When the House adjourned last night I was just concluding my speech. I would just like to close now with a few general remarks. There are decisive moments in the life of every human being. So it also happens in the life of every nation, and such a decisive moment happened in the life of Martin Luther, when he stood in Worms and used these noteworthy words—

That was decisive in connection with the Protestant declaration of faith. Such a decisive moment came in the time of the Voortrekkers, when the wives of the Voortrekkers said: “We will not go back before the blood of our dear ones has been avenged.” That was decisive for the continued existence of the Afrikaner people. Such a decisive moment also came in the life of Paul Kruger, when he had to say—

His people were sacrificed so far as their bodies were concerned but the people retained possession of their souls. Such a moment also came in the life of that Afrikaner nation, when the Leader of the Opposition on the 4th September said: “So far and no further.” That was decisive in the continued existence of the Afrikaner people. The 4th September will be known in the annals of the Afrikaner people as a date of re-birth, the re-birth of the United Afrikaner people. I imagine that there are dark days still awaiting the Afrikaner people, but there is no birth without labour pains. There will also be the pains of birth for our people, but then there will follow a re-birth. It is always darkest before the dawn. With my spiritual eye I see dark clouds coming up in the sky of the Afrikaner people, but those dark clouds are tinged with red by the rays of the rising sun, and soon the whole of South Africa will rejoice and enjoy itself in the full glow of the sun of a free South African republic. When Britain is breathing its last-gasp the English-speaking people in South Africa will adopt this country as their own, and then we shall no longer hear them sing “Brittania Rules the Waves”, and “There will always be an England”, but they will sing with full voices [translation]—

I thought it well to intervene in this debate for several reasons. The first is once again to proclaim the faith that is within me, a faith which I would like to tell hon. members opposite is shared by the vast majority of the workers of this country, Afrikaans and English-speaking workers in South Africa….

You must be a stranger in Jerusalem.

Despite the hon. member’s final demonstration here this morning—despite the vocal demonstration put up by hon. members—a vocal demonstration that bears no proportion to their numerical strength, I can assure hon. members opposite that I speak with peculiar knowledge ….

Very peculiar indeed.

But by no means superficial and resulting from a constant contact with that large section of the population with whom hon. members opposite are completely out of touch. That proclamation of faith has two sides to it—the one is personal and the other is political, and the personal proclamation of faith is a faith in the rt. hon. the Prime Minister.

He needs it.

And our —and by “our” I refer to the Labour movement of South Africa—our faith in the rt. hon. gentleman, despite the past, is best epitomised in an expression which I have heard so frequently “Thank God for Johnnie Smuts.”

Quite right “Johnnie”.

My mispronounciation may offend the musical ear of my hon. friend but the underlying current of feeling reflects the actual position, whatever my hon. friend may think of it, and the other aspect of my expression of faith is in the attitude adopted by the Government of South Africa, of which I form a part, and a very willing part.

Very willing indeed.

And that is that South Africa played the honourable part, South Africa played the only part, South Africa played its real part when it came to its decision in September last.

That is when you became a Minister.

And the proclamation of faith renewed to-day means that we are determined to carry through right to the end.

Never mind, old man, the end is near.

The second reason is made up of a multiplicity of reasons, if one may be somewhat paradoxical, and that reason plus its substratum of reasons lies in the reasons advanced by the hon. member for Smithfield (genl. Hertzog) for his appeal for peace. Before I start to deal with these reasons may I briefly refer to the vocal effort of the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow). I am only going to touch on it in passing.

Do not ruffle him.

No, I will not, he and I have always been personal friends—whatever we may have thought of each other politically.

And that is not much.

My reason for dealing briefly with the hon. member for Gezina lies in his own speech of yesterday when unquestionably, unblushingly and without reservation he displayed to the full his Junker spirit, where he, following on the rather dangerous lead of his Leader, extolled the virtues of Nazi Germany and practically expressed himself as favourably inclined towards our old friend and enemy, Hitler, and in the light of the revelations in his speech ….

Cannot you talk better nonsense than that?

I must ask the hon. member not to interrupt. He will have his opportunity of speaking, and I am quite content to have anything I may say reviewed by anyone opposite.

Walter, you must have got hold of a wrong translation.

No, I have got hold of the right translation, and the sooner my hon. friend is translated the better, though I am afraid he will not be translated upwards. The tendency is for him to go to the lower regions.

Well, anyhow, we shall meet again then.

No, that is where we shall become divorced. I was immediately reminded of my hon. friend’s experiences in Germany, and of certain happenings or non-happenings since then which bore a very different aspect to me from what they did when he returned from Germany, and when he made various explanations to various caucuses of this House. I go further and I may say that the significance of the hon. member’s attitude of the past since then became a very sinister one. Our Minister of Defence toured Germany as well as other European countries, and it may perhaps be remembered that I passed strictures on the hon. gentleman for the side he approached when he was in Spain. He also toured Germany and he hobnobbed there with all the high lights and military societies of the country.

No, the low lights.

He rubbed shoulders with anyone who knew anything about Germany’s military aspirations. He is no fool.

Hear, hear.

But he may be a knave, he can choose. I am not charging him with knavery.

No, but you would discharge him.

It is the natural retort to the sycophantic attitude of hon. members opposite. In short, he was able to ascertain just precisely what the Germans were up to, but when he came back to our country despite questions and urgings and efforts on the part of every member of this House he declined absolutely to give us any information.

And the Prime Minister complimented him on his return.

My hon. friend is dealing with that aspect of the hon. member’s revelations which were made to the Caucus. I thought I conveyed to the House that his reports to the various Caucuses were of a very varied character What he told the United Party Caucus was different from what he told the other Party's Caucus.

How do you know that?

Because you told me, and my hon. friend is one of those who has said that because of that difference in his expressions to the various Caucuses he and the others would not trust Pirow.

What do you say about that?

It is common knowledge of course, and this is where the sinister aspect comes in now. It lies in the fact that we have to spend so much money in capital, money to provide the equipment that we require to-day because what I thought at one time was his utter incompetence now appears in a very sinister aspect by reason of the fact that he knew what Germany was about to do and he neglected to equip our own Defence Force.

Order. The Minister is suggesting a very serious thing.

I said neglected.

The hon. the Minister is now suggesting a very serious accusation against a former Minister. If there is any charge to be made it should be made in the usual way of a substantive motion.

He has not the courage to do it.

I shall withdraw it at once, if that is your view, Mr. Speaker.

You have not got the courage to say it.

I do not think my hon. friend can accuse me of lack of courage, but I have the right, and I submit it to you with all respect, I have the right to make deductions from a long course of actions in the circumstances which surround these actions.

What are you insinuating now?

However, I leave that point at once, but I leave the thought with the House.

Why do you not propose a motion?

Well, now I shall get to the hon. member for Smithfield. What are his reasons for asking for peace? First of all I would draw your attention, and the attention of the House to another significant happening this morning. The hon. member for Smithfield in sonorous tones gave notice that he would move on Tuesday that a certain petition signed by 148 thousand and some hundreds and one people praying for peace should be read by the Clerk of the House. He read out the terms of the petition and there was a very significant omission. These 148,000 people according to the hon. member for Smithfield are asking for peace and the significant omission is the adjective “honourable”. They are not asking for an honourable peace, but peace at any price when there can be no peace.

Are you an auctioneer?

No, sir, my hon. friend, if he has not sold himself, is engaged in selling.

You are a very bad auctioneer.

I admit that. I cannot come up to the same scratch as the hon. gentleman. Now what is the first reason for the motion of the hon. member for Smithfield? It is that the war is costing so much, he is putting a price on South Africa’s national honour. Forsooth, if it costs five pence it is all right to go on with it, but because it is costing 46 millions and possibly more—let us be frank, we will have to face that—if it costs a little it is not so bad, but if it is costing a lot South Africa’s national honour can go to Hades.

Nonsense.

Well, that is the correct reasoning, and is in itself, I submit, sufficient for its rejection. What is the next? My friend and his friends state most emphatically Great Britain is beaten to her knees. If it be true, what an humiliating attitude to adopt, that we will desert our allies because they are beaten. What a disgraceful expression, to say “I was with you in prosperity, I desert you in adversity”. Sir, we see the attitude of mind of a person who quite recently was governing this country and entertains perhaps the forlorn hope that he may govern us again, govern a country which is an inseparable part of the British Commonwealth of Nations. He says because the senior partner in the Commonwealth is beaten to her knees we will disgracefully withdraw from any association of a military character with her, in short we will make peace with the European burglar. But is it true that Great Britain is beaten? Sir, the answer to that lies in Table Bay. “Great Britain is beaten; Germany blockades British waters.” The hon. member for Smithfield has said that Britain’s Air Force is beaten, his exact language was, the German Air Force is superior to Britain’s. Well, well, well, where on earth did the hon. member get his information from? This, as my right hon. friend here quite rightly says, is evidence of wishful thinking. They wish that Germany’s Air Force were superior to Britain’s. They wish it was a fact that Britain was completely and entirely blockaded, but when we are ourselves eyewitnesses of the greatest convoy, I am credibly informed, that has ever left the shores of Great Britain since war was declared, and when we see the troops themselves, then, sir, we beg leave to differ from the hon. gentleman.

Why don’t they go through the Mediterranean?

Sir, let the terriers howl, it makes no difference to the bulldog. “Peace,” says the hon. gentleman, and peace is re-echoed parrot-fashion by his sycophantic supporters. Peace with whom? He has been talking about Hitler. What about Mussolini? I appeal to the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) what is his real inward thought with regard to our position vis a vis Mussolini? Is he in fear of the onmarch of Mussolini’s hordes? If he is not now he certainly held fear, very considerable fear a very short time ago. In fact, sir, that was the reason advanced, and I believe it to be the real reason why he was prepared to associate the Union of South Africa with the British colonies in the north, the fear of the onmarch of Mussolini. Is my hon. friend the member for Smithfield completely blind to events, does he not realise that Mussolini has dreams of an African Empire?

Where do you get that?

I get it from commonsense and my hon. friend’s facts are based on much more nebulous theories.

[inaudible].

Oh, there is the hon. member for Riversdale Mr. Badenhorst). I don’t mind interjections or even interruptions, but there are some that are a little bit outside the question. But don’t you believe it? If you don’t then it is a very bad look-out for South Africa, if these are the possible rulers and controllers of the destinies of South Africa. If they are not prepared to look facts in the face it is a poor look-out. What is the limit of a territorial African Empire that Mussolini dreams of. Is it Abyssinia? No, sir. That is whom you have to make peace with, plus Hitler, and what sort of a peace can you have with Hitler? Read yesterday’s paper, and you will see two distinct independent neutral nations have been ordered by Hitler to settle their differences. What a fine state of affairs it would be if we proclaimed peace with him. I, sir, at the risk of undue repetition must repeat what every questioner on this side of the House has been asking and that is what are your terms of peace, what are you prepared to accept? What are your terms of peace, what do you want? And what are you prepared to lay down your arms upon?

My terms are the longest terms possible.

There is another expression of despair, a gospel of defeatism, such as was instanced by the hon. member for Gezina in his speech, in which he said he hoped by diplomatic conversations with Hitler to retain South-West Africa. That is a confession, sir, that no peace can be brought about save at the dictation of Hitler himself, plus Mussolini.

[inaudible].

What was that? My dear fellow, don’t interject if you don’t want me to hear it. That is childish.

Your whole speech is childish.

It is just as well to examine the type of peace that other countries have got, however they may have come under the domination of Hitler. We must examine it and if we are sensible men we will draw upon the experience of others and apply that experience to ourselves. What happened in Czecho-Slovakia, when we were diddled, when we thought we could maintain peace with Hitler? To show you how detested is Hitler’s regime, it must never be forgotten that when Hitler entered Czecho-Slovakia no fewer than 50,000 German Social Democrats fled to avoid Nazi Domination, and Herr Hitler made it a condition, disgracefully accepted unfortunately, that a peace with Czecho-Slovakia included in its terms the return to his domination of those 50,000 thinking souls of German descent, and he got them. What sort of peace did Poland have, and Holland and Denmark? All neutrals.

Where was the British Air Force then?

What sort of peace did Belgium get? In Great Britain to-day there are no fewer than six foreign armies under the direction of Great Britain fighting as Allies, including the French [interruptions].

Order, order!

Oh, let them howl, sir, that is the measure of the depth under their skins I am getting.

Does that include the army of Haile Selassie?

No, that is very close, much closer both in spirit and geographically to my hon. friend, that is in Abyssinia. The Czechs, the Poles, the Dutch, Belgians, French and Norwegians are included in those armies and their rulers so far as may be have sanctuary in Great Britain. And, sir, another answer to the hon. gentleman’s abject appeal for peace lies in the news of this morning. The whole of French Equatorial Africa has now signified its intention …

[inaudible].

You know, Mr. Speaker, if the Minister of the Interior ever dares to ban Comic Cuts, which is the limit of their humorous intelligence, then I am going to leave the Cabinet.

How many Europeans are there in French Equatorial Africa?

Does my hon. friend know how many Europeans there are?

Five hundred.

Where do you get your figures from? If the hon. member goes up there, there may be 501.

Order, order.

You are a comic cut yourself.

And I am cutting my hon. friend deep. No, Mr. Speaker, the whole of the experience of Europe goes to prove that any nation seeking peace, whether or not a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations, can only do so at the dictation of Herr Hitler, and Signor Mussolini, and the conditions of peace must be humiliating in the extreme. Sir, I am afraid you will accuse me of making accusations, but I must draw a comparison—by no means a contrast—between the attitude of mind and action of hon. members on that side of the House, especially their leaders, with those, sir, who were responsible for the downfall of most of those small nations in Europe. Norway had its Quisling. Denmark had nothing —it was unfortunate. Belgium was betrayed.

By whom?

France …

Britain betrayed France.

The truth is not cheap on that side of the House. They do not understand it, Mr. Speaker, and that is why it hurts. Anything they do not understand hurts them. Is my hon. friend going to tell me that France fought it out, when, Sir, the most elementary destruction that should have taken place, bridges and other things, seem to have been forgotten in the retreat. The very first thing that would occur to any military commander of any sense even to the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp), who I am very sorry to see is not here, because I wanted to have a word with him, and the hon. member —I do not know for what—whom I wanted to have a word with about rifles—but I do not want to be drawn off the thread of my discourse. And, sir, they are playing the same ignoble part because as they well know—none know better—playing upon psychology is one of the methods employed by Herr Hitler to defeat his enemies. They are playing into the psychological hands of Hitler. They are doing it by trying to inculcate in the minds of the people of South Africa a defeatist outlook upon this question. They are doing two things. They are trying to depress the outlook of the people, thus consequently encouraging Hitler by an exaggerated view of what is transpiring over here. And I say the men of the party who play that part in our national life, are by no means worthy of our consideration. And whatever they may say, whatever they may do, they can argue as they will, the people of South Africa will know how to appraise them at their true value, and will give them the treatment accordingly. Mr. Speaker, that is typical of the outlook of the people over there. They sneer at prayer.

They sneer at you.

They sneer at honesty.

And they sneer at you too.

My hon. friend cannot recognise hypocrisy. He cannot recognise it, so do not mention it again. They sneer at prayer, they sneer at Great Britain, and the underlying mainspring of all their actions and speeches, not only in this House but in the country, flows from their intense hatred of Great Britain.

What is the cause of it?

They may hold it. They are a rapidly dwindling population in South Africa, despite their shoutings to keep their courage up, whistling in the dark. Now I come to my final point of criticism of the hon. member for Smithfield, a point that I never dreamed the hon. member would raise in this House, a threat of revolution. He said “If you proceed along this path you are taking, beware, beware, the people will take it into their own hands.” And he meant revolution—he meant bloody revolution, and that is why those two gentlmen, the hon. member for Wolmaransstad and the leader of the Transvaal section of the Nationalists …

The member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom).

…. whilst retaining their rifles, or rather whilst surrendering their own riflles or getting exemption for them, urged upon these poor unfortunate misguided people in the country side, to refuse to deliver up their rifles and “we will meet you at the gaol gates.” Of course they will meet them at the gaol gates. They will take care they are not in there themselves, but a most dangerous doctrine for my hon. friend to preach, and especially my hon. friend who crossed his “t’s” and dotted his “i’s”, the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow), who gave us the organisations who are going to do this revolting.

Nonsense.

My hon. friend did not listen to his leader. The hon. member preached revolution if we do not take care, if we went along the path we had started upon. I appeal to hon. members, even to them on that side, if they have any sense of justice or conception of truth, to admit that as a fact. If it is not a fact then the hon. gentleman, when he replies, can give the lie to it.

It is a deliberate distortion.

I hope the hon. member for Smithfield, when he replies on this debate, will tell the House that he had no idea of revolution at the back of his mind, that he knew nothing about any possible revolution on the part of those two organisations to which the hon. member for Gezina referred, and that their object is purely cultural, purely educative, and they are not of a military character, that they have not been getting ammunition and rifles and that the object of those people is to maintain the Government as it is today, in its determination. In conclusion I want to say this ….

Do say something.

You won’t understand it. I am talking to my hon. friends here. I am talking to people who will understand it. It is a most significant feature of our debates during the last two or three days, this position. It is singular in the world. There is no democratic country in the whole world divided on the lines such as we are here. Even in Canada. Its Oppositions clash upon matters of general policy, but here there is no clash of general policy at all. The division between the Government and the Opposition which to my extreme regret ….

Between South Africanism and Imperialism.

What do you know about South Africanism? Only a stalking horse, a stick to beat somebody with, but the division, sir, is upon whether we shall or shall not emerge and become a united nation, or whether we shall remain apart, bitterly opposed to each other on each and every occasion that we can bring about. It is painful, sir, to contemplate it — unfortunately true, and I appeal to hon. members on that side of the House to try and examine the problems that confront South Africa from the point of view of a real South African nation, rather than a house divided against itself upon racial lines.

I notice that hon. members opposite are now leaving the Chamber, just as the English ran away at Dunkirk. I just want to say that the kind of speech which we have just heard from the Minister of Labour, from an Englishman, has only had the effect of rousing bitter feelings in the country. Does he think for one minute that it will do any good and bring about a reconciliation between the English-speaking people and the Afrikaansspeaking people? No, that is the kind of speech from an Englishman which makes us Afrikaners venomous against the English. The Minister’s speech reminded me of a cock whose head has been chopped off, and he nevertheless still jumps up and cannot understand that his head has been cut off. That is what is happening here. But I do not want to waste any more of my time by saying anything about the Minister of Labour. He spoke for half an hour and said nothing. I just want to say that Hitler laughed about two things in his life. The first was when he lifted up a small child and the baby wet him, and the second time he laughed was when our Prime Minister declared war against him.

This old joke of yours is falling flat.

It is, because the Prime Minister did the ridiculous thing, as a small nation, to declare war against Italy and against Hitler. They laughed. We only declared war in order to follow the Empire, and Hitler is laughing about it. But I am only a stupid man, and when we were here last we got many reports about the war, and I commenced to wonder who was right and who was wrong. I would never have a wireless set in the house, but then I bought one in order to hear the news, and I hoped that I would now hear the truth. The people told me that the Prime Minister had now appointed a certain Wilson, and that he was telling the truth. I then turned on the instrument, and Wilson was talking, and they told me that he was a Government man and could not tell a lie. Then when I had finished listening I turned it on a little further, and there was another man talking, and he had a completely different story. Accordingly I did not know what the truth was. They then told me that that was the German news, and you could only believe Wilson. But I did not know what to believe. Then we heard the names of various places where fighting was going on. I never learnt geography, and then I thought that I would buy an atlas. I bought a map of the whole world to see clearly what was happening there. I then noticed that the largest part of the map was red, and I then asked a clever man why there was so much red amongst the colours. He said that that was all British territory. I noticed that South Africa was included in it; it was also painted red. Then I understood no more about it because I thought the English territory was only a small island over there in Europe, but the clever man told me that it was the mighty British Fleet which had conouered all the countries and territories. I then thought that Wilson was lying, because he said that Germany was out to take all the small nations, but then surely it was England who did that. She took South Africa and the other countries.

My goodness!

And she took the hon. member for Kimberley (District), (Mr. Steytler), as well. The hon. member visited the white cliffs of Dover, and he was captured there. He should go and see what is going on there now. But I now want to come to that point. I am a stupid man, but I always heard that England was fighting to protect the small nations. I almost believed it, but now I see that Holland and Belgium and Denmark and Poland called out to England and asked for assistance, but no assistance was given. Ultimately, however they turned up in Belgium, and then I said: No, as a matter of fact Wilson has spoken the truth, because they are there. When, however, I listened again, I found that they had fled from Belgium. The Minister of Native Affairs told me himself that the Maginot Line would be impregnable, but when I subsequently heard about it they had outflanked that also. At Dunkirk 360.000 soldiers took to flight, and they trod each other down like a lot of sheep in order to get to the ships. Now I would like to know why England has not sent the 2,000.000 soldiers which have been equipped in England to the Continent, in order to help the Allies. Why have not those troops been sent across the channel? Reynaud said to the very last: “In God’s name, help us. If England and America do not help us now then it will be too late once and for all.” But no one came, and they ran away from France. They left France alone. Is that an ally on whom you can count? I ask what kind of a friend that is? Now they are living on the other side in dugouts and they no longer know whether they are in or out. The Minister of Labour speaks about the mighty Empire, but I have already thought that it no longer exists. I remember the time when they were in Norway. Every day the news came that the English were now complete masters in Norway, and the Prime Minister himself told me that; it was the truth. While I was still thinking that they were fighting there, they had already run away in the night leaving their arms behind. And at Dunkirk and in Somaliland they ran away in the ships. I want to give the Prime Minister a piece of advice. He should send the English troops who are now here and whom he wants to send to the north, overland. He should remove the ships from the quays. Then they will have to fight with their backs to the wall. But otherwise they will look about to see where the ships are to carry them back.

A tremendous joke!

It is not a joke. It is a fact, but unfortunately hon. members over there can no longer see the facts. The Prime Minister spoke of the danger of Johannesburg and Pretoria being bombed. But we can just learn the art from England. In England they are bomb-proof. They are bombed but nothing happens, merely a little dog or fowl is killed here and there. Let us learn the art. The Prime Minister can just ask Mr. Churchill how it is done. But I have noticed that as soon as things go wrong changes take place. We farmers when we travel with an ox wagon and it commences to stick we try to put the hind-oxen in front, but it is not of much use. When things went wrong in Europe then they also changed their methods. First of all in France, and things went wrong. Then they changed their teams in England and I commenced to notice that things went wrong. Then in South Africa they also commenced to change their methods and the Minister of Justice was shifted. Things are not quite in order. England to-day is in a most deplorable position. How my hon. friends opposite can still think that they are going to win the war no right thinking person can understand. As the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) has said there have only been two victories obtained so far. There is another one, namely the one at Oran. There the «English destroyed the ships of their ally and fired on the soldiers and sailors. In addition there was the victory at Potchefstroom where the brave soldiers even destroyed a piano. The other day I listened in again and then I learned from the German wireless that the police had made a plundering raid on the internment camps. I could not believe it, but now I see from the newspaper that a constable has been tried who stole seven watches and he said that the other police also took things. There are terrible things going on there. Let the people with the red tabs go and fight against the enemy. I am not their enemy, I am a man of peace, but the Prime Minister has experience of these things. He will possibly remember that he went to Vereeniging where a peace was concluded. What kind of peace was that? Now he wants peace after a victory. The Prime Minister speaks of a fifth column, perhaps he will remember the days when the Boers invaded Calvinia and how he put the people up to rebel against the English flag and against the English Government. Does he still remember how he urged them to rebel? Does he still remember what took place there and how he wrote the Century of Wrong?

The hon. member must address the Chair.

I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that the Prime Minister put up those people to fight against the English Government. Does that not prove that according to him the English administration was wrong? It is the children of those great men who are now being put into gaol at Calvinia because they have not handed in their rifles. What are the consequences going to be, and yet he gets up and talks about religion. Every time he speaks about the Christendom which he is fighting for. Is he really fighting for religion and for Christendom? Who is fighting on his side? The Mohammedans, the Turks, who worship the moon, and then they are also making love to Russia to get their help. I want to ask the hon. member for Kimberley (District) whether that is not true. Then there are still the Jews who do not believe in Christ. In Russia they still have a Minister who is hand in glove with the Russian administration and who is courting them in order to get them to assist in the war. We ought to have less hypocrisy in South Africa. We are tired of all the lies and all the misleading news which is supplied to us. I will not allow myself to be told that if all those bombs are dropped nobody is injured. In the Transvaal they talk about stay-at-home soldiers. I do not want to use the term because my hon. friends opposite would perhaps not like it. In our country a pet lamb is a miserable thing because he lives in among the fowls and the pigs. That is why I do not want to use that word.

There are many of them amongst you.

I do not want to use the term in connection with hon. members because a pet soldier is a bad thing. I wish the Prime Minister and his followers would just think a little of what they are engaged in and about the bitterness which they are creating in South Africa, and also about those they are fighting with and for what object. There they are sitting now hand in glove with the Minister of Labour, who abuses us and treats us with contempt. Let the Prime Minister think the matter over and come to his senses.

In the repose of last night after the debate I sat myself to try and extract from the speeches which had been delivered some arguments, some clear statement of the reasons actuating those who were supporting this motion, and if possible a logical sequence of the arguments so that I might be able to reply to them.

Did you follow it?

I confess that in the bulk I failed to do so, and I have not been assisted in finding logic, in being able to put reasons in logical sequence by the contributions to the debate made this morning, even, may I say, with the addition of the speech of the hon. member for Riversdale (Mr. A. L. Badenhorst), to which we have just been privileged to listen. But I did jot down certain propositions and I hope I am not doing any injustice at all to hon. members opposite in saying that these propositions were fundamentally logical to the position they are taking up, and the first proposition was that the war was lost — as good as lost.

So it is.

It was not the slightest good going on, because the war was lost, and secondly, the proposition was that because the war was lost — and that was the logic underlying it— I did get this, because the war was lost, therefore let us make terms as rapidly as possible with the winner of the war, which is Germany or Herr Hitler, in order that we may be able to get the best possible terms for South Africa.

Peace at any price.

And thirdly, the proposition was, in addition to this, if the war is lost and we make terms with Hitler we shall be able to be in a much more favourable position for getting a republic, which we desire.

Exactly.

It probably will be the only way of getting a republic because there will be slackening of all ties between South Africa and Great Britain. The last proposition I was able to extract from the speeches made was that really this war was no interest of South Africa’s at all, and on this the most emphasis, I think, was laid by the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog). He started by stating categorically that we had been plunged into this war in which South Africa had no earthly interest of any sort.

Hear, hear.

Well now, I am glad from the interjections made on the opposite side that I, at any rate, have not done any injustice to them in isolating these propositions as being fundamental to the motion. I wonder if they realise how mutually destructive these propositions are. If it be true that in consequence of this war being lost the winner of the war will be able to dictate to South Africa, and that is the reason why we are to make peace quickly—-if that be true, how is it possible to say that the issues in this country are of no interest to South Africa at all? In one breath you are saying the winner of the war will be in a position to dictate terms ….

Because of your action.

Oh, we will test that out in a moment.

You will get more dictation as you go on.

Never mind. The hon. member I hope is not putting this motion forward on the supposition that the course of events has not been what it has. We know what the course of events has been and in pursuance of the course of events the hon. member for Smithfield is putting forward this resolution, he is not putting it forward under a state of affairs in which South Africa has taken no part. Perhaps he was thinking that he was moving the motion a year ago and there had been no war. That is not so; he is moving this resolution now that there has been war and South Africa has played a part and he is asking us now to make peace at this moment. If it be the fact that having taken part in the war South Africa is completely at the mercy of the victor, how is it possible to say that we are not interested in it? I want to remind the hon. member, and I was thinking of this when he was making his speech yesterday, my mind went back to about four or five years ago when I had the privilege of listening to him speaking from these benches and explaining to this House that the interests of South Africa were intimately concerned with the prevention of Italy from coming down and taking Abyssinia.

You did not think so then.

Oh yes, I did. I promised and my party promised to support the government of the day in resisting Italian aggression in support of Great Britain.

No, you didn’t.

We did. The member for Smithfield was telling the House how intimately concerned South Africa was even right down in the south here, with what was taking place in North Africa. Was it merely the League of Nations and its policy that was being supported, or was it a South African concern on that occasion? The hon. member was trouncing the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) for putting forward a peace resolution and peace arguments and trying to get this House to stand aside and adopt a purely neutral attitude under this Italian aggression.

That was because of our membership in the League of Nations and our obligation.

Do I understand the hon. member to say that whether it is or is not a threat to South African interests depends on whether the League of Nations was in it or whether it was not. The proposition is that when the League of Nations is offering resistance to Italian aggression it becomes a South African interest, but if Great Britain alone is saying this is a threat to South African interest then it ceases to be a threat to South African interest.

The fact is she did not do so.

Is that seriously the position the hon. member wishes this House to understand?

The fact is that Great Britain did not think so at the time. Italy is in Abyssinia and you did not declare war.

Nor did you; you were in power then, your Government was in power. Your Government at your instance imposed sanctions and the hon. member for Piquetberg said it was most dangerous conduct. The hon. member for Smithfield replied: “Risk war, why not risk war in the interests of South Africa, of course we will.”

Perfectly consistent with what was done before.

Yes, but it is inconsistent with what you are saying and doing now. I would like to remind the hon. member of the actual words he used. I have had this looked up and in Hansard of January 31st, 1936, page 58, the hon. member said—

Mr. Speaker, if the threat to South Africa and South African interests was true four and a half years ago how much more deadly is the threat to South Africa now when instead of Italy standing alone Italy is in alliance with the great power of Germany, which is longing to get back territory.

At that time neither Great Britain nor you agreed with me.

The hon. member’s memory fails him. I hope during the luncheon interval he will refresh his memory by referring to Hansard. I and my party supported and I think every part of this House supported the sentiments in the speech of the hon. member when he pointed out the deadly threat that Italian action meant to the interests of South Africa in the years to come, and he pointed out in subsequent parts of his speech that it was not merely on account of the League of Nations he was asking us to do this, not merely on account of our membership to the League of Nations but because the interests of South Africa were concerned.

You are begging the whole question. The whole question was what was the duty of the League of Nations and not what was the duty of South Africa.

I have another passage here which has a direct bearing on this. The hon. member in the same speech said this—

It is not merely a matter of our membership to the League of. Nations, it is not merely because of that that we have taken up this attitude but it is because of the interests of South Africa.

You are again begging the question. The question was one of the League of Nations doing its duty, not for South Africa to pick a quarrel with Italy.

The hon. member was then sparring with the member for Piquetberg who now sits on his right. I can quite understand the difficulties that he is now in in explaining away that speech.

Is that why you declared war on the 4th September? Do you now base your declaration of war of the 4th September on this?

Mr. Speaker, am I addressing myself to an hon. member who is capable of following an argument, or am I not? I know the hon. member is quite capable of following an argument, he knows the point I am on and he wishes to divert my attention. Old birds are not caught with chaff, I am dealing with the hon. member for Smithfield who has brought this motion before the House and he has told us as one on the basic facts on which he is prepared to launch his campaign in South Africa in this House and outside it that the war is of no interest at all to South Africa and that our interests have not been touched.

Business suspended at 12.45 p.m. and resumed at 2.20 p.m.

Before the adjournment I was pointing out to the House how very clear and emphatic the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog) had been in identifying the interests of the Union of South Africa with the prevention of any aggression in North Africa, particularly in prevention of any advance by Italy itself. Well, now, what has happened just lately? The defence of Italy has gone south from Abyssinia, and has now included Somaliland. Does the hon. member think that that advance has a significance or not. Does he think that really the addition of a good many more thousand square miles of sandy desert is in itself a desideratum to Italy, or is it not an instance of that desire to look to the southern part of Africa rather than the northern part of Africa, Which he anticipated four years ago, and which has now come about. Does he not think that the indication is that Italy is threatening more at the present time, even than it was four years ago, the safety, the interests of the very territory of the Union of South Africa. Now I want to appeal to the hon. member for Smithfield. We know, I know, we all in this House know, the great influence that he exercises throughout the length and breadth of the land, and particularly in the Free State, and I want to appeal to him to go and make speeches on the platteland in exactly the same terms and exactly on the same lines as he made four and a half years ago, and to explain to the people of the platteland how inextricably the interests of the Union of South Africa are identified with the defeat of Italy, and with the defeat of Germany. Surely the threat to the Union of South Africa is the greater now that Germany is linked with them. I need not go further than quote the speeches which have been made in the course of this debate from the benches opposite to stress the power of Germany, and to stress the influence of Germany. Scorn has been thrown on South Africa daring to be at war with so great a power as Germany, and therefore I think I can appeal to the hon. gentleman himself, and to all his followers to give stress to this argument in future speeches, and to say that now that Germany is linked with Italy everything is at stake, and that the power they have to dictate terms of peace are calculated not only to include Tanganyika and South West Africa, but are calculated to claim something, in the terms of compensation, shall I say, from the Union itself, which is so desirable an acquisition to the economic resources of Germany. We know what the wealth of the Transvaal is. We know what is the power of the gold which is produced there. We know that Dr. Schacht will be delighted if he could get control of those gold supplies. It will give power to reestablish the economic power of Germany. Do hon. members opposite think for one single moment that a triumphant Germany would do anything else than dictate whatever terms it likes. Absolutely dictate them. I have every reason to believe that the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) has a very strong opinion as to the undesirability of the territory of Tanganyika getting into hostile hands. I have every reason to believe that he regarded the exclusion of any hostile power from Tanganyika as necessary to the expansion of South Africa, and its natural interests in looking towards the North. Those who think for one moment that a triumphant Germany will allow Tanganyika to escape its clutches—and what about South West Africa? Are we going to sacrifice the Angola Boers who were repatriated there at very considerable expense to the Union? Are we going to allow them to be left? I am well aware that the hon. member for Gezina on one occasion said that he did not care very much whether the Germans took South West Africa or not, but the Government of which he was a member at that time, in very clear and unmistakable terms said they were opposed to the return of South West Africa to Germany. Is that in South Africa’s interests or not? So much was it recognised as being a South African interest that it was pointed out in this House some years ago, by myself amongst others that South West Africa was being permeated by Nazi cells, and that Nazi organisation was taking place in the South West territory, and those British subjects there, Germans who had accepted British nationality, were being coerced. I rose and asked a question of the then Prime Minister, the hon. member for Smithfield, whether he approved of it or not, and his reply is on record that he did not, and it was emphatic. And when the Nazi organisations in South-West Africa became more clear, defined and definite, and became a threat, what did the last Government do? Why did they send a large police force to take charge of this situation in order to prevent the influence of Germany getting too big there? How is it possible to say that the issues which are at stake in this war are not South African interests? Mr. Speaker, I was astonished at many things, but at nothing more than the statement which has been made, not once or twice, but many times during this debate, that the Union of South Africa has no interests in the issues of this war, or in the questions which are involved in it? I say there is nothing to touch the interests of South Africa, of all South Africans, of the generations yet to come, of our economic development and our very institution of freedom, than the issues which are being fought out in the field at the present time. I want to stress this. Hon. members opposite have said this is going to be settled in Europe. Why should South Africa jump in? I agree, Mr. Speaker, that the main issue is being fought out in Europe. I agree with that, and the inference I draw from that is that anything that happens in Europe is foreign to the interests of South Africa. But the time has gone by when South Africa can live alone, can live to itself, and can say we threaten nobody, and we want nobody to threaten us. Let us lead our own lives, and be secure in our own territory. The time has gone by for that. You cannot do it. The idea of South Africa first, which one hon. member opposite ventured to take upon his lips, is not an idea which has been actuating hon. speakers on the other side. South Africa first to surrender is really what they are advocating in this motion, which is now being put before the House. Now, sir, I know you do not like it, but that is correct. South Africa first to surrender, first to give in, is at the bottom of this resolution, and you know that it would lead to untold disaster. Why have you never followed up, even in the course of this debate, the question of inviting the House to consider, whatever the consequences, the making of peace at the present time? I have not heard a single speech devoted to that—not one. There have been gasps at acknowledgments that if we did make peace we should have to give away things to the victor. That has been said. The hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) outside this House, but at a large meeting, duly reported, poured scorn on the idea of South Africa with its naked fists, being able to face up to victorious Germany, if it won in this war. That idea is common ground between us. A victorious Germany means a subject South Africa. The victory of Hitler means that we only hold whatever is left to us at his beck, at his sole consent and at his sole will. Well, we have the many instances of what has happened in other parts of the world to enable us to judge. No, the interests of South Africa are in this up to the very hilt. Now I want to say a word on another point. Now there is another point which I wish to refer to. It is suggested by hon. members opposite that the war is lost. That is absolutely untrue as we all know. It has not even been lost by Germany, but I believe that Germany is in due course of losing it. I believe that never at any time has the Navy controlled the sea routes of the world more completely than is the case at present. Not even after the battle of Trafalgar was the control of the Seven Seas so absolutely and completely in the hands of Great Britain as it is to-day. And wherever there is an opportunity of meeting the armed forces of Germany they have been beaten. I know that Italy won the boat race in the Mediterranean but it is the only race they will win, and the only aim of the Italian Navy is to hide as closely as they can in the protective ports of their country. The last thing they desire is to meet the British Navy on the high seas. One consequence of losing this war and of allowing Germany to win this war and of making an immediate peace would be this — let us think of it. What is going to happen to the economic development of South Africa? What is going to happen to our exports?

The old lie and rot story.

How are you going to sell your wool and get it carried overseas? You have only to roll off half a dozen elementary questions of this kind to see how futile and absurd is the idea of making peace at present, and I am confident that had there been the least chance of getting this motion carried the hon. member for Smithfield would never have tabled it and none of the hon. members opposite would seriously have voted for it if he thought that his vote was going to carry this into effect. No, the war, thank heaven, is not lost, and I am confident that in the air, as on the sea, the tide is with us, with the British Empire, and those who are associated in this war with us, and I am convinced, as Mr. Churchill said, that at no time in the whole history of the world has so many people in so many countries and in so many climes owed such a deep debt of gratitude to so few, as we owe to the men of the Air Force at the present moment. And make no mistake, your fundamental proposition that Germany has won the war is wrong. You are on a bad wicket and you will carry the consequences yourself. And now I want to point this out that it is very important for the Union of South Africa that we shall win this war, and that all our associations, all our interests, are bound up in our winning the war. Now I want you to consider what is the best way to lose the war. The best way to lose the war is to let this fifth column propaganda get a grip of your country.

As it did in 1896.

We know what happened in Czechoslovakia, in France and Holland. The technique on which Germany largely depended, principally depended, was to undermine the confidence and the patriotism, the honesty and the will of the people whom they wished to overrun and conquer. And that is what they have done successfully in many of these countries. They sapped the loyalty in more than one of these armies because they set up distrust and suspicion among officers and men, and officers and officers, and politicians. But what, I ask, is the Opposition doing at the present moment? They are pursuing, consciously or unconsciously, they are helping what in effect are fifth column movements which are calculated to hamper, circumscribe and prevent us from carrying our war efforts to a successful conclusion. They are trying to prevent the recruitment of South Africans. That fact is conclusively proved by all the evidence which we have before us. You are trying to prevent the recruitment of these men, you are trying to make people think that they are driven into the army, and you know that it is untrue.

We know that it is true.

It is absolutely untrue. I shall tell you the difficulty I have in my department. The difficulty I have in my department is to keep sufficient staff in the department because they all want to go — or rather too many want to go. That is the difficulty which I have.

Your difficulty is that they all want commissions.

I am speaking of the mining industry with a special knowledge, and I tell you that the heads of the mining industry have come to me and said: “You please either get the Prime Minister to make a statement, or if he cannot, make a statement yourself, to assure the people who are working on the mines that it is essential that the mines shall be kept going because too many want to throw up their jobs and go and fight.”

Just like members of Parliament.

A very proper attitude, and it is one with which I have great sympathy. And that is the attitude not of one class, not of one section, not of the rich or of the poor, or of the skilled or un skilled, and when you find a spirit like that then it is untrue, it is scandalous to allege, that men are driven and coerced to go and fight in South Africa.

You know that that is not so.

We are living in strange times. I have known the Witwatersrand for a long time — perhaps as long as anyone.

Yet you do not represent it.

We have lately had one entirely new feature. We have had dynamite outrages. People have started putting bombs into buildings underneath walls in an utter and total disregard whether women, men or children are injured.

No one has been injured so far.

There is no doubt that this is connected with the agitation against this war.

What proof have you for that?

And I appeal — no, I say I warn hon. members opposite, that consciously or unconsciously — that in pursuing the course they are pursuing they are giving encouragement to the committing of these outrages.

I hope your own friends will take that to heart.

Who put the bomb in the Dutch Reformed Church?

Before I sit down I just want to say one thing more. I should be closing my eyes to what is very obvious, if the last point which I mentioned as fundamental to this debate was not in the minds of hon. members opposite — if that was not the most fundamental point in their minds — that is the getting of a republic.

Quite so.

I recognise it. And as has been pointed out in many speeches in their estimation, in the estimation of many hon. members opposite, the best and probably the only way to get a republic is to get Germany to win the war. If Germany wins the war, all connection with Great Britain goes. The chains are snapped. South Africa under German aegis becomes a republic, and you are rid of the hated English.

We are, anyway.

If, as I say, the effect of a German victory were to place South Africa and South African interests completely under the heel of Germany, I say that to work for a republic on these lines is to place your desire for a republic beyond your desire to advance the interests of the country, or the interests of the population, or of any section of the population. And I regret to say it, but I do believe that in the estimation of many of those who are now advocating a republic, perhaps in the minds of most of them, but at any rate in the minds of a great many, there is this determination, “We shall get our republic, whether it is in the interests of the Union of South Africa or not, whether the result is to place that republic under the heel of Germany or not, the great desire being to get rid of England, to get rid of the English, and of everything that is English, of everything associated with British connection.” I have steered clear in my parliamentary career or in my public career of saying one word which would even endorse the existence of racialism — far less have I ever done anything to promote racialism myself. I have always set myself against racialism in any shape or form, and hon. members opposite know that that is so.

What about the Dominion Party?

And I am driven by the course of events and by speeches during this debate, to the conclusion that there is an irreconcilable minority in the Union ….

Yes, quite so.

An irreconcilable minority who take advantage of every effort to bring about reconciliation of goodwill, and who makes use of it as an attempt to extort something more. They will never be satisfied until they have converted every English-speaking person into their way of thinking, or until they have driven every English-speaking person from this country, and until they have got rid of everything English. It is a terrible conclusion to come to, but it is the conclusion I have come to with the greatest regret, and it is the conclusion I express with the deepest repulsion. But it is true that that is the position to-day, and I say that unless you change your ways, and your habit of thought, you will continue to put the interest of this ideal, and your success in achieving this ideal, before the interests of South Africa, regardless of the destiny, the rich destiny, which should be ours.

We have had a speech here by the Minister of Mines, the leader of the Dominion Party. In his speech he tried to say a considerable amount as to why we should not introduce a motion here for the ending of the war and in favour of peace, but just as I expected, he said precious little about the question as to why we should continue the war, or why we should be engaged in war. I also think that it is necessary for him, from his point of view, to use some more arguments still in favour of his attitude. All the arguments that we have had from him over and over again in recent years, have always been just the same thing. To the question why South Africa should follow England in every respect, and especially if there is a war in which England is concerned, his answer was that we still practically form a part of the British Empire, still a part of England itself. That is the attitude of the imperialist. The Minister sits in the Cabinet and he sits in this House, but I think that he is far less a representative of South Africa or of Roodepoort or of Pietermaritzburg — I believe that is now his seat — than that he is actually a representative of Picadilly. He is not in the House, according to his own party, of which he is the leader, to look after the interests of South Africa, but to guard over the interests of England. I shall myself, in the course of my speech, come to different things which he said in the course of his speech. I would, however, like at the start to associate myself with the protest which was briefly made here during question time by the Leader of the Opposition, against the reply which was given by the Prime Minister in connection with the commandeering in Rhodesia of subjects, of citizens of the Union. The case there is that a citizen of the Union, who has only been living in Rhodesia a year, and who was commandeered there, came before the Court because he would not join the army. The answer which the Prime Minister gave was that he would do his best to induce the Government of Rhodesia to grant an exemption to citizens of the Union who were living there. The Leader of the Opposition immediately pointed out that it was not a question between ourselves and Rhodesia when it concerned the rights of our citizens, because Rhodesia was only in part a self-governing colony. Rhodesia is nothing but an English possession, and therefore it is a matter between ourselves and England and a matter between us and England which has already been completely settled. England will not, nor has she the right to commandeer Union citizens, just as little as we have the right of commandeering their citizens. We are bitterly dissatisfied with the reply of the Prime Minister that he will ask Rhodesia for exemption. “Exemption” is not the word. When you demand your rights you do not ask for exemption. It is not a concession which you are asking for on behalf of the citizens of the Union in Rhodesia, that they should not be commandeered but it is our right.

You have probably never yet heard that there is self-governments in Rhodesia.

In connection with this peace motion and in connection with the attitude which is being taken up by us in the country in regard to the war it is being" announced—this is behind everything—that we actually have no legal and moral right to take up the attitude that we are doing and that we have no right to introduce a motion of this kind in the House. The argument which is being used on the other side since the 4th September last year is that Parliament has decided and inasmuch as Parliament has decided that we should take part in the war that ought to be the end of all opposition or contradiction. Then the further argument is used, which you also heard here time after time, that when a country is once at war—or rather that since we have declared war, all the citizens of the country, whether large sections of the population are in agreement with it or not, must take up the attitude that seeing that we are once and for all involved in the war we should see the war through to its end and we should all stand together to bring the war to a successful conclusion. Because we refuse to do that we are regarded as disloyal and the stigma is thrown upon us not only of a lack of patriotism but also of a lack of honour. That is the attitude which the other side take up and that is the background to all their attacks on us. Now in answer to that I want to say that in the first place when we are busy considering whether we may or will do this or the other thing, when we are considering a standpoint, all depends on the question whether it is a defensive war which your country is engaged in or whether it is a war of aggression. If it is a defensive war, if an enemy comes and attacks the borders of your country, if an enemy wants to destroy your independence then it is the duty of every citizen in the country to listen to the appeal of the Government and to defend the country, but if it is an aggressive war then I say there is no such obligation upon the citizens of the country. I would here like to give an illustration which hon. members opposite, I think, will all consider a good one, and the person who will consider most of the examples of that kind as valid is the Minister Of Mines. That is the example of England herself, of parties in England and politicians during the Anglo-Boer War. That was no defence war for England but an aggressive war. What was the position in England at that time? Not only individual politicians but the official opposition at the time, namely, the Liberal Party, protested against the war, and right through the whole period of the war they protested against the continuance of it and opposed it most strongly. Amongst those who took the lead in the opposition to the war and who wanted peace, during the time of the war, there were leaders who subsequently became Prime Ministers like Campbell-Bannerman, Lloyd George and Asquith; If it was the case in England that an agitation could be put up there on the part of the official opposition against the continuation of the war, and on behalf of peace, why then is it unpatriotic and dishonourable when we are opposed to this war. But I want to point out that that was not only the case in England but it was also so in South Africa at that time when English-speaking people in South Africa in their South African patriotism went still further than what the English-speaking people do to-day—they went in the other direction. There were then some of the chief politicians in our country including a Schreiner and the Moltenos, and a Currey and a Solomon, who took up the attitude opposed to the war, against their own people and they started an agitation “to stop the war.” If that was not unpatriotic and dishonourable, why is it dishonourable and unpatriotic to-day on our part when we in turn say that the war should be stopped? But now the Prime Minister in his speech yesterday relied on the honour of the Boer nation and he said that the Boer nation did not act in that way, but that the Boers fought to the bitter end. He quoted himself as an example of how you may already regard the war as lost and you yet continue from feelings of honour and duty and patriotism even if it is already certain that the war is lost to fight to the bitter end. He said that that was his attitude and that of other Boers in that war, and that Afrikanerdom has now for forty years been getting the fruits of that. I think that the Prime Minister sometimes has a very short memory and I would like in regard to these matters to refresh his memory a little.

Where were you people during the Angic-Boer War?

I have in my hands a book “The Life of Lord Kitchener,” written by Sir Gordon Arnold, the second volume. It deals with the conditions about a year before the end of the Anglo-Boer War and it says—

Where were you people in the war?

The question at the moment is not where we were, but where the Prime Minister was. They wanted to put an end to the war. Just listen further—

He was not consulted—

Now listen to this—

The man who takes it so much amiss now in us for our considering, inter alia, that this war is lost or being lost and for wanting to stop it, this man took up that attitude not in an aggressive war but in a defensive war. But here is something which fits in here and which lifts the curtain just a little on the course of events. Near Reitz, President Steyn was almost captured and his papers fell into the hands of the English general. On page 39 we read—

We heard that the man in France, who when he came to the conclusion that the fight was lost, said in order to save his people: I am now going to ask for an armistice — we heard from the Prime Minister that that man was a traitor and dishonourable. I say here in front of me sits the Pétain of the Anglo-Boer War. We have heard the talks which the Prime Minister broadcast when the Belgian Army surrendered that it was all attributed to the fact that King Leopold had played the traitor. It was not necessary for him to surrender and he was guilty of disloyalty towards his Allies because Belgium and France could not make peace before they had first obtained the permission of England to it. In the Boer War a solemn promise was given to President Steyn that there would be no separate negotiations for or concluding of peace. There sits the Leopold of the Boer War. He speaks about dishonourable action on this side because we were and are opposed to the war and want peace for the country. Can you have anything more dishonourable towards those whom he calls his friends than what he wrote in this letter to President Steyn — let us lay down arms and make peace, but it would be no peace. We would remain on the look-out and when England got into trouble then we would rebel. That is dishonourable in the first instance towards those with whom he was going to make peace. Moreover he was the father of the rebellion and after he had become the father of the rebellion and in anticipation promoted rebellion when England was at war with Germany — that was not only dishonourable towards those with whom he wanted to conclude peace — but when the rebellion broke out he acted dishonourably towards those whom he had instigated to rebel, and then he shot the rebels in South Africa. With the support of his friends behind him who are assisting him in the matter to the utmost, the Prime Minister likes to pose as a great man. His greatness consists, when we consider his whole history in South Africa, in that he has shown himself willing to allow himself to follow the lead of the Imperialists in this country and overseas and that in that way he has placed himself as a tool in their hands to do their work here in South Africa. That is the greatness which he possesses. When we look at the whole of the history and we take what we have read here, then I say that he is gradually being exhibited in his real colours. Here you have next to each other his South Africanism and his Imperialism. In a defensive war in South Africa in the defence of the freedom and the interests of South Africa he was prepared to make peace a year before the time, but now that we are engaged on an aggressive war, he wants to continue the war to the bitter end even if it means the devastation of South Africa. I come to another point which was brought forward in the course of this debate and it is the question why we want to be out of the war. The argument which was brought forward by the Leader of the Opposition was inter alia that we are concerned here with a war which clearly is not being won to-day but it is a war which in all probability, and a large amount of certainty, is being lost. We do not expect it from the Prime Minister that he will admit that this is a war which has been or is being lost, or that he ever will admit that the war has been lost even when that already is an accomplished fact. That is not surprising either. His judgment that the war is not being lost does not rest on his military knowledge as generalissimo but on quite different grounds. The Prime Minister knows very well that if he has to admit that the war is lost, then the whole policy which he has followed up to the present is a failure. Admit that the war is lost and he admits that his policy has been a hopeless failure. The second ground which is coupled with that is this. If he admits that the war is lost then he would at the same time also have to admit that he has not only taken a shortsighted view of the matter but that by plunging South Africa into the war between two European powers without South Africa enjoying the protection of England he had committed nothing less than a crime against South Africa. If he had known beforehand that this war in which he was going to plunge South Africa was a war which would be lost, then it would in my opinion have been a crime against South Africa to plunge South Africa into such a war with open eyes. The question which is now in dispute between this side of the House and the other side is whether we can actually go so far as to say that the war is on the way to being lost. The evidence of the Prime Minister cannot be accepted by us. It is prejudiced. Just as little can we accept the evidence of Churchill as that we could accept the evidence in France of a man who is so deeply compromised as was Reynaud. We must look for other witnesses and if we ask whether the war is being lost then we must look to see what the others think about it. In this connection there are two things to which I want to draw attention. The first is this. In spite of all the efforts of England in this war she cannot get any allies. If her case is as good as hon. members opposite want to make out, if the position which exists to-day is of such great danger to the whole of the world then I ask: Why cannot England get any ally in the struggle? The answer that I want to give to that is the following. There is a great difference between the circumstances of this war and that of the World War. In the World War the nations of the world were convinced that there could only be one ending to things. Germany would lose. Accordingly, in order to attend the peace negotiations, in order to protect themselves in the best way, one after the other of the different countries, even if they did not fire a shot against Germany, nevertheless declared war against Germany. To-day it is the other way round. To-day, because the nations of the world have come to the conclusion that England has no chance of winning the war, there is not a single one of them who wants to do what the Prime Minister of South Africa has done in such a light-hearted way.

If the United States comes in, will you then alter your argument?

I say that there are two witnesses whom we could call in connection with this matter. I have mentioned one. The other is, as a matter of fact, the United States, which has just been mentioned by the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell). Time and again emergency calls for help were sent to the United States: “Come over and help us before it is too late.” All those emergency appeals were in vain. Instead of replying to those appeals, the United States was busy taking other steps. Along with the other members of the Pan-American combine, they met together to divide the possessions of England in the American zone amongst themselves by anticipation. They were so certain of the end there would be to these hostilities, or it looked so probable that the war was being lost by England, that they are already engaged, if there should be a change in the dominion over the different territories within the sphere of influence of America, in disposing of those dominions in that way. They were engaged in dividing the spoil and in seeing that that spoil should not fall into the hands of a European power, in accordance with the Monroe Doctrine. They want to see to it that America herself will be the heir of England. Then there is Canada. We have heard of late that Canada has taken important steps, and that she has entered into a defensive alliance with the United States. That was announced by the radio propagandists as a proof that the United States were engaged in intervening in the European imbroglio in that way. Far from it. It was far more an attempt on the part of Canada to get free from England, and to shield herself under the wings of the American alliance. I listened to the broadcast of the Prime Minister a little while ago, and he said, inter alia, if this war was lost by England, then we knew what Canada would do. She would look for protection to the United States. We also know what Australia and New Zealand would do. They also would look for protection to the United States, who, like themselves, has interests in the Pacific Ocean. But what will become of South Africa? That question the Prime Minister should have asked himself on the 4th September, 1939. What he suggested in connection with Canada, that she would seek her own salvation with the United States, is just what they are engaged in doing now. North and South America laid down, in accordance with the Monroe Doctrine, that they were not going to meddle in the wars and quarrels of Europe, nor should Europe meddle in the zone of influence of America, or with the states of North America and South America. Unless they wanted to reject the Monroe Doctrine, they could not enter into an alliance with Canada, and at the same time allow Canada to intervene in the quarrels and wars of England, because Canada would then be the means of getting America away from the Monroe Doctrine, and to introduce it into the European wars. I think that I am quite entitled to say that we are not faced here with a development which will introduce America into the wars of Europe, but that Canada, one of England’s chief dominions, is engaged in running away from England and from the dangers of England, and looking for protection under the wings of America. Those are things which we must bear in mind, and we cannot simply rely on the evidence of the Prime Minister and of Churchill, nor on that of others who are just as deeply compromised in connection with this matter. In connection with this matter they are engaged in following what is usually called the ostrich policy, the ostrich who hides his head in the sand, and then imagines that he cannot be seen by others. I have often made enquiries whether there is anyone who had seen an ostrich doing that. No one has ever yet done so. In other words, I think that there is more wisdom in the ostrich than in those who follow the so-called policy of the ostrich. Now I come to another point, and that is the effect which this war and the continuation of it is having on South Africa. It was started by the Prime Minister with a divided nation, and in proportion as the war has been continued, the Minister has been engaged in dividing the people more and more against each other.

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but his time has expired.

I move—

Is there any objection?

I object.

There is an objection.

At the request of my leader I withdraw my objection.

The hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) may proceed.

I hope that I shall not abuse the concession made by the House. I make the point that the war was started with a divided people, and the Prime Minister took the responsibility on himself to declare war in those circumstances, a responsibility which no other government in the whole world would have taken upon itself. But not only did he start with a divided people, that division of the people has been in consequence of his action always assuming more and more serious proportions. The people are divided. The Prime Minister saw that a petition was handed in to this House by the Leader of the Opposition, which is the largest petition, save one, and with most signatures, which has ever been introduced into this House. The petition was signed by more than 180,000 women in the country, who ask that the war should be stopped. Is that a thing which we can simply ignore? Are those not things which should cause the Prime Minister to reflect? He will say that there is another petition, which has more signatories, before him, that he should continue the war. All I Want to say is this, that the whole spirit of the two petitions shows us what the spirit in the country is. The women who made their protest heard in the most dignified way at the Union Buildings were received by the Prime Minister in a way which I cannot call anything else but a rebuff. One does not want to talk here about such things, but I do want to say this, that it was clear from beginning to end that that petition was drawn up, and that the demonstration was held in a prayerful spirit, so seriously was the matter regarded by those people. The petition which is now being signed and which has been submitted to him, was prepared in quite a different spirit. I am prepared to concede that there has been enthusiasm. So enthusiastically has it been signed that there are cases, one case which I more particularly want to mention, where the same person signed the petition no less than twenty times. It was placed at the comers of the street, and everyone that wished could sign the petition. There was no check. It was taken on to the trains, into places of business and everywhere where there were subordinate people, people who could be intimidated, who would have to pay a penalty if they refused to sign. That is the method of smelling out and tyranny which was employed. The two cannot be compared with each other. But the divisions which the Prime Minister caused by his declaration of war, and which he has now made worse by the way in which he is carrying on the war, bring one section of the population up against the other, and put one race against the other. My hon. friends opposite are so fond of accusing us of our following a policy here which is based on racial considerations. But no one is more responsible for the bad feeling and the bitterness between the races in South Africa than the man who sits in this House on the bench of the Prime Minister. I want more particularly to make mention here of the fact that Afrikaans-speaking Afrikaners in this country are simply no longer safe in some circumstances. Because they hold a different opinion from the Prime Minister, they are being persecuted and insulted. Here in Cape Town where praying in the street is being carried on, a public attack has already been made by the populace on a person who could not reconcile it with his conscience to take part in what he regarded as a political demonstration in the streets. He was attacked by the populace. Subsequently an attack was made on one or two innocent school boys from the Jan van Riebeeck school who were treated in the same way. They were assaulted and blood flowed. When things took a more serious turn— because I ask what self-respecting people would submit to such things—I took it upon myself in the name of the Afrikaners here to send a telegram to the Prime Minister saying that this praying in the street which was having that tendency here, should be stopped, because it had become the cause of disorders of that kind, and because things were going from bad to worse. I said: Please—you have the power in your hands —put an end to it. He sent me a reply, which not only amounted to a refusal to do anything in connection with the matter, and which was not only insulting towards me personally, because I had sent the telegram to him, and owing to my having asked for his assistance, but the telegram was drafted in such a way—I say it to him here face to face—that it was excessively rude. The worst of all was that his telegram was a clear incitement to that kind of thing just going on, because no dependence could be placed on his putting an end to it. Then the other things took place at Potchefstroom etc., and I say that the Prime Minister alone is chiefly to blame. Now I want to say a word here about the street prayers in Cape Town. One does not like to speak about matters of this kind, because it is a question of religion, and affects sacred things which one does not like to drag into this debate, if one can prevent it. But what is taking place here, in Cape Town, whatever was the original intention, has become nothing else than a political demonstration which takes place day after day in the streets of Cape Town, and which people who do not hold the same political views as the Prime Minister are forced to participate in. It is tyranny which is being exercised here over innocent people; it has simply become intolerable to the Afrikaners. But the people who are responsible for this are the town councillors of Cape Town, although not in the first place. In the first place the so-called Church Council of the Cape Peninsula is responsible for it. I do not want to say anything in regard to the Town Council of Cape Town. The less one speaks about the Town Council of Cape Town the better. They already take themselves too seriously. From all points of view it is probably the most unsavoury body in the whole country. Therefore I do not want to say anything more about the Cape Town Town Council, but in connection with the Church Council I Want to say that that Circle has already become known in South Africa from one war to another since the days of the Anglo-Boer War. They, by means of this starting of the pause in the streets of Cape Town, introduced something in which there is in reality not an atom of religion involved. They simply start from the point of view that when England is waging a war—the Prime Minister himself said so in his speech over the radio—it is then a war of God, then you ought not to criticise. If it is England’s war, it is a holy war, and then you must call the people up to pray for victory. That is the attitude which they take up, and there is not an atom of religion involved in it. It may be politics, good or bad, but there is not a grain of religion in it. On the contrary, as things have now gone, people here flock into the streets of Cape Town and stand about while the two minutes’ pause is being observed, in order to see who is moving about, so that they can immediately knock him down in the streets, which makes a mockery of the pause for prayer, and street roguery takes place under the cloak of a prayer meeting. I think that it is high time that a stop was put to it. If the Church Council wishes to stand as a sentinel on the walls of Zion, and wants to issue a warning against what is anti-Christian and wrong, they had the opportunity in the streets of Cape Town not so long ago, when Cape Town was flooded by divisions of Australian troops, who called at the Cape en route. I am speaking here not on what I have read, but what I saw with my own eyes in the streets of Cape Town. The state of affairs which prevailed here was such that in comparison with it, in comparison with what happened in Cape Town during those few days, Sodom and Gomorrah were holy towns. If the Church Council wanted to take action and wanted to do something for Christendom and for purity, they had ample opportunity during those days, but at the moment they are only the means of continuing the pause for prayer which ends in knavery in the streets. I say that the Prime Minister can put a stop to it. He is the only man to-day who can put a stop to it. If we are to believe what is said in secret, then the Mayor of Cape Town is opposed to it, and would like to be quit of it, but he dare not, the thing has long since got out of hand, so far as he is concerned. He cannot help himself. The Church Council cannot help itself any more either. There are some of them who have the courage to advise that it should be stopped, but they cannot help themselves. They have aroused the giant of the populace, and they are in his claws. But a word from the Prime Minister that it should stop, because it was forcing one race up against the other, is sufficient, and we solemnly ask him: Will you not speak the word? I want to end just here by saying a few words about the last point which was raised in the House, namely the conditions which we might obtain or not obtain if we were to make peace now. I want to answer it by a counterquestion to the Prime Minister. If matters are to continue as they are now doing, and we were to lose the war we are engaged in, what conditions could you then get in any case? It is no use our coming and saying that Hitler is this or the other kind of man. It is no use to come and say that he has always looked at South Africa as a Naboth’s vineyard, and that he wants to annex us. It is no use coming to tell us that he is a man who has destroyed all national and personal freedom. When you continue a war which is lost, and the war, as it stands to-day, is a lost one, what terms can you expect in any case? If the war is to be lost, then it would appear that the declaration of war was a disaster, and then the continuance of the war by which South Africa would be devastated, is so much worse, then it would be a crime which you are committing against South Africa. But now the objection is made that we are at this time coming and demanding a republic. In that connection I want to say that no one has of late contributed so much to the demand for a republic being made in South Africa, and that no one has contributed so much of late to allowing South Africa ultimately to get a republic, as the Prime Minister himself. When I say that he is contributing a great deal to the ultimate getting of a republic, then it is precisely the same kind of contribution as the contributions of Pharoah to get the Israelites into the Promised Land, simply because he pointed out to us, as no one before has pointed out to us, what the British connection really means to South Africa. We have always yet lived under the mistaken idea that the British connection meant that if a war broke out and England was in it, then we in South Africa could remain out of it, that we could then maintain our neutrality. But the Prime Minister long since took up the position in theory that if England was at war, then it was impossible for us to remain out of it, and now he has applied that theory in practice. He has now proved that the British connection must drag us into an English war. The British connection has already twice drawn us into a European war. The first time it could still be put up with, because it was a war which, together with England, was won, but the second time we were dragged into the war which, as things are going to-day, and unless a change occurs, will be lost by us. Accordingly, South Africa in this war is not only robbed of its money and its property and its blood, but this war policy may result in the greatest disaster which can happen to a nation. It may mean annexation by Germany. He has exposed us to that. If it is doubtful whether if we had remained out of the war, Germany would have left us uninterfered with, or whether there would have been annexation, yes or no, now at least one thing is certain, and that is that if the Prime Minister is to remain in office and we lost the war, and he has to go and obtain conditions for South Africa, then there is only one way out, and that is annexation — unless it is made clear to the world that there is also another feeling in South Africa, unless it is made clear that on the 4th September a resolution was actually passed to take part in the war, but that a large majority was opposed to it. It must be made clear to the world that the people of South Africa gave the Prime Minister no mandate to declare war, and that we refused to give him the mandate. If the war is lost, and the Prime Minister should remain in office, and go to make peace, then South Africa will be dragged into the greatest disaster.

You want to do what Pétain did in France.

They ask us what chances there are of our getting our republic. My answer is this: If Germany wins this war, then we are in this position — let me say here in the unfortunate position — that the war aims of Germany and our desire to have a republic in South Africa clash with each other, unless we make it clear to Germany that the people of South Africa repudiate the Prime Minister and his declaration of war and his continuance of the war. If we do that, then I do not say that we shall get a republic, but then we may possibly be in the position that Germany will be able to say that she has no quarrel with the people of South Africa, and that she knows what the position here is, and that if South Africa proves that she wants to have a republic, Germany will take it into consideration. In other words, if we lose the war, we are faced by the choice, but only by the choice, of a republic or annexation. A republic may possibly satisfy Germany, because she will say that the separation of a dominion from the British Empire, weakens that empire, and that is her object. She may say that she has no quarrel with us, and will be satisfied with the fact that we were seceding from the British Empire, and forming a republic. The choice will, therefore, be before us, of having a republic or annexation by Germany, a Hitler republic. And if circumstances are to develop in that way, and the war is to be lost, then not only will this side of the House be satisfied with the attitude which it has taken up, but then the other side will probably, and the whole population also will be thankful that on the 4th September there were 67 members of this House who protested against the declaration of war, and then the public will be thankful that at the previous session the Leader of the Opposition introduced a motion to put an end to the war, and then they will be thankful that the Leader of the Opposition once more introduced the motion which is now before us, to put an end to the war, because it proves that not only the Prime Minister received no mandate from the people for the war, but that we also repudiate him. In that South Africa may yet find its safety.

Mr. Speaker, I do not feel that I am called upon to enter into the argument with which the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) began his speech this afternoon. So far as I could gather, most of it dealt with personalities, with matters with which I am not familiar, and which I do not care to discuss. And the one political issue which he raised in that argument I believe it would be fruitless to consider: The suggestion to seek an armistice in the Boer War at the point to which the hon. member referred, bears no comparison to an attempt to seek an armistice at the present time in this war. Unfortunately for the Boer Republics, they were actually defeated, whereas at the present time we are by no means defeated in this war. But such an argument would only meet with another repetition of the claim that we are defeated, and we should merely be confined in a vicious circle. So I turn to my own case. Now I must confess that it is extremely difficult to state one’s case dispassionately, as dispassionately as one would like to do, in respect to the grounds of our support of this war, in an atmosphere of the Boer War. There is, in fact, a lack of a sense of proportion about the juxtaposition of those two wars. Regrettable, as some at least of us considered the Boer War, it was, in the nature of the circumstances, a very small affair compared with the issues that are at stake to-day. Sir, it is also extremely difficult, and I may say painful, to attempt to state one’s position in regard to this present war in the atmosphere of acute bitterness towards everything English which has characterised the debate as far as the Opposition in the last two days. And, sir, I say that intentionally, consciously reminding myself and anybody else who is interested, of my personal tradition in this country. I felt amazed to-day when I heard the hon. member for Piquetberg justifying his attitude, the attitude of himself and his party, to the question of an armistice at the present time in this war on the ground of the support which the Boer Republics received from the English people in the Boer War. Not because I have anything but the greatest admiration for the support which the cause of the Boer Republics received in England. I, perhaps least of all in this House, need reminding of the sacrifices the English people made at that time in their opposition to an Imperialism which was at least part of the historical atmosphere of that day. But I am amazed and shocked at the fact that the descendants of those people are here receiving less than any sympathy from people for whom they sacrificed so much in the life and death struggle which they are faced with to-day. At this moment, the people who made sacrifices for the Boer Republics both in Britain and in South Africa, are the people whose ideals and whose hopes for civilisation are really at stake at the present time, and is there one word of sympathy with them in their struggle from those whom they supported, from those for whom they sacrificed themselves? Sir, it has been a bitter two days for me, these two days in this House. I have felt that whatever my colleagues on this side of the House felt about this war, the least they could have done was to have done some honour to the heroism and bravery of the ordinary soldier of the British cause. Whatever our leadership has been in the past — and I am perfectly prepared to state in this House, perhaps the only person on my side who is prepared to say it, it has been lamentable— there can be nothing but admiration for the courage and heroism of the people who are paying the price of that leadership. We have paid a very heavy price for bad statesmanship extending over the last twenty years, but whatever price has been paid has been paid with the utmost gallantry and the greatest heroism by the British people, paid for us in South Africa and for everybody else whose future is involved in this war. Now, when the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog) brought forward his peace motion in the last session of this House, I felt it incumbent on me, even as a fairly obscure member of this House, but representing a very large section of the population of South Africa, to make an effort to clarify my position and my support of the policy of the hon. the Prime Minister last September. The issues, I feel, were not as clear as they might be. The background of this war was such that it was possible for people to misrepresent the impulses which would impel right-minded citizens who hated war to support our entry into a war of this kind. I was not the only person who felt that it was a major tragedy in the history of civilisation that, twenty-one years after the close of the war to end wars, we were again faced with a greater trial, a greater menace to our existence than even that major tragedy that we went through from 1914 to 1918. I was not the only person in this country who believed that this tragedy that we are now sustaining could have been avoided, that it is the price of twenty years of bad statesmanship; that it was the price of a bad settlement at the end of the last war and the price of a lamentable failure to go back on that settlement in the years when we could still have built something decent and solid in Europe, in the years when we could have set the course of civilisation straight on its path, instead of allowing it to be deflected, threatened, pushed down the old roads of paganism and darkness. But, sir, while feeling all that, I still felt that there was nothing to do in September last year but to vote for this war; and I felt that in the light of my own point of view in regard to society, which is probably why I represent a political minority in this House. Representing that point of view and that political minority, I was absolutely satisfied that, wherever the responsibility for the war lay, the fact of the situation was that the principle of civilisation as we know it, our progress as we understand it, was definitely and immediately at stake. Bad statesmanship — or whatever anybody likes to call it — had brought into existence in Europe a force with which there could be no compromise — the days of compromise had passed. This was a force that we must either destroy or be destroyed by it, a circumstance of vital importance to us in South Africa whose tradition is part of the civilised tradition of the Western world. Indeed, we here in South Africa, owe everything we have, everything we are, our very being to-day, to the principles of Christian civilisation which we have inherited through the long history of Holland and Britain. And having a share in that tradition, it was, I believed, our duty, and our obligation to ourselves, to stand by the determination to fight for the revival of those principles. To me there was no other possible attitude to this war. What hope was there for me personally, for all I have worked for and hoped for and believed in, if in this country the principles of Christian nationalism, of national exclusiveness became the dominating principle of our political life. I am not going to argue the point that I tried to argue last year, namely that, economically, South Africa is too attractive to stand outside the grasp of any victorious dictator. In any case, that point has already been argued to-day by the hon. Minister of Mines better than I could argue it. What I am going to remind the House is that in the history of the world, the political system of the strongest power does dominate the rest of the world. The political system of the strongest force in Europe will again dominate the whole world. It does not matter whether we are conquered militarily or not, whether we fight or not; if Germany wins this war, the principle of personal liberty automatically goes out of our political life, and indeed, out of existence. And what comes in its place? The narrow principle of national isolation of national superiority — a revival of tribal exclusiveness. Apply that in South Africa with its diverse races and national groups and see what hope any of us have for a decent existence. I say convinced ly that if Germany had declared in the last ten years a social doctrine which would involve what Gen. Pétain calls the defence of work and family, Hitler would never have had to fight a war. But what he declared was a German doctrine—a doctrine under which he is out to build up a German people at the expense of every other people. He has said he will protect the people— but his protection extends only to his own people for whom he will exploit everybody else. Believing all that, as I do, I can see only one position as possible for anyone with my attitude towards society, which is that society should provide the frame within which a decent life shall be provided for everyone. This war must be fought. But I took my decision to support this war in 1939 believing that we might not win the war. I was probably one of the few people in this House who thought at the outbreak of this war that there was a possibility that we might not win. In view of that circumstance, some of my colleagues might have asked how I could take that decision. Well, my answer to that is that one must live by the light that is in one, and for myself, a world in which there is no room and no future for the individual is no world in which anyone believing in the principle of liberty can survive. Let me repeat, I did feel that the people who had led us into the war might not be able to lead us out of it, but I felt that it was better to pay the price of war for the principle upon which alone progress could be based, than to accept the securities of peace without it. To-day, I find myself in the position where I feel that there is no need for me longer to explain my support of this war, nor do I longer feel any doubt of our winning it. In fact I have a complete conviction that we shall win. And this, after what we have gone through in the last few months, after the series of tragic episodes which we have gone through. In fact, it is because of these episodes and their results that I am now so sure of the ultimate outcome. If anyone had said that we could live through all the blows which we have suffered in the last few months, we would not have believed it. I am inclined to believe, in fact, that if anyone had said that we should have to go through all these tragic episodes, some at least of us would have flinched. But we have not only got through these months, but I am satisfied that at the end of them, we are stronger than before. We are more sure of ourselves. The issue is so clear that there is now no necessity for anyone to doubt it. At present there is no longer any doubt in anyone’s mind—that is, anyone who looks at this matter dispassionately —that the British people are fighting for the principle of liberty.

That is not what we are told.

But let us suppose for a moment that, in spite of everything, we might still lose the war. My contention is that, where three months ago we might have made a sacrifice that would have had no life in it, to-day if we were to be defeated, our defeat would mean the inevitable rise again of the principle for which we stand. I base this belief on the fact that, in these last two months the English people have undergone a social and political revolution which has consolidated them, and clarified their position and their intention as these have not been clarified in the last two centuries. To-day they stand as one, knowing where they want to go, and meaning to go there to the best of their ability.

If they are allowed to.

They have thrown out their old leaders and re-defined the intention and purpose of the State. There is no doubt that that intention and that purpose had got dimmed. The social chaos of the last twenty years have reflected a serious loss of direction; but Britain has got back on her track again; she has taken up her destiny once more. She has begun to realise afresh that power involves responsibility, and to realise anew that the principle of freedom is more than a matter of a democratic constitution such as she gave to South Africa. She has begun to realise that political liberty is useless without social and economic freedom as its foundation. And when she begins to build on these foundations, as there are evidences she means to, and on the re-awakened initiative, resource and courage of her own people, she will build on a foundation which will take a great deal of shaking. I listened, as well as I could, to the hon. member for Smithfield (Genl. Hertzog) in introducing this motion. I may perhaps be forgiven if I did not hear everything he said, as he is notoriously difficult to hear at times. But I was amazed at one thing I read in the report of his speech, which I presume is a just interpretation of what he said. He is reported to have said that Great Britain with her small man-power was up against the great millions of Germany, together with the new millions of Italy, and then he added in regard to Italy that we had to regard the Italian soldiers as well-trained soldiers who possessed a fighting reputation never, so far as he knew, yet surpassed by British deeds or heroism in this war.

Quite so.

Surely the hon. member could not have said that. I am not reflecting on the Italian soldiers, but what have the Italian soldiers so far shewn themselves capable of? And did not the hon. member read the story of Dunkirk?

Of course he did.

. We have had Dunkirk thrown at us on every conceivable occasion in the last few days with a lack of a sense of the finer things in life which is a sad reflection on the national life of South Africa,

No sense at all.

No one in this country, or in Great Britain burkes the fact that Dunkirk was a great defeat; but no one should fail to offer a mede of praise to the heroism and the courage which were displayed there, and to throw scorn on that episode without admitting those facts shews less than due recognition of what decent people would think and feel.

You said decent people.

Now I did hear a remark made by the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) who told the House that people in England were still asking what they were fighting for. He said people in England are still asking for a declaration of war aims. That is so. They are doing that, but I personally problably know a good deal more about the sort of people who are asking for a declaration of war aims than the hon. member for Gezina, and I am prepared to give the House a little of my knowledge, which I am also prepared to back with reference to numerous publications to be found in the library. The people who are to-day asking for a declaration of war aims are not the people who did not vote for this war.

They want the war to stop.

No, they are people who voted for this war. They are the sort of people who voted against the Boer War at the end of the last century in the British Parliament.

And if they had the chance they would vote against this war.

They are the sort of people who believe that the community should have responsibility of all its members, and that one reason why we are involved in a great international struggle is that the community has so often lost sight of its responsibility in this regard. They are the sort of people who have helped to clarify the position in regard to this war. They have taken their stand behind the present leaders of the British people. They are the sort of people who have made the British Government put the resources of the nation at the command of the nation, and all they are asking now is that the British Government will set out explicitly what the position of a really democratic state should be. They want, and quite rightly, that the British Government should use as its propaganda in Europe the evidence that a democratic country can give both economic security and personal liberty to its people. The great dictatorships have never claimed that they can give both, but they have claimed that they could give the first. They have not even done that, and it is that this should be made clear that is being asked for by these people who are talking about war aims. If the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) who now rarely listens to anybody but himself in this House, will go and consult any of the journals in the library from those of the extreme Right in politics to those on the extreme Left, he will find the justification of what I have said. It is that fact that convinces me that the force of Britain is still going to count, the force of a free people. The hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog) tried to frighten us with the millions of Germans and Italians. I was amazed when I heard him, representing as he does the descendants of one of the small democracies in Europe which struggled against a mighty overlord to lay what were the real foundations of political liberty in Europe. Who would have imagined that the United Netherlands could have stood against the might of Spain in the 16th century? Our friends on these benches would, indeed, have told their ancestors that they were mad to try. I often think it is a great pity that the history of this House is confined to the Old Testament on the one hand and the Boer War on the other. Hon. members could learn a useful lesson from the history of Holland’s struggle against Spain. And this is not the first time that Britain herself has stood alone against dictator countries with twice her population. In the 17th century, she stood in a life and death struggle with France when she had a population of five million against a French population of twelve and a half million, a larger disparity in numbers than faces her to-day. Moral force has a power of its own, the moral force of the free mind. I must say that I personally feel more hopeful about the future of civilisation in this dark hour than I have done in the last 20 years. We have had a demonstration in the last two months that the moral factor still matters, that moral principle still has actual material force behind it. I am not afraid of the disparity in numbers that the hon. member speaks of because I know that, when we have counted men, we have still to calculate the moral force of a free people with the will to defend a free heritage. I have no doubt whatever of the result. But I am glad of the opportunity to make this declaration of faith which I feel we owe to the people who to-day are giving their lives for freedom, a declaration of faith in their ability to defend their and our freedom, and a declaration of my personal loyalty to their cause.

It is almost a full year ago since we declared war against Germany, and it is a peculiar fact that if we take the ordinary man in the street nine out of every ten are unable to tell us why we are in the war and what are the reasons for our having had to enter the war. The ordinary man in the street is unable to give any reason as to why South Africa is in the war. Our country was not threatened; our vital interests were not endangered, and so far as South Africa is concerned there was not the slightest reason for us to enter the war. It is certainly not a war for the defence of South Africa. The best proof that it is not a war for the defence of South Africa is to be found in the attitude adopted by the Government itself. The Government itself admits that the war is not being conducted for the defence of South Africa itself, but that it is being conducted for the purpose of attacking, and that for that reason it is necessary for a special oath to be taken by people taking part in the war. If this were a defence war it would not have been necessary for a special oath to be taken because the Government could then have commandeered the people under the Defence Act, which provides for the defence of the country. By acting in the way it has done the Government admits that we are not engaged here in a war of defence, but that this is a war in which South Africa is attacking Germany, and consequently the argument falls away—the argument which we so often hear in the country that we have to go and fight up there in the North because this is a war for the defence of South Africa. I go still further. The people who go to fight in Northern Africa, or wherever it may be, are so-called volunteers. I do not want to go into the reprehensible methods of compulsion which are being made use of in order to compel those people to go and fight outside the Union as volunteers. Let us for a moment accept the argument that they are volunteers. I then put this question: If a man is a volunteer and he voluntarily goes to fight, with what right then can we prevent him from voluntarily withdrawing from the fight? By what right can we prevent him then from going as far as he wants to go and then voluntarily to withdraw? On the contrary we find that they have trouble to get such people to sign. If a man wants to sign the various documents at his home they even take a justice of the peace to him so that he may sign, and as soon as he has signed and he does not want to go any further, he is treated as a criminal, and he is sentenced like a criminal without proper trial. Nobody is allowed to defend him. And then it is argued that those people joined up voluntarily and that they voluntarily go to fight in the interests of South Africa. I say that it is a scandal that such a condition of affairs is allowed here in South Africa, and that it is done officially on behalf of the authorities. On the 4th September we were placed in a difficult position. We had to decide here in a hurry, and without being prepared for it, whether we were going to declare war against Germany or not. We had to decide without having had the opportunity of consulting our constituents, and without being able to learn what the wishes of the people were. I say that the question which was put before us at the time was a difficult question, and the question which we have to answer to-day is still a great deal more difficult—why do we persist with the War? We often hear it stated here in South Africa by our friends opposite, and we also hear that Churchill states, that we are to fight to the end, until Poland has been restored, until Belgium has been restored, until France has been restored, until Holland and all the other countries have been restored, and I assume, until they have been restored to the position in which they were before. Are they really in earnest, and are they honest, when they tell us that we must continue fighting until all those countries have been restored? They know in their very soul that it cannot be done. Germany has not merely conquered that powerful France on the battlefield, but she has also conquered the English forces on the battlefield. She has driven England from Europe and we cannot but say that England has never before run away as she has done on this occasion. We sometimes hear the expression used here: “Drive the English into the sea.” In Europe the position really amounted to this, and the English were literally driven out of Europe into the sea. I do not want to rejoice over their sorrows. I only want to state the true facts, and that being so, I ask what right have we to think that England will ever succeed again in so establishing herself on the Continent of Europe that she will be able to achieve all these things which I have mentioned here. Can we expect England ever to be able to establish herself again to such an extent that she will be able to restore all those countries to the position in which they were in the past, so that she will be able to restore France, Belgium and Holland, and all the other countries again on the Continent of Europe. I say it is simply ridiculous to put forward such contentions. And then I Want to add this, we know that the very best England can expect is that the same thing that happened to France will not happen to her. All she can expect is that she will not be conquered because the sea protects her. The sea is her protection and nobody else. If the sea were not there and the war were fought against her on land she would have been conquered long ago in the same way as France was conquered. I say that the very best England can expect is not to share the fate of France, because the sea is there. The sea is the only reason for that. But what about our position in South Africa? Can we lay claim to any stretch of sea protecting us? We here in South Africa have to ask ourselves what hope we have with our small country against countries such as Germany and Italy, if they should move the scene of war and attack the British possessions in Africa? We have now sent forces to the North of Africa to go and protect British territories there, and I am glad to have heard from the Prime Minister that he admits that our troops have been sent there to go and protect the British possessions in the North. He admits that South Africa is engaged in protecting England, and that the converse is no longer the case. But what is the position going to be if a serious attack is made on those territories? We know that England at the moment is unable to do anything. England admits that she herself cannot protect her possessions there, and she is busy everywhere asking for assistance. She even appeals to the French to be disloyal to their own Government, to commit acts of treachery towards their own Government, in order to come to her aid. She appeals to the United States of America to protect her possessions there, and she is even prepared to hand over some of her possessions to America on a 99 year agreement of lease. Now I ask in the light of all that, what South Africa can do in East Africa? What is our position going to be if we are going to wage war there against Germany and Italy? We know that this may lead to a serious position being created so far as South Africa is concerned. England may lay claim to never being turned into a German colony, even if she should be conquered. England is over-populated already, and Germany is not going to establish a colony there, but Germany can do so with South Africa, and that is the reason why it is much more dangerous for South Africa to continue with this war, and that is why we should try in good time to conclude peace by immediate negotiations instead of continuing to fight until we, as the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) once said, may possibly become a German colony. To me it is most peculiar, if we study the history of the peace proposals which have been made. When Germany had conquered Poland she stated that she was prepared to make peace. Germany had obtained what it had set out to obtain, and was prepared t o make peace. The Allies — including ourselves — refused to make peace. We took up the attitude that Poland must be restored. Germany has conquered all the countries she has attacked. She conquered that powerful country France, and drove the English out of Europe, and after that she again came along and said that she was prepared to make peace and that she did not want to fight against England, but to our surprise England again refused to make peace. Let us take it that they can do as they please in England, but with what right can we refuse to accept those peace proposals? In this connection I want to put a question to the Prime Minister, or rather I want to contend that it is a fact that he, on behalf of South Africa, on behalf of the Government and the people of South Africa, has undertaken not to make a separate peace with the German Empire. He simply adopts the attitude that we go with England, and he has given an undertaking to Ehgland that we will not on our own withdraw from the war.

Where did he do that?

†*Mr. TOM NAUDÉ: Well, I am anxious to have a denial of that statement. I have not got the document at my disposal, and if the Minister gets up to take part in this debate, he will be able to deny that the Prime Minister has done so, if it is possible for him to do so.

I shall deny it now.

I further want to point out that the French Government refused to make a separate peace. They took up the attitude that they stood by England, and that they would stand or fall together. It was necessary to get another French Government which was prepared, on behalf of the French nation, to conclude a separate peace. I want to say that the people of South Africa will welcome it if we can get a government here which will be prepared to make peace in the interest of South Africa, and not a government which always allows the interests of England to be the final deciding factor. The Government realises that it has to give way. The sooner this happens the better, and I can only express the hope that it will happen before it is too late. We have had two separate peace offers from the German Reich, the one after the conquest of Poland, and the other after the conquest of France, and where does the argument of the Prime Minister come in, that Hitler is out for world domination? If that were so, would he have made that peace offer? Surely, after his conquest of France, his chances for world domination were a hundred times better than when the war started. To-day he is in the position that he has conquered all the peoples which he has been up against, and included among those is that powerful country, France. One would have imagined that if world domination was his aim and his object, he would have carried on, and if eventually he had succeeded in conquering England he would have had world domination. But he proposed peace, so what becomes of that argument of world domination? On the battlefields of Europe he not only conquered France, but he also vanquished England, which naturally would have been a stimulus to him to continue fighting until he had achieved world domination. In spite of all, he proposed peace, so it is quite clear that world domination was not his object. It is perfectly clear to me that the Government of the Union of South Africa is unable to think of peace before England has decided to make peace. We know what the attitude of the Prime Minister is, and of members opposite — if England declares war, South Africa has to follow suit, and I should like to put this position before the House. It may come sooner than we expect. If we vote on this motion to-morrow, and it is rejected, and England on Monday makes peace with Germany, South Africa will follow suit the day after and also make peace — not because it is in the interests of South Africa, but simply because England has made peace. It is not the interests of South Africa which will be the deciding factor, but the attitude of England. One of the strongest arguments adduced by the Prime Minister why we cannot ask for peace now, is that it will be dishonest and it will mean a breach of faith towards England. I do not know why it is so much a question of honour, and why we owe such a duty to England. Do not we owe loyalty and duty to South Africa? Should we not rather take into consideration our duty and our honour towards our own country, our loyalty and our duty towards those who in unhappy conditions live in this country; should it not be our honour and our duty to bring happiness into our own country instead of the unhappy condition prevailing here? A condition of the greatest bitterness and dissension South Africa has ever known. I now come to the point of the declaration of war against Italy. The thinking portion of the people — I am not referring to those who follow the Prime Minister blindly — were deeply shocked at the thought that our Government had declared war against Italy without in the slightest consulting the people and without calling Parliament together. There was ample time to do so, but without doing so war was simply declared against Italy, and the public were informed of that declaration of war. And now the Prime Minister pretends that it was Italy who declared war against us. There again we behold the attitude adopted by the Prime Minister. We are no longer free. England has declared war, and consequently we are also at war. I have in my hand the proclamation in which our Government by proclamation declared war against Italy without either consulting the people or the House of Parliament, and then we are told that we are a democratic country, and that we have a Government which fights for democracy and acts on behalf of the people. I want to say that we must definitely and strongly protest against the dictatorial way in which the Government is carrying on with its majority at its back. The Prime Minister has now adopted the policy of the Dominion Party, of the British jingoes on the other side, and he now adopts the attitude that if England declares war, if the English King is involved in war, he also declares war on our behalf, and we are at war. When Italy got into war with England the people were simply informed that we were also at war with Italy. In that way the Prime Minister repudiates the doctrines of democracy for which, according to his contention, we have entered the war. It is peculiar that our Government adopts practically everything which is bad in a dictatorship and none of its good qualities, that it retains practically none of the good qualities of democracy, but only maintains that which is bad. He ignores and neglects all the benefits of democracy. We have been told, ad nauseam in the past, and many people have believed it, that without the protection of England we cannot exist, but what a disillusion it was for those who imagined that to be the case when we found what had happened to the unfortunate countries which had relied on the protection of England, countries like Czechoslovakia, Poland, Holland and Belgium. They were almost protected to death — they were protected up to their very death. To-day they practically no longer exist. One would like to refer to the protection, the character of the protection, which England has extended to her Allies. Mr. Churchill has stated that 400,000 Englishmen fought on the Continent of Europe in Belgium, France and elsewhere, for the protection of Belgium and of Holland, and France naturally fought alongside of England. After the retreat he proudly declared that 350,000 of the 400,000 Englishmen had returned. In other words 50,000 had been captured, had been wounded or had fallen on the field of battle. What now is the position? Who has been protected? While 50,000 Englishmen fell in battle 500,000 Belgians were captured or died on the fields, that is to say ten Belgians for every Englishmen. Now, who has done his duty, who has been protected, and who has been the protector? Our Prime Minister has accused the French of treachery. He says that fewer Frenchmen fell in this war than in one great battle in the previous war, but if that is so, may I ask then how many Englishmen fell in France? Was there no treachery from the side of England? Did England do its duty towards France? There were two and a half million Frenchmen on the battlefields as against 400,000 Englishmen fighting alongside of them, and yet one hears talk of treachery on the part of France against England. We have learned that the small nations are unable to depend on protection from England and that on the contrary the small nations, such as South Africa, have to be employed to protect England and England’s interests. It is perfectly clear that the only reason why we declared war is that the Government has accepted the policy of the Dominion Party, of the British jingoes, namely that South Africa has not the right to remain neutral, that South Africa has not got the right to decide whether or not to take part in a war. England will decide. Nor has South Africa the right to make peace, England must decide. That is where the danger arises. I should like to remind the House of what the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) said on a previous occasion. He said that 90 per cent. of the neutral opinion of the world including America is with the Allies. When I asked him why then America was not in the war his answer was that America was an independent country while we belonged to the Bri tish Commonwealth of Nations. In other words we were not an independent country. We heard the same statement made by the then member for Zululand, now Senator Nicholls, who on the 4th September stated that it was no longer necessary for South Africa to declare war because South Africa was actually at war, seeing that England two days before had declared war. The Government now sitting on those benches silently accepts that policy and not only that, but its whole attitude proves that it does not accept the position of our being a free independent country able to decide for itself what it will do in the interests of South Africa. If we had remained neutral there would always have been an opportunity for the English-speaking and the pro-English sections who wanted to go and fight for England, to go and do so, and even the loyal Dutch could all have gone to fight as they are doing now. But the difference would have been that in that case no compulsion could have been brought to bear on Afrikaners to compel them to go and fight for England, and it would then have been unnecessary to have wasted £15,000,000 in one year and to take it out of the pockets of the people of South Africa, because in that event England herself would have had to pay. We know that in the war in Spain there were more volunteers taking part in the campaign on both sides than Spaniards, and I think that if it had depended on England more volunteers would have also fought on the Continent than Englishmen. The volunteers would have had to help and protect England, and her own people would not have fought. I wish to refer, however, to a few points in regard to the effect of the declaration of war. I only want jp point out that there is greater bitterness, greater division and disunion in the country to-day than ever before. It took years to develop a good feeling among the people, but that good spirit was actually created, and up to the 4th September we co-operated and we were under the impression that in practice it would be possible for the two races to work together. Everything was destroyed, however, by the declaration of war, and it will take at least a hundred years before we shall again be in that happy position, and in any case it will not happen so long as we have on the other side of the House a government which always wants to trample on us and humiliate us, and dictate to us in accordance with what England wants. Since the 4th September up to to-day so far as I know not a single shot has been fired by us at the Germans. As a matter of fact the Germans attach no significance whatever to our declaration of war, because as far as the real fight is concerned we are insignificant, but while we have done nothing against the Germans outside we have declared war against our own citizens in this country. We have in mind well disposed Germans, a great many of them, or people of German descent, who have become Afrikaners, and who are good citizens of this country. They have been cast into internment camps without the slightest trial, and we can well conceive of the feeling of bitterness which prevails among those people to-day. The Government has declared war against its own people and some of our own people are suffering great hardships to-day although all the while we are doing nothing against the Germans outside. Afrikaners, born in this country have been cast into camps without trial. We have always heard of such things happening in Russia, but to-day under our dictatorship these things are taking place in South Africa itself. The Afrikaners are being compelled, as a result of compulsory measures, to go and fight. They are threatened with dismissal if they refuse to go and fight, dismissal from the public service, dismissal from the service of town councils, or from the employ of private employers in South Africa, and because the mothers and the children are going to starve, the man is obliged to join up, and in that fashion the Afrikaner nation is being compelled; and then I come to the terrible insult and humiliation of our people as a result of the disarming which is taking place, not with a view to protecting South Africa, but in the interests of England. In the interests of England our rifles have to be used. It is peculiar that the Prime Minister should have said yesterday that this again is a war which has been declared against the historical enemy of South Africa. I could not believe my ears. England has always been our historical enemy, and now we are disarmed and our arms, our weapons are used in the interest of our historical enemy, and not in the interests of our own people. Dozens of Afrikaners are cast into gaol because they refuse to lower themselves and to allow their weapons to be used, not in the interests of our own people, but for the sake of the people against whom we forty years ago took up those arms. As a result of that declaration of war, and the way in which the war is being conducted, as the result of the declaration of war against our own people, hatred and bitterness are created, such as never before have prevailed in this country. Naturally it is nonsense when hon. members opposite declare that if we want to stay out of the war, and if we plead for peace in South Africa, that we are then pro-Nazi. The hon. member for Stellenbosch (Mr. Fagan) is not here, but he said once that when one finds that a young child faces a large and very cross dog, and he wants to kick that dog, and one takes that child away so that he cannot kick the dog, one cannot be accused of being pro-dog and anti-child. The same applies to South Africa, which has been dragged into a war in which it can only get hurt. It is nonsensical to say that we are pro-Nazi. Most of the countries in the world continue to be neutral. And even a country like Ireland is neutral, although one would expect a country like that much sooner to take part in the war than one would expect us to do so. Are all those other countries pro-Nazi? No, but naturally because we have become part of Great Britain, because we have been made into a part of Great Britain, in contrast with our membership of the British Commonwealth of Nations, we are pro-Nazi according to them. We have only been a few days in Cape Town, but I am already tired of seeing and witnessing the conditions prevailing here, and of seeing the way in which feelings are running high. We as an Afrikaans-speaking people, do not feel at home in Cape Town, and one asks oneself whether we, as Afrikaners, have to come to Cape Town, to the capital of the country, to feel that we are not at home here, and have to be insulted and stigmatised as traitors? If things go on like this, hon. members must not be surprised if we start putting the question whether the time has not arrived for an agitation to be started in favour of removing the capital to a town where the Afrikaans-speaking people also can feel at home. I only want to say that if that happens, Cape Town alone will be the cause of it. May I just ask what becomes of our so-called freedom, of which we hear such a lot, if we have to be afraid of giving expression to our feelings, if we are no longer allowed to say what we want to say, if we are to be disarmed, if some of our people are to be interned without trial, if we have to be insulted as traitors if we stand up for South African interests, and if even our womenfolk have to be insulted? Only recently a lady from a country district entered a shop, and she did not even know anything about this nonsense of the midday pause. She was assaulted. Is that the much vaunted freedom under the British flag? We want to warn the other side. They may carry on for a long time trampling on us, but the Afrikaner is not going to allow himself to be trampled on for ever. He will have his revenge, and he will protect himself. I have not got acts of violence in my mind. Do not again put any words into my mouth which I have not used, but the Afrikaners are organising, and they will see to it that their rights are respected. If there has to be a conflict, a clash, it i s the other side which will be responsible. Afrikaners are joining up in their thousands with the Handhawersbond and the Ossewabrandwag, and they only do so, so that they may work in the interests of South Africa and in order to protect their rights. The Afrikaner is getting tired of being trampled on and of being treated with contumely and contempt in his own fatherland. The Prime Minister said that he shuddered at the thought of the division and racial squabbles which would have broken out if South Africa should have declared itself to be neutral. There has never before been more racial hatred in South Africa than there is to-day, due to the declaration of war by the Prime Minister and due to the fact that we had failed to remain neutral. The Prime Minister must not take it amiss when I say that he himself has been the cause of most of the bitterness and hatred in South Africa. Let me cast my mind back to his past. In 1914 we were also unnecessarily dragged into a war by him. There was a rebellion. Some of our best Afrikaners were thrown into gaol. We are conversant with the disturbances which occurred in South Africa. We can remember the strikes which took place throughout the country, and the suppression and the actual shooting of workers, and the deportations without trial. To-day again we have the suppression of everything that is Afrikaans. The Prime Minister is prepared to trample on and to suppress anything that is Afrikaans. He has become a world figure, and he is looked upon in the world as a great man, but I must say that in South Africa his greatness consists of the fact that he is the greatest enemy Afrikanerdom has ever had. In France a court has been set up to investigate the question of who are responsible for the war. They want to know there who was the cause of France having been steeped into misery, and the court has the power to take action and to impose heavy penalties on those who are guilty of having caused the war. The people of South Africa will, when the time comes, also make an investigation, although I do not think it is necessary here to investigate as to who is guilty for our entering the war. All that will be necessary will be to impose a penalty. I hope they will not punish the Prime Minister too severely here, but that they will deport him to England, where he is much more appreciated, and where he will feel happier. I just want to refer to the deplorable spirit which has been created as a result of the declaration of war and I want to draw attention to what has taken place at recruiting meetings. For instance, they sent an officer, a certain Kleinenberg, to address a meeting at Pietersburg and to show the spirit animating people, and I want to quote from what he said. This is what he stated—

That is the language used by an officer of the Defence Force. What impression does that make on the people? He warns people of the consequences if our troops return as victors. That is the type of spirit which we do not want here. We shall later on have to work together again, and those absurd speeches stir up people and are most dangerous. Can we be blamed in the circumstances if we turn pro-Nazi? They turn us into enemies in our own fatherland. They defy and challenge us in all sorts of ways and they stigmatise us as Nazis, and in the long run one feels that one actually begins to become pro-Nazi. At that same meeting another speech was also made which was even more striking, and I should like to quote it. It was a speech by an English-speaking officer, Capt. Lissack, and in connection with the Mechanical Transport Division he made the following remarks which I want to quote—

I want our English-speaking friends to take note of this. That man did not come from our district, he came from Pretoria, and that is what he said; he told people there that 80 per cent. of those who had joined up were Afrikaans-speaking, at least in our areas. The English-speaking people and the Jews stay behind. Our Afrikaansspeaking men have to go and carry on the war which is being fought on behalf of England. But I want to quote something else, something that took place in our Chamber of Commerce there. A supporter of the Prime Minister, Mr. Holland, a well-known hotel proprietor, and friend of the Prime Minister’s, made these remarks at the Chamber of Commerce—

They want to stay at home and do business, but the Afrikaners must go and fight. Those are the kind of supporters the Prime Minister has—they want the Afrikaans-speaking people to do their duty. That is the impudence of the so-called key men who want to stay behind and who want us to go and fight. Hon. members no doubt have heard the definition of a key man. The reply to the question who is a key man is—“Ikey.” They try to do business while the Afrikaners have to go and fight. I want to say that if the Chamber of Commerce had approached me in connection with a camp at Pietersburg, which they did not do, I would not, after what has taken place at Potchefstroom and elsewhere, have been in favour of it at all. They only want to do business, but those camps only create dissension and difficulties. It is peculiar for Mr. Holland to have said that if they had had another member of Parliament the strategic importance of Pietersburg would have been recognised. I never knew before that a member of the House of Assembly can determine strategic positions, but that is his argument. They want to have those camps in order to do the business, and then they want to stay at home. I readily admit that it would have brought good business to the hotels and bottlestores principally, as well as to other concerns. But what are the feelings of the people. A meeting was held at Pietersburg attended by 5,000 people—it was the largest meeting ever held there. It is no longer necessary first to give notice of a meeting, the people simply come in in their hundreds. There was no hall available large enough to accommodate the crowd, and we had to hold a meeting on the Square and avail ourselves of loudspeakers. It was a protest meeting which asked for peace. This question of the commandeering of rifles had upset the people terribly. Some most unfortunate things have taken place and the meeting unanimously decided to ask the Government on behalf of the Northern Transvaal to exempt the Northern Transvaal. The Prime Minister declined to allow those people to keep their rifles. Well, at one time he used to be an Afrikaner, although he no longer is one, but surely he must realise the significance of a rifle to a Boer. It is something sacred to the Boers and he took their rifles away from them. But it is not merely a question of sentiment; there are hundreds of thousands of natives in the Northern Transvaal and round about us. There are native areas there and these people there urgently need their rifles for the protection of themselves and of their families. [Time limit.]

I listened attentively to what the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Tom Naudé) said, and I can assure him that we at Potchefstroom are very gratified that the camp is there. Although they do not want to have a camp at Pietersburg we are only too glad to have it. I have received a telegram from the Chamber of Commerce in which it is stated that they welcome the camp there and the Municipal Council of Potchefstroom has also sent a similar telegram to the Prime Minister stating that they welcome the camp and will do their best to co-operate with the people running the camp. I wonder what the farmers who are represented in this House by the hon. member will say about the attitude adopted by him? The Opposition represents everything we do here in a wrong light. It should be borne in mind that there still are Afrikaans-speaking people who have respect for the authorities in this country. I know that that is not the position so far as hon. members opposite are concerned, and that they do all they possibly can to stir up the public so that they shall not respect the authorities. If there is one thing characterising the feelings of hon. members opposite it is what was said here by the hon. member for Riversdale (Mr. A. L. Badenhorst), namely, rather be afraid than dead (liewer bang Jan as dooie Jan). That is the Opposition’s policy and that is how it will continue to be. Now I should like to direct a few words to the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp). He accused me of coming from a stock of hands-uppers.

Will you deny it?

Can you prove it?

Yes.

Then the hon. member should do so in the right place. It is an absolute untruth. I want to tell hon. members that at the time of the Anglo-Boer War I unfortunately was still a little too young to take part in the fighting.

And now you are a khaki knight.

When later on we took part in the Great War two of my brothers were kept very busy chasing the hon. member for Wolmaransstad, but they could not get near him. I was in South-West before the hon. member had gone into rebellion, and I used my own horse. While the hon. member for Wolmaransstad was still trekking about I was busy fighting the Germans — and I was not fighting on the German side — in South-West Africa. The hon. member had a lot to say about a number of people who are not here. If he wants to say anything about me, well I am here, and my past can stand the closest scrutiny much more so than that of the hon. member opposite. I did not take any part in the speeches which the hon. member for Marico (the Rev. C. W. M. du Toit) initiated here against the hon. member for Wolmaransstad. What the hon. member said at that time is on record, but I think that I should say a little more, so that it may also go on record. After the Boer War people of my family in the area where we live went to sell their goods on the Witwatersrand, and some of those people were murdered by the Chinese who had been imported into the country, and I ask who is the man who was paid by the Chamber of Mines in order to promote and foster the importation of Chinese? There he sits, and he to-day is the man who comes here and slanders my relations. When the rebellion broke out he was a staff officer at Potchefstroom, and what did he do? After he had gone into rebellion he asked for his resignation to be withdrawn, and he was quite willing to leave in the lurch the people he had advised to go into rebellion, so as to obtain security for himself — exactly as he has done now in connection with the handing in of rifles, after he had obtained exemption for himself. Hon. members will not find anyone in my ancestry who has been faithless and disloyal. It is only a short while ago when that hon. member over there loudly and openly stated at a meting: “I am a man of my word. The English people can take my word, I am no longer a Republican.” He even went so far at Wolmaransstad as to make out that his deputy-Leader was a liar — he did so in order to catch a few votes from English-speaking people there. I did not go into rebellion and I did not don a German uniform. I have never been unfaithful; I stand by the oath which I, like other people, have taken in this House, and now the hon. member comes here and insults my family. I am sorry the hon. member for Wolmaransstad should have considered it necessary to indulge in personalities again. If he wants to attack or criticise me, let him do so, and do it here, because I am here to defend myself, but why should he drag in people who are not in this House and who are unable to defend themselves? That surely is the lowest and most cowardly way of acting against another man. The hon. member further stated here that he had never yet heard that one could win a war by running away. I want to tell him that by running away one cannot save a nation, and that hon. member and his party are now on the run. He further wants to tell us that we on this side of the House do not represent the people. There are a number of people in this House who definitely do not represent the nation and they are that crowd of Hertzogites sitting opposite. There is not one of them who represents the people who have sent them here, and there are very few of them who will come back after the next election.

What about yourself?

The people who have sent me here have expressed their approval of what I have done on more than one occasion. We have been told here over and over again to-day that England is going to lose the war and that it is all over bar the shouting. This reminds me of the hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Conroy), who on the outbreak of war was walking about here and asking us: “Why are you afraid? Do you think England is going to lose? I do not think so.” And now he tells us that the war is already lost for England. No, we must face things and we must not change our minds from day to day. Those people who keep on changing their opinions are not going to have the people of South Africa behind them because the public realise that they cannot have any confidence in men like that. Take the neutrality question. There was a period, only a few years ago, when the Leader of the Opposition, together with his supporters who are now sitting behind him, decried a policy of neutrality as being ridiculous. Even the hon. member for Wolmaransstad ridiculed a policy of neutrality. To-day they are taking up a totally different attitude. No, it is a pity that we should get so excited and that the Opposition should carry on in the way they are doing because they think that they represent the people of South Africa.

Naturally.

That is the big mistake you are making. Let hon. members look at the figures shewing the number of people who have voluntarily joined up, and in spite of everything the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Tom Naudé) has said they will find that large numbers of good Afrikaners are to-day members of our Defence Force. That shews where the Afrikaner nation stands to-day; it shews where the heroes of the Afrikaner nation stand—not those who want to put up the white flag. Reference has been made here to the behaviour of the troops at Potchefstroom and a lot has been said about them. It would be better if we were to discuss this matter at some later stage. It has been stated here, however, that the English-speaking soldiers have done something or other. I want to remind my friends that at least half of the troops at Potchefstroom are Afrikaners, certainly just as good Afrikaners as any of us. If hon. members want to avail themselves of this opportunity to throw mud at our troops, they should realise that they are slandering our own people. The hon. member for Vredefort is a man who likes to clear up things. He was engaged in raising scandals here last year and like the hon. member for Piquetberg he indulged in threats here again today. He again said that the time would come to clean up things and to settle accounts. He said Hitler was coming. If he wants to settle accounts, why does he want to do it with Hitler as his master?

You are talking nonsense.

I am asking the hon. member why he talks so much nonsense. He comes along here with a lot of threats that he is going to do this, that or the other. I only want to tell him that his threats are not going to cause me any sleepless nights. His threats are useless and we are prepared for anything he may want to do. These threats are only stirring up the people and they have the effect of people doing things which hon. members over there will not take part in; and when they sit on the benches in Parliament the people they have stirred up are the sufferers. Just as our people have been stirred up in connection with the handing in of their rifles. A number of those people are in gaol to-day, while the hon. member opposite has an exemption in his pocket. We have been told about people who were going to be castigated. We on this side of the House can stand all this, and we are not going to faint or give in. We are not going to hoist the white flag without any reason. We know that we will have to suffer great hardships which may try us very severely, but we are not going to be discouraged. Let us here in South Africa look out for people who have backbone, and do not let us forget them. The people with backbone are to be found on this side of the House—they are not among those who take up the attitude adopted by hon. members opposite. We have been finding of late that the idea has taken root, and that that idea is being encouraged, that our people should not adhere to any great principles—people are encouraged not to have respect for the authorities, for the Government, and for the courts of the country. That attitude should not be persisted in, rather let us try and build up something for South Africa, something that is going to create a sound future for South Africa. If we do that South Africa’s future will be safe. I have also been told here that the hon. member for Vredefort on some occasion or other told the Prime Minister that if England were attacked, then, and then only, would we take part in a war. Naturally, in his usual way, he left the other part of his speech out, and the other part of his speech was: “If England were in danger.” I want to remind the hon. member that a great deal has already been said on this question, and I want to refer to the opinion of an outsider about the attitude of the United Party on the question of neutrality. The hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) after a full discussion in this House on the 12th April gave a summary of the debate which had taken place on the question of neutrality. He gave his impression of the attitude of the then Prime Minister, now the Leader of the Opposition, and among other things he said this—

That was the opinion of the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) regarding the attitude of the previous government, and I ask the hon. member whether he denies that now? We are accused of being the people who have created racial division in the country. I have in my hand a book entitled “Doctor Malan’s Double Political Game Unmasked.” This emanates from the Leader of the Opposition and in this book he attributes the racial division to his present deputy-leader. Who is the man who has caused racial division in South Africa? If we had not had a split in September last we could have lived together amicably, and this difficulty of racial division would not have existed. But what have we to go through to-day? We find that those people who sat alongside of us here, and not the Malanites, are excelling themselves as members of the Opposition. They are the people who make the strongest remarks and excel themselves in respect of anything affecting England, and they run down England as much as they can. They take the lead in doing so. Why? The Malanites are moderate to a certain extent but they are not, and it appears to me that it amounts to a personal question, and that they want to create an impression so that they may be able to retain their seats. Before the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition spoke here this afternoon I made some enquiries as to who would be the next speaker, and they said “Big Bertha” was going to speak. This is the first time I have heard that name applied to him, but I want to remind my friends that Big Bertha can only fire half-a-dozen shots after which it becomes useless. I just want to say a few things which have struck me especially as an Afrikaner, and as a man who stands by the Afrikaner people. We had a quotation made here by the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition about South Africa’s history, and it was rather peculiar that for his quotation he chose a history book written by an Englishman. Does he not believe in his own people? He believes a book written by an Englishman; he accepts the writings of those people, whether they are true or not, when they are against the leaders of our nation. I should like to know why he selected a book like that on a question affecting South Africa’s history.

Is what was stated in that book untrue?

I did not say that what that book stated was untrue. Do we in our school get any history books dealing with South Africa’s history written by a man in England, and would a book like that be acceptable to the Opposition? No, now they keep quiet. We were further told by the hon. member for Piquetberg that America was busy distributing the loot of the British dominions. Is the Opposition busy distributing the loot in South Africa? It would appear so. If Canada meets the United States authorities, we are told that it is a terrible thing. When the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) met the representatives of Kenya, I should like to know why they did not attack him; why was it a good thing in those days and why was there no suspicion about those meetings? No, in those days it was perfectly all right, but now that they can find something against Great Britain, they make a fuss. And what is the object? I want to say straight out that the reason is that the people who say these things are 90 per cent. pro-German. They are anti-English. We are accused by the Leader of the Opposition of being the satellites of Great Britain. Well, I would prefer to be Great Britain’s satellite, rather than Germany’s satellite. I am perfectly convinced that the object which the Opposition has in mind is that we should become Germany’s satellite. I am quite convinced of that, but we shall oppose anything of the kind happening with all the powers that are within us. On the one hand we are told that we have a weak Government here in South Africa, but if the Government takes action against anyone who misbehaves, the Government is accused of being autocratic. Members opposite can say what they like — and they do so — and then they roar, and next, to use the words of the hon. member for Potchefstroom, they whine. Rather let us try as Afrikaners to build up something which will be of lasting value to South Africa. We have the two races in the country, and they will be here for ever. None of us will see the time when there will be only one race here. We have to face these facts, and in that spirit we should perform constructive work. The hon. member for Pietersburg stated that the people of Pietersburg did not want to have a camp at Pietersburg, but the Mayor of Pietersburg assures us that the Municipality of Pietersburg has sent a deputation with a view to getting a camp established there. Apparently the hon. member does not represent the Municipal Council of Pietersburg.

He said so.

However, so long as we interpret the interests of our constituents, so long as we look after the interests of those who have sent us here, and so long as we do not look after our own pockets, so long are we doing something for South Africa.

You draw double pay.

That is untrue, and that again is one of those wind bombs which the hon. member is accustomed to fire.

A wind bomb is all that is needed for you.

There is another type of bomb which would suffice for the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer), and which would suit him, but it bears a name which I do not want to mention. As the Prime Minister has said, we are faced with the fact that we are at war, and whatever I can do so far as I am concerned, as one of the representatives of the people, I shall do to the best of my ability, to bring this war to a successful issue.

The hon. member who has just sat down has made a hopeless attempt to explain his pedigree. The hon. member need not tell us anything about his past — we have very little to do with it. We have to do with his present position, and as he is a member of that conglomeration over there, it is quite enough evidence to us of his present position. He has put out his chest to tell us what he is going to do to build up a great South Africa. I take it that he is going to build up, and that he is going to build on the principles which he laid before the country on the 4th September. On that day the hon. member, together with his leader, amply proved to the country what a deplorable South Africa this is going to be if they are to be allowed to build the future of our people on the principles of deception and national betrayal, which they committed on that day. I do not, however, wish to waste my time any longer on the hon. member for Potchefstroom (M. H. van der Merwe) and his khaki conceptions. I leave him where he is. I wish, however, at this stage, seeing that within a few days we shall have been at war for twelve months, to draw the attention of the House again to the two very important speeches made in this House on the 4th September of last year by two of our prominent leaders. Those two speeches were delivered, the one by the then Prime Minister in this House, and the then Prime Minister is sitting here to-day as the duly recognised Leader of the Opposition. The other speech was delivered by the present self-appointed Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa. The one speech was intended to keep our fatherland out of the war. The other speech was intended, because of a conception of honour and duty towards another country, to involve this country in war. In considering those two speeches I should like to make a few quotations to show what was the attitude and the object of those two leaders of the people. And I want to compare what was said on that occasion with what we find to-day in our country, after we have been involved in the war for nearly twelve months. The one leader of the people who made that important speech based his case first on a solemn promise which he had made to his country and his people together with his colleague of those days. Secondly, he based his case on the friendly relations and obligations towards all the other nations as well as the obligations towards the other members of the Commonwealth of Nations. The other based his case, as I have already said, on a feeling of honour and duty and a total ignoring of his obligations and promises to the people of South Africa. We as a people were certainly not in any way surprised at the attitude of the one leader, because the people of South Africa know him and have always known him as a patriot and a leader, a man who has always stood for the interests of his people and his country. But we were certainly surprised at the attitude adopted by the other leader — the people were astounded at the attitude adopted by him after what they had heard from him in May, 1938, when together with his colleague he had made peace promises to the people of South Africa, on which he was sent back to this House by the people. But I say that we were disappointed. When, however, the people reconsidered the position I believe they got over their disappointment, because when they got back to reality, after the experience they had had of the Prime Minister in the past — they were no longer astonished, because our experience in the past had always shewn us that when it was a question of the interests of his own people as against the interests of another people — as against the interests of Great Britain — he always chose the side of Great Britain. We know what his attitude was in 1926 when the Leader of the Opposition returned from the Imperial Conference, and brought us our independent freedom. We know what in 1926 his attitude was towards the Leader of the Opposition and towards our rights. He was not prepared to recognise our rights. We had to fight and to continue fighting for more than eight years before he arrived at that recognition, and even then he would not admit those rights. When in 1934 all the English people admitted that we should accept the Status Acts, only then did he come to that conviction, after all the English people had agreed. Again, in 1927, when this country by way of a symbol wanted to show to the world what our rights were here in South Africa, by our having our own flag — we again found that he actively stood up against his own country in favour of England, and again in 1939 we found on a question where he had to take sides between a war of England’s and the peace of South Africa — again he was consistent and again he stood against his own people in the interests of a war with which South Africa had no concern. Now I should like to make a few quotations from those two speeches. I first of all want to quote what the Leader of the Opposition said. I want to quote briefly. After the Leader of the Opposition had introduced his motion he said this—

We know what happened since that time in regard to the offer made by us not being accepted. In consequence of the rejection of that motion we had this position. Let us say it straight out. We feel that as a result of the rejection of that motion the Afrikaner here in South Africa has practically no longer got any sympathy with England’s position. As has been shewn by the speeches the Afrikaner sympathy towards England exists no longer, and our English friends will have to realise that our feeling of sympathy which on the 4th September was still a strong one—our feeling of sympathy with England’s difficulties—that sympathy I am afraid, if we must be honest, has disappeared. Yes, it has almost gone down to zero. The Leader of the Opposition further, just before he sat down, said this—

Hon. members may perhaps be surprised that we should hear so much to-day in this country about a Republic, but it is simply the result of the Prime Minister’s policy, and the prediction made by the Leader of the Opposition is coming true. It is peculiar, if one goes into the country to-day and one holds meetings, to find the enthusiasm there for a Republic. The Leader of the Opposition, the then Prime Minister said “By this policy I shall stand to the very end.” If one looks at his attitude to-day one finds that it is still exactly the same. Unfortunately that cannot be said of the attitude of his colleague who is now sitting by himself on the other side of the House supported by people such as the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell), the Minister of Mines and the Minister of Labour etc., and enemies of South Africa. We find that the Prime Minister does not adhere at all to the statement which he made on that occasion, and that things are being done in connection with the war which even his own followers have never dreamt that he would do. I quote again from what the Leader of the Opposition said—

If we look at the conditions prevailing in the country to-day and we find that we have been plunged into a war with two great nations, everyone will appreciate the danger which is threatening us and the calamity which is facing us. He further stated—

If we look at the misery in which the country finds itself to-day we have to acknowledge that that prophesy has come true. Is not there more than enough misery in this country, as a result of the way in which Afrikaans families are tom asunder, caused by the so called voluntary participation of citizens of this country in the war? Families are tom asunder. The people are divided. Tremendous damage is being done to property. What has actually taken place? There has been explosions, riots, national monuments have been damaged. For instance we have the Voortrekker Monument at Kuruman which has been maliciously damaged by youngsters and the names of people have been scratched out—the signatures have been scratched out. A scandalous position is prevailing in our country. The Afrikaner and his sentiments are trampled on, but the calamity does not stop there. Great Britain herself is also suffering great injury in South Africa, and in this respect too the phophesy of the Leader of the Opposition is coming true. The feeling against Great Britain is increasing in this country. Our products are being wasted and the country is suffering great injury. We have heard the lie-and-rot-story but the mealie farmers to-day are suffering great damages on account of the fact that there no markets for their products and their mealies cannot be transported anywhere. In Cape Town, the mother City, acts of violence take place. We read in the paper this morning for instance of a motor car which had been stolen, and of a serious accident having been caused. Hooliganism is on the increase. The burgers of the country are being pushed out of their jobs and their families are starving because the fathers or the brothers are not prepared to wear the red tabs. Numbers of relatives of people who have gone away are already in mourning because their dear ones have already had to pay the highest price—they have already perished in the foreign climes of the North of Africa. Breadwinners of families are cast into internment camps or into gaols because they have not handed in their own property—the only protection they have—because they have refused to be humiliated; they have refused to help the Government by handing their property to the Government in view of the fact that they are bitterly opposed to the policy undertaken by the Government. I am sorry the rt. hon. the Prime Minister is not here but I hope the other Ministers will convey to him what I want to say. The Afrikaner is greatly attached to his rifle, but irrespective of that the people in my part of the country find themselves in the greatest danger. There are thousands and thousands of natives there. Do hon. members know that there are natives who are allowed to keep their rifles, and are hon. members aware of the fact that the natives know that the farmers have been disarmed? We have heard of an incident where a native knocked on the door of a house where there was a farmer’s wife—she was alone and he told her that he had come to look her up. When she told him that he could not come to look her up his reply was that he was coming in because he knew that she had no rifle whereas they, the natives, were armed. Where is it going to end? The Leader of the Opposition further said this—

In this regard I want to say that the Afrikaner community has been deeply shocked by the disloyalty and treachery which on the 4th September were committed against us by hon. members opposite. The more we see the results of that breach of faith—and how different might not things have been if faith had been kept with us—the more we feel the injustice of what has been done against us. It should be borne in mind that we voted on that day in accordance with our solemn convictions. Not one of us has donned khaki uniform which would have given us extra pay. The Leader of the United Party and his colleague in the Cabinet, the Minister of Lands, and others of them, are playing with the feelings of those whom they have treated unjustly. The Prime Minister with his methods of impression which he carries out towards us, and our fellow Afrikaners; the Minister of Lands with his personal indifferent attitude, and the attitude of his Press, the control of which he obtained in a way on which I want to congratulate him as a masterpiece of dexterous, quick political chicanery, but certainly not as an action which can be commended to his fellow directors — I should like to quote now what the Prime Minister stated at the time. I am sorry that the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Trollip) and other hon. members are not here at the moment, because I should like to ask hon. members on that side who are still amenable to reason whether they are still satisfied with the attitude adopted by the Prime Minister. War was declared on the 4th September, but they never dreamt that we would have to spend £50,000,000 on the war in its first year. That terrible expenditure they never expected. I want to quote briefly the words used by the Prime Minister on that occasion—

There was no question of an offensive war, of soldiers being sent overseas, but on the contrary there was a promise in that speech that no troops would be sent overseas. I ask hon. members opposite whether they are still satisfied that no troops are being sent overseas. When we speak of overseas some people think that there is only one place, namely England. But can hon. members still contend that no troops have been sent overseas? We know that troops are put on board in Durban and are sent North by ship to fight in parts where they cannot wage war on behalf of South Africa at all. That also is overseas. When hon. members opposite were induced to vote for the amendment proposed by the Prime Minister they did not for one moment imagine that we would be involved in such tremendous expense. We have been deceived and the public are still being deceived to-day. Hon. members opposite were deceived on the 4th September when they voted in favour of the Prime Minister’s amendment. Now I should like to refer to the rediculous talk that we are now suddenly no longer pleading for neutrality but for peace. What do hon. members think? Can we still plead for neutrality after they have plunged us into the war? Surely it is perfectly clear that we can only plead for peace today and that we can no longer talk of neutrality. The way the Prime Minister is carrying on with the country’s money, and with the administration of the country, reminds me of the farmer who in the Bushveld succeeded in inspanning a lion in his wagon. He stopped along the road for the night, outspanned, and left his oxen in the yoke. A lion came along and killed and ate one of the oxen after which the animal lay down, as an animal will do after a big meal, with the result that in some way or other the lion was inspanned the next morning in place of the ox. When before dawn the wagon went on its way the farmer found that he was getting on very quickly and he could not understand how it was possible for him to do so. The wagon was going at a tremendous rate over rocks and rivers and holes, but eventually when he woke up properly he found that he had inspanned a lion. Unfortunately for the poor farmer the wagon had been considerably damaged in its progress over the rocks. A friend of his subsequently asked him how he had succeeded in getting the lion inspanned, to which the farmer replied that he did not know how he had succeeded in doing it, but that was not his great problem —his great problem was to know how to get it outspanned again! And that is what has happened to the Prime Minister. He has inspanned himself and he is going along at a tremendous pace, spending the country’s money, until no one knows where it is going to end. We can only express the hope that he will fall over the precipice by himself, and that the country will keep off the precipice. Hon. members opposite laugh when people say that England is in difficulties, and they laugh when they are told that communism prevails in England to a greater extent than in any country outside Russia.

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

When my remarks were interrupted I was just going to deal with a few contentions from the other side in regard to the position in connection with the war. That is to say in regard to which side is winning the war and which side is losing it. Hon. members opposite are so convinced that England is going to win that one cannot help pointing a few facts out to them. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition, as well as the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition, have already pointed out most ably that in this war England has been on the losing side throughout. There is no doubt whatsoever that England so far has always been on the defence. I should also like to deal with another point, the possibility of a revolution in England. We have in this House Afrikaners who generally pretend to know more about England than the English people do themselves, and for that reason I should like to read a few quotations from a book entitled “Famine in England,” which was published in 1938, a year before the start of the war. This book deals with conditions in England at the moment, it deals with events which are going to happen in England, and the author inter alia, says this — and we should bear in mind that it was only a year before the war when this was written—

When I read the word “babble” here I automatically think of the speech which we had here this afternoon from the hon. the Minister of Labour. The book goes on—

In regard to the position in England so far as London is concerned, and possible attacks, the author makes the following remarks shortly before the war—

I think the hon. member for Cape Flats (Mr. R. J. du Toit) by way of interruption remarked that no revolution could break out in England.

I did not say that.

Then I take it the hon. member says that a revolution can come about, and I want to make a quotation here to show that he is correct if he says that a revolution can break out. One year before the war the author of this book said this—

[Time limit.]

Mr. Speaker, it seems desirable at this stage of a’ very important debate to recall the fact that in the Act of Union there still stands a declaration that it is desirable for the welfare and future progress of South Africa that the several British colonies should be united under one Government in a legislative union under the Crown of Great Britain and Ireland. That declaration still stands in the South Africa Act, notwithstanding amendments, considerable amendments that were made to the Act in 1934. To-day a colleague of mine was showing me a photograph of the King and his premiers taken at the time of the coronation of our present sovereign, King George VI, and in that photograph the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog) appears, and I have no doubt he worthily upheld at that time the position of the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa. It is a pathetic circumstance, sir, that to-day — when I say to-day I mean in the course of this debate — we have heard words from the hon. member for Smithfield which should never have been found in his mouth, in view of the fact that he was representing South Africa as the Prime Minister of this country on that great occasion when the premiers from the various dominions gathered together to support King George at his coronation. He once said in this House: “Great Britain is not an enemy; she stands closer to us than a friend.” [Interruptions.] Now, sir, hon. members will kindly permit me to make my own speech, and I intend to do so. The hon. member for Smithfield made clear in his speech that he no longer represents orderly government. By the threats of violence and revolutionary action hurled by the hon. member at the Prime Minister, by the threat that unless he relinquished the course of action decided upon by Parliament and followed the course dictated by the hon. member for Smithfield the Prime Minister would “have to fear the consequences of what happened,” it became clear that the hon. member for Smithfield had thrown in his lot with the revolutionary elements now at work in the Union. The hon. member had said that “no authority of any sort would be able to prevent the people of South Africa from setting their maladministrators an example which would echo for all time in the history of Afrikanerdom.” That was a clear threat of violence that is to take place in this country unless the Prime Minister abandons the course that has been approved by Parliament itself. The hon. member for Smithfield made reference to the action of the Prime Minsiter in connection with the war as a reckless gambling with the life of the citizen, the destiny of the Afrikaner people and the freedom of the country.

Hear, hear.

Now, sir, the hon. member who says “Hear, hear” will kindly hear what his own leader, the hon. member for Smithfield, said on the very subject of his will to engage Italy in an African war. He recommended, sir, our going to the point of compelling Italy to declare war over sanctions, and I am going to read his words. There is not a soul in this House who will not be astonished to hear what the Prime Minister advocated on that occasion.

Your leader told us all about that.

My leader did not refer to this paragraph. He hadn’t the time to exhaust the futilities of the hon. member for Smithfield. The hon. member for Smithfield said — this was on the 16th June, 1936; I am reading from Hansard—

That was the advocacy of the hon. member for Smithfield at that stage.

Yes, and you did not declare war, and neither did England help us to do so, and Italy is in Abyssinia to-day.

The hon. member knows that a declaration of war by this Parliament was only possible if the Prime Minister had moved accordingly. As a matter of fact the Prime Minister was at that moment paying Italy £400 per day as a shipping subsidy which enabled her to carry troops and supplies to Abyssinia while her war against that country was going on. While Italy was engaged in her war of aggression the Prime Minister was helping her with a cash payment of £400 per day. And then the Prime Minister went on to say—

That was the considered statement of the then Prime Minister (the hon. member for Smithfield) declaring himself in favour of war if Italy continued with her policy of aggression and he said he did not mind whether Italy had succeeded or not he would engage her in war in Africa to vindicate the position of the League and to protect South Africa. Now we have the same hon. member coming forward and going to the verge of threatening the present Prime Minister with revolution unless he makes instant peace with this country against which the hon. member spoke in such bellicose terms in 1936. It is a puzzle which none but the people who sit beside him and give him blind support can understand.

You have not got any great understanding.

The hon. member reminds me of a very amusing situation described by no less a person than Harry Lauder. In one of his songs, Harry Lauder describing an unwonted sense of courage derived from a certain source said “I feel as brave—as brave as a highway robber”! That is the position of the hon. member. He feels so brave that he cannot contain himself. The position of the hon. member for Smithfield is that he was a member of the National Convention which drew up the Act of Union. He was with the English members of that Convention part-author of that phrase which declares that it is desirable for the welfare and future progress of South Africa that the several British Colonies should be united under one Government in a legislative Union under the Crown of Great Britain and Ireland. Now this is the legislative Union. Now what do we find in this Legislative Union? We find that in that Union a colleague of the hon. member for Smithfield declares that he will move for a Republic in spite of that declaration which is contained in the Act of Union, and which is there with the expressed approval of the hon. member for Gezina himself.

It could be altered.

Well, that shews the hon. member’s respect for a binding compact. The hon. member for Gezina happened to be the Minister who was entrusted with the introduction of amendment to the Act of Union in 1934. On that occasion he failed to hint at any such alteration, in fact he assured us of the reverse, he said that there was no intention whatever of altering the Act of Union except in so far as the procedure had changed, and the amendments were merely to conform to the existing procedure under the Act. Now you have the hon. member for Smithfield threatening violence if the Prime Minister does not retreat from the position decided on by the Parliament of this land. That is a curtain raiser to the declaration of the hon. member for Gezina who said: “We will not allow ourselves to be muzzled, we will continue to work not only for peace but for the institution of a Republic.” I am quoting the words used by the hon. member. Now I represent the English speaking people of the country, in my constituency in any case, who on this particular subject are amazed to hear that at this time we can have barefaced talk of a Republic in the Assembly of the Legislative Union, which was agreed upon us being under the Crown of Great Britain and Ireland by the common consent of the people of this country. We are now told that a Republic can be demanded, and we understand from the utterances which have been made by certain gentlemen in this House that that Republic is to come into force in three weeks time.

Hooray!

No, that can only happen by means of violence and if revolutionary action is taken in this country. We have these very threats made in this House, made by an hon. member who has grown old in the service of the Union, and who might for that reason alone have refrained from making such a public exhibition of himself in regard to a matter of this kind. He knows perfectly well that if he is a party to an attempt to bring about a Republic in this country he can only do it by violence, and that violence will not be confined to one side.

We can do it without.

I have noticed on the part of hon. members on the Opposition side an inclination to cry out because some of their injudicious partisans have met with violence but I have seen that wherever violence has taken place it has been provoked by insults and unmerited insults by a lot of callow youths who have no right to insult their elders, and have got to be taught better manners.

Potchefstroom.

We are at this moment confronted with a statement by the hon. member for Smithfield introduced in all seriousness in this House that unless the Prime Minister stops in the course which Parliament has decided upon there will be action which will bring its punishment upon the Prime Minister. I consider that to be an impudent statement—and I also regard the demand by the hon. member for Gezina in this House for the creation of a Republic an impudent one—they are statements and demands which should make both these hon. members hang their heads in shame. They have no right to come into this Assembly and make use of language of that kind when the Act of Union stands as it does. If the intention is to tear up the Act of Union let it be known that that is their intention. The hon. member for Fauresmith (Mr. Havenga) not many months ago made a speech in which he said that he dissented from the movement for a Republic because there were tens of thousands of Afrikaans people who were not in support of it. He added that practically the whole of the English-speaking people were opposed to it, and he said that any such movement would result in a demand being made for the break up of the Union itself. That was not my pronouncement, that was the pronouncement of the hon. member for Fauresmith, and I have never yet heard the hon. member vary that statement. That was a moderate statement tending to restrain a number of revolutionaries in a course which was dangerous, and I am sure that the hon. member will be held in respect by people of both sections if he contiues to use that moderating influence upon those who lack the experience and the wisdom which he has. Now if we are to be honest with ourselves, if we are to believe the evidence of our senses, and not of Zeesen, we shall be bound to say it is perfectly true that Great Britain commands the seas. We have the evidence of our senses. I need not dwell upon what everyone must have observed here in Cape Town in the last few days.

Those ships could not go through the Mediterranean.

Do not talk silly.

I do not know where that puerile remark emanated from, but it certainly does not show that the hon. member is using his intelligence in regard to a matter of this sort. The circumstance that the ships do not come through the Mediterannean is due to the fact that the British Fleet has closed that sea. The British Fleet is in command of the Mediterranean and has ordered the ships to take the other route. The hon. member who made that remark should be grateful that at this stage so large a number of vessels are making use of the Cape route, but the fact remains that the British Fleet is in command of the Mediterannean. Now, speaking of the British Fleet has reminded me of a very important fact. Die Burger, an important journal in this town, advertises in a newspaper called British Trade in South Africa and it is the terms of this advertisement that I want to call attention to. Die Burger has this wonderful advertisement which I have no doubt the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) will entirely endorse—

Now, sir, I want to supplement that with this poster — appearing in the same issue with the Die Burger advertisement — which has on it a picture of an important unit of the British Navy and the slogan, “Buy British Goods. Our Trade Depends on the British Navy.” Having seen this, hon. members will surely support the British Fleet upon which our trade depends, by using the “Buy British Goods” sticker on all their letters. Our trade depends on the British Navy. All our exports depend upon the efficiency of the British Fleet, of that there is no doubt whatever I can assure you. I notice that the hon. member for Walmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) sneered about the Royal Navy’s victory over the Graf Spee. I think I detected in his tone a note of regret that the Graf Spee was no longer in existence. He seemed in some incongruous way to sneer at the victory which no other person in the world has found it possible to sneer at. [Interruptions.] Now I want to touch upon another aspect of Britain’s work in this and other parts of the world. That work merits very high commendation and I want to read to the House what was said by a very prominent man about the colonisation of the world by Great Britain. This man said, sir—

This, sir, is not a quotation from a British Imperialist. I am prepared to give hon. members two guesses as to the identity of the author of this statement.

The hon. member for Smithfield.

No, though I can imagine the hon. member for Smithfield holding such a view during any one of his visits to Great Britain. The statement was actually made by Adolf Hitler speaking in the Reichstag on 23rd April, 1939. You will find it in a book written by no less a person than Count Pückler of the Deutsche Algemeine Zeitung. I do not place much faith in this statement myself. I have been a reader of Herr Hitler’s utterances from time to time and they have shown his boundless capacity for dissimulation. The hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) seems still to have a lingering doubt as to whether Adolf Hitler must be recognised as a man in whom no belief can be placed and he tries to justify the general, the almost universal want of faith in Hitler’s word by the statement that he supposes that statesmen are verbally untrustworthy. I only want to remind the hon. member for Gezina that there is scarcely a country that has been ravished by Hitler that has not got in writing from him a pact of non-aggression. That was always the preliminary, Mr. Churchill once said, the preliminary to being ravished and murdered, namely the pact of non-aggression from Hitler. He said the state which received that “safeguard” realised that its luck was out and I think that is very true. I want to express my surprise, sir, at the attitude of mind that seems to pervade the Opposition members. I have been surprised at many of their utterances and disgusted at some of their performances in this House. One hon. member — I shall spare him blushes and not name him — indulged in a mimicry in this House of the agonies of British soldiers who were drowning on Dunkirk Beach, and that caused a ripple of laughter among the Opposition. Sir, you have heard of members of this House referring to these particular men who were prepared to lay down their lives for us as well as for other people for whose cause they suffered as a “flight of a lot of wet rats.” Perhaps I had better not identify him; he may be allowed to identify himself and he may be proud of it. Yet he is an hon. member whom I had thought better of, and whom I have heard well spoken of. Another hon. member, the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman), is reported as having referred to the South African Army as consisting of “Smuts’ paid cowards.”

That is a deliberate untruth.

It was so reported in the Press and I hold the report in my hand.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, may I say that the statement attributed to me is a deliberate untruth?

I am glad to hear that because it was a statement that shocked me considerably. Another statement reported as having been made by the hon. member for Fordsburg in the province that I represent, was a statement of a very offensive kind about the Prime Minister, whom he referred to as a rat. I do not think the hon. member can deny that. The report was made by a very reliable reporter and if it is questioned I shall refer to him to have the matter verified. My own belief is that the hon. member did make that statement.

If you read the whole of the statement you will see that you have taken this from the context.

I have never agreed with the politics of the hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog), but he would be the first to say that I have always honoured his tenure of that position and have treated him with the respect which belongs to that office, and I have never at any time departed from showing him the respect which the position demands. I hope that we shall have an end to this sort of thing. I can assure the hon. member, who is a young member, that it does not redound to his good name in our province. I was asked, not by one but by hundreds of people: “Who is this man?” and I can assure him that he got no credit out of the views expressed by him. Now, sir, I hope that a more moderate feeling will prevail in regard to these matters. If we are to have people meditating a republic because they imagine Great Britain is in a bad way —well then, as far as we are concerned that is the sort of action which to us stands as the meanest betrayal and will be resisted accordingly. It stands as the meanest treason and treachery that any man is capable of. We have been fair. We have met the Afrikaans-speaking people on every occasion.

Have you?

We have entered into agreements. We have entered into the greatest agreement of all, the compact of union, but if that compact is to be trodden underfoot, if it is to be dishonoured, well then let come what may come, but we, in so far as we are concerned, have observed the compact. When it is dishonoured of course it ends, but we are not made of the stuff, sir, that will be trampled underfoot by people who imagine they are at liberty to take a mean advantage. We have had crocodile tears over the poor response said to have been made at the recruiting tent, but sir, those crocodile tears deceived nobody. They are wept in joy, under the false impressions that there has been reluctance to join up. In so far as I am concerned, I represent a farming constituency that has been denuded of its men. All its young men have gone to the front, and the problem to-day is how are you going to carry on the farming? Those men responded long before there was an appeal made for recruits. Not a single recruiting officer ever visited their district. They went of their own free will. They went, sir, because they honoured the stand made by the right hon. the Prime Minister, and that, sir, that stand, counts for more than all the recruiting offices you can think of. The hon. Prime Minister has a difficult task to perform. Let us not make it more difficult by divisions and by treachery and treason. Let anybody read this petition, this precious petition, signed by the mothers and the women of South Africa, which actually contains an attack on the Governor-General.

Quite right.

That vindicates what I say. Line after line of the petition is packed with misrepresentation and untruth. I do not blame the women, sir. They are not skilled in politics, and they signed this not knowing what they did. [Time limit.]

It was amusing and pathetic at the same time to listen to the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick). It was amusing to hear him declare boastfully that the British Fleet was still in command of the Mediterranean Sea. Let him go and have a look in the streets of Cape Town. There are 22,000 British soldiers who in spite of the powerful British Navy have not been allowed to pass through the Mediterranen Sea. If that is the command which the British Navy has over the Mediterranean Sea ….

Do you know where they are going?

They certainly have not come to pay Cape Town a visit, and they are not here for their health, although I am afraid that if they continue to carry on in the streets of Cape Town as they have been doing in the last few days they will not be in very good health when they leave here.

Most of those big ships cannot go through the Suez Canal, they are too large.

I have never yet heard that if one goes to Egypt one has to go through the Suez Canal. But if one looks at the position one gets the impression that Hitler’s secret weapon is actually in operation already. But at the same time I say that it is pathetic. The same man who talks so big here about the protection of the powerful British Fleet puts up a plea for the support of the British Fleet. If things are going so badly I would suggest that he organises a street collection.

Have you seen any of Hitler’s ships here?

No, but they are over London. I would advise the hon. member to go and have a look at England where he may perhaps see something which he has never seen before. The hon. member for Illovo, however, in language unworthy of this House, has made an attack on the highly respected Afrikaner women and girls who have signed the peace petition. It does not become the hon. member to insult the Afrikaner woman. She has been insulted quite enough by the Prime Minister, and the hon. member need not add to that, and that is the same man who makes a fuss here and is indignant because some one or other has used insulting language about the Prime Minister. What right has he to stand up for the Prime Minister if he is not ashamed of himself for using insulting language about the Afrikaner woman and the Afrikaner girl? I want to ask him as an Englishman whether the Afrikaner woman and girl has not in the past bad to stand enough from the English-speaking section of the community? There is no need for him to come here and insult them. The hon. member has also held forth against our Republican ambitions, and he has told us that we should realise that we shall not be able to achieve a Republic without violence. I want to give the hon. member the assurance that we do not contemplate any violence, but if the people of South Africa avail themselves of their rights and the hon. member for Illovo objects and gets hurt, he should not blame us. If he wants to resist the sovereign will of our people when the day comes, he will have to stand the consequences. We do not contemplate any violence. It may be a good thing as well to warn the Prime Minister in good time, because this is not the first time that the hon. member for Illovo has spoken of violence. He did so during the previous session as well, and if the right hon. the Prime Minister wants to set up such a large number of concentration camps for people who commit acts of violence, I want to ask him whether the time has not come to stop this reckless member for Illovo a little bit? I listened with interest yesterday to the Prime Minister, and I must say that I have never yet heard him speak as convincingly as he did yesterday. If his followers have to secure inspiration and have to be convinced by the conviction of the Prime Minister that England is going to win the war, then one must feel sorry for them. He may perhaps have been impressed by what is going on overseas, because the only conclusion one can come to is that things overseas are going very badly for the Prime Minister. His lack of conviction must undoubtedly have driven his Jewish and English supporters to despair, despair which sometimes looks like madness, and in that connection I wish to refer to the resolution which was suddenly taken by the Cape Town City Council yesterday. Just before the symphony concert was to have started the Cape Town City Council banished the music of the great German composer, Wagner. An action of that kind can only be caused by a desperate soul. The City Council of Cape Town must apparently have thought that the heat and the fire of Wagner’s Voltaire would bring about the downfall of the British Empire. Apparently they confused the fire and the heat of the Voltaire with the blitz of Hitler’s blitzkrieg. I should like to put this question to the English-speaking citizens of this country: Are they really in such a state of despair that they must banish art, be it German art or whatever it may be, just because it is German art? We can readily appreciate the great indignation caused by this stupid action.

You must be very hard up for arugments if you snatch at that.

Does the hon. the Minister also object to German art? If he does surely he should also object to German blood, but how can he do that while King George is on the Throne? If they object to German blood they should raise objections to the King.

I said that you must have very few arguments if you want to raise that ridiculous incident as evidence of what is happening in this country.

I ask whether the Minister is also objecting to German blood, and I want to tell him that if he wants real red British blood in order, by means of transfusion, to make the King’s blood more British, then we in South Africa have the right man for it, namely the Minister of Native Affairs. The right hon. the Prime Minister, fortunately, on this occasion mentioned only one reason why we must wage war against Germany, and that reason was Germany’s aggression. Fortunately he did not put forth his other reason on this occasion, namely that we are fighting for the preservation of Christianity. To-day he only speaks of our having to combat German aggression. Now let me briefly put forward the attitude of the Afrikaner. In the first instance the Afrikaner has had experience of aggression, but that aggression has never yet come from Germany. The only aggression which the Afrikaner has so far experienced from any white nation here in South Africa has come from the nation and the country of the Minister of Commerce and Industries, that is to say from England. We do not know of any other nation which has ever committed any acts of aggression towards us. We in this country do not know Germany as a country which has committed acts of aggression towards us; we only know England from that point of view, and if the Government now holds the opinion that our people had to go and fight against Germany because Germany has committed acts of aggression, then I must tell them that they are expecting too much of the Afrikaner. But I should like to ask the right hon. the Prime Minister whether he has forgotten the fact that the history of the Afrikaner is chock-a-block with instances of aggression. Let us for a moment look at the history of the Afrikaner in South Africa, bearing in mind the acts of aggression which have been committed against him since England in 1806 conquered the Cape. I notice that the hon. member for Cape Town (Gardens) (Mr. Long) is laughing. Well, this is not a thing to laugh at: it is something which he should be ashamed of because it is his country and it is his people who have committed those acts of aggression. That act of aggression did not merely lead to the acquisition of the territory held by the Boers in South Africa, but it also led to the death of twenty six thousand children and women in the concentration camps set up by the country and the nation to which the hon. member for Gardens belongs. If there is one thing which the Englishman must not ask the Afrikaner to do it is that the Afrikaner should give his blood to go to the assistance of England when England is involved in a great struggle. We hear such a lot said about the fifth column. If we here in South Africa put forward our attitude in regard to the war, we are regarded as a fifth column, and even a man like Duff Cooper has the temerity to say that no man who is an Englishman has ever been guilty of the crime of being a member of a fifth column. What did Japan have to say about that? Japan imprisoned a number of highly placed English officers because they were members of a fifth column and were doing work of espionage. I am not even talking now of what has taken place in Russia. And then our friends opposite come along and dare throw the accusation at our heads that we are members of the fifth column. We have become acquainted here in South Africa with the fifth column and the members of that fifth column belong to the political followers of the right hon. the Prime Minister, and members on the Government benches. They were the Abe Baileys and the Lionel Philips and people of that kidney, and it was they who in 1895 set into operation a fifth column in the Transvaal and who carried on work of espionage there, but I have not yet on any occasion found any hon. member on the opposite side of the House getting up to condemn the deeds and the actions of those people. On the contrary they put laurel wreaths round their necks, and their memory is kept ever green. Members on the opposite side of the House and to wit, the right hon. the Prime Minister, are great admirers of Rhodes. It is Rhodes and Chamberlain who stood at, the head of this fifth column, who did espionage work, work of undermining the authority in the Transvaal—they were men who had enjoyed the hospitality of the Transvaal, while they were filling their pockets there, but in spite of all this they acted as traitors and agents on behalf of British Imperialism, and they are the people whose memories are now revered, and then hon. members on the Government benches have the temerity to accuse us on this side of the House of being fifth columnists, simply because we put forth the standpoint of the Afrikaner against the unfair attitude of the Prime Minister which we have had to put up with latterly. No, all this talk about aggression and about fifth columnists leave us stone cold. We know that as far as England is concerned there are only two reasons why England has declared war. The first reason is, and nobody will blame England for that, that as against English Imperialism another strong European nation has arisen which has become a danger and which has threatened to throw English Imperialism off its throne. The declaration of war was simply a step which British Imperialism was compelled to take if it wished to maintain its domination of the world, and that is not all. There is another factor as well which we have to take into account, and that is the Jewish factor.

I was under the impression that you had already forgotten that.

No, we can forget them just as little as the hon. the Minister of Commerce and Industries who every day has to put up with their competition. Nor do we blame the Jews for that fact. They declare that they have a grievance against Germany on account of certain actions that were taken against them, and the result of those actions is that the Jews over the length and breadth of the world have been calling for vengeance against Germany. So far as England is concerned we therefore find these two factors on account of which she has declared war, first of all because there was a danger from the side of Germany that British Imperialism would be forced off its throne, and secondly, the Jewish capitalist who called for vengeance against Germany.

You require to see a brain physician.

We have been dragged into the war because we are still part of the British Empire, because the British connection is maintained, and because to-day’s Prime Minister, since 1902, has become the successor of Rhodes in South Africa. He is the one man who fights and works for the expansion and the strengthening of British Imperialism. He has ceased to be an Afrikaner and he has associated himself with British Imperialism; he has associated himself with everything that is British. And I say this with great sorrow because I should very much like to have seen ’n man of his great intellectual abilities remain an Afrikaner. Since 1902 he chose that course, and he has faithfully followed that course, and not for one moment has he deviated from it. He has faithfully followed the course which he has chosen; he has remained faithful and now I want to say this: I have the greatest respect for an Englishman who is prepared to die for the British Empire. I am prepared to raise my hat to him.

But you insulted the British army by saying they ran away like a lot of wet rats.

It is a fact that they ran away. Hon. members over there have been telling us how bravely they ran away and it is a fact, too, that they were wet. Therefore they ran away and they were wet. The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) should rather pay attention to the Australian troops which some time ago created those scandalous scenes here in Cape Town. I want to revert to the point which I was trying to clear up a little while ago. I raise my hat to every Englishman, whether he has run away or not, who goes to fight for the British Empire. I do not blame him for doing that. As the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister is still following the same course which he has been consistently following since 1902 I can well appreciate that he is prepared to die for the British Empire. That is his business, and I do not blame him if he is prepared to die for the British Empire, but the only thing which I do take amiss from him is that he does not want to die by himself for the British Empire, but he wants to take South Africa with him down the precipice.

He is fighting for South Africa.

If there is any need to fight on behalf of South Africa we shall fight for South Africa. I want to say this that if I were an Englishman then I would not, now that England finds herself in difficulties, sit across the seas in complete safety. Now, what is the result of the steps which have already been taken? The consequence of those steps first of all is that there has been an enormous waste of money — but that is a matter I do not propose going into at this stage. I merely want to put this question: If that amount of £46,000,000 which has been voted for war purposes — and I am not even now speaking of the amount that was voted during the previous war — if that amount had been used with a view to developing South Africa, so that South Africa were able to provide a better living for its own sons and daughters than is now the case, how much better would it not have been — it would have been far better than spending all this money on this mad war. That is one of the consequences of our participation in, and the continuation of this war. And the other consequence is this — this condition of hatred and malice which has been created in this country between citizens of our country, between Afrikaner and Afrikaner, and between Afrikaner and English-speaking, as a result of the attitude which has been adopted in this country, an attitude which we can only describe as British imperialistic impertinence. We find that division, hatred and malice have been created in the Police Force, in the Defence Department and in other departments of state. We have this position, that people are being compelled as a result of the Government’s war policy, to sign the Africa oath. The Minister of Mines is not here at the moment, but he indignantly denied this afternoon that any compulsion is being brought to bear on people because of their refusal to take the Africa oath. He denied that any compulsion was being brought to bear on people to go and fight in this war. I know that the Minister of Mines is regarded as an honourable man, and I am prepared to take it that he is quite ignorant in regard to what is going on in this respect. But the Minister of Justice is not ignorant of these matters, because he knows what is going on in the Police Force and what compulsion some of the senior officers have brought to bear on other officers and non-commissioned officers and men to force them to take the Africa oath, and if he and the Prime Minister deny that that compulsion is being brought to bear, then I ask him to agree to the appointment of an impartial commission to enquire into this condition of affairs. I know some of those officers, non-commissioned officers and men, and I know what those people have to put up with. If I may put it this way — I know the hell they have to go through if they refuse to take the Africa oath. In connection with the internment of South African citizens, too, hatred and malice are being created. Does not the Prime Minister realise the spirit of hatred and malice and resentment the actions of the Government must create in this respect? Does he not realise the feelings which are being aroused in the minds of the people and does he not realise how resentful these people must feel because of their being treated in such an unfair manner? If the Minister denies that that is the position, then it is very easy for him immediately to appoint a commission, and if he is prepared to give an indemnity to those who will come and give evidence, I can give him the assurance that things will come to light which will even scare the Prime Minister, and which will disillusion him if he does not know of them to-day. So far as internment is concerned, I do not wish at this stage to speak about the Italians and the Germans who have been interned. But a great many Afrikaners have been interned without the slightest evidence having been produced of those people having been guilty of any actions for which they could be interned—they have been interned without their knowing what charges had been made against them, without their knowing who had made charges against them, and without their getting the opportunity of properly defending themselves. I am prepared to admit that in many instances the Minister of Justice has been accommodating. I am not discussing that at the moment because I am dealing here with the principle of the matter. If we make enquiries into the position of these people, and ask what are the real charges against them, we always get this one answer, that in the interests of these people themselves it is not considered advisable to say what the charges against them are. Now I want to say this to the Government. Each of those Afrikaans citizens who are in the internment camps is quite willing that it should be proclaimed from the housetops what are the charges against them, so that they may be able to defend themselves against those charges. Many of those people have been released during the past three or four months, because it was eventually shown that no crime or no offence had been committed by them. In other words, they had been interned because of false charges made against them, they had been interned as the result of perjury by people who had made charges against them. Now I want to put this question to the Minister of Justice, and to the Prime Minister: How many of these people who have committed perjury in order to get those people into the internment camps have been prosecuted? Has anyone of them been prosecuted? No, not one. Surely it is a scandalous condition of affairs in our country that people should be allowed with impunity to commit one act of perjury after the other against Afrikaners ana that they should not be prosecuted. Large numbers of Union citizens who have been interned have been released, and that is an admission of the fact that perjury had been committed against them, but neither the Prime Minister nor the Minister of Justice have called those people to account. Now I also want to put this question to the Minister of Justice. Assuming another Government comes into power in South Africa, are those people who have caused their fellow-Afrikaners to be put into gaol or in the internment camps then to remain unpunished? I again want to ask them: Do they not realise the spirit of hatred and resentment which is being created in South Africa by allowing these things to go on? Then there is another class in our country which is being affected. The Prime Minister is waging war not merely against Hitler and Mussolini, but he is waging war here in South Africa against the poor man and against his wife and child. The Government has withdrawn practically all aid and assistance in regard to supplying work and providing work for the poor. The poor people who are unemployed and who have to earn something every day in order to keep their wives and children find, when they go to the departments of state to look for work, that there is only one type of work they are able to get. They are told: “Take the oath and you can get work, and if you do not want to take the oath then your wife and child may starve so far as the Government is concerned.” I want to ask the Prime Minister whether quite enough has not been done during the three years war against women and children in South Africa? Was not the war waged against women and children in those days quite sufficient? Why must we now follow England's example in that war, and wage war against the wives and children of the poor people of South Africa, because I again repeat that the poor man who comes to look for work is simply told that there is no work for him if he does not take the Africa oath. I hope the Prime Minister will thoroughly reconsider this aspect of the matter, and I hope he will give those people an opportunity of obtaining work so that they will be able to keep their families, and I hope he will not force them to take the oath that they will go and fight for Great Britain; and now I want to come to another form of compulsion which is applied to the Afrikaner, and that is the two minut es pause for prayer which has been brought into being here in Cape Town. If the English people in South Africa want to pray, nobody will blame them. If they in these days of darkness want to humble themselves in prayer, we welcome it, and nobody will have any objection. But the street is not the place for such prayers. They have the church, the altar in their homes, and their private rooms. This praying business in the street has only one object, and it is further to insult the Afrikaner and to trample on him. I visited Cape Town some time ago in connection with a meeting in a building just across the street of the Cape Times building. It was a small meeting in connection with some question or other. When 12 o’clock struck I went to the window to have a look. In the Cape Times building I noticed English-speaking people in that building coming to the windows, but they did not come to pray, they all came to see whether some poor Afrikaner was not being knocked about in the streets, and I saw two others among them. It reminded me of the biblical reference about Christ appearing in the Temple for the purpose of driving out those who used the Temple for the purpose of usurious and other business. Those two people did not pray in the street, they were busy doing business during the prayer interval, and I then appreciated the meaning of this Bible incident. Now I again want to ask the Prime Minister: What does he think is going to be the result of this condition of affairs? The Minister of the Interior sits over there and I want to ask him whether it is with his consent that here in Cape Town certain heads of departments of state have intimated that they also expect the officials in their department to respect the two minutes pause. Has this been done with his consent, so that these officials are practically being forced to respect the two minutes interval? Is he prepared, if he denies that that is the case, to have an investigation made, and then if he finds what I have said here to be correct, to take steps to put an end to it?

He is afraid to answer.

If you are prepared to do what you did not want to do two years ago when similar insinuations were made about white girls and natives in Germiston, then I am prepared to have an investigation made.

I am pleased the Minister has referred to that matter. In my absence he made an attack on me. Now, what are the facts of the case? I received a circular from a certain institution in Germiston which had made certain complaints and I sent that circular to the Minister and I asked him to have an enquiry made.

The same cowardly insinuations which you had made before.

Has the Minister in the circumstances the right to accuse me of having made cowardly insinuations?

Yes, I do so.

The hon. the Minister must not say that about another hon. member. He should withdraw that.

I shall withdrawn it.

The hon. the Minister should rise when he gives a reply.

In view of your ruling, Mr. Speaker, I withdraw it, but I say that it was an unworthy insinuation.

The Minister knows only too well that all I did was to send in the circular and ask him to have an enquiry made. If in those circumstances the Minister makes such charges against me, then I can only say that it is high time another Minister should take his place, because it goes to prove that he is not worthy of sitting where he does. Now, I want to revert to the point I was dealing with, and I want to say here that there is only one way of getting rid of this terrible condition of affairs, and that is by doing away with the British connection and getting a free South African Republic. Then we could not be dragged into such a war as we have now been dragged into, and then we should not have all this compulsion being brought to bear against Afrikaners. A South African Republic is the only way out.

What does your Leader say about that?

That is the only way to keep out of England’s wars and considering the matter from a South African point of view I say that our national pride and sense of independence demands that we should break the British connection and establish a republic. While the flag of the conqueror flies over us in South Africa there will never be rest and peace in our minds, and as long as the British flag flies here and the English people take up the attitude they are doing now we shall never see an end to the racial struggle in South Africa. As long as the British flag flies in South Africa, as long as the English King is also our King, and as long as the Englishman in South Africa over and above having his Union citizenship also remains a British subject, so long will he remain a Briton and not become an Afrikaner. So long will he continue to do what he is doing now, and that is, he will give all his love and all his loyalty to England and not to South Africa. As long as he continues to do what he is doing now, namely, to place the interests of South Africa on the altar of British Imperialism, as long as the British flag flies here, so long will there be no unity in South Africa, and as long as we have the position that one section of the population stands planted with both feet on South African soil while the other section unfortunately gives its loyalty and love not to South Africa but to Great Britain, and serves the interests not of South Africa, but the interests of another country namely, England, so long shall we fail to have unity here. We must obtain a republic in South Africa, not merely to put an end to the conditions which we have to put up with at the moment, but particularly to put an end to what here in South Africa may be called British Imperialism, which borders on Negrophilism.

The hon. member cannot go into that now. He is gettting too far away from the motion.

No, Mr. Speaker, I am bringing all this in in connection with the Minister of the Interior, who is imbued with that British Liberalism which borders on Negrophilism, because the Minister of the Interior has been so taken up with the war spirit that he has already sunk to such a depth that he does not allow any occasion to pass, not even an occasion such as the opening of a native location, without in the hearing of the natives gathered making an attack and using threats against his opponents. Could he not select another occasion than the opening of a native location to make an attack on his opponents? Must he on every occasion when speaking on matters of this kind transgress the border line?

He must have again been disguised as a coolie.

Yes, he must undoubtedly have worn some other garb because he could not have said those things in the garb which he is wearing this evening. I wish to issue a word of strong protest against the manner in which the position of the white man is being undermined by actions of that kind, and that by a Minister. It does not become any man to do so in South Africa, and least of all is it becoming to a Minister of the Crown. It is this same spirit in connection with this war which has induced the Government to instruct its magistrates and native commissioners in the native locations, on the platteland, and also in the towns, to give the native information about the war; but all this is only going to have the effect that the status of the white man in the eyes of the natives will be lowered, and that the native in South Africa will be stirred up against the white man. When the magistrates and native commissioners inform the natives about the dangers of the Nazism of Germany, the natives are continually being told that there are Afrikaners, Afrikaners who share our point of view, who associate themselves with Nazism, and when those natives are stirred up against Nazism they are at the same time being stirred up against Afrikaners, because we are being coupled with Nazism. That is what is happening, and I now want to ask the Prime Minister whether he has really got to the stage of wanting to follow England’s example set during the three years war when the natives were brought in and were armed in order to attack the burgers of the Transvaal and the Free State. Now the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) will no doubt come and tell us that it is a disgrace to say a thing like that, but I want to tell him that they will arm not merely to make attacks on the burgers of the Free State, but also on the women and children of the Boers. Let the hon. member for Kensington deny it and I shall ask him to go and make enquiries from his own Prime Minister and ask him if it is true or not. The Prime Minister himself reported on the matter.

How many natives?

Hundreds of thousands.

Are you talking about Slagtersnek?

No, I am not talking about Slagtersnek, I am speaking about the three years war. I now want to ask the Prime Minister whether he will not, in view of what took place in those days when the natives were stirred up against the Afrikaner, and in view of the deplorable consequences of that pernicious British policy, tell his magistrates and his native commissioners to stop stirring up the natives against the nations of Europe, or as is in reality happening, against the Afrikaner in South Africa. I say again that it is a fig leaf to say that the magistrates and the native commissioners are informing the natives as to what Germany is doing, and as to what is going on in the world. I believe it is the Minister of Justice who said —or is it possibly the Minister of Justice who replied to a question and stated that this was being done in order to warn the natives against Communism? Now the natives have suddenly to be warned against Communism! During all those years when we were warning against Communism, the Prime Minister, in his capacity as Minister of Justice, looked upon our warning as ridiculous, and said that there was no danger, but now the natives have suddenly to be warned in that way. I know, however, what is going on at those nightly meetings between the native commissioners and the natives. It is not a warning against Communism, and it is not even a stirring-up against Germany, but it is a stirring-up of the natives against the Afrikaner in South Africa, and I want to lodge the strongest protest against that. The Prime Minister has already a great deal to account for. He is an old man now. Do not let him in his old age get further debts chalked up against him, do not let him make himself guilty of Great Britain’s pernicious policy which in the war of liberty of 1899 to 1902 caused such terrible misery in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, rarely I feel has this House been treated even by the hon. member who has just sat down to a speech delivered in worse taste, more wantonly anti-British in tone and more defeatist in spirit, and, sir, a case must be woefully weak if its advocates are forced back, as the hon. member was so exclusively, on recrimination, racialism and irrelevancy. We are nearly at the end of a two-day debate on this subject, and speeches like the one we have just listened to serve to emphasise not only the unreality and the futility of the motion before the House, but they serve to emphasise possibly its only useful function, and that is to show that the longer the debate goes on the more the political sterility and nakedness of the Opposition is shown up. Despite repeated challenges during the debate, we have not so far had from a single spokesman of the Opposition, one constructive suggestion, one concrete proposal as to what type of peace, what proposals we are to seek for, on what terms we are to ask Hitler to be allowed to form part of his new world order. Nor, sir, has there been from any single spokesman any indication of any assurances, of any safeguards, that any terms that might be made to us might be kept. Hon. members know what Herr Hitler himself thinks of handsuppers. In Mein Kampf he refers with scorn to “a people which by voluntary capitulation confesses its loss of character.” How from the author of that book can a country like this expect much, and yet yesterday we had the touching instance of bland faith, born in cynicism and nurtured in patriotism, opportunism with which the pocket Führer of Gezina based his own belief in the bona fides of Herr Hitler. In the present debate effrontery and distortion have largely taken the place of argument, so far as speeches in support of the motion are concerned. Yesterday the hon. member for Gezina had the temerity to term the Prime Minister’s ringing reply of hope and assurance of victory, a cry of despair; thereby hoping to cover up the rank, nerveless defeatism of his own leader in introducing this motion. To-day the hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan), not to be outdone by his colleague, went to great pains in endeavouring to establish by hearsay extracts from an overseas biography of events of forty years ago that the taint of Pétainism rests to-day not on his own leader, but on the Prime Minister. And, sir, the same speaker went on to distort and travesty the war effort of our sister Dominion Canada by insinuating that Canada had weakness in her loyalty to the allied cause, and desired to scuttle for shelter and safety to the United States. Thereby the hon. member insulted the loyalty of the wholehearted contribution in men, materials and ammunition of one of our sister Dominions. As I listened yesterday to the speech of the hon. Leader of the Opposition I was filled with dismay that one with his position, his record of service and valour, should have sunk to such hopeless leaderless defeatism. He asked this country to hoist the white flag, and with the fateful model of Pétain still fresh before our eyes, to walk down the Vichy path that leads to worse than Brest-Litovsk.

Were you here this afternoon?

I was here this afternoon. The answer to the Leader of the Opposition’s defeatism can best be given as it was given to-day by the hon. the Minister of Mines in the Leader of the Opposition’s own words, and by referring to his own example when in this House not less than four years ago he challenged the menace of Italy in a speech in this House. He challenged then the action taken by Hitler’s jackal in first unmasking his African ambitions. The then Prime Minister called upon South Africans to rely on their patriotism, their sense of duty, and their determination to uphold their rights in dealing with what he termed a menace to South Africa, and, sir, we will follow that advice of the hon. member when he was the responsible head of the Government, rather than the craven counsel which his new comrades yesterday constrained him to give as Leader of an irresponsible Opposition. In the course of the debate speakers, including the Prime Minister, the Minister of Mines and the hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger), adduced solid reasons for confidence in ultimate victory, a confidence which is felt by almost all the members of this House. And, sir, it would be tragic if it were otherwise. If it were otherwise the human race would have denied its peace and renounced its future, and we should be in for a dark millennium and for jungle days far worse than those of the Middle Ages. Despite the wishful meanderings of the Opposition, despite the Nazism of our potential Quislings, the situation today increasingly justifies the confidence which is felt in our victory. Facts plain for all to see, except who refuse to see, are that the tide of war is turning. The Prime Minister’s ringing reaffirmation yesterday of faith in victory is amply justified. Day by day Goering’s waves of bombers are being returned in waves, in the English Channel and the North Sea, and are being countered by waves of attacking allied aircraft. The epic of Dunkirk, to which the hon. members for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) so scathingly referred yesterday, is plainly the writing on the wall not only for Hitler but also for his craven satellites in this country to see, that the tide of war is turning. That epic has been followed by the daily epics wrought by the individual heroes of the Royal Air Force, and in less numbers by the members of our own South African Air Force. These are the men of whom Mr. Churchill so aptly said that never in history has so much been owed to so many by so few. Amongst those we recollect with pride are the names of men from overseas, including our own South African airmen. And they are not, Mr. Speaker, Sancho Panzas, as the Leader of the Opposition’s phrase was yesterday, but they are the aerial Galahads fighting our battles in the most real sense. Yes, Mr. Speaker, we are justified in reaffirming our confidence in victory, not only because of our incomparable faith which we possess, but also because we do believe that we have the leadership, and we have the material resources to ensure an allied victory. In the course of yesterday’s debate the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) considered that it was sheer hypocrisy to say that Britain’s aim was the restoration of the small nations who had been trampled on by Hitler, and in common with the hon. member for Wolmaransstad he suggested that it was Britain and not Germany who was the virtual aggressor in this war. But what, sir, is the best evidence in regard to this? What do the small nations themselves say, who know to-day from bitter experience what it means to trust to the figment of neutrality and who know from bitter experience what it means to rely on Hitler’s word? Take Holland. Does that noble and indomitable leader of Holland, Queen Wilhelmina, question the justice of Britain’s cause, or does she not associate Holland’s cause with Britain’s cause as the cause of justice and freedom. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad almost boasted yesterday that Britain had no allies. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad may belittle or sneer at the continuing efforts of those victims of Hitler’s aggression, who are carrying on the struggle in the same spirit as the Boer republics carried on in this country years ago, but, sir, he conveniently forgets, he definitely ignores the moral and the psychological aspects stressed by the hon. member for Cape Eastern in her clear and convincing declaration of faith this afternoon. He also entirely overlooks the material resources of the Netherlands Empire and her mercantile marine, which is to-day in the service of the common cause. The hon. mover of the motion very significantly and conveniently ignored Holland altogether, but the hon. member for Wolmaransstad dismissed the case for avenging the rape of Holland, because 40 years ago Holland did not declare war on Britain. And what, sir, of the other small neutrals, ex-neutrals, referred to in the course of this debate? What of Norway? The many citizens of South Africa originally of Norwegian stock will be disgusted at the distortion of the facts by the hon. member for Wolmaransstad and the hon. member for Gezina, when they tried to brand Britain with responsibility for Hitler’s aggression. They also suggested that those countries are now down and out, and out of the fight, but, sir, they are imbued with the absolute reverse of the craven spirit of hon. members on the opposite side of this House. If anybody ought to be able to answer for that small peace-loving state of Norway to-day, that one is King Haakon. Although stricken Norway carries on with her remaining strength, including four and a half million tons of mercantile shipping, most of which is plying to and from Union ports. I repeat that if anyone should answer for that small state it should be Norway’s King. Like King Albert of Belgium in the previous war, King Haakon is one of the heroic figures of this war. Speaking in London only a day or two ago, King Haakon referred to the fact that it was clear to himself and to the Government that “the only possibility of recreating a free Norway lay in the victory of the side which stands for the right of small nations to lead their own lives.”

He is related to the Royal Family.

He is related to the Royal Family, and he is also imbued with the spirit of his country, and is the worthiest representative of his country, and more fitted to speak and interpret the reactions of that country than the hon. member who interrupts. I have mentioned in passing two chief grounds for opposing this Vichy peace motion, namely, firstly its unalleviated, unwarrantable and un-South African defeatism, and secondly its insane advocacy of an isolated neutrality at a time when events have shown successively in the small states of Europe that that neutrality has proved a snare and a positive invitation to aggression. There is just one last point I would like to make, one final protest I would like to record. In the course of his speech yesterday the hon. Leader of the Opposition referred to “poor South Africa entirely unable to do anything in Europe or to do anything in her own defence.” I ask hon. members of this House, is that a worthy thing to come from a leading representative of our people? Is that patriotism, is that pride of country, to refer in disparaging terms to the national effort of our country, and to the prowess which is being shown by our soldiers and other members of our forces? Sir, there is a tendency, an increasing tendency, by certain sections of the Opposition Press, and on platforms, to disparage the achievement of our country’s effort, and to minimise its spirit simply because on political grounds they are opposed to the entry of South Africa into the war. As a South African I am as proud as any member here, not merely of our traditions, not merely of the past record of this country in the last war, but even more so am I proud of what is now being done in this country and outside by South Africans, and in saying this I say it as a loyal South African, even though I do not happen to have a drop of either English or Dutch blood in my veins. But certain of my friends opposite and certain sections outside have developed a habit of deprecating the value of our efforts and of belittling the effectiveness of what we are doing, and in that way they are indirectly stabbing in the back these grand lads of ours who are bearing the brunt of our war effort. To judge by certain of the speeches to-day, for instance that of the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Tom Naudé), one would think that the brave and public spirited sons of South Africa—and I am talking of the Davis’, the Preller’s, the Selly’s, the Hugo’s and the Malan’s—one would think that they are members of an inefficient, useless, forced labour contingent dragooned into wearing that badge of servitude, the orange flash. My appeal to hon. members opposite who are entitled to their own views as to the correctness or otherwise of our entry into the war is not to grudge the recognition of the grand way in which South Africans are keeping the flag flying in the air, in the field and on the seas, and I make an appeal to them not to stab them in the back either directly or indirectly. I firmly believe that their eventual success will eventually be decisive for the safety of the Union. Let us honour these men for the services which they are rendering to this country, let us honour them as the builders and the consolidators of a united South African nation of the future to which every loyal South African, whatever his ancestry shall be, should be proud to belong. This is a peace motion and we all long for peace. But peace will not come down the Vichy Road. It will only come down the Victory Road. Only by not hampering our war effort, only by helping to keep order and security and unity on the home front, and by not stabbing our gallant comrades in the back, only in that way shall we hasten the day of a true peace, only in that way shall we help to hasten the realisation of the words of our South African poet when he said:

When this House on the 4th September by a majority declared war against Germany this was done without hon. members having consulted their constituents, and without their having had the consent of the people for doing so. Since then the public has in an unequivocal manner shown that it is not satisfied with the resolution which was taken on that occasion under the guidance of the Prime Minister. So strongly did the public feel against it that there are certain hon. members on the other side of the House who dare not go to their constituencies for the purpose of holding meetings. We find that the hon. member for Calvinia (Dr. Steenkamp) has to send out pamphlets and he dare not go to his constituency himself. We find that the hon. member for Kimberley (District) (Mr. Steytler), if he wants to hold a meeting in his constituency, always has to make some arrangements in order to keep everything as quiet as possible, so that the majority of his constituents shall not know anything about it, and I imagine that the hon. member for Frankfort (Brig.-Gen. Botha) will admit that he no longer represents the sentiments of the majority of his constituency. Therefore, on the 4th September, this House did not vote in accordance with the will of the people. It must be clear to everyone who is not entirely estranged from his own people, and from the sentiments of the people in the country districts; it must be clear to everybody who has taken note of the way in which the people have given expression to their feelings, and who has taken note of the women’s demonstrations, and the protest meetings, that the people of South Africa did not want to be drawn into this war. On the contrary, it is the will of the people that peace should be concluded as soon as possible. When, therefore, Germany a month ago offered the opportunity for peace it was nothing short of a moral crime towards the people that that offer was turned down without more ado. This was at the stage when the position was highly critical so far as the Allies were concerned, and when France, England’s most powerful ally, had been defeated, but our Prime Minister, without consulting the House, took no notice of the offer. It is often asked on that side of the House on what conditions we want to make peace; but it was not even considered worth while asking Germany on what conditions she was prepared to make peace when she offered the hand of friendship and was prepared to make peace. The Prime Minister has had the temerity to act towards the strongest powers in Europe in a way which may have the most serious consequences for the future of this country. It is being stated by hon. members opposite that England cannot lose the war. Very well, let us accept that for a moment; none the less, we cannot get away from the fact that the Union is not going to be a deciding factor in this world war. It is even admitted in England that the fate of British Somaliland is not going to be decided in Africa, but on the Western Front. If that is true in regard to British Somaliland, why then is it not equally true in regard to Kenya? And I want to put a position like this: if England wins the war, what then can the Union gain by its participation? We are going to spend millions, and poverty and misery are going to be the result; unemployment and a grave depression will visit this country after the war. And if Germany wins? In that event we shall have to go with our hat in our hand and ask for conditions from a country which has done us no harm whatsoever. What ground have we for thinking that they had any evil intentions towards us? It is merely a suspicion in the minds of hon. members opposite that Germany or Italy have evil intentions against us, and I say straight out that this declaration of war, and this continuation of the war, constitute the greatest bit of foolishness in our history. This act of foolishness was committed owing to the fact that on the 4th September no account was taken of the sentiments of the great majority of the people of South Africa. No account was taken of the sentiments of the older section of the population, of that section of the population which has sacrificed life and blood for the civilisation of this country. No account has been taken of that section which has only one fatherland, which knows only one home, and which gives its undivided love to South Africa. And that folly was committed because the Prime Minister does not know, or does not want to understand, his own people. He apparently is so great and so big that he is too big for his own people. That folly was committed because account was only taken of the sentiments of the imperialists, the Jews, the Natives and the coloured people, and the sentiments of the loyal Dutch. We have heard that England declared war against Germany because Germany invaded Poland, but while the Poles were busy defending themselves against Germany, that powerful country Russia came along and laid its talons on another part of Poland. What did we expect from England as a true friend of Poland and as an ally of Poland? What we found was that England courted as strenuously as she could for Russia’s friendship, and to-day she is still doing so. If England should succeed in securing Russia as her ally, then I want to put this question: assuming England succeeds in winning the war, what then becomes of the rights of Poland? What possibility is there then, with Russia as her ally, ever to have justice done by Poland? Belgium threw in her lot with England, and now we hear that King Leopold of Belgium left England in the lurch. France threw in her lot with England, and we were always told from the English side about the courageous manner in which the French were fighting. But in the hour of France’s distress, England was concerned with only one thing, and that was how she could succeed in getting her own people safely back to their own country, and that was not the end of it. She trained her big guns on the fleet of her former ally. From all this we can judge what kind of an ally England is; as soon as her own skin is in danger, she does not care what becomes of her friends and allies. I want to remind hon. members that that is the type of ally which we have now, and on whose behalf the Prime Minister wants us to sacrifice our country and our blood. She is an ally who has not the slightest feeling for those who have stood next to her. To-day we even find in connection with all these small states, even including a country like France, which has thrown in her lot with England, that England is busy, if she can succeed in doing so, in starving them out in the same way as she wants to starve Germany. The Union of South Africa has now been at war for twelve months, and we still have to ask our Government what we are fighting for, and what is the reason for our participation in the war. On the 4th September we heard in this House and outside that the reason why we had to take part in the war was to be found in our position with regard to Simonstown; but after what has come to light since the last session, namely that the present Prime Minister in September, 1938, was prepared to follow a policy of neutrality if England should get involved in a war, but that in September, 1939, he was not prepared to remain neutral on account of the position of Simonstown — in view of that, we have come to the conclusion that these two reasons do not hold water at all. I ask hon. members: what was the difference in connection with Simonstown in September, 1939, as compared with September, 1938? It is a pity that the Prime Minister is not in his seat this evening. If he was honest in September. 1938, then he cannot have been honest in September, 1939: but I still want to put the question, and I hope the Minister without Portfolio, who is half asleep, will convey my question to the Prime Minister. This is my question: did the Prime Minister of to-day have any information from the Imperial Government, either directly or indirectly, which the then Prime Minister did not have in his possession? Did he know that England at that time was no t prepared to go to war, and did he know what the Prime Minister of that time did not know? I think the country and the people are entitled to know whether there was any intrigue going on at the time. I put that same question during the last session, but I got no reply, and I say that the matter is one of such importance that we should at least have an unequivocal answer from the Prime Minister. We also heard the story of the farmers’ products lying and rotting. The Minister of Agriculture brought this up in September last year. I thought that that story by this time had got so rotten that it could not get any worse, but the Minister of Mines raised the same point here this afternoon; let us tell him once again that we know that England does not buy our products out of love for us, but simply because she needs our products very badly, and if she is able to do better business somewhere else she will go and buy there, and she will not concern herself with the interests of her ally, the Union of South Africa. Now that that story no longer has any weight with the people, we are told that England is fighting on behalf of small nations. When Holland unfortunately became involved in the struggle there were people who before that did not care one rap about Holland, and who did not take any interest in Holland, who suddenly became most concerned over poor little Holland. They did nothing more or less than exploit Holland’s distress for the sake of party political purposes. I want to tell them that those crocodile tears are not going to make any impression on the South African people. If they want to succeed in making us believe that England is the champion of small nations, they will at least have to destroy every coloured map of the world, because if we look at the coloured maps of the world we find nothing but red blots on them, so where do they get all their talk about the protector of small nations if all those small countries belong to England? There is something else in which they will have to succeed before the Afrikaner will believe that England fights for small nations. They will have to induce the Afrikaner to forget the whole of his history. The Boer nation knows only one enemy and one persecutor, and that is England, and the Boer nation also knows that England has committed all these acts against them with a pious face. England said that she fought for the poor and oppressed Uitlander, but Paul Kruger told us what they were fighting for. He said, “They want my land, it is not the franchise they are after.” And then the Prime Minister comes to this House and dramatically bangs the table and tells us that the historic friend of the Afrikaner nation is England. Even a child from Standard III knows that that is not so, and that the only enemy the Afrikaner has, and has ever had, is England. It was remarkable that when the Prime Minister made that statement and when he used that argument it was members like the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) who applauded him. No, we can only say this: that the monuments in our country from Slagtersnek to the monument at Bloemfontein, are testimony to the way in which England has protected us, and to the kind of friend she has been to South Africa. When this story about the freedom of small nations did not go down we heard that we were fighting for democracy and for the freedom of the individual. Yet we have a Prime Minister who is the greatest autocrat inside and outside of this House, the greatest autocrat that this country has ever known. He is busy while pretending to fight dictatorships establishing the greatest dictatorship we know, not only here in South Africa but through the whole world. In addition to that he is a dictator who has already been rejected by the people. The people of this country have not rejected the other dictators whom he is now fighting. Hitler has not been rejected by his people, and Mussolini has not been rejected by his people, but the Afrikaner people rejected our Prime Minister in 1924, and never since those days have the people of South Africa been prepared again to give the reins into the hands of the Prime Minister of to-day. And if the Prime Minister goes to the country to-morrow he will be defeated again. But that champion of democracy did not hesitate to secure that position by creating a Cabinet crisis and by destroying his own party, and after that he gathered into his fold whatever he could get, a portion of the United Party, Dominionites, the Labour Party, and the native representatives, and the true fifth column of the Afrikaner people, in order to form a government. The Afrikaner people are told that the struggle is one for democracy, and then the Prime Minister came here during the last session and took unto himself all the rights and powers which Hitler has. He put through the War Measures Bill with all its regulations, and to-day he puts his fellow-Afrikaners in gaol without trial and without their knowing what charges there are against him, and who have accused them. People are allowed to commit perjury against Afrikaners in order to get them into difficulties, but they are not prosecuted for perjury. I can even go so far as to say that this side of the House which is accused of being opposed to the non-European races of this country, would not deprive a native who has stolen a chicken from those rights, but an Afrikaner is deprived of those rights in his own country. It is stated that we are fighting for the freedom of the individual, but there is no freedom for the Afrikaner who is true to his own past and the past of his people. On the contrary, the Afrikaner people are passing through a period of oppression and they are treated like strangers in their own Fatherland. The Afrikaner is not at liberty to have his own convictions. He is being oppressed in a small-minded manner, and he is compelled to render so-called voluntary military service, and then Ministers deny that that is happening. That compulsion which is being brought to bear on the poor people in our country who are dependent on a small daily wage to maintain their families, is unfair and unjust. Those people are being compelled to go and do military service, but there is a certain class of rich man who stays at home and sends others to the war while he himself gets richer. That is the attitude which we find among members opposite. There is freedom in this country, but it is freedom for one section only. There is freedom for the Imperialist, for the sailors here in Cape Town, and for the foreign parasite, and there is freedom for the Afrikaner who is disloyal to his own people. Here in Cape Town they want to compel the Afrikaners to pray; and that attitude is adopted towards us by people who probably do not even know what it is to pray in a straightforward fashion. We shall always respect the person who prays truly and respectfully, but no man can pray truly if at the same time he is on the look out to see whether somebody is not being assaulted and ill-treated. For that sort of praying business the Afrikaner people with their deep religious sense have no time at all. There is freedom in this country for one section, but the Afrikaners are being taught by circumstances to realise that they are suffering under a yoke of tyranny. A petition is being circularised at the moment—peace by victory. That petition is being taken round even by strong young men who stay at home. They stay at home and want to achieve peace by victory, but they see to it that they and their sons stay behind. They themselves are not going to fight. They want victory, but they want to achieve it by means of the lives and the blood of others. There is no need for that petition to be sent round. If the Prime Minister wants to know whether the people are in favour of the continuation of this war, he can make a very easy test — a test which is the only true test — he can have a general election, and we shall then be able to see whether or not the people of South Africa are in favour of the continuation of this war. The Afrika ner people are being persecuted. At Potchefstroom defenceless students have been ill-treated by soldiers. At Stellenbosch students and other white people had to be humiliated by Hottentots, and then we find that fellow-Afrikaners took the side of the Hottentots.

Not fellow-Afrikaners, because they sit on the other side of the House.

I should perhaps have said that people who pretend to be Afrikaners take the side of the Hottentots. The true Afrikaner has never yet found it necessary to say that he is an Afrikaner. The hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. H. van der Merwe) said here this afternoon that he is an Afrikaner, and that he stands by the Afrikaner. Well, if he looks around, he will see whether there are any Afrikaners there. He will see Jews, and among them also people who in the Second War of Independence were in charge of the coloured commandos. Those are the Afrikaners he appeals to, and then he wants to come and tell us and the country what good Afrikaners they are. Although the Afrikaner nation has passed through very difficult times in the past, through times perhaps more difficult than the present, it has never yet been subjected to a greater humiliation than it has been subjected to recently. The Afrikaner to-day is being persecuted by the so-called knights of the truth — knights of the truth who, in reality, are a khaki pest. The Afrikaner is persecuted and is kicked down, and all this is being done under the guise that this present war is a war for Christianity, for democracy and for freedom of the individual. Let us tell them that we have more than enough of that kind of pharisee-ism and hypocrisy. The Afrikaner feels more than hurt. He is deeply insulted at the fact that his rifle has been taken from him. Only on two occasions in his history has the Afrikaner had to hand over his weapons. After the Boer War he had to hand over his rifle, and it was the enemy of the Afrikaner nation who on that occasion deprived him of his rifle. To-day it is our own Prime Minister, a man of the Afrikaner people, who is subjecting those people to that humiliation. The Prime Minister has taken the rifles away from the Afrikaner people because he does not trust his own people with their rifles, and if he does not trust us with our rifles, then I ask what right has he, while he is sitting on the Government benches as Prime Minister, to say to us: “Take up your rifle and do military duty.” He has no right after that insult to come to us again and to say: “Take up your rifle and defend your country.” No, if South Africa gets into difficulty, it will be the Prime Minister’s duty more than ever to stand aside and make room for a man who enjoys the confidence of the Afrikaner people, a man who has not insulted the Afrikaner nation in the way the present Prime Minister has done. The Prime Minister, at Heidelberg in the Transvaal, had the temerity to say: “I feel as though I stand in the boots of Paul Kruger.” Let me tell him that the Afrikaner nation feels that that remark of his constitutes a gross insult to the memory of Paul Kruger.

What do you know about Paul Kruger?

I know that he has never allowed himself to be guarded for fear of his own people.

That shews how much you know.

He was always among his people, and I know that he was never on the side of the enemies of Afrikanerdom.

He was always guarded.

Not in the same way as our Prime Minister is being guarded. I go so far as to say that that remark of the Prime Minister constitutes a gross insult, the grossest insult that has ever been done to the memory of Paul Kruger, and I wish to protest against it most strongly. If the Prime Minister wants to mention his name along with that of Cecil Rhodes and of Lord Milner, then I and others in this House have no objection, and I am also convinced that not a single hon. member opposite will have any objection. Let him mention his name along with that of Cecil Rhodes and Milner, but for heaven’s sake never in one breath with that of Paul Kruger. When this side of the House on the 4th September voted in favour of neutrality, we did so, not because we were pro-German, but because we are pro-Afrikaans. Members opposite unfortunately do not realise what it means to be pro-Afrikaans. They look at everything through imperial spectacles. We look at matters from a purely South African point of view. We were opposed to the declaration of war because in all circumstances we placed the interests of South Africa first, and we shall continue to do so. We were not prepared, and we are not prepared to-day, to place the lives of the youth of our country, and the flower of our people, on the altar of, British imperialism. We are not prepared to vote in favour of the continuation of this war, and to expose our women and children possibly to terrible misery, and that for the sake of whom? For the sake of Great Britain which is our conqueror, and for the sake of the Jew. We are not prepared to spend millions of pounds in the interests of England when England has poked her nose into the quarrels of Europe. We do not wish to use the riches of our country for that purpose, but we want to use them to help our impoverished whites to get on their feet again. I respect the Englishman who is honest and straightforward in his intentions to do his duty and to take part in this war, but then we expect him to do his duty honestly and not to remain here and sit still. The hon. member for Ladybrand (Mr. J. C. de Wet) last session made the offer that if a member opposite was anxious to go and fight, he would be prepared to pair with him; I do not think a solitary member opposite has availed himself of that offer. There are young members opposite, such as the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie), who tells us that we know nothing about Paul Kruger. There is the hon. member for Durban (Umlazi) (Mr. Goldberg). Why do they not avail themselves of the offer of the hon. member for Ladybrand? There is the hon. member for Carolina (Mr. Fourie), If those hon. members are so convinced that it is the wish of the people they represent that this war should be continued, why then do not they make room for older men and why do they not go and do their duty? No, they select soft jobs for themselves, and they do not want to go and fight. It is the children of the poor people who have to go and fight, and they allow compulsion to be brought to bear in the public service and in other spheres so that other people shall go and fight, while they themselves select the soft jobs and draw double pay. That is the kind of patriotism by the aid of which hon. members over there do their duty towards the Empire.

What has that to do with the motion?

It has this to do with the motion, that those hon. members on the 4th September voted in favour of war, and they are now in favour of a continuation of the war. Our motion says that an end should be put to this struggle, because even members opposite are not prepared to do their duty. We say that the Afrikaner nation is being persecuted to-day; we say this to hon. members opposite. “Carry on with your dirty work, but we shall remember it, and the day of settlement will come.” In the past people always took up the attitude that the Afrikaner people must forgive and forget. Yes, hon. members may laugh, but I want to remind them that they must think of the future. The Afrikaner people always has a feeling for its freedom and its independence, but I can give hon. members the assurance that the way in which they have acted has had the result that that sense of freedom of the Afrikaner nation has been more deeply and more strongly forced into them. They should not complain, that is to say the English-speaking members opposite should not complain if a desire arises among the Afrikaner nation to get rid of the bonds which are tying us to England. The Afrikaner nation will not rest until that object has been achieved. We feel that tied to England there is no freedom for us, we feel that so long as we are tied to England we are unable to move along the course of the Voortrekkers. We know now that without exception every time England gets into difficulties we are expected to take part, we are tired of always having to hang on to Grandma England’s skirts, as hon. members opposite want us to do. We want to be a free and independent people, released from all ties.

I do not propose replying to the ridiculously foolish tirade of the hon. member who has just sat down. We are all stigmatised by him as jingoes. The young fellows who have joined up are called satellites of the British Empire, but when those young fellows are on the fields of battle that hon. member wants to appropriate unto himself the honour of saying that it is our Afrikaner sons who are being sacrificed. Before I say a few words about the motion I should like to reply to the attack which the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) has made on me. He asked why I am not at the front. He is a man of a lengthy parliamentary experience, and he must know therefore that my highest and first duty in the interests of my country and my people is to occupy my seat in this House, so as to prevent men like himself being given the opportunity of capitulating and of handing the country over to the enemy. That is why I am here to-day. The insinuation at the back of that attack is that I am too cowardly to defend my own country; but let me remind the hon. member—I am not keen on making a counter insinuation against him—that when in 1914 we unfortunately were up against each other on the battlefield the hon. member ran away to such an extent that we could not get near him, and he kept on running away until he was able to find refuge in a German uniform. The hon. member for Smithfield (Gen. Hertzog), our former Prime Minister, stated in March, 1939, in this House that if war were to break out in Europe the popele of South Africa would be given the opportunity by means of their Parliament to decide what the country’s attitude would be in that war. We then accepted his words as the words of a statesman, and we took it that we would be given that opporunity. We were given the opportunity, and on the 4th September the House unequivocally decided by a majority that it was in our interest to break off relations with Germany and to take part in the war on the side of our Allies.

Are you speaking now about the war against Italy?

I am not replying to people who talk in the air. This House decided by a majority without any compulsion being brought to bear, to take part on the side of our Allies; but what did we find? In spite of the fact that our people have been accustomed to democracy for three hundred years, have been accustomed to a democratic system of government, certain members of the Opposition immediately started on the platteland to stir up the people and to advise them to resist the resolution of the legal authority. I say emphatically and deliberately “certain members” because there still are members Opposite who have the sense of responsibility and who do not in a time of emergency stir up the people to rebellion. Those certain members stirred up the people to resist the legal decision taken by Parliament—they did not stir them up to get the resolution altered, but they stirred them up to get the legal authority defeated and put out of office. That was their sole object.

Naturally.

To-day the hon. member admits it, but on the platteland he says that they want peace, and up to the present none of them have stated either in this House or outside of the House on what conditions they want to get that peace. Do they want to get the condition which prevails in Denmark in this country, or do they want the peace which France has got? That is the only kind of peace which they can expect of the Nazis—of the Nazis who have humiliated and brought to a condition of slavery every other people with whom they have had to do so far. Is that what they want for South Africa? I know my people, and I know that that is not the sort of péace which they want. This is a free nation which wants to live in freedom and to move in freedom, which wants to be able to say and to think and do what it likes. For that reason I say that the people are determined to carry oh the fight on the side of democracy, not merely for the sake of the preservation of our freedom as a state, but also for the sake of the preservation of our personal and religious freedom. The people will fight in order to defeat the forces of darkness, and we are going to continue the fight in the belief that eventually we shall free the country from the threat of that unholy combination of Nazism and Fascism.

I am sorry that the right hon. the Prime Minister is not present here on this occasion to listen to what I am going to say in regard to the condition in which we find ourselves, because it is a subject which I have often discussed in this House with the previous Government and also with this Government from a national and an international point of view. I am anxious that the Prime Minister should be here to listen to what I have said on the platteland and to what I have proclaimed to the people since the 4th September, 1939, when this House decided to take part in the war. In 1938 the then Government decided differently, but the Prime Minister did not adhere to that resolution. I am glad the Minister of Finance is here, because he will be responsible for the burden which South Africa has to bear. Now I want to argue as if Great Britain is going to win the war. Certainly there is that possibility — if we can continue waging the war for another ten years. And that is what they are aiming at. But in the last twelve months Germany has achieved what in the previous war it was unable to achieve in three and a half years, and it has been achieved at the loss of fewer human lives. When in 1918 Germany had to accept the Peace of Versailles I sat in the gallery of this House to listen to how the present Prime Minister piloted the Treaty of Versailles through the House. In those days there was a small Nationalist Party under Gen. Hertzog, and the Prime Minister said that it was an unfair and un-Christian peace, but that a new instrument had been created for a new order which would arise, namely the League of Nations. I listened and I analysed the economic provisions of the Peace Treaty of Versailles as applied to Germany — that was before I became a member of this House. What did it amount to? To the destruction of a nation. It started from the idea that Germany must be kept down. Proudly the Britisher sang “Britannia Rules the Waves,” and “Britons never will be Slaves.” But they turned the German nation into slaves, until the German nation rose up in protest and again started to cry out “Deutschland über Alles.” It is the Nordic blood which rose in protest, and in South Africa too we have that blood in our veins. I bend my knee to no king in the world but only to the Lord. He is the Ally of the Afrikaner nation, of the Boer nation, the most powerful Ally any nation can never have. Since 1806 or 1807 the nation has been built up, and on the 16th December, 1938, we achieved the actual creation of the nation by means of an act of faith in the same way as the old nation of Israel. In the book of books, in which that history has been recorded with a purpose, we find the history of Abraham and his successors who at the time declined their heritage. Twice they had to make a choice, first when they were turned out of Egypt.

What has that to do with the motion?

You are the biggest fool in the House. It has everything to do with the motion. They had to choose. It was a question of Liberalism, the continued existence of freedom of religion, but when the great choice had to be made they chose Barrabas and the blood of Christ had to flow over them.

The hon. member must confine himself to the motion.

Very well, I come back to South Africa and I start again with 1918 when the Treaty of Versailles was confirmed. The Prime Minister said that we approved of the peace treaty under protest as that treaty would give rise to a second world war. He stated that Danzig and the Corridor would give rise to a second war. After that from 1929 to 1935 we found that a world war was again facing us. Steps could have been taken, also, by us, as one of the signatories of the Peace Treaty, to avert the calamity by having a round table conference, but this was not done. Then Germany developed a statesman and a diplomat and a soldier, all in one. Nobody can deny it to-day. He uplifted his nation out of its humiliation, so that to-day it can face the world, and the world shudders and this Government shudders. And then the second world war came and the Leader of the Opposition, at that time our Prime Minister, said that if we entered into that war it would mean the end of the Commonwealth of Nations, the death of our connection with the British Commonwealth of Nations. Those were his words, and those words are to-day coming true. The present Prime Minister has without any instructions from the people declared war against the second great country. It was temerity on his part, it was his conceit, and he said on that occasion: “Do you see now why I decided on the 4th September, 1939, that South Africa should declare war against Germany?” We all knew that Germany could not come here, because the great sea is between, but on the 11th July he was given the opportunity of making war against Italy. He said: “Do you now see that Italy, just like Germany, has ambitions in Africa, and is looking with longing eyes to Naboth’s vineyard, namely South Africa?” What conceit on the part of the Prime Minister to take an action like that, and to declare war unnecessarily against two great countries without considering the real interests and future of South Africa, and then to come along with an argument like that. Germany has had colonies in Africa, and one of the reasons of this war is that those colonies were taken away by the Treaty of Versailles. There was an opportunity of righting that injustice, but that opportunity was not taken.

Speak louder.

There is no other fool like the hon. member.

The hon. member must not allow himself to be led away by interjections.

We are busy here considering serious matters and if such nonsensical interjections are made one can hardly restrain oneself. I want to say that the mentality of the English-speaking population is very narrow. I like a man who can stand up for himself, who can hit out for himself, but I do not like a man who scabs and talks nonsense. The opportunity of putting the injustice right has passed and we now have two great enemies, and now the Prime Minister after having declared war against those countries, says: “Do you see, there the enemy comes.” This war is a continuation of the war of 1914. This is a war between two empires. Great Britain is often called the protector of small nations, and under the motto of protection she had built up her empire for 400 years, and she has exploited the small nations under the cover of protection. I have seen the consequences of that protection in India. I have seen the fruit of that protection in Ceylon, and I have seen the result in South Africa.

At 10.55 p.m. (while Mr. R. A. T. van der Merwe was addressing the House), the business under consideration was interrupted by Mr. Speaker in accordance with Standing Order No. 26 (1), and the debate was adjourned; debate to be resumed on 31st August.