something more than simply refusing to continue the old practice. It was meant to convey something further. The Government in this country, looking after the interests of this country, are trying to help the industrial life of this country, acting as the real trustees of the welfare of the country—this is the present Government—and because we say to Great Britain we cannot any longer continue these general preferences, then the Government is told that they have repulsed British overtures—if there were such—and that they have given Britain a smack in the face. I ask this House whether this is really a bona fide criticism brought out with a view of criticizing the policy of the Government on its merits, or not. Let me remind the House of this, that the right hon. gentleman when it suits his purpose sometimes goes before the country and speaks as a son of South Africa. I must say this, that his conduct very often is not the conduct of a true son of South Africa.

Where?

Yours is, I suppose?

In a few minutes I will show hon. members where. This same right hon. gentleman, who only a year ago was posing as the great champion of industrialism in South Africa, asking the voters to send him back to Parliament, and he would give the industrialists I don’t know what—this same gentleman to-day, when a step is being taken by this Government to assist the industries of this country, stands up and says—

Now let me come a little nearer, and I am coming nearer to my friend the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt), where he looks upon it as a wrong to Great Britain. The next words of the right hon. member for Standerton were the following—

I am glad, or rather I am deeply sorry, to see that the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) has the hardihood still to shake his head; it only proves conclusively how right I was in saying that his conduct very often is not the conduct of a son of South Africa. What is behind all this, he asks. This is the answer he gives—

That is your Pact.

This is what he says, there is a secessionist policy in the background; do not support the Dutch Nationalist party; do not vote for them; do not work for them. Then you can see how, as a son of South Africa, he stands erect and says, “I who tell you that, I who warn you, I am J. C. Smuts, who has so often shown his good feelings towards you in South Africa.” Let me say this, the occasion on which he delivered his speech was not a Punch and Judy show. Oh, no. This speech was delivered at Worcester in a very distinguished company. The hon. member for Worcester (Mr. Heatlie) was the chairman.

I was honoured by being chairman.

He was in good and compatible company, and the distinguished ex-Speaker, the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. Krige was another one. So you see, it was not a mere Punch and Judy show, but an earnest meeting in Worcester for the purpose of outlining the policy of the South African party, and of urging members to persist in propaganda work.

Why not?

Why not? I have nothing against the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) making propaganda, but I say there is a standard of conduct which the right hon. gentleman ought to preserve.

Satan reproving sin.

This was not made by some nobody, and that is why I have stated what I did. He was not simply seeking notoriety. At that very meeting he said—

Hear, hear.

I am glad. I can see they still have respect for a son of South Africa, and that is exactly what I want them to have; but a son of South Africa who has done all in his power for this country.

Hear, hear. At a critical time, too; he did not shirk it.

And he thereupon assured his audience that he asked for nothing more than to serve his country and his people, and perhaps, in a lesser way, the world. I am not so presumptuous—

You do not object to that?

I am not sure whether I should not, when one contemplates the disservice the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) did to the world at the Paris (Versailles) Peace Conference. When you consider that disservice to the world, under which the world to-day is still groaning, and will groan, I am afraid, still more in the future; when you consider that all his services rendered to the world and all the service he will be able to render to the world will never be able to compensate for that disservice, I say—and I say it with the utmost conviction—if there has been anything fatal to the interests of the world it has been the services rendered to the world by my hon. friend at Paris. I am not so presumptuous. I am going to confine my service, as far as I can render it, to South Africa, and as far as South Africa is concerned—

1914!

Or I can know her interests. I admit I do not know the world’s interest and I shall never be able to know it. I want to ask the right hon. gentleman a few questions. I want to ask the leader of the Opposition, ex-Prime Minister, son of South Africa—

Future Prime Minister.

Future Prime Minister. I shall be glad only if he can be that and at the same time a true son of South Africa. Well, what I wanted to ask the right hon. gentleman, and I can quite understand that he does not like to listen to this question, is, whether, when he told his Worcester audience that the Pact’s reply to the British Government on their alleged friendly offer was a smack in the face of Great Britain, he really meant to include the Labour section?

It has gone to sleep.

Which of the two did he mean?

I say both. The whole Pact.

Will the right hon. gentleman answer me and tell me why it was that he asked the question—

With that insinuation? With a malicious insinuation behind it; in fact, it was more than an insinuation; it was an accusation—

That is your policy after five years.

May I ask the right hon. gentleman this further question: Must we understand that all the Labour party and all the people of English descent have become secessionists?

One-half are dependent upon the Nationalist vote.

They are in bad company.

I shall, in a few minutes, answer the interjection by the hon. member for East London (City) (the Rev. Mr. Rider). Meanwhile, what a comment this would be upon the policy of the Unionists—a Unionist policy, a Unionist Government, with the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) at the head, getting one-third, at least, of the English-speaking, English-born subjects of this country running away from that party straight into the arms of the wicked secessionists. What a comment on their policy!

Would you tell us the reason for writing the two letters?

I see the right hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt), whenever he gets pinched, is just like a jack-in-the-box, or rather like that little thing that goes up and down on a string. He has taken very good care to reserve his speech.

I ask for an explanation of the two letters.

If that is the case, there must be some salvation in secession.

I thought you had repudiated it.

Yes, I have repudiated it, if I assume that you are correct. I think the hon. member for Rondebosch, too (Mr. Close), sometimes works on hypotheses or assumptions?

I was not quite clear on the point.

This is sufficient for me this afternoon. The hon. member for East London (City) (the Rev. Mr. Rider), like the right hon. member for Standerton) (Gen. Smuts) says, “Yes. But it is only because these English-speaking people who support you have been misled by you.” I am prepared to assume that it is so, and I shall therefore assume that this charge of a smack in the face, the abolishing of British preference, is in reality a step initiated and taken by me and my Nationalist colleagues in the Cabinet, with a view to ultimate secession. But then I think the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) will admit that that charge, confined to the Dutch-speaking South African, has a three-fold implication: First, that all the assurances given by me and my party to the contrary of what is stated, are false.

Where are those assurances? You will hear some of it just now.

And, secondly, that I and my colleagues are deceiving the English-speaking people who are supporting us in, the Cabinet, in this House, and outside this House.

Hear, hear.

There you have it supported even in this House. Well, I am glad to feel that there is honesty even in respect of a matter about which you ought to be ashamed. The third implication, I take it, is this: That I and my Nationalist colleagues in the Cabinet are acting dishonestly to Great Britain, the Empire and the King. Is that right? I hardly think that the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) can deny that these are implications all contained in what he has stated. I now come to the motives of the right hon. gentleman in saying so. I ask this House whether it can be said, with any degree of sincerity, that these words were uttered with a view to criticizing the preference policy of this Government? Is there anybody that will admit that these words were spoken with that object. No; they sound far more like the outcry that comes from a man who is feeling that he is being deserted by his followers, and with the object of gaining their votes and sympathy sets about appealing to the racial feelings and prejudices of the English-speaking people in South Africa. That is, to me, the worst feature in the right hon. gentleman’s speech, that for no other purpose but to stir up racial feelings in this country did he use these words and make such an accusation. Yet the right hon. gentleman calls himself a “son of South Africa.” Really, I do not think there is anybody in this House who, from time to time, has so much declared himself as the mortal enemy of racialism in South Africa as the right hon. member for Standerton. Yet, when we come and look into his speeches, there is no man in South Africa who can in any way approach him for the manner in which he goes from platform to platform, and from place to place, to incite racial feeling in South Africa. The right hon. gentleman asks his audience for nothing more than an opportunity to serve his country—to serve, mark you—and his people. I suppose when he goes on to a platform he is trying to serve his country and his people! If that is so, I can only say this, his country must be in a deplorable state. Racialism—if we look through the daily speeches of the right hon. member, you would really say racialism is the breath of his nostrils—not a place but you have that. I shall, in a few minutes’ time, bring home this racialism to my right hon. friend and to this House, not merely because I wish to inflict any sense of injury upon my right hon. friend—

Purely brotherly love.

But because I feel that nothing more detrimental and nothing more fatal is being done to the interests of South Africa than the manner in which he sets about doing these things. When you look at racialism really, then I say again that he approaches it as though his very life depends on it, and as though it is his only means of political salvation, and no doubt it is. No doubt he feels it so—it has been his only salvation for years past while he sat upon these benches. Since 1920 especially the right hon. gentleman, if he did me the honour of reading my speeches at that time, in reply to his election manifesto, will remember what I told him at that time of his conduct. He has never on any occasion since that day tried to amend his conduct in the least, but thinks that he may again reach these Treasury benches and find again that racialism will be his salvation. Well. I can only say this—it is bad, it is miserable, to have this game resorted to, when you work upon the feelings of white against white; it is infinitely more fatal when it is resorted to—I will not use the word “despicable”—

You have.

Then it is infinitely more despicable—

The Prime Minister must modify his language.

I do so with pleasure, sir, only evidently some right hon. gentlemen on the other side wanted to give me an opportunity of being corrected by you, and I used that opportunity. I say it is infinitely more prejudicial when it is used to stir up the feelings of black against white. Now let me point out to the House what the conduct of the right hon. gentleman has been of late as far as that is concerned. I feel greatly that unless we get in this country a salutary public opinion to check my right hon. friend, his speeches will, one of these days, prove of the utmost detriment to South Africa. I don’t refer to the speeches of the right hon. gentleman in this House. No, as far as this place is concerned, I consider it is the duty of every man fearlessly to criticize the Government upon any question, no matter how important it may be, but it is a very different thing when a man runs about from platform to platform outside and says what he has said of late. The right hon. gentleman has made several speeches of late. The import of each of them was to the coloured and to the native in South Africa, “Be on your guard against the Government of the day.”

Hear, hear.

From the mouths of babes you will hear the truth, and from the mouth of the hon. member for East London (City) (the Rev. Mr. Rider)—

Who is not a babe, but an experienced man.

I do not wonder, being supported by such wise and faithful followers, that the right hon. member for Standerton should find from time to time that he is forced to bark his other bark. Yes; he goes from platform to platform to tell these natives and coloured men to be on their guard against the faithlessness of this Government, contemplating and constantly taking away from the native his rights, his liberties—I may almost say his very existence. What surprises me above all is this, that the right hon. gentleman should do that in spite of what I stated in this House a few weeks ago when I gave what I considered were the main outlines of the native policy that we ought to adopt, and saying what I considered should be the conduct that ought to inspire us over against the native whatever we might do eventually. That surprises me all the more, but what surprises me still more, for as hon. members will remember, on that occasion I was immediately followed by the right hon. member for Standerton, and what he said was—

Notwithstanding his saying this, he goes about trying in his speeches to stir up the natives by telling them that the Government is contemplating faithlessness and deprivation of rights over against the natives. Let us listen to what the right hon. gentleman said at Worcester. About 22 days after I had spoken in this House and he had replied, he goes to Worcester. There, at a place where the majority of his followers are coloured men—

Untrue.

I mean the majority as between coloured and native.

Untrue.

What is untrue? The hon. member does not know what he is speaking about. Let me say where the larger number of coloured voters contribute to sending to this House that distinguished gentleman the member for Worcester (Mr. Heatlie), whose majority would not exist except for the coloured vote, and I think he will admit that is right. The right hon. gentleman goes to Worcester, and this is what he said—

Is that true? Twenty-two days after I had stated in this House the general outlines of our native policy. No, sir, and then at that time let him not forget what he said further with regard to this—

Why did he say that? The right hon. gentleman has used this this afternoon merely as a cover for his own misdeeds and to cover what he said at Worcester—

We were very glad to hear your mischievous policy had been abandoned.

It was one of those things the right hon. gentleman had sucked out of his own brain.

You said so here.

What I said was in 1917 the Government would not accept my policy, they followed their own, but in 1922 they found they could not go on with then policy in practice, but resorted to mine, and I was continuing that. Oh! These subterfuges will not avail to let the right hon. gentleman out of my hands.

Since 1918 we have been carrying out your native policy, is that it?

Yes.

Your segregation policy was the policy we have been carrying out since 1918?

This is what I said most distinctly, that we are acting on the same lines as the previous Government, and that the territories demarcated for the natives by the second commission are the territories we are reserving for them in practice. It will not be the first time the right hon. member for Standerton has laid claim to what is not his—

And my hon. friend went on immediately following these words—

Hear, hear.

Hear, hear. He knows it. My hon. friend starts with the native question at Worcester and adroitly switches off to the coloured man, where he knew he had votes to gain. Let me finish it—

Not the native any longer.

I want to ask the right hon. gentleman what was the slap that was being administered to the coloured man. No, he knows very well what the policy of this Government is with regard to the coloured man and that it is a policy more acceptable and desired by the coloured man than any he can produce, but, being in Worcester, he was not going to say that. He must say something that will put the feeling of the coloured man up against the bad Nationalist by switching off adroitly from the native question to the Coloured man. I ask him, is this playing the game? Is this what we expect from a good and true son of South Africa—going out of his way to stir up feeling between the coloured man and the white man in South Africa? What induced him to do so? Again, the miserable vote. If there is anything which will force South Africa to take another road with regard to the vote of the native it is the manner in which the mind of the native is being abused for the purpose of getting him to vote for the white man.

What is the other road?

That the right hon. gentleman will know when the time comes. His party—

Really, coming from a man who a few days before in this House had admitted the colour bar in the Transvaal statute book originated from his fertile brain.

It is not in the statute book.

What a miserable quibble. These are the quibbles by which these honourable men try to cover their misdeeds. Is this the conduct of a son of South Africa? My right hon. friend seems to forget when he goes on to the platform that he is not a nobody. Then you have this same man going there saying what he knows not to be correct, and then tries further by saying things by way of suspicion calculated to work on the racial feeling of South Africa. The right hon. gentleman is very fertile. He says, among other things—in that speech, I believe—

Well, I will remind my hon. friend that the Dutch word for “sly” is “slim.” Whatever charges have been brought against the National party, the charge of “slim” has never been preferred. I think I express the feeling of everybody in this House, at least from these benches, in saying we shall never pilfer from the right hon. gentleman such a valuable asset.

That is very cheap.

This was administered by way of moral reprimand. There is a Dutch saying—

Namely—

Now, Sir, I ask the right hon. gentleman again what would he have said if I or anybody else on this side had acted in this way? I feel convinced he would not have had words strong enough to reprobate such action on our side. We have not only the right but we are called upon to take the action I have taken this afternoon in bringing to the notice of the right hon. member where his actions are leading this country to. You cannot simply take up the position—and that seems to be the position the right hon. gentleman takes up of late—“After me, the deluge. I don’t care what the consequences of the actions are going to be so long as I get the vote and I have a party strong enough to put me in power.” Any man with a feeling of interest for this country must feel that it is conduct so wrong that it cannot be sufficiently condemned in language which is not too strong in this House. I feel I am taking up too much of the time of this House, but the subject-matter is so important that I dare not leave it when I have brought it so far. I have pointed out how this right hon. member goes on to the platforms trying to stir up racial feeling between the English and the Dutch and how he goes on the platforms trying to stir up racial feeling between the European and the coloured man, and I am now going to point out how this gentleman goes about the country to stir up the feeling between the native and the European in this country. The right hon. gentleman only a few days ago, on the 23rd, addressed a meeting at Kalk Bay. One would have thought that at Kalk Bay he might have left the native alone. But no, oh, no! He had a meeting there. I would like hon. members just to glance at the head-lines in the newspapers conveying, quite correctly, the import of his speech. The first is—

That is in criticising the Government policy. What does that mean? Either that the natives are not getting a square deal, or that we are out to do something which will deprive them of getting a square deal in the future.

By whom? At whose instance? In consequence of whose policy? Naturally, the Pact Government.

Well, I do not think it is necessary for me to read anything from this report.

The head-lines are enough for you.

They are, quite. And they are quite enough for any decent man feeling any interest in the welfare of this country, and they are quite enough, or should be quite enough, to make any decent man feel ashamed of having spoken as he did.

The Prime Minister must moderate his language.

I am quite prepared to withdraw; I do withdraw. Let me say this, it is hard to find words adequate to express what should be expressed in such circumstances, when a man who is guilty of it laughs as though it were a mere thing to trifle with and play with. I hope I shall not be out of order when I say that I consider that it is unworthy of the leader of the Opposition. I will put it in this way, that I feel that it is not conduct of which a leader of the Opposition ought to be guilty, and I feel that it is the conduct of which an ex-Prime Minister should not be guilty, but I feel, above all, that it is conduct of which a son of South Africa should not be guilty. As I have said, the right hon. gentleman has been going from platform to platform during the past month, his object being to strengthen his vote, to make propaganda, etc., but, for heaven’s sake, is there no other way of making propaganda, is there no other way open to the right hon. gentleman of getting votes, than by resorting to such methods and such words? This, I may say in conclusion, he has tried to stir up racial feeling between the English and the Dutch in this country under the most flimsy pretexts of the preference proposals, he has tried to stir up racial feeling between the natives and the Europeans in this country by insinuations of bad faith and bad intentions on the part of this Government, the white man over against the natives—

Taxing their blankets, for instance.

You stole the land of the native.

The hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) has tried to stir up racial feeling between the European and the coloured man in this country, and really, having neither pretext nor justification for his acts, he resorted to political trickery. I hope that is not unparliamentary.

That is not parliamentary.

Now I ask this House whether I was correct when I said that what is to be regretted most of all in this debate, as far as it has gone, are the methods of attack adopted by the Opposition? Can we not decide questions of weight to the country without having resort to secession, to the British connection, to racial feeling? If we cannot do that, I can only say that I feel convinced that we are not capable of governing ourselves.

I hope it is not inconsequent to refer to the fact that we are engaged in a Budget debate. I wanted to offer my congratulations, as other speakers have done, to the Minister of Finance on his Budget speech, though it may seem rather out of place to do so, in view of the manner in which the debate has been going on for some time. I want to say that I and many of my friends on this side of the House regarded that speech as something like a model—a clear and able statement of the financial position of this country. But the speech which we have listened to during the last two hours, I must say, has taken us very far from the consideration of the financial proposals laid before us in the Budget speech, and I cannot help saying that I profoundly regret the speech which the Prime Minister has just delivered. I think it is almost incredible that the Prime Minister, speaking in this House nominally on the Budget, on the financial position of the country, should have spent the greater part of his time in an attack on my right hon. friend the member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts), an attack which for bitterness and exaggeration and unconsciousness, apparently, of his own past and of that of his party, I do not think could have been surpassed. I do not propose to follow the Prime Minister through the whole of his lengthy attack upon the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts).

It is not necessary.

No, it is not necessary, because all the statements were really refuted by the grounds on which the Prime Minister based them. The bitterest attacks he made upon him fell by their own weight; they are not borne out by the reasons the Prime Minister gave in support of them. The right hon. member for Standerton is very capable of defending himself if he thinks it necessary. There was one statement, however, which struck me as being particularly extraordinary, and that was a kind of challenge to this House and to South Africa to compare the services which the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) had rendered, with those which he himself had rendered, to South Africa and to the world. We are still living very near to that time of disturbed feelings and upheaval, both in South Africa and in the world, through which we passed, we are still too near that time to attempt historical judgments that are going to last for ever. History will say what it thinks, what posterity thinks, of the services rendered by the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) to South Africa and to the world, and will compare them with those rendered by the Prime Minister. We, on this side of the House—and I make bold to speak for members belonging to both sections of the white race in this country—we, who regard the right hon. member with confidence, admiration and affection, have no reason to fear what the verdict of history will be. There is one other thing I want to touch upon before I leave this unedifying attack. The Prime Minister accuses my right hon. friend of racialism. That seems to me to imply an unconsciousness of his own past history, that is almost supernatural. It is a charge which is so absurd as hardly to need refutation. If one looks back on the history of this country for the last few years—if the Prime Minister himself will look back—I think he can hardly escape the conclusion that he himself over and over again has made speeches which have been felt, and bitterly felt, by hon. members on this side of the House as being racial. I would ask him to keep these things in mind, and not to forget them when he accuses in such bitter terms the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) of racialism. There was something he said in this accusation which to me seemed worse than anything, that was when he said in effect that any man of the Dutch-speaking section who was found on these benches was a man who had lost his honour.

A point of order. All I said was that so far as impartiality of judgment was concerned—

Judgment on what?

On any political question.

You are running away now.

I think the Prime Minister will agree with me when I remind him that he was attacking the possible attempt of one section of the people, possibly with the assistance of the British Government, to dominate over the other. He said that he could not trust the judgment of Dutch-speaking members on this side of the House.

It was in answer to a question over there.

I trust my hon. friend is now sorry he was led into that statement. He repeated it more than once. It was a statement that struck me with something like alarm, almost with horror, that here was the Prime Minister of this country saying that for a man of Dutch-speaking descent to associate with this particular party was to lose that impartiality which an honest man ought to have. That was what I took to be his meaning. Why should it be so? Why should it be impossible for a Dutch-speaking South African to sit on this side of the House? We constantly hear the Minister of Justice appealing to Dutch-speaking members of this party to go over to him. I suppose as soon as they do that they recover all that impartiality of judgment which they have lost over here. That was a most unfortunate remark, calculated to infuse more racial poison than any remarks heard over here. Now I leave this controversy; I am sorry it was introduced. If I may say so, with respect to the Prime Minister, it is out of place in this House. Before he came to that, the Prime Minister made a statement of the very greatest importance. I am sorry—and here, again, I speak with all respect to him—that he made it in a certain spirit of levity, because these are not matters which should be discussed in that spirit. The question of secession is not a question to be bandied about and to be lightly raised.

But you have made the whole question so ridiculous.

The question cannot be made ridiculous; it can be made very dangerous, but not ridiculous.

It has made you ridiculous.

That I do not mind. What I would say to my hon. friend, and I am speaking with regard to men on both sides of the House, is that this matter of secession is not one to be lightly bandied about in ordinary party controversy. I understand the Prime Minister as having spoken this afternoon in a serious way, and I am taking his words in that sense. He said that he regarded the policy of secession—although he said he agreed with English statesmen who laid it down that a dominion has the right to secede—he regarded secession, as far as the Union is concerned, as a flagrant mistake and a national disaster. That is a statement I am very glad to hear from the Prime Minister. He said that the question of secession was one that was very likely to become a reality if either section of the people claimed or tried to establish a claim to superiority or dominance over the other section. There again I consider every member on this side of the House entirely agrees with the Prime Minister. He said that it would also be brought nearer when any attempt was made by either side to use the British connection as a means of establishing dominance over the other. There I, and I am sure every member on this side of the House, reciprocates what the Prime Minister has said. We believe, just as sincerely and thoroughly as the Prime Minister and his friends, that at this stage of the development of South Africa and of the other dominions of the British commonwealth, any attempt to use that connection to impose the will of one section or race on that of another, to establish a dominance or even a sense of dominance in regard to one section over another—any attempt to use the British connection for that purpose will be fatal to the whole commonwealth and our connection with it. This connection cannot and should not continue unless it is accompanied by the most absolute freedom on the part of the people of this dominion, be they English or Dutch-speaking, to develop along the lines along which, as a united people, they think it best for them to go. And if that is the doctrine of the Prime Minister, we accept if thoroughly and wholeheartedly on this side. But now to discuss what he calls the Stubbs interview. He said categorically and frankly—and I thank him for his statement—that he is not in favour of secession, and that he is in favour of the British connection being maintained on the conditions which I have just tried to explain. That is a statement of the very greatest importance. I take it as a statement made, and meant to be made, not only to my hon. friend the member for Dundee, but made to the country. I take it that it is a statement made to indicate to the people of the country that whatever may have been the policy of the Nationalist party in the past, it is now to be read in the words uttered by the hon. the Prime Minister this afternoon.

It never was anything else.

I am going to have a few words to say about that later on; because I want to know definitely—I am not bringing this up to make party capital out of it—whether that is a statement of a new departure on the part of the Nationalist party, and whether we can now take it that if we want to know the Nationalist party view in regard to the relations of South Africa with the empire, we must wipe out the statements of the past and look to the statement made this afternoon by the Prime Minister.

It has been your interpretation of the statements of the past.

If they are capable of that interpretation, well and good. The Prime Minister told us that the Nationalist party do not look on secession as a matter of practical politics now that the South African party Government is not in power; that since the Pact Government came into power, it is a Government for all sections of the people—not the agent of any outside power or any one section of the people against the others—and that since that time the party no longer looks on secession as a matter of practical politics: and that is why I take it for granted, and would like to be corrected if I am wrong, that we now, this day, have seen a new departure in regard to the Nationalist policy on this point. I take it that is so. And if so, I want to bring to the notice of the House certain other statements which I think should now be clearly and definitely disavowed. We have a statement in “Die Burger” of this very day. It is a letter from the organizing secretary of the Nationalist party in the Transvaal, and a member of this House—the hon. member for Marico (Mr. J. J. Pienaar)—I hope he was here when the Prime Minister was making his statement.

Yes, he listened to it.

This is what he writes as organizing secretary of the Nationalist party in the Transvaal—

I wish he would make clause 4 clear!

Do I see here a threatened secession inside the ranks of the party itself led by the Minister of Justice? I trust not—

Hear, hear. What exception do you take to that?

I do not take any exception, but I am bringing it before the House because it asserts in categorical terms that there has been no change in the Nationalist policy in regard to the connection with the empire.

That is what I have said over and over again.

We have said it for seven years.

In regard to what the policy of the party has been, and which we are now told the Prime Minister agrees with and supports, I should like to read some extracts from a manifesto issued over the signature of the Prime Minister in December, 1920, on this very point. The manifesto says—

It goes on with a long statement about freedom, and proceeds—

That was the policy of the Nationalist party in December, 1920. I don’t want to rake cows out of the sluit, but I want to know whether that is still the policy.

Are you complaining?

I welcome the statement of the Prime Minister this afternoon because I believe it to be the turning over of a new leaf.

You have a queer way of showing it.

If that really is the fact, nobody in this House will be more pleased if the Prime Minister assures us that he has turned his back on his old policy.

You are feeling sore about it.

I was born like that—it is my misfortune that I have not the smiling face of the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow). Here is another quotation—

Whose translation are you reading?

My own. The document proceeds—

The hon. member for Somerset East (Mr. Fourie) has told us that the statement made by the Prime Minister to-day is what the Nationalist party has been saying for eight years. I want him to say on his own conscience if he can reconcile these two statements.

Yes.

You don’t distinguish between a right and the exercise of a right.

Yes, I am capable of making that distinction, but what I can’t reconcile is this, the statement made in 1920 as South Africa’s ideal being the right of sovereign independence, and that right you never and could never obtain as long as it is a member of the British connection, and the statement made by the Prime Minister to-day. These are the two things I cannot reconcile, and I would like the Prime Minister to tell us that he has this day initiated a policy which is different from the policy announced in the past and that it supersedes these previous manifestoes. What I have been reading is not a casual speech but a written manifesto. I would like him to say whether the policy enunciated to-day supersedes that, and if it does not, but it is only another way of expressing the same thing, he is saying something which my intellect does not allow me to follow. If we are to accept what the Prime Minister has said to-day—as I personally want to accept it—as a full, deliberate, authorized statement of the policy of the Nationalist party, then I will say this, that he will be closing a chapter that has caused much bitterness and much disaster to South Africa.

Are you certain the chapter will be closed?

I am not speaking for the Minister of Mines, who may re-open it.

On your side?

I am not one who says that faults of expression and faults of thought are confined to one side of the House, but if the National party will accept the statement made by the Prime Minister to-day and will act in accord with it, they will remove a good deal that has caused bitterness and strife, and we on this side will do our best to back them up.

A fresh departure?

No, we have been doing that all along. The Prime Minister then proceeded to deal with the fiscal policy of the Government. He took, what I cannot help thinking, was an entirely unfounded view of the criticism from this side of the House in regard to these preference proposals, condemning it on the ground that it was a denial of the right of South Africa to arrange its tariff as it might suit its own interests. To argue that the speeches made on this side of the House against preference were an assertion that South Africa had not the right to be master in her own house in regard to her tariff and fiscal arrangements, well, I cannot understand how the Prime Minister can form that opinion, particularly in regard to the speech delivered by the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts). He was particularly clear in saying that the right of South Africa and any other dominion to manage its own fiscal affairs as it thinks best, in its own interests, was admitted by everybody. It has become a matter of dogma in imperial relations that the dominions were free to do as they liked in regard to their own interests in making their own fiscal arrangements. Nobody attempts to deny that, and the Prime Minister, when attacking us for criticizing the proposals on that ground, was wide of the mark. The hon. member for Cape Town (Gardens) (Mr. Coulter) made a speech which possibly led the Prime Minister to make that mistake. The hon. member for Gardens directed his speech to pointing out what the constitutional usage had been from the days of the American revolution downwards, but he did not mean to assert that the rules laid down by Lord Ripon a generation or two ago should ever be used for the purpose of circumscribing the liberties of any dominion in regard to the arrangement of its own tariffs. We don’t claim, in fact we would repudiate as emphatically as you would, any assertion of the right of Great Britain to interfere with our tariff arrangements or to insist that our tariffs should be in any way subordinate to their interests.

Is that the opinion of the hon. member for Cape Town (Gardens)?

The hon. member was trying to explain what was the constitutional outlook of the British Government from the early days of the American revolution towards the colonies.

It was not his explanation; it was his contention.

I didn’t understand it to be a contention. If it was that he intended to put forward the contention that the British Government would ever assert the right to control the financial arrangements of the dominions in their own interests, then it is a view from which I should entirely dissent. It is not a view which is held or has been held by members of the party which sits on this side of the House. We have the fullest freedom to manage our tariffs and fiscal arrangements in our own interests. The question which divides us is what are our own interests? Are these proposals really in the interests of South Africa: will they benefit South Africa in the long run? There has been nothing put forward in this debate except vague assertions as a concrete argument to show how they are going to benefit South Africa, except to add £600,000 a year to the customs revenue. That is certainly a benefit, but it is infinitely small compared with the harm being done under these tariff proposals.

Financial harm?

Yes, financial harm, I don’t want to make any imputation against the Minister of Finance of having been actuated by a spirit of unfriendliness.

It is a pity it was made.

“A slap in the face.”

I think it is a slap in the face to Great Britain, but I don’t say it was given in a spirit of unfriendliness. I don’t think the Minister, in putting these tariff proposals forward, realized what a tremendous going back it was on the whole policy of imperial relations in the past, or, at any rate, of the last 20 years. I don’t think perhaps the Minister realized it, but I don’t impute to him any spirit of unfriendliness to Great Britain.

What does this preference mean to Great Britain?

It appears somewhere in the Board of Trade and Industries, but I don’t want to spend the afternoon looking for it. It means a great deal to Great Britain, I presume, if not, why has it been taken away? Is it to tax our own people a little higher than they are now? Does the hon. member accept that?

Do you agree that they are not considering Great Britain, that there is no unfriendliness to Great Britain?

Then this additional £600,000 is an additional exaction from the people of South Africa. I would appeal to the House to get away from this idea of finding racialism in every argument brought forward and deal with these proposals on their merit.

You are the first speaker that has tried to do so.

No, no. That reminds me of what I wanted to say in connection with the Prime Minister’s previous statement. He says in condemning any suggestion of domination on the part of one section of the people over another, with the help of the British connection, would make the cry of secession the watchword for his party. Might I add that any attempt to attack or even an unintentional attack on the sentiments of a section of people on this side of the House is not calculated to bring about a feeling of national unity and cooperation, without which we shall not get far in South Africa. Sentiment is a thing with great power in this country, and not only for one section of the people. Sentiment goes very far in South Africa connected as it is with nationality, race and language. It is very easily hurt and is very unreasonable if hurt, and it is the duty of leaders like the Prime Minister to remember that these attacks on the feeling of national unity do not come from only one side of the House.

It is also a duty not to arouse suspicion

The fault I find with the preference proposals is, as I say, that they go upon a new line, they make a new departure a break almost, in our existing policy and in the policy of the last 20 years or so in regard to the connection of the dominions and Great Britain. They make a break, because the question of preference is now put, apparently, upon what is called a quid pro quo basis, and that quid pro quo basis is established by trying to calculate how much benefit the British producer gets out of goods which he sends into South Africa under preference as against the advantage that the South African producer or manufacturer gets by sending his goods into Great Britain, and an attempt is made—a ridiculous attempt, if I may say so—a fatuous attempt is made to measure one against the other. It has never been on the quid pro quo basis before. The policy of preference was not started, and it has never been defended on this basis. Hon. members, I think, ought to know that, because a South African statesman whom they often say they look up to, the late Jan Hofmeyr, when he made his preference proposals at the conference, as quoted the other day by the hon. member for Rondebosch (Mr. Close), made them strictly in connection with defence, with common defence, and throughout the question of preference has been connected with the defence of the commonwealth, and with the general relations of members of the commonwealth to each other. Great Britain is a free trade country. For her own reasons, and no doubt because she thinks it is to her own interest, she adopts a policy of free imports, with certain exceptions, and, therefore, it is out of the question to think that Great Britain can ever give in preference on our exports to that country an amount that, measured in pounds, shillings and pence, would be equal to what we could give her on her imports into this country. What are they going to do when they start negotiating with other nations? Are they going to deal with them on the quid pro quo basis? How much are they going to get from the United States of America, if they proceed on the basis that they will give to that country, by way of preference, just an amount which will counterbalance what they will receive from that country upon goods sent from South Africa? The Americans are not going to give anything away for such a small consideration as will be measured by the amount of duty on our goods going to the United States.

I suppose no business will be done then.

Exactly; but America is going to benefit very largely without getting any consideration. That is my objection to this tariff.

Why?

By the mere fact that, in regard to a very large number of articles where she is a close competitor with the British manufacturer and producer, the preference is abolished.

In what way is she in a better position than any other country?

I have only taken her as an example. The question of preference is not really a survival of what is called the mercantile theory. I know we get that in the report of the Board of Trade and Industries, and it is also expounded at some length in a thesis written by the gentleman who is now chairman of that board before he was appointed to that position. It does not exist with the idea that the mother country, as you may call it, should get the maximum amount of profit out of her trade with the dominions and colonies. It is vitally connected with defence, with relations of all other sorts, financial relations, etc. The money that has developed this country has very largely come from Great Britain, and we go there—

Simply because London is the market of the world.

Yes, and when we go into the London market to raise money for public purposes, we get better terms than any outside country does. The fact that our stocks are by law trustee securities in Great Britain enables the money to be advanced on better terms than it otherwise would be. That is an advantage which we get and which the outside world does not get.

That has nothing to do with preference.

That is exactly what I complain about in regard to these preference proposals—that they have been dealt with in a kind of watertight compartment, without any regard to the other relations that we have with Great Britain. What I do say is that these proposals are a complete departure from the common imperial policy of the last 20 years, and I cannot think why such a departure was made, apparently, without consultation either with the British Government or with any dominion government. Hitherto questions of this kind, questions affecting the common interests of the dominions and of Great Britain, have been dealt with at conferences where the representatives of all the parties could meet.

Where they bamboozle our representatives.

I daresay if we sent the hon. member for Ceres (Mr. Roux) there, they might bamboozle him, but I do not think they have bamboozled our representatives so far. These things have been dealt with and decided at conferences where the members of the family, if you like so to call them, have been present, and have been able to discuss them face to face. This is a break away, and, although I am not going to say that it is going to break the connection between this country and Great Britain, it is a decided break, a step in the wrong direction, and I cannot see anything in these proposals in themselves, not even the additional revenue of £600,000, sufficiently important in the interests of South Africa to justify such a step as that. My objection to them has its foundation on South African grounds. I speak as a person who is looking only at the interests of South Africa, and I say that I see nothing in them that will benefit South Africa to an equivalent extent to the damage that will be done by going back on the policy of the last 20 years. The Prime Minister said that the right hon. member for Standerton was guilty, and that this party generally was guilty, of imputing to the Government the intention of putting Great Britain on an unequal footing as regards other nations, that so far from Great Britain having a preference, conditions might arise when British goods would come in here at a disadvantage compared with goods from other countries. The Prime Minister attacked us for that imputation, as he called it. I never thought it was anything but a plain statement of fact; it seems to me nothing but a repetition of what is contained in the tariff. As I read the tariff, there are a large number of articles on which there is a minimum and a maximum tariff, but no preference to Great Britain. If some other nation comes along and negotiates goods under the minimum tariff, surely that nation will come in at an advantage as compared with Great Britain.

Won’t it have to come before Parliament?

Supposing it does come before Parliament, that does not dispose of this criticism of the tariff. I want to know why the Prime Minister went out of his way with so much bitterness, almost violence, to attack my right hon. friend for imputing that motive to the Government.

There is nothing before the House in the nature of a proposal to do so.

Surely this is a serious point, a point of confining British preference to 22 articles and stopping it in the case of 100 other articles; it is nothing else but that. In the case of the 100 other articles you are going to allow other nations who have something to bargain with to come along and get the minimum tariff. You cannot read the report of the Board of Trade and Industries without getting the impression that bargaining will be on a strictly quid pro quo basis. Until I see reason to believe the contrary, I shall continue to believe that this is the intention of the tariff. If it were not so, I cannot see why the Government should not accept the amendment of my right hon. friend here, because that is all he asks for. These are the objections I have to the preference proposals of the tariff. Not that they transgress any right on the part of Great Britain to dictate the financial policy of South Africa; there is no such right. Not that they maintain the interests of South Africa as against those of Great Britain: I do not think that in the long run they will be of benefit to South Africa. The people of South Africa will either put such pressure on the party over there as to compel them to go back upon their proposals or they will put another party to govern in their places. I should like to come to a point in regard to the report of the Board of Trade and Industries. They give an elaborate table to show that preference in the past has been of no advantage to British trade. I can hardly understand a body of men, competent to deal as they ought to be with industrial and commercial affairs, compiling a table like that, in entire unconsciousness apparently, that the period with which they deal includes the period of the war. I regard that table as absolutely useless and untrustworthy for the purpose for which it was drawn up. To come to other proposals of the Budget, there is one point in regard to the customs tariff, not the preference proposals, which I take strong exception to. That is the extent to which the customs tariff leaves power in the hands of the Government to deal with and practically control any industry whose output is affected by the tariff. The Government is going to have a suspended tariff apparently; not only that, but even when the maximum rate of customs duty has been put up they are still to reserve the power to go back upon that maximum and put the industry in a lower rate of customs duty if the Government is not satisfied that the industry is carrying on with proper labour conditions, charging proper prices, and generally playing the game by the country. There are many industries in this country, and there will be more I expect, to whom the question of tariff will be one of life and death. There are going to be industries—there are some now—which will be able to carry on with the maximum tariff, but not if they have a minimum tariff. Now they are going to be put on probation.

Was it not a privilege they were getting originally?

Yes, I know it is quite possible to regard a high customs duty as a privilege, but it is only an advantage if the industry knows definitely that it can work under that tariff. If a serious reduction in that tariff is to be held over its head life a sword of Damocles, then so far from being a privilege it is going to be fatal. Who is going to put capital into a concern if an inspector is to come along and say he does not like the percentage of coloured people, or he does not like the wages paid, and close the doors of the industry? It seems to me that industries in this country in future are going to be put under the harrow of bureaucracy to an extent that they have never been before, and to an extent unequalled anywhere else in the world so far as I am aware. They are going to have a wage board to fix wages for them and a Board of Trade and Industries which, if they do not carry on their business in a manner of which they approve, will advise the Minister to reduce their tariff. I do not think that is likely to create confidence in those likely to put capital into South Africa. I do not intend to go into the general provisions of the Budget at length: but one hon. member the other day was counting up the amount of the relief that the Budget would give to the taxpayers, and he found that provincial taxes had been abolished to the extent of half a million pounds. But he quite forgot to notice that they were going to be replaced by a Licences Law imposed by the Union, which I venture to say will take more out of the pockets of the taxpayers than they realize.

Lawyers especially.

Yes, lawyers, more undeservedly than in the case of any other section of the community. Then we have had relief in the abolition of the tobacco tax. I believe the Minister of Lands is one of the people on whom posterity will saddle responsibility for this.

I am quite satisfied to be saddled with it.

I believe he has the interests of the tobacco industry at heart, and I believe that the tax would have been a benefit; but what are we to think of a Government that gives relief by abolishing a tax on tobacco and keeping on a dumping duty on flour in the best interests of the country? Tobacco is a subject of taxation in almost every civilized country, and they keep on the dumping duty on flour, which their own commercial and industrial advisers say is harmful. My hon. friend reminds me that the Government’s policy is a cheap smoke and a dear breakfast table. The Budget has appreciably increased the burdens of the people, and quite unnecessarily. I believe the Minister has under-estimated the revenue he is going to get and the amount of development which will take place and which is even now going on, and I believe this increase in taxation that is going to come about from the revision of the preference policy is not only going to unsettle our relations with the rest of the British Commonwealth, but is an entirely unnecessary step. It is therefore not on any grounds of racialism or anything that need give rise to recriminations on any section, but on the grounds above stated, that I support the amendment moved by my right hon. friend.

I listened very attentively to the Prime Minister, and I must say to my regret that a sorrier speech I have never heard. It is customary, during the budget debate, for the Prime Minister to make a statement on the policy of the Government, and in support of the budget, but instead of that, the Prime Minister, for the better part of two hours, confined himself to a very ungenerous and unmagnanimous attack on the right hon. member for Standerton. I would ask the House what would be the condition of this country if that venomous spirit—the personal vindictiveness shown by the Prime Minister this afternoon were held by everyone in this country? What sort of bear garden would this country be turned into? I noticed that even the Nationalist members looked very glum during the speech. I am glad hon. members did not approve of that attack.

You are quite mistaken.

I am sorry if that is so. I do think it would be very regrettable if this spirit were fostered; for the Prime Minister of the country to show this petty and ungenerous spirit toward a political opponent, and I was glad to see the blank silence and the looks of, I hope, disapproval, with which his speech was received. During the course of many extraordinary things which the Prime Minister stated during this extraordinary speech of his, he seemed to wax very wroth at the bare suggestion that the abolition of imperial preferences should be considered in the light of a slap in the face to the British Empire. He was very angry. He was unctuously righteous in his indignation that this should be considered a half-way house to secession, and he gave us a very important though belated statement on the secession issue. I would like to give the House a little inner history of the way in which these new preference suggestions arose. Yesterday, in listening to the Minister of Labour, when I heard him talk about mercantilism and drawing a parallel about the American resolution and about what Mr. Hofmeyr had said, I thought there was a familiar ring about the words he used, and on looking up the Board of Trade report I find that the Minister of Labour had cribbed, his views on the imperial tariff word for word from it. That shows how completely the Government has swallowed the Board of Trade report. They have not troubled to have any views of their own. The Minister of Labour was obviously put up as the spokesman of the Government on this subject. Not only had he no personal views of his own but he had conned and learned by rote whole sections of the Board of Trade report, showing that the Board of Trade report has been swallowed wholesale by the Government. But, further, the Minister of Labour having cribbed his statements from the Board of Trade report, does the House know where the Board of Trade cribbed their statements from? I will tell the House a very interesting fact, and if it were not so serious it would be amusing. In 1923 a young South African student, J. A. Bruwer, was in the Pennsylvania University. He was asked to write a thesis; one of those things that boys bring home from school, and which fond mothers put away with their first frocks and toys. Mr. Bruwer, a mere youth, in his preface apologizes for the subject-matter, saying it is very difficult to get any official South African publications in Pennsylvania, and so people must please overlook any shortcomings, and that no one else should be responsible for his views. So he starts his thesis by admitting that he does not know very much about it. To my astonishment when I looked at the thesis and the report of the Board of Trade, I found whole passages cribbed by the Board of Trade from this schoolboy composition. For instance the thesis says—

The Board of Trade report says—

The thesis says—

The Board of Trade report says—

These are the exact words used by the Minister of Labour and Defence. Here is an important departure from long established fiscal practice founded on the mere thesis of a school boy. The Board of Trade report goes on to say—

Will the future Administrator kindly shut up?

I won’t.

I regret using that phrase and ask the hon. member to remain silent instead. The hon. member knows that I had the Pact Government in a very tight corner. I don’t think any Government has ever got itself into such a ludicrous position as to launch a fiscal policy with beat of drum and crib it from a schoolboy’s thesis. The Board of Trade report was supposed to be an original document signed by four experts on South African finance. Although there are four members of the Board it is obvious that only one wrote the report. The thesis says—

Never has the long arm of coincidence stretched so far. Let me give a few more instances which stretch from Pennsylvania to Pretoria. The Board of Trade report says—

The thesis says—

Here is another coincidence. The Board of Trade report states—

The thesis says—

Here we have a chapter of coincidences indeed. We have the position that the most important departure from the fiscal system of South Africa has been decided upon and cribbed directly from a schoolboy’s composition. It is indeed an extraordinary predicament for a Government to be exposed like this. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow) tried it on the House the other day; he was found flagrantly plagiarising. So long as this is confined to gentleman like the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) no one minds, but when we find the Minister of Defence and Labour and the Pact Government coming forward and plagiarising from a school boy then the position is very different. There is a more serious aspect of the matter. The Prime Minister got very angry at the bare suggestion that there was an ulterior motive behind this, or that it was anti-British, or the half-way house to secession. The fons et origio of this new system is Mr. Bruwer, who is the only man who has had anything to do with it.

Will you deal with the merits of this thesis?

I will first show you the spirit in which Mr. Bruwer approaches it. He has written another work, a sketch, in which he makes the chief figure speak thusly, and I think I am justified in saying it was really biographical, and that what this character says is really the mentality of Mr. A. J. Bruwer. It is called “The Real Rebel.” He says—

Here is the originator and sole author of the fiscal policy of the hon. Minister, which makes the Prime Minister so angry if you say it is turning the flank of the seccession movement. Yet the author writes as follows—

The writer then goes on—

Now, I have always been broad-minded about this sort of thing. If a man thinks we should establish a republic and secede from the British Empire he has a right to say so, in fact it is his duty to say so. If the Prime Minister holds these views let him say so. I cannot stress the matter too much. We have been accused of racialism this afternoon, especially we of the Dutch-speaking element. We are proud to be on this side of the House. If it came to a comparison of patriotism we, on this side of the House, are not afraid of any decision, but here we have a man who wrote this thesis coming forward and writing the tariff proposals for the hon. Minister of Finance, whilst at the back of his mind he is cherishing sentiments such as these. Let him cherish them, but let the country know where they stand, let them know what is at the back of these preference tariffs. I want to be generous and fair to the Minister of Finance, who has always been very popular with both sides of the House, and I would hope, therefore, he will tell us that he did not know what type of man it was to whom he gave control. He made this man chairman of the Board and, therefore, put him in complete control of the industrial future of South Africa and of the fiscal destiny of this country, and yet that man all the time is cherishing these venomous feelings whilst drafting the fiscal proposals of the hon. Minister. Let the House judge in what spirit the withdrawal of imperial preference is being made, and I don’t think there can be any doubt as to the answer. I hope, therefore, in view of what I have said on this question, that the Government will consider the whole matter. As far as Mr. Bruwer is concerned, he conceived this preference tariff in a spirit of violent hatred against anything British. There is no doubt about that. He was cherishing race hatred and hatred of the Imperial Government. That, however, is on his own conscience. I have had many grievances with the British in my time, but I went and fought them out, and did not cherish rancour in private, and I did not attempt any stabs behind the back. If Mr. Bruwer had prefaced the Board of Trade Report with the just quoted tirade we should have known where we are. Here we have a man writing a patriotic drama, which in literary merit is about on a level with “The Guardian,” the hon. member for Umbila (Mr. Reyburn) might be interested to know. I am sorry he is considering these matters in a spirit of levity, because it is a serious matter.

It is a good joke. Let us have some more.

I am glad you see the joke, because it has a sting behind it. I am not in a jocular mood about it. I think the Government is taking a serious step without counting the cost, and before these preference clauses are proceeded with it is their duty to tell the country that we took the preference proposals from the Board of Trade report, and that they took them en block from this young man of nineteen, from a thesis written in the university of Pennsylvania. The remarkable thing about it is that the tenor of this book is a strong attack on protection. It is a very crude production, but the curious part is that the only portion of this thesis which can be considered definitely anti-British has been taken out and incorporated in the Board of Trade report.

Business was suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 8.3 p.m.

In order to emphasize the extraordinary conduct of the Government, not only in making the appointment they did of Mr. Bruwer, as chairman of the Board of Trade, but in adopting without adequate enquiry the tariff proposals put before them, I think I might shortly recapitulate the indictment against the Government. I proved that the Minister of Defence, when he got up as spokesman of the Government in order to defend these proposals, knew so little about them, or so little trouble had he or any member of the Government taken about these proposals, that he repeated verbatim the exact words of the Board’s report. I used the word “cribbed”; he had “cribbed” his statement about the Government policy in regard to this preference verbatim from the Board of Trade’s report. I proved that the Board of Trade had in turn “cribbed” the bulk of these suggestions on British preference from a mere schoolboy’s thesis, a mere schoolboy’s composition, written by Mr. Bruwer as a student in order to complete his curriculum at the university at Pennsylvania, and I proved that behind all this there was something more sinister—I proved that the Government had simply left the whole matter to Mr. Bruwer, all this important departure from an age-long fiscal policy in South Africa, that they had departed from that on the mere advice of Mr. Bruwer. None of the members of the Government seem to have taken the trouble of going into this matter—of exploring it, of examining it; they simply swallowed Mr. Bruwer whole. What is more, the Board of Trade seem to have swallowed Mr. Bruwer whole. I quoted almost ludicrous instances of how the Board had simply taken over, line by line, passage by passage, whole expressions from this student’s thesis by Mr. Bruwer, and I proved that Mr. Bruwer is at the back of all this, and I showed what Mr. Bruwer’s mentality towards the British was. It may be said that the extract I quoted was only taken from a drama written by Mr. Bruwer, but that drama shows the way in which Mr. Bruwer looks upon the whole connection between South Africa and the British Empire. I think it would bear repetition if I read it to the House.

When does the Prime Minister come in?

You wait a bit! I shall have a good deal to say about the Prime Minister a little later. I think the Prime Minister is responsible for introducing this new fiscal system.

Did he write the drama?

Mr. Bruwer wrote it.

You wrote the comedy.

I am afraid this drama is going to be a tragedy to the Government benches. Let me repeat this, as showing what Mr. Bruwer’s attitude is towards the British connection. I do not think any author could have written this unless he had held those views, and I go further and say that I do not think Mr. Bruwer would have been appointed as chairman of that board unless he had held those views. Let me refresh the hon. member’s memory as to what Mr. Bruwer makes his chief character say in this drama.

What did the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) say in “A Century of Wrong”?

What the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) said in 1900, in the middle of a great war, when feeling was running very high, and what Mr. Bruwer said recently is a very different thing. Let me refresh hon. members’ memories as to what the chief character in this drama by Mr. Bruwer says—

Does the hon. gentleman agree with that? I dare say the line of defence the Government will take is to say that this is merely a drama and that it does not represent Mr. Bruwer’s views. But Mr. Bruwer’s views on this subject were known to the Government and I do not believe that Mr. Bruwer would have had this appointment on his merits as an economist. What did the Government know about his merits as an economist? If they judged him on that treatise, I am very sorry that they should have taken him on that. No, he was appointed because of these sentiments. I do not say that the Governments have seen the actual statements that he made in this book. We have this extraordinary position that here is a man who, so far as economic matters are concerned, is a mere stripling, and yet he is appointed as chairman of the Board of Trade and thereby is put practically in command of our fiscal system and of our industrial system in this country. What does he know about the matter? I think the public are now in possession of the true facts of the case. They know now that the Government has taken over a fiscal system from a man whose underlying motive was enmity to the British connection. That being so, I think the Prime Minister was unnecessarily warm and that he got quite unnecessarily angry when we suggested that there was more behind this change of the fiscal tariff than was apparent. Then the Prime Minister, somewhat to our surprise, I think, launched forth into a statement on the secession issue. He told us that a report by Mr. Stubbs was correct. He said to Mr. Stubbs—

Well, we all welcome that, but I would like to know why it was made in this belated fashion, and why it was made, not to this country, which is primarily concerned, but to a chance Australian journalist blowing in to the Union Buildings at Pretoria. The secession issue was a very vital one—to thousands of honest Nationalists in this country. The bulk of the Nationalists who left us, left on the secession issue. They were perfectly sincere; this is a free country and if a man thinks we ought to secede from the British Empire he has every right to say so, and, in fact, it is his duty to say so. It was a very vital issue, a very far-reaching issue, and it rent South Africa in twain. It caused the greatest moral, social and political upheaval in the history of this country. That being so the Prime Minister had no right to wait until he met a chance Australian journalist to make this important statement. Even now at this late hour what does he say? I am prepared to accept his statement, but he was careful to repeat time after time—

He was careful not to tell us whether he was speaking for himself or for the Nationalist party. On Saturday last there was a statement in the press that the Prime Minister was to speak on the secession issue; so that it is curious to find this morning that the organizing secretary of the Transvaal Nationalist party weighs in with a letter repudiating any intention of abandoning the secession issue. The Prime Minister very carefully avoided explaining that. How comes it? After all, on an important issue like this we are entitled to know where we stand. People are lying in their graves to-day over the secession issue. How comes it then that he now makes a statement knowing that this morning in “Die Burger” there was a direct repudiation? That being the case we want to know where we stand, all the more so because the Prime Minister was very angry this afternoon at the bare idea that he supported the secession issue. He even went the length of saying that as regards his sincerity on the secession issue he would prefer taking the opinion and the word of the British-speaking element in this country rather than that of the Dutch-speaking element who belonged to the South African Party. Having cast that slur upon us, I think I am entitled, without incurring the charge of racialism, so lightly slung at us from across the way, to quote the last statement the Prime Minister made on the secession issue. It was considered so important that it was published in pamphlet form and distributed, and it has stood on record ever since. When the Prime Minister tries to foist upon us the charge of racialism, his attitude is about as reasonable as that of the man who had been convicted for killing his father and mother and who then threw himself upon the mercy of the court, because he was an orphan. The Prime Minister made an important statement this afternoon, but for four years he has been silent on this issue. The statement which I am about to read was made at Bloemfontein; and when he made this statement there was no question of asking the British element to stand by him and help him. I ask you to listen to this statement and tell me fairly who is the racialist and whether this document does not reek of race hatred. This is what he said—

It is rather like the “Century of Wrong.”

The Minister forgets that he is now a member of the Government of which the gentleman who spoke these words is the head. I feel that for a gentleman of the persuasion of the Minister of Labour it is humiliating. It goes on—

This was the very latest statement, as far as I know, made by the Prime Minister on this all-important subject, and this has stood on record to the public of South Africa for four years. That has been the attitude of the Prime Minister until this afternoon when he was faced with an interview which he had with an Australian journalist. We welcome the speech, but I think it was his duty to have given us an explanation and a repudiation long before to-day. We have never yet had a repudiation of this speech. If we were not the free country which we are it is probable that a man uttering these statements would never have occupied the position he occupies to-day. This is a free country, and the Prime Minister was within his rights if this was his honest conviction, to say what he did say, but he is not entitled to say this and to get the country into the turmoil which we know resulted from this secession issue and then to stand up as he did this afternoon without definitely repudiating his previous pronouncement on the subject.

Which you did your best to keep alive.

The Minister is always trying to drag a red herring across the trail by talking of racialism. It was the Prime Minister who raised the racial issue this afternoon, and I ask you whether any member of the South African party has ever said anything calculated to raise the race passion such as I have just quoted. Having left it on record for all these years, I think it becomes the duty of the Prime Minister to withdraw these words and to tell us where exactly we stand and which statement is correct—whether the one I have just read or the statement he made his afternoon when he said he was in favour of maintaining the British connection. Can anybody say these two statements are the same? I see the Minister of Mines looks very glum. I think it is the duty of the Prime Minister, who went out of his way to give us an exposition of his views on secession, to say whether that is the true policy of the party, in view of the letter which has already been quoted from the organising secretary of the Nationalist party in the Transvaal in which he says, emphatically, that clause 4 of the party constitution still stands, and that they are not going to give up this secession issue. Where do we stand? What does the Minister of Mines say about it? Which of these manifestoes does he agree with? and the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Labour?

Don’t you understand what the position of a self-governing dominion is?

I do not understand this sort of ambiguity. The Minister naturally finds himself in a very awkward camp. I do not understand this sort of playing fast and loose with the public. We have two contradictory statements emanating from the Prime Minister, and he has not given us clearly to understand which he abides by nor which the rest of the party abide by. But the rest of the party have told us they do not abide by the Prime Minister’s statement to-day. Has not the time come when the public of South Africa is entitled to have a lucid statement from the Prime Minister? Whatever the Prime Minister may have had at the back of his mind when he made the inflammatory statement I have just read, he must at any rate have known what the effect of it would be on his followers, and whatever a legal mind might torture it into, the effect on his honest, sincere followers is obvious. This document is not capable of any other effect on a mind unversed in legal phraseology or the abstruse way of thinking which the Prime Minister sometimes indulges in. He knew how it was going to be read by his followers in the country, and we know to our cost how it was read in the country—yes, the country knows to its cost. That being so I ask you whether the Prime Minister was justified in getting up this afternoon with a great show of virtue and making that statement, which we all accept so far as it goes, but which the Nationalist party of the Transvaal has formally repudiated. These were not the only statements made at the time. Let me read you what the Minister of the Interior said—

Well, here to-day we have heard the Prime Minister say he has not the slightest intention of advocating secession. He said it would be a flagrant mistake and a national disaster and here is the Minister of the Interior saying that the man who is in favour of maintaining the British connection has to apologise for his attitude. The Minister went on to say—

I hope the House will remember this when we come to discuss the Flag Bill. On the same occasion there were other Ministers of the present Government who contributed to the discussion. The Minister of Justice had the following to say—

There is no question here of waiting for evolution, this change of feeling in the other section that the Prime Minister spoke about. Later the Minister of Justice stated—

He said more recently—

The Minister of Mines made the following contribution—

I was referring to section 4 of the Nationalist party constitution which reads as follows—

Well, does all this look like maintaining a permanent British connection? Has the Prime Minister repudiated article 4 of the Nationalist party constitution—where do we stand? If the Prime Minister does not tell us that he has repudiated this, then the statement he has made in the House this afternoon is null and void. We were told, when the Pact was originated, that the chief proviso of the agreement between the Labour and the National parties was that secession would not be pressed in the present Parliament during the continuance of the Pact, and that the republican agitation would be dormant in the House. We have all this outpouring of venom and racialism, yet the Prime Minister did not tell us where he stood in regard to all this, and until he does so the public is as much in the dark as ever. I hope he will take an early opportunity of clearing up the whole matter. He flatters himself if he thinks he has cleared the doubts in the minds of the public as to his position on the secession question. During the great war the Minister of Defence and Labour, speaking in this House, as leader of the Labour party, said—

I am not blaming the Nationalists for taking up that attitude during the war, for it was quite human, but where does the Minister of Defence now stand? I had no intention of delving into the past until the Prime Minister brought up the subject. The hon. member for Dundee (Sir Thomas Watt) put a perfectly reasonable question to the Prime Minister, but the latter assumed an air of offended virtue this afternoon on the secession question. Was that justified? I can quite understand the relief of hon. members opposite, for I have never known a Government to be in such an extraordinary position. During the past three years the Dutch-speaking section of the South African party has gone through the mill, and we were told that we were renegades, and that is what the Prime Minister meant this afternoon. I have every right to bring this matter up, as we Dutch-speaking members of the South African party have gone through very bad times, thanks to the secession issue. We were ostracized by our own friends and relations, and we were told that we were traitors because we were against secession. We said “We want liberty, but South Africa is as free a country as there is in the world. Liberty does not arise from discord, and for that reason we refuse to have anything to do with the secession question.” I wonder what the members of the National party in the Transvaal and Free State who left the South African party on the secession issue, will think of the question to-day, in the light of the Prime Minister’s statement this afternoon? Is not the position that the Prime Minister and the National party used the secession issue to catch the votes of honest and sincere men, and they succeeded? Will not the electors who voted for the Nationalists think they have been betrayed? We can legitimately charge the Prime Minister and his party with having made political capital out of the secession question, and having obtained the votes of honest and sincere men on that issue. Now that the Prime Minister finds that secession is no longer a vote-getter, he is back to our position of 1910. I am glad to see that the hon. member for Marico (Mr. J. J. Pienaar) is back in his seat, and I will call his attention to his letter in “Die Burger” which I have previously read to the House. The moment I sit down there will be a flood of oratory from the Government benches accusing me of racialism. The House is expecting the hon. member for Marico (Mr. J. J. Pienaar) to explain this letter to “Die Burger.” It is said that the letter was suggested by the Minister of Justice.

No.

Did he know about it before it went to the press? The secession issue involved the country in very serious calamities, the very worst calamity which has ever overtaken the country, and the moral effects of which we are still labouring under. The South African party, from start to finish, has been consistent and logical. I am not going to labour the point, but I think I have put the position fairly, and the facts are there for all to draw their conclusions from, and I have no doubt that the country will draw its own conclusions.

I ask the hon. gentleman who has just sat down not to be so jealous of his fellow South Africans. He sneered at a brilliant son of South Africa who was able to write this thesis at an age when probably the hon. member was not capable of writing anything like it. I urge him to take a little pride in his fellow South Africans, and not to belittle them for the sake of making a little political capital. Although some of us may have enjoyed some of his little comparisons, none of us enjoyed the taste he displayed tonight. The hon. member never attempted to challenge the truth of the Board of Trade’s report, or the soundness of the report, or of the views held by the chairman of the Board of Trade. I thought we were going to have a serious indictment of the Government’s policy from him, and instead he started to tell us about the Minister “cribbing” his policy from the Board of Trade report, which in turn “cribbed” it from the thesis of a schoolboy. The second point in this serious indictment was that the chairman of the Board of Trade would not have been appointed had he not been a rebel. That is what the hon. member said—

On a point of personal explanation, the man never was a rebel, so I could not have said it, but I said that I was sure he would never have been appointed if his rabid views on the British position had not been known.

His whole position was that if the gentleman was not of the type disloyal to the empire he would never have been appointed. If he was disloyal he must have been a rebel. That was the second point of the serious indictment of the Government policy. I kept on waiting for this serious indictment and thought he was going to tell us something about the budget and the affairs of South Africa, but he only said he welcomed the Prime Minister’s statement, and asked why this statement had been so delayed. The Prime Minister has been telling the country for a number of years exactly where he stood on the question of sovereign independence. The trouble has been that hon. members on the other side have been telling the country where the Prime Minister does not stand. They don’t want the country to know where the Prime Minister stands. If the country did know many of those members would lose their seats. He went on then to try to pick holes in the statement made by the Prime Minister in order that they might know where they stood. He knows where they stand just as well as we know, they stand on the sands of discontent. They are stirring up the different sections of the people in South Africa, one against the other in order to vote the South African party back to power—power at any price no matter what happens. I want to say to the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) that if they were ever returned to power they would reap the whirlwind of their policy whilst in Opposition. He went on to quote what the Prime Minister said in 1920. I venture to say to every Englishman in the House, and they will in their hearts agree, that if Germany had been successful in the last war and they had seen the leading statesmen of England throwing their arms round the Kaiser’s neck every Englishman would have felt that they were not playing the game. Let us try to consider what we should do under the circumstances, and let us try to consider the position and feelings of our Dutch fellow-citizens. The hon. member should understand the feelings of his own fellow-countrymen and should be the last man to stand up and jeer at them in the way he did. When one looks at the Dutch South African party citizens on that side of the House, and listens to what they have to say to their own fellow-countrymen one feels that they should leave that to the jingo element in the House. They appear to be more bitter to their own countrymen than the Englishmen are. Even Englishmen who truly love their country and are patriotic get disgusted by the way people in the past have exploited the British flag for their own profits. I want to ask if hon. members who pretend to be so patriotic have read the history of the American struggle for independence, and if they don’t realize that it was injustice that drove America from out of the British Empire. I can try and understand and sympathize with my Dutch fellow-citizens in this country because I know what they went through some years ago, and they have their natural feelings. Do we want always to be dragging up these things of the past? If the hon. member was a true patriot of South Africa he would welcome every step taken by the Prime Minister for a better understanding, and instead of trying to drive the wedge in, he would do the utmost in his power to pour oil on the troubled waters instead of, for party purposes, doing his utmost to create disruption and bring about another rebellion in South Africa. Their talks and jeers are leading to that. Their statements are having their effect on the Witwatersrand, where there are even stories going about that Britain is secretly sending troops over to South Africa. This position is largely the result of speeches from the Opposition benches. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Col. D. Reitz) wants to know which views the Prime Minister is going to support. The views he expressed in 1920 or the views he expresses to-day. I might just as reasonably and logically ask the hon. member himself which views does he favour to-day, those he held when he refused to come back and take the oath of allegiance or the views he holds to-day.

They are the same to-day. I have been consistent and logical all through.

What good purpose does it serve to drag up these things from the past again? Is it going to serve any useful purpose in the country to be continually at each other on the question of race and colour? They are questions which should be kept clear of Parliament and clear of party politics altogether. We do not want hon. members on the other side to tell us they are willing to co-operate with the Government on non-party lines and then to go outside the House and use that for party purposes. As far as the hon. member is concerned I will only say to him that his speech was an exceedingly sorry exhibition. At any rate, subsequent to the adjournment it has been a pitiable exhibition, and nobody in the House, even on his own side could be proud of the speech of the hon. member. After saying he welcomed the statement of the Prime Minister he went on to say that the public were as much in the dark to-day as ever they were. If the hon. gentleman will only go through the country and do his best to eliminate racial feeling instead of going about and preaching racialism as he and the right hon. the member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) do for party purposes, he will be doing a great deal more for his country than he is doing to-day. No good South African, no good son of South Africa, will seek to drag these questions up and open these old sores again in order to make party capital out of them. Every good son of South Africa will do his utmost in order to bring about a better state of feeling than has existed in the past between the two great white races in this country, and if we do that we shall in future be able to say that every man in South Africa is entitled to call himself a South African, not a Britisher or a Dutchman, then we may say—

When one reads the various speeches which are given by the hon. member for Standerton, one cannot help thinking that he must be looked upon by the members opposite as the latest edition of Coué. It is Couéism from start to finish. Hon. members opposite seem to say—

Unfortunately, the right hon. gentleman is beginning to believe it. That is the danger, and he cannot understand for one moment how it is possible for South Africa to carry on unless he is in charge of the reins of Government. He proceeds to tell us that we are on the eve of great popularity in this country. Who brought about the depression in South Africa? Who were the greatest contributory factors in the recent depression? The late Government. Who are responsible for the brighter times that are dawning on South Africa to-day? The Pact Government. The member for Standerton talks as if the present Government have nothing whatever to do with this, and as if only he were in charge of the affairs of the country, what a glorious time we would be in for. The working classes of South Africa do not contribute to the glowing testimonials which are paid to the right hon. gentleman. We say he is not a statesman, he never has been a statesman and he never will be a statesman. His handling of every situation in which great masses of the people of this country have been concerned proves conclusively that what he was, and what he is, is a military dictator. The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) deplored the speech of the Prime Minister and spoke of an attack of bitterness and exaggeration on the hon. member for Standerton. We know that is the sort of story they tell the country. The hon. member also spoke of the services rendered to South Africa by the late Prime Minister. One does not care to go very deeply into this question, but I ask the hon. member if he can tell us what the late Government and what the late leader of the present opposition—because there is another leader of the opposition now, the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt)—did for the working classes in the mining areas of this country while he was in power, what he did for the railway men, what he did for any section of the great masses of the South African people. Did he not on all and every occasion bring the people deeper and deeper into the mire and into poverty while he was responsible for the administration of this country? I judge the leader of a party and the leader of a country by the good he does for the common people of his country and not by any glorifying account of his actions which appears in the press. The hon. member for Yeoville went on to say that the speeches which had been made by the Prime Minister had been racial speeches. I want to ask the hon. member whether he agrees with the principle of “South Africa first”?

Yes.

Then I take it that he supports the Government in their policy today.

No, I don’t; that is quite a different thing.

Does he believe in the absolute equality of the two white races in South Africa? Let us dear away all misunderstanding that we have read in the newspapers and all the talk that has been going on for purely party purposes, and I say that there has not been an ounce of racialism in the speeches of the Prime Minister. The hon. member for Yeoville also said that secession is not an issue which should be lightly raised. Can he tell us whether it was not very lightly raised by the hon. member sitting on his right (Col. D. Reitz)? Is he prepared to subscribe to the manner in which it was dealt with by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central)? He said that in the Prime Minister’s statement a new policy had been evolved. We fought the last election on the pledge given by the Prime Minister on the question of secession, on the British connection. We did not want to fight on the British connection; we wanted to fight oh the great economic questions affecting South Africa; but hon. members on the other side have always been prepared to drag the Union Jack even into the municipal elections of this country. We ask hon. members over there to refrain from exploiting the flag for political motives.

I thought you were going to set us an example.

The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) could not resist attempting to dig up a few corpses.

I want to know if they are corpses.

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Col. Reitz) put me in mind of one of the characters in Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress”; he will know the one to which I refer. He also went in for gravedigging, but he did not use a spade. The hon. member for Yeoville started to tell us what appeared in “Die Burger” and what this and that man said. I should like to ask him this: when one of his sons reaches manhood and marries and sets up his home, will the hon. member go and interfere and tell them what sort of little cot they should buy or what sort of table they should buy. Would be interfere? No, because he knows the moment he puts his nose inside the door they would say, “We have the ties of blood between us and we have a great affection for you, but remember this is our own home and we really must run it ourselves. That is sovereign independence and that is what we want in South Africa to-day. I am quite sure there has been more pretence and misrepresentation rather than misunderstanding of the position occupied by the Prime Minister. The hon. member made a desperate attempt to stir up one section of the Nationalist party against the other and so did the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central). They want to divide the Nationalist party now. It is a fine game played well, but we have had long experience of this sort of thing. It took us 15 years to get our eyes open, but now they are wide open and we can see a long way. The hon. member went on to say the right of South Africa to manage its own affairs is unchallengeable. Then why not attack the tariff on the principles of the tariff and leave this question of British connection out of it? One would have thought in view of the arrival of such a distinguished visitor on Thursday that hon. members opposite would have been too patriotic to bring up matters of this description and that they would have done everything they could to let us work in harmony at least during this period. Those members are attempting to stir up the British section of South Africa against the Dutch section. As to those hon. gentlemen who have such tender feelings for Great Britain over this matter of Imperial preference—I will guarantee there are some hon. members on that side of the House who are importing goods from Japan, Germany, India and other foreign countries. They are not caring about their own flesh and blood or the prosperity of the British Empire. The prosperity they are worrying about is their own profit. It begins with a “P” but it is a different word. They are prepared to exploit the cheapest foreign labour available for their own profit and then they come here and pretend to be good patriotic Britishers and say we have given Britain a slap in the face. While Englishmen are starving they are investing their money in foreign countries to employ cheap labour. We were always told in the past by the right hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) that preference was for the benefit of South Africa. He went about the country telling people how much he had done for South African farmers and other sections of the community.

It is for the benefit of South Africa very largely.

Well, if that is so how does it come to be a slap in the face for Great Britain? Would not the Government be very foolish in taking such a step if they knew they were going to damage their own interests?

They are.

Those members who think so are in for a very great disappointment indeed. The hon. member said it was impossible for Great Britain to give the same benefits to South Africa as South Africa could give to Great Britain. You cannot have it both ways. It is the old method of the S.A. party. What does the hon. member for Yeoville really want? Does he want us to produce raw materials and send them to England and re-import them as finished products?

No, no.

Well, he did not tell us what he wanted; he was too busy reading up tit-bits of the past. What I gathered from what he said was that we should produce raw materials and send them to England where we would be in competition with the producers of the world because it was a Free Trade country. On the other hand that we are giving her a slap in the face if we do not give her a preference. It is the duty of this Government to see that the people who produce in South Africa and are sending the goods overseas receive the same protection there for the products of South Africa that England receives when she sends them to South Africa. Surely it is only right that the Government should see that this is done. When he said we were placing England on an unequal footing, he spoke as if the tariff had been so manipulated that Great Britain would be placed under a greater disability than any other nation. It has not become an accomplished fact, although the hon. member for Standerton (Gen. Smuts) attempted to prove that it has. Hon. members opposite are too ready and too suspicious of the Government They have that bogey of secession, and do not take the word of any Minister of the Crown to-day. They are not averse to making statements both in and outside the House.

That is not a mistake. This tariff has no meaning if that is not so.

I quite agree that it is difficult for hon. members opposite to understand. The hon. member went on to say it could be done. Why not wait until it is done?

It is intended it shall be done.

Why not wait and see what the Government are going to do?

It will be too late then.

If we accept the same idea then every citizen walking down Adderley Street is a potential thief. The hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) attacked the Board of Trade, because he said if they were not satisfied with the way business was carried on they could adjust the tariff. Does the hon. member want to have a cheap and nasty South Africa.

No.

He criticises what the Government is attempting to do in order to see that we do not build up a cheap and nasty South Africa. We are attempting to undo these evils. If the industries of South Africa are going to be established and built up, that can only be done if they are prepared to do their share of carrying a civilized population in those industries. Otherwise those industries are of no benefit to South Africa. We want the women and children in South Africa to live on a civilized standard, and they are entitled to decent food and clothing and the decent pleasures in life. The hon. member went on to attack the Wages Bill. Does he want to protect sweated industries?

I do not want the Board of Trade to be the judge.

Does the hon. member say that the wages in the manufacturing industries are satisfactory?

No.

The hon. member has stated that the Wages Bill passed by the late Government served a useful purpose. That is why we have numerous girls in Cape Town and elsewhere receiving a miserable pittance. The hon. member went on to jeer at the Government because they had taken the tax off tobacco, and kept the dumping duty on flour. The hon. member knows as well as I do that was a very clever piece of misrepresentation on the part of the Opposition.

Can you explain it?

Tobacco will still be taxed in South Africa, and the importation of tobacco is taxed very heavily indeed, as he knows. In one case he is speaking on a question of importation to people from outside the country, and in the other cases, on the removal of a tax which we voted against very strongly, because at the time the Government introduced the Bill it was going to hit the small producer, and if he will look up the records he will see that there has been an enormous drop in the production of tobacco. When the hon. member talks about the removal of the tobacco tax like that, and tries to make out that it is a counterpart to the reduction of the dumping duties on flour, he was talking with his tongue in his cheek. If hon. members opposite want to do a good service to South Africa they will get rid of all this talk about the British connection and the Union Jack. Let us all do our utmost to try to meet our fellow citizens. I went through the Boer war, and I know what they have gone through. I have tried to understand my friends, and place myself in their position, and even if they do make bitter speeches, let us forget them, and treat them as one South African should treat another. I am sure we can never build up a fine South Africa by sneering at our friends, when they are doing their utmost to bring all sections of the people together, so that we may go forward as a united force.

Of course, the reason why the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Col. D). Reitz) made this attack to-night is because the greatest asset which has been placed in the hands of the South African party in the past as been taken away. The Pact has killed racialism, and it is because of that we have the small attendance on those benches on the other side. My friend made an unwarranted attack on Dr. Bruwer. He said Dr. Bruwer wrote a thesis when he left Pennsylvania university, and that had been taken over by the Government. Why not? It is not the first time this has been done in the history of Great Britain and other countries. A thesis was written the other day by Dr. Brooks of the Pretoria university college. There is a good deal of information in the thesis which I hope the Government will take over. Why sneer at our own South Africans because they go to universities oversea and come back? I am surprised at my friend sneering at one of his own people, because my hon. friend and myself come from the same town, and have lived together for many years. Why should he sneer at a brilliant young South African who happens to have made good? The hon. member has been going into the graveyards and digging up the past. Most people have a past in South Africa. I just want to refer him to one or two things written by his own leader, the right hon. Jan Christiaan Smuts, who wrote—

He is not far out there. This is how he ends up about secession and about tearing down the British flag.

That was written during the Boer war.

This was after the Boer war, and he wrote—

These are the graveyards of the past.

Leave them.

I am leaving them, but I am just showing how you can dig up this stuff, and that it cuts both ways. This is the answer to what my hon. friend said just now. It was a most amusing speech—before dinner worthy of the Tivoli, after dinner worthy of Tyburn. We are out to kill racialism, and hon. members like the member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) are out to do the same thing; the hon. member for Kimberley (Sir Ernest Oppenheimer), I have never heard him talk racialism. We fought it at the last election when we beat the South African party, and when they talked about the British flag. We have now got right down to bread-and-butter politics, and it is on these points that I wish to speak. We are told that the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) made a notable speech. Notable for what? He told us that taxes had been increased by 120 per cent., while the white population had increased only 19 per cent., but he forgot to tell us that he did not include the income tax.

An income tax was not levied in those days.

The income tax was put on in 1914 by the South African party. From the way he spoke one would think that all the years the South African party Government was in power were bad trade years, but the majority were very good trade years. They had only two lean years, but notwithstanding that they increased the taxation of the country by 130 per cent., but they drove out of South Africa 25,000 white people. That was the inevitable end of the plutocratic policy of the South African party, but now there are more people entering South Africa than leaving it. The hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger) forgot to tell the House that this Government has reduced taxation to the extent of £1,100,000 through the tobacco tax, the medicine tax, penny postage, and turnover tax, and also relieving the provincial taxpayer of taxation to the amount of £500,000, the total remission being £1,100,000. Hon. members opposite talk about blankets. Only to-day a big company is being started at Durban, and has cabled for machinery to put up a big factory for the making of blankets, and one of the largest Manchester houses has joined hands with it. That will mean one of the biggest factories in South Africa, and I trust that when the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick), and the hon. member for Umvoti (Mr. Deane) hear of the good things that we have done for Durban they will not secede. The Government has taken over the turnover tax which was put on by the South African party in the Cape and the Transvaal. They put on a tax as old as the hills, a tax first instituted by Caesar. Fancy, they had to go back to the time of Caesar to find that tax, and they smote Caesar for putting on the tax. It was put on later by French Royalty, who had their heads cut off for doing it, and then it was revived in South Africa by Sir Frederic de Waal. Sir Ernest Chappell (chairman of the Chamber of Commerce in South Africa) was the gentleman who suggested that tax. The present treasurer of France (Mr. Jose Caillaux) said of that tax that it stagnates a nation’s life, it is unjust that it is not based on profits, but is based on the movement of business. It was a most onerous tax. That tax was put on by the South African party and was removed by the Pact. I would say to the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger), and he will admit it, that this Government made uniform the licences for agents of foreign firms right through the Union. All commercial travellers in South Africa who have always voted for the South African party in the past, are blessing the Pact. They are saving from £25 to £50 a year each. This budget means better business, better living and better government for South Africa. Speakers on the other side have talked about dear food, and chaffed the Labour members that the price of bacon had gone up. As a matter of fact it has not. We know cheaper food means lower wages. We know a high wage country like America places people on the top rung of civilization, and we want a high wage standard in this country. The hon. member was talking about bread being dear on account of the dumping duties. That is not correct. It has always been dearer in England, because England is nearer the countries which produce it, nearer to Canada, and they have the ships to carry it. The people who get the profit are the jolly millers, and I have never known a jolly miller yet who was not a member of the South African party. It must be understood preference will only be given to a foreign country when the standard of living, the working hours and the wages paid are on the same basis as they are in this country. I don’t want to give preference to Japan where they use child and prison labour. Let me ask the member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger), who talks a good deal about preference, if it is not a fact that there are men in this particular line of business who have bought prison made goods from certain countries, brought them here and sold them at a great profit.

I have never heard of it.

We know the hon. member is an honest gentleman and I take his word, but I have heard of people bringing these goods here and selling them at a big profit. Now, Sir, the hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Coulter) made a speech last night on the constitutional position—the village attorney on constitution—does he know that Australia prohibits sugar from South Africa going into Australia?

Because it has got too much of its own.

Does he know that they would not accept our explosives because they were made by black men and that Mr. Merriman replied that if they would not take our explosives because they were made by black men we would not take their wheat because it was eaten by black men. Which shows that Australia has placed an embargo on the products of South Africa, yet my hon. friend says that these things cannot be done. It has been done. Preference was dragooned in South Africa through Lord Milner. What did my hon. friend the member for Cape Town (Central) say in 1902, in an interview to the “Westminster Gazette”? He said, “preference will be the death blow of the British Empire.” My hon. friend sitting in the seat alongside him, the hon. ex-Speaker, said it was the first opportunity since he had been in Parliament to vote on preference. He always stood for preference. In the last twenty years there has only been one vote taken on the question of preference and on that occasion he voted against it. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Macintosh) was against preference. The only one who was for preference in those days was the right hon. the member for Fort Beaufort (Sir Thomas Smartt). He said, “I stand for preference because it means the Union Jack.” I hope and I believe that Britain is going to get favoured-nation-treatment from South Africa. England is our best friend; England is our best market. I was present in England when in 1908 a loan was being raised by the Cape or the Union and a Japanese loan was being raised at the same time, and we got 1 per cent. preference in this country from the financiers, that is we got our loan at 1 per cent. less than the Japanese got their loan for. England has played the game by South Africa as far as finance is concerned. I do not think there is anybody sitting on these benches, or in this House, who wants to give any country better treatment than England.

You have made it possible to give better treatment to other countries.

I went through the Bill, and I could not find it. I say that none of these other countries will get better treatment than Great Britain will get.

We want to prevent the Government from having the power to give better treatment to any other country.

Both wings of the Pact look upon England as the best friend of this country, no matter what hon. members on the other side may say. We are now having a fiscal house-cleaning, and we are right, as a new Government, to start with a new tariff altogether. We want a more scientific and more up-to-date tariff than we have had in the past. I am sorry that the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. Duncan) who, as a rule, is a fair-minded man, should have sneered at the Board of Trade and said that one member is only a compositor.

I never said anything of the sort.

My hon. friend is reported so, and I withdraw at once. He was reported to have said this both in the “Argus” and in the “Star” in a speech which he made in Johannesburg.

I thought you meant here.

According to this report he said that one of them is only just a compositor.

I may have said that one of them was a compositor, but I did not say that with any sneer either at the man or at the trade of a compositor. What I said was that none of them had any practical experience of trade or business.

Why did you say that he was only a compositor? Why did you sneer? Paul was a tent-maker.

The sneer is yours, not mine.

My hon. friend sneered. This particular compositor that you talk about happens to be a member of the Labour party, that we all know very well. He is a very intelligent and intelligent man, a coming force, and he serves on the executive of the Transvaal Provincial Council. If he was a compositor what does that matter? It is strange to me that men who spring from the ranks of the working classes are the first to get up and damn the working classes.

Nonsense! A deliberate misrepresentation.

We want preference that will not cause trouble and we think we are going to get it. We want the links of empire to be strengthened. The Labour party in Canada is very keen on the question of preference and there is a growing number of Canadians against the British preference altogether. My hon. friend says that if we do not have preference the Empire will fall. It was also said that if we did not have titles the Empire would fall. The day after to-morrow we are going to welcome our future King with all loyalty and sincerity and yet titles have been abolished. What do English people say about preference? I will quote from a speech delivered by the president of the English Chamber of Commerce. He said—

Not very long ago we had a very distinguished statesman visiting South Africa. It is true he was a Labour man but he was the Colonial Secretary of England. Hon. gentlemen on the other side became so fond of him that the Labour party could not get near him. His name is the Hon. James Thomas, acknowledged in England to be one of the best men in the Labour movement. I am inclined to believe that he is a future Prime Minister of England. In an interview with Mr. Wickham Steed, the late editor of the “Times,” Mr. Thomas, after speaking of Queen Victoria and so on, went on to say—

Mr. Steed then asked him if he placed any faith in Imperial preference. Mr. Thomas replied—

I hope the Englishmen on the other side, who think more of England than they do of South Africa, will hear what this Colonial Secretary says. I have talked with several Dominion statesmen and they all say much the same—

That is exactly the speech of the Minister of Finance. He said—

From the way the other side shouted out you would think that instead of members for Cape Town (Central) they were members for Pimlico. The English people do not shout out at all. One of the greatest English statesmen, the ex-Colonial Secretary, said it was the “damndest humbug.” But let us go to the South African party and hear what that wonderful old leader who charmed this House for many years and sat on that side of the House, Mr. Merriman, said. Speaking about preference, he said—

That was because we had coloured labour.

The standard of living, that is exactly what the Labour party says. We say that a preference must be put on to guard the standard of living and we want to see England get the best deal. Mr. Merriman could not see any justification for keeping on that preference. That is out of the mouth of the S.A.P., so when the other side get up and say this is a “smack in the eye” for Great Britain we can only answer the right hon. Gen. Smuts through the answer of the right hon. J. X. Merriman, that the “smack in the eye tall, is the “damndest humbug.”

Order! The hon. member is not allowed to speak like that.

That is a quotation. So much for preference. Let us go to the railways. The right hon. member for Standerton stated that we had frittered away our surplus. “Oh! for a Jagger.” You will be sick of that before you are finished. But that is not true. The present Government has employed, since it came into power, 9,000 white people more than were employed by the previous Administration. That fact should go down in South Africa. It means that 9,000 people are able to keep their homes together and make a decent living.

Where do you get that figure from?

Does the hon. member say that figure is not correct? The figure is 8,900—nearly 9,000. I got it from a member of the Government, so it is correct.

There must be a waste of labour.

Does that include natives?

No, only whites. This new Government is supposed to have frittered away surplusses but has put on 9,000 extra men. I would rather fritter away a surplus and employ white people in South Africa than have a surplus and allow the white people to walk about the streets. “Oh! for a Jagger!” Oh for a Jagger to reduce the black man’s wages in Cape Town. He told the employers that they must bring down the black man’s wages.

I did nothing of the kind. I remember the exact circumstance and it was not to employers.

It was the same principle. Oh for a Jagger to let in everything free in South Africa so that our industries may perish. Oh for a Jagger, so that the railway engines can be worked right down to the bone, and I am told that if things had gone on any longer in that way we should have had accidents. As the result of his policy the railway workshops cannot compete with the arrear work, and they have to work time-and-a-half in order to overtake the accumulated work. Oh for a Jagger to put 4,000 white men on the streets.

You are wrong there also.

I am right; these are the figures the hon. member gave us himself. Oh for a Jagger to make the railway men discontented. Oh for a Jagger to call a trade union leader a murderer and not to apologise. The Labour party, like the hon. member for Cape Town (Central) (Mr. Jagger), but we say if we want to win a seat in South Africa “Oh for a Jagger.” The hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Blackwell) is not in his place so I will not refer to the speech he made the other night but will now resume my seat.

After the long and heated speeches this afternoon about matters not connected with the budget I feel somewhat diffident in rising to make a few remarks about the matter specially before the House. We have had a great deal of amusing talk from the hon. member for Bloemfontein (North) (Mr. Barlow), but we have learned from experience that it is not safe to take his statements and figures as he puts them. They require investigation, and if they were investigated the figures and statements put before us to-night, or many of them, would not bear inspection. I want to call attention to some of the leading features in connection with the budget. I cannot join the chorus of compliments showered on the Minister of Finance on his budget. Certainly the statement he sent to the newspapers was a remarkably full and frank explanation of the financial position of the country, but regarding; the budget itself I cannot say much in the way of praise. He finished up the last financial year with a surplus of over £800,000, but he knows that surplus was not of his own gathering. It was left as a legacy from the previous Government. The total increase of receipts from existing sources of revenue for 1925-’26 are estimated to be £418,000 over actual receipts for 1925-’26. Notwithstanding this the Minister proposes to increase taxation for 1925-’26 by £400,000 net. The total taxation of the country for the current year was £19,110,000 apart from the Provincial Council taxation. The total expenditure for 1925-’26 of £26,278,000, or about £2,000,000 more than in the previous year. We heard frequently from the leader of the Nationalist party and his followers that the previous Government had been a very extravagant one, piling up expenditure and piling up deficits, and when they were sitting on this side of the House how strong were their criticisms of members of the previous Government. We naturally expected therefore when they got into power they would bring about a different state of affairs, and that we should come out with a good balance every year. The Minister and his friends have not kept their promises. The expenditure for 1925-’26 is estimated to be about £2,000,000 higher than 1924-’25, so it is already going up by leaps and bounds. If that is the Minister’s position at the end of his first year of office what will be his position at the end of his fifth year, if he retains his office so long? The Government are not making any attempt to reduce taxation in this country, although other countries are doing so and giving their people a chance to get on. As far as I can see, with the rising revenue and everything in our favour in the way of business, we have a right to expect that at least an attempt would be made to bring down taxation in the country. This Government are not doing that. Every new Bill they bring into the House means more expenditure in connection with officials and civil servants, and that will tell at the end of the next year or two, and make it impossible to bring down expenditure, even if the Minister wanted to. It should not be forgotten that since 1913-’14 the European population of the Union has increased by 19 per cent.; exports have increased by 17 per cent., but taxation has gone up by 120 per cent. I don’t blame the Minister or the Government for all that increase of expenditure. We know it has been going on year after year, and many of us, even when we sat on the Government side, were rather disappointed at the way in which expenditure increased, but we had to remember that expenditure was forced up by abnormal circumstances during the war and after the war. The great feature of this budget is the new tariff. We have heard it called a “scientific” or “business” tariff, but, seeing that it is compiled by the new Board of Trade, the members of which have had no experience in this class of work, and the majority of whom have been chosen for political reasons, we never expected to have anything which was really in the nature of a business tariff. In going through this tariff, I have been unable to get at any particular plan showing the policy of its framers. They have made some extraordinary blunders in connection with the fixing of the rates, and they have, in many cases, done something which, I am sure, is quite different from what they intended to do. They have, it is true, made considerable concessions to the agriculturists and manufacturers, but they are doing that at the expense of the other parts of the community, and it is a feature of this Government’s policy to enable the agriculturists of this country to get off as lightly as possible. We see it in their income tax proposals, in their tariff proposals, in almost every action which they take, and the consequence is that there is a privileged class being built up in this country who are being let off their proper taxation, and this is being put on the shoulders of the other classes. I think it is about time this was stopped. The last Government made an attempt to get the income tax proposals put on a sounder and better basis, and I think the farmers were beginning to realize that that was a good position to be in, but this Government, the moment it gets an opportunity, wipes it out and puts the taxation proposals back into the unsatisfactory position where they were before. Another thing that this tariff is going to do, undoubtedly, is that it will increase the cost of living. That has been disputed by a good many speakers on the other side of the House, but we have the words of the Board of Trade themselves in regard to this matter, on page 6. where they say that—

and amongst these we find furniture, confectionery, jellies, honey, blankets, sheets, rugs, bacon and ham, cheese, salt, etc. The increased cost of these articles will fall very heavily on the working and poorer classes of the community, and it seems to me an extraordinary thing that this Government, who have as their left wing the Labour party, should agree to increased duties on articles such as these, I do not know how the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs or the Minister of Defence is going to defend these increases when he comes before his constituents, but, at any rate, I am sure the public will be very deeply disappointed that they have not had from this Government a better budget on behalf of the poorer people of the country. Then again this budget is going to press very heavily upon the native population. I do not think the Minister has himself realized what the burden is going to be. He knows what their requirements are in connection with clothing and living—I am speaking of the poorer class of natives. He knows that cotton blankets mean almost everything to them in the way of protection against the cold, and yet in spite of that knowledge, he has raised the price by 300 per cent. Cotton travelling rugs are increased by 175 per cent.; second-hand clothing, hats, caps and sundries are also considerably increased.

Many countries shut second-hand stuff out altogether.

Yes, but every country has not the same class of population that we have in this country; we have people who are dependent upon these things in order to get along at all. The Government should show more consideration to the poorer natives. There is another article upon which the duties have been increased to an enormous and even ridiculous extent. That is stationery. On reporters’ note-books, I am told by a firm that imports them, that whereas on 5 gross the old duty was 30s 3d. it is now 183s. 9d. for the same quantity and the same article. On exercise-books for educational purposes the old duty on 10 gross was nil; the new duty is 195s. We hear a great deal from the other side of their anxiety for education, and yet here they are at the very first chance sticking an enormous duty on exercise-books used in schools, a duty so heavy as to make these books practically prohibitive. Another feature in connection with this tariff is its instability. If a tariff is going to be of much use to the country it ought to be fairly stable for some years to come, but under this maximum and minimum system of tariffs the people of this country will never know what tariff they are going to be under. The Board have the power, in the case of a business which they find is not being carried on as they think it should be, of altering the tariff. If this sort of thing is to go on it will not be worth while carrying on a business at all, because the Government can come down upon it at any time it suits them, and make the working of it unremunerative if not impossible. I think it is quite time we called a halt in connection with this matter. I am sorry that this idea of the Board of Trades meets with the approval of the Minister. At least a reasonable time should be given people, if they are not doing the right thing, to put matters right. This is greatly upsetting business people and already they have cabled overseas cancelling or postponing shipments of foods liable to increased duties, until it was known how the new tariff was likely to work. In connection with the Customs Bill, which is attached to the Board’s report, there is a chapter on dumping, in which we find there are going to be five different kinds of dumping duties in future. There is to be the ordinary dumping (which one can quite understand), sales or consignment dumping, freight dumping, exchange dumping, and a bounty dumping. All or several of these duties may be enforced at one time, and they may be imposed without any notice to, or consultation with, the importers. It is true that we are to have the right of appeal to the Minister, but how are people to carry on business if they have ordered goods and expect them to be landed at a certain price and then find that they will be subject to two or more of these duties, which they did not anticipate? The Government have already made mistakes in connection with this matter, and when firms have had the courage to go to the courts the dumping duties imposed have been upset, and found to be ultra vires.

Under legislation passed by your Government.

I am not talking about any particular Government. The fact is “dumping” is frequently misunderstood and misapplied and I would strongly urge all who have anything to do with the matter to read a book in the Parliamentary library entitled “Dumping, a problem in international trade,” and after a study of that book I think they will favour the withdrawal of a good many of the dumping duties. It comes to this that if a merchant by his foresight buys goods which he thinks are going to rise, and the price in the country of origin happens to increase before the goods are shipped, then he has to pay duty on the new and higher price, so there is no inducement whatever to try to get goods cheaply into this country, and keep down the cost of living. If I had time I should like to say something about preference, but not to go into a heated argument about it. Another special feature is the withdrawal, in the words of the Board’s report, “of most of the preferential rebates in favour of Great Britain.” Now, this preference of 3 per cent., which was given to Britain, was said to amount to £860,000 a year. The new form of preference is supposed to be estimated to amount to £300.000. That means that an extra £560,000 will be taken out of the pockets of the Union people—not out of the profits of the British manufacturer. It is amazing how difficult it is to get people who are not in business to understand that position. They forget that the British manufacturer does not pay the customs. It is the importer and, therefore, he bases the cost of the goods on the duty he pays. If he pays seventeen per cent., he adds that to the landed price of his goods, and the higher the rate the higher the cost of the goods. Therefore, that duty is put on the price of the goods here, and if it is higher than before, the people who purchase have to pay more for that and, therefore, the taking away of the 3 per cent. on these goods actually adds £560,000 to the cost of the goods in this country. Until that is properly understood and grasped, we will have a lot of this wild talk about what the British manufacturer is getting out of our preference. I would just quote one or two instances of how Canada treats Great Britain in connection with this matter. On clothing they give an advantage of 7½ per cent. over their intermediate tariff; blankets. 7½ per cent.; boots with unstitched soles, 7½ per cent., and on other boots 10 per cent.; and locomotives, automobiles and motor bicycles get an advantage of 7½ per cent, on British goods. Compare that with the attitude of South Africa in connection with British trade and I think you will admit that Canada is giving us an example that we should follow. People say if that is the case, what have the British people to complain about? But even if the advantage is only 3 per cent. to Britain, it enables the British manufacturer sometimes to get business here which they would otherwise lose if they had not that preference. It is small, but sometimes it is sufficient to turn the scale on some article that is very keenly cut in regard to price. The protections proposed in the board’s report against increases in the price of local manufactures are not likely to be effective, and I do not think they will be carried out in a fair and equitable manner. Let me refer to two examples in the Board of Trade report. Some time ago, the last Government gave a reduction of 1d. per gallon on bulk oil imported, in order to encourage the starting of an industry at one of the ports, to bring in this oil in bulk and put it in tins and cases for distribution throughout the country. They were induced to put up a big factory and import fine up-to-date machinery in Durban to carry on that work. They have just got it started and in working order, when along comes this Government and says: “You are not going to have that 1d. any more.” The reason they gave was that the company did not employ sufficient white people. They have been induced to spend all this money, and now when they are in full working order it is taken away from them and they are told they cannot have it any longer. How do the Government treat the boot and shoe manufacturers? They found the same thing there that they were not employing enough whites in their factories, but they told them to take the matter in hand, and did not deal with them as promptly as they did with the others. With regard to the provincial councils, when these are being denounced for extravagance, some distinction should be made in favour of Natal and the Orange Free State. I agree that they have spent too much money, not on education, but under the head of education. There is room for economy there. Unfortunately the Transvaal Council has been spoiled, because there are too many socialists in it, and the Cape has been spoiled by having an autocratic and clever Administrator, who always gets his own way and plays for popularity with certain sections of the community. Natal has neither of these, and has been able to carry on its work in a proper way, and it has therefore carried out the original intentions of the convention in establishing the provincial councils. To sum up, the Government have had a good opportunity of bringing in a useful budget and putting the finances of the country on a sound footing which would have given a feeling of stability for the next few years at any rate, but they have failed to rise to the occasion. They have allowed themselves to be influenced too much by their inexperienced and incompetent Board of Trade, who have neither the experience nor the knowledge for the work assigned to them. They are making mistakes which will make other people suffer before they know their business. They are raising the cost of living to all classes except the farmers; they are hampering trade, and causing a feeling of uncertainty in business circles, and they are arousing resentment among the natives by their policy of increased taxation and oppressive legislation, and finally, they have struck a blow at their best friend and their most generous patron.

On the motion of Mr. J. H. Brand Wessels, the debate was adjourned until to-morrow.