This side of the House yesterday asked for the adjournment of the debate for reasons which are quite understandable. The first reason is that the amount asked for in the Supplementary Estimates is not a normal one. We are concerned here unquestionably with Supplementary Estimates which certainly cannot be called normal. We have become accustomed to have Supplementary Estimates placed before us at this time of the year, but Supplementary Estimates of this kind, even though we have had wars in the past, we have never yet experienced in the Parliamentary history of South Africa. The hon. member for Piquetberg (Dr. Malan) said yesterday that only a few years ago the country’s main Budget was such that the Supplementary Estimates now before us would have constituted half of the year’s total expenditure. The hon. member for Piquetberg could have gone even further. If we take the basis of comparison which the Minister of Finance relied upon, that is to say the comparison made by him between the Loan Estimates and the first years of this war, and the Loan Estimates during the first war years of the war of 1914 to 1918, and if we take in addition to that the Revenue Account, we find that what he is asking for here as a supplement to the Estimates at the end of the year is far more than the whole of the Estimates in the war years 1914 to 1915 and 1915 to 1916. The total Estimates from Revenue Account amounted to £13,900,000 in the year 1914/15, and £14,000,000 in the year 1915/16, and here the Minister is asking for Supplementary Estimates to an amount of £15,750,000. That is to say he is asking for £1,750,000 more than the whole of the Estimates in each of the war years 1914 to 1918. It must be clear that we are not dealing with normal conditions here, but that we are dealing with something out of the ordinary. The Minister this year has put his hand very deeply into the pockets of the taxpayers. I feel that he himself will have to admit that. He has driven up the country’s expenditure to a level which we would not have dreamt of a few years ago. There cannot be the slightest doubt of that, and I think we are entitled to demand that before we enter on the new year we should at least have a very thorough and comprehensive analysis of the country’s financial position. We do not only want to know whether the expenditure asked for here can be justified, but we want to see that expenditure fit into the whole of the country’s financial position. We want to know exactly where we stand. We want to know what the dead weight is which is put around our necks before we take upon ourselves new burdens for the New Year. Before I proceed to discuss the country’s financial position, there is one matter to which I wish to raise my most serious objection. The Minister of Finance is now introducing something new, and this House cannot guard against this kind of thing sufficiently, and cannot warn the Minister strongly enough against this method of placing the Estimates of Expenditure before Parliament in bits and pieces. I should like to remind the House of the fact that this is not just the third time that the Minister of Finance approaches Parliament for money, but this is the fifth occasion on which he has placed estimates before the House. His Main Estimates had hardly been placed on the table of the House before the Minister came along with two Supplementary Estimates in which a not insignificant amount, but an amount of £10,250,000, was asked for. After those three attempts one would have imagined that the Minister would, have been more or less accurate in his Estimates, but hardly had we got home before we heard that the Minister had underestimated his expenditure, and we were brought together again in order to vote more money, and when we met here we were asked to vote an enormous amount of £32,000,000.

Have you ever heard that there is such a thing as a war in progress?

That was the Minister’s fourth effort, and one would have imagined that the Minister after this fourth effort would have known what his requirements were. One would have imagined that by that time he would have known not only what the requirements of the country were going to be, but also the requirements of the army. But now we are told that he needs a further amount of £15,750,000, of which £14,000,000 are intended for war purposes. The position therefore is that right throughout this financial year practically every two months new Estimates have been placed before us. We have hardly become accustomed to one figure of expenditure before we find that that figure has become obsolete, and we have to think in terms of more and more millions. I cannot, after these continuous changes in the Estimates of the Minister of Finance, help being reminded of what the Minister himself stated when introducing his Estimates on the 28th February, just before the commencement of the present financial year. I think the Minister will smile at his own words. The words which the Minister used at the conclusion of his Budget speech were these—

And now we come to what is really the most interesting of all, where the Minister said this—

I think that if there is one thing which is unstable it is the spectacle which the Minister of Finance has placed before us from time to time. He has hardly put up the one picture before he has had to take it down and put another in its place. And what about balance? I imagine the Minister of Finance himself will admit that he and his estimates have long since lost their balance, and they are floudering about more merely in a sea of deficits, but with a heavy millstone around South Africa’s neck. That is the position. The Estimates have been changed from time to time; that is a fact, and the Minister has put forward his excuses for those changes. In his eyes that may be quite correct, but what makes one feel anxious is this, that one feels that behind those continuous changes in the Estimates of the Minister of Finance there is something more than pure chance. One gets the impression that we are not face to face here with bad estimating—not that the Minister did not know how to anticipate matters, and to take account of what was going to come. One gets the impression that one is faced here with an instance of deliberate tactics. I am not the only one in whose mind that feeling has been created; as long ago as August last year the former hon. member for Fauresmith (Mr. Havenga) got up here and criticised the Minister in respect of these continuous changes. He stated that those changes could only be attributed either to incompetence on the part of the Minister to make an Estimate, or to deliberate deception. It would appear to me that the Minister’s conscience is beginning to worry him on that point because every time he gets up he tries to find a hundred and one excuses for those changes, and he tries to take refuge behind the example of the United States of America. I want to say this to the Minister of Finance, and I believe that I am speaking here on behalf of the whole of the people of South Africa when I say this, that if the people of South Africa on the 4th September had known what they know to-day, if the Minister on the 4th September had told the people that this war during the first nineteen months was going to cost £65,000,000, we would not have been in this war.

Nonsense!

If the Minister even on the 28th February of last year had told the people what the war was going to cost us this year, if the Minister honestly and frankly had taken the people into his confidence, there would have been such a storm of protest and indignation that I very much doubt whether the Government could have remained in power. But what do we find now? The Prime Minister has felt it, and the Minister of Finance felt that that was going to be the position, and that is why they set about matters in a carefully preconceived manner. What did the Minister say on the 28th February in his Budget speech for this financial year? He stated that the war was going to cost us only £14,000,000 for this year. He stated that the war would only cost us £14,000,000 and he put out his chest and told the country: “We are going to pay as we go.” In other words, we were going to pay for the war out of current revenue, we were going to pay for it in cash.

He did not say that.

He clearly said “We are going to pay as we go.” That meant that we were going to pay for the war out of current revenue.

For the whole war?

During that financial year. He gave that impression on the 28th February when he introduced the Main Estimates for the year. He clarely stated that the war would cost £14,000,000 for that year, and that “We shall pay as we go along.”

For the whole war?

For that year. That was in the Budget speech for the current financial year. We are still in that financial year now and consequently the words spoken by the Minister on that occasion are still applicable now. At the beginning of this financial year the Minister stated that the war was going to cost £14,000,000 and he was very proud of the fact that he was able to add “We are going to pay as we go.” That was the way in which he tried on the 28th February to sugar the pill for the people of South Africa. If he had on that occasion told the people that the war was going to cost £60,000,000 during that financial year, we should have heard a very different story in this country. Subsequent to that the Minister again called Parliament together on the 28th August, and in addition to that £14,000,000 he asked for a further £30,000,000 for the war. And what did he add to what he said on that occasion? Where the Minister tried to bring the House and the country under a wrong impression—here are his words in the Hansard Report—is where he said that he would like to point out to the House that most of these items of expenditure were of a capital nature, and would not be recurrent. By using those words he tried to bring the House and the country under the impression that although the amount of £32,000,000 was a large one it would not recur. And seeing that the Minister now comes before us again and asks for a further £14,000,000 for the war, which will bring our war expenditure for this year to something like £60,000,000, we can only get the impression—and that is what we take the Minister to task for—that he has not acted honestly and frankly towards the people of this country. The tactics pursued by the Minister are a type of tactics which I want to call “slim tactics” because if I were to call matters by their proper name you, Mr. Speaker would call me to order. The process which is being followed is a process of misleading the people in connection with the war; in other words, a process of gradually and steadily injecting the poison. It does not kill, but the poison none the less remains in the body. That is the charge which we make against the Minister on that point. The Minister puts himself up as the High Priest of public morality. He should not take up that attitude only by his words but he should act upon it by his deeds. If he had told the country on the 4th September, 1939, and on the 28th February of last year what the war was going to cost, a totally different state of affairs would have prevailed in this country, different things would have taken place from what we have seen. But instead of that, instead of honestly and frankly informing the people in regard to the position, the Minister has come along steadily and gradually with little bits and pieces. That is not an honest way of setting about things, and I wish to lodge my strongest protest against what he has done. Now let me come to the additional estimates themselves. The Minister is asking us for an additional amount of £15,750,000. Of that total £14,000,000 is intended for defence purposes, and the Minister proposes debiting that £14,000,000 to the Loan Account. Yesterday the Minister tried hard to explain to us why it should be placed to Loan Account and not to Revenue Account. Yet at the beginning of this financial year he told us that for this year we were going to pay cash for our war expenditure. He boasted on that fact, but now he comes along and tries to explain why £14,000,000 has to be placed on Loan Account, and this is the excuse he puts up. He tells us that this year a loan was issued in this country and from that issue more money was obtained that was actually required at that particular stage. In other words, about £7,000,000 more money than was needed was obtained, and that money would now be available as loan funds in order to cover this expenditure. That is the position if I properly understood the Minister, but even then a further £7,000,000 is wanted, and my question now is why the Minister does not put that £7,000,000 to revenue account. Here, again, we have these same tactics of deception. Why? Because at the end of this year there will be a large deficit the largest deficit we have ever had yet in the history of South Africa, and by that deficit the people will be able to judge what the war is costing us, and what this war expenditure means to South Africa. That is the real reason, but the Minister does not tell the country and the House what the real reason is; he puts it to Loan Account in order to cover up the position and in order to hide the precarious financial position in which the country is. If the Minister had put half of the war expenditure to revenue account, as he promised in his Budget Speech, then at the end of this financial year there would have been a deficit of close on £10,000,000, and the people would then have known where the Government’s war policy had landed the country’s finances. But instead of doing that he comes along and puts this money to Loan Account, and by doing that there will be no need for him to show a deficit, and he will then be able to make the public believe that everything is well with our country’s financial position. Rather let the Minister be honest. He told us on the 28th February, 1940, that this year we were going to pay in cash for our war requirements, and we want to hold him to that promise.

He never said it.

It is in the Minister’s Budget Speech. Let me read to him what he stated in his Budget Speech—

The Minister talks here about the whole year, the financial year, because this is his Budget Speech for the year 1940/’41. I put it to the Minister, was not this his Budget Speech for the year? Did he refer to the year as a whole or only to the day on which he spoke? Now, this is what I want to say to the Minister. He states here what the defence expenditure for the whole year is going to be, and then he says that if he only takes £2,000,000 from the gold purchase account we shall be paying for our war expenditure in cash during this year. I want hon. members to listen to what he said, and to take note of the boastful manner adopted by him on that occasion. This is what he said:

“So far.”

But the whole year was under discussion, and the Minister estimated for the year; surely that is clear. Don’t words mean anything? He says—

The achievement, namely until the end of the year 1940/’41 to pay for the war in cash. What has now become of that notable achievement? The Minister is anixous that we should forget his words, and that his boastful talk should be wiped out. He has to admit to-day that he has already been compelled to borrow to the extent of £35,000,000, and then the Minister adds that there is a further amount which has not yet been provided for. He gave us to understand yesterday that there is a further £7,000,000 in the air, which cannot be covered from revenue, and for which no loan has been entered into yet. What has become of the Minister’s notable achievement? He is now running away from his own words, and he is ashamed of them. That is all we want to say in regard to the Minister. He made use of very fine words, and he made beautiful promises, but when we come to actual facts we have a totally different position. Now it has come to the amount of £14,000,000 for Defence. I want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that the Minister on the 28th August of last year, when he asked for £32,000,000, when he asked for this huge amount for Defence, was at least able to adduce reasons for this increased expenditure. He at least could tell us at that time that a new war position had been created, in the first place by the collapse of France, and by Italy entering the war. On that occasion he also pointed out, and he stated, that as a result the war dangers so far as South Africa was concerned had been aggravated, and that consequently more provision had to be made than originally expected. That was his argument at that time, but I want to point out that on this occasion the Minister is not able to adduce a solitary reason why suddenly now a further £14,000,000 is required. If the Minister is unable to give us any reasons we are compelled to tell him what the reasons are, and the first reason is something which we predicted when war broke out, and it is that the Prime Minister is Minister of Defence and no one may say him nay, and there is no Treasury control whatsoever over our war expenditure. Our epexnditure is increasing and the Minister is powerless. He is unable to say no; he is not allowed to say no; and he is not even able to lay down how much shall be spent from month to month, and that is the reason why this figure is going higher and higher. It is a most unsatisfactory condition of affairs. There is no Treasury control, and I want to tell the Minister for his own good, and for the sake of his reputation as Minister of Finance—and I also want to say this to the Minister of Defence—that the country is full of rumours in regard to the disgraceful waste of money by the Department of Defence. The Prime Minister and his people are carrying on the war, but the country is feeling uneasy in regard to the way in which money is being wasted by the Department. Even people who are supporting the Government’s war policy openly ridicule the position and say, “We are making snug.” They joke about the way in which they obtain their contracts, and about the money which they have already made.

And what about what the colonels and the majors get, the members on the other side of the House?

I do not want to talk about that, we shall come to that later. The Minister told us that of this £14,000,000, £5,500,000 are needed for the pay of the soldiers. And then they boast, as the Minister has done, of the large number of Afrikaners who are in the army. We know that there are many of them, but they are not there of their own free will, they are not there because of their convictions, but they have been compelled to join up. It is not only the State but private employers as well who have put before these people the choice of either their bread and butter or the khaki uniform. I do not want to go into the matter any further at this stage, but there is just one other point I wish to touch upon, and that is in regard to the circus which the Prime Minister sent to the country. That apparently proved a great fiasco, and the only result derived from it is that it roused a certain degree of warlike spirit among the coloured people, and after that the State started with the recruitment of colooured people for military service on a large scale. We therefore feel that a very large proportion of this £14,000,000 will be used for the payment of coloured soldiers. On behalf of this side of the House I do not only wish to lodge a protest, but I wish to add a word of warning. The Minister is providing the means for the recruitment of coloured people on a large scale for military service, and that is not only going to create all kinds of social evils, so far as we are concerned. On previous occasions we have already pointed out that once one puts a white man into a khaki uniform and he imagines that he can do as he pleases in this country. As one of the members of this side of the House said, it is a licence for street hooliganism and chicanery. If one puts coloured people into khaki uniforms it becomes a hundred times worse. We have already gathered the fruit of this sort of thing in the streets of Cape Town, but it is not only social evils which arise as a result of these things, but economic dislocation is also created in this way. The farmers have not got labour for their farms, and housewives have no domestic servants. The coloured men are put into khaki and the wives of these coloured men are paid such maintenance grants that there is no longer any need for the women to go and work. The Minister at the end of last year promised that he would do everything in his power not to cause any emonomic dislocation in the country, but he is very busy doing so now. I want to tell him and the Prime Minister that what he is doing now is not only in conflict with the sentiment of the people, but it is also in conflict with the interests of the people, socially and economically. I want to ask the Minister to stop doing this, to put an end to the recruiting of coloured soldiers. Now I want to put a question to the Minister in connection with the last vote on these Estimates. The other matters can be dealt with in Committee. That vote provides for an amount of £35,000 for cost of living allowances. Why did not the Hon. the Minister tell us anything about this in his short speech? It is an important matter. The whole country, the whole Public Service, the Police Service, everybody is interested in this, in this amount of £35,000, but the Minister told us nothing about it. Why did he not tell us for whom this amount of £35,000 is intended? Has the cost of living now gone up to such an extent that the Minister feels obliged to carry out his promise and to pay a cost of living allowance? We are pleased to see this provision being made, but we should like to have some details in regard to it. The amount is small. For whom is it intended? What is the basis on which the Minister has calculated it? What is strange to me, and what seemed strange in the past twelve months, is that the Minister should have compelled the industrial employers to pay a cost of living allowance to the people working in industry. The Minister cannot deny that. Every industrial employer is already compelled—one can almost say that he has been compelled for a whole year— to pay a cost of living allowance to the people working in industries and factories, an allowance amounting to between 2 per cent. and 3 per cent.—I cannot say exactly how much it is at this moment. Throughout the whole of this year they have been compelled to pay it, and it is strange that the Government should compel private employers to pay it, while the Government from its side is not doing so.

When did the Government compel them to do so?

The industrial employers are compelled to pay this allowance.

Compelled by whom?

By regulations or whatever it may be.

By what regulations?

By the regulations applying to factories.

Which regulations?

The regulations which are in existence to-day. The industrial employers pay and they are obliged to pay.

Are they compelled by the Government to pay?

They are compelled to pay.

But by whom?

The Minister knows.

I want you to prove that it is the Government which compels them.

They are compelled by the legislation for which the Government is responsible.

It may be that they pay under their own agreements, but they are not forced by the Government to do so.

They are compelled to pay. They are paying a cost of living allowance of between 2 per cent. and three per cent. In our country private employers are compelled to pay those allowances, while the Government begrudges those allowances to its own officials. The Minister should bear this in mind because the Public Service have been thinned out very considerably, and the officials are obliged to work a good deal harder. The cost of living has gone up, and as the Minister is making provision here for £35,000, a small amount, we want to have details. So far as the general financial position of the country is concerned, we shall be able to deal with that at a later stage. I only want to say in summing up that we have had very fine words from the Minister, that at the beginning of the year he painted a very fine picture to us, but, unfortunately, all his fine words and his beautiful picture have gone up in smoke, and the condition of affairs to-day is totally different. The Minister told us that he would save nearly £7,000,000 on the Estimates. That is a promise which the Minister made to us on the 28th August. Now the Minister comes along and tells us that he is going to bring along even further economies. At the beginning of the year, however, the Minister stated that he was not going to interfere with essential social services, but it is the experience of every member of Parliament that the Government is curtailing essential social services, and in addition the Minister is to-day doing something which is cruel and which can only be regarded as cruel—he is pinching and taking away from the small old age pension which the old people of our country are being paid. Right throughout the country, in every constituency, one hears how the Minister is taking away and is curtailing the old age pensions of the old people.

And also invalidity grants.

Yes, every small pension which the poor people are getting is being curtailed and is being pinched, in spite of the Minister’s promise that he would not touch social services. The Minister made such a promise and we want him to give effect to it. If he does not intend giving effect to his promise he should not have made it. Do not say one thing and do something else. Do not try and deceive the people in that way.

Do not make loose statements. Where are the facts?

That applies right throughout the country; the Minister promised that he would not cut down on essential social services, but right throughout the country the pennies of the old and poor are being taken away.

Where have any pensions been reduced?

The old people who are drawing pensions get notice: “You have been drawing £2 10s., henceforth you will only get £2 or £1 10s.” We hear that every day. It is cruel to make those people pay for the war.

That, in one word, is untrue.

We shall be able to submit ample instances to the Minister.

I do not think we can discuss the question of pensions under the Additional Estimates. I allowed the hon. member to refer to it because he says that it is connected with the economies affected, but there is nothing in these Estimates that is directly connected with pensions. I am therefore unable to allow a discussion on that question.

Provision is made in these Estimates for a saving of £1,250,000 and then there is a further saving of £5,500,000 on the Loan Estimates. In any case there is a saving of £1,250,000 on the Revenue Estimates and the Minister stated yesterday that the saving would be even larger that that. Now we are taking him to task for having brought about those savings at the expense of the poor people.

If we are to continue the discussion on that basis we shall be able to discuss the whole of the Estimates, and I do not think that I can allow that.

Then I only want to say in conclusion that the Minister gave us the impression yesterday that he is not at all alarmed at the country’s financial position. He stated that the position was sound. If that is so I think he must be the only man in this country who is not alarmed and not anxious about the country’s financial position. Taxes are increased, heavier burdens are placed on the people, and larger loans have had to be made than South Africa has ever made before in order to cover war expenditure. If the Minister is not alarmed, then I can tell him that the people are very uneasy. First of all the Estimates of Expenditure for the first year of war, including the Supplementary Estimates, went up to £79,000,000; then they went up to £112,000,000, and now they have gone up to £121,000,000. The country is deeply concerned and greatly alarmed, not merely because of the increase in expenditure, but also because of the fact that there is no Treasury control over the spending of money in connection with the war.

This day, the 29th of January, 1941, is a landmark in the life of my hon. friend, the member for George (Mr. Werth). He appears before this House for the first time as the shadow minister of finance in the … shall I say United Opposition …

He would make a much better Minister than you …

He will never be a Minister …

Answer the criticisms.

While we listened to the hon. member for George in absolute silence, even my opening remarks are subjected to a storm of interruptions by hon. members opposite.

You don’t like it …

We are accustomed in this House to a one-way traffic in ribald interruptions.

You never interrupt.

We listened to the strong language of the hon. member opposite and to his insinuations, and in the course of his remarks the only two interruptions were made by myself. Yet even in my first sentence the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren) could not remain silent. He will not put me off my stroke in replying to the speech of the hon. member for George. Now this appearance of the hon. member for George is his first appearance in this House as the Shadow Minister of Finance, and is due to two great tragedies that have befallen this House. The first is the untimely death of a man honoured by all of us.

I am afraid the hon. member is irrelevant.

As usual.

Order! I do not think it is necessary to go into these matters. The hon. member should confine himself to the estimates before the House.

Very well; if I may not refer to that I shall proceed to deal with the methods of the hon. gentleman and the manner in which he expressed himself to-day, and to say that neither of the two gentlemen who would have sat in his place would have had the temerity to suggest deliberate dishonesty on the part of the Minister of Finance. They would not have had the temerity, as he did, to suggest that the Minister of Finance well knew when he introduced his Budget last February and his Supplementary Budget in September, that the financial needs of the country for defence purposes would far exceed the amounts he then asked for, and that he kept these up his sleeve and deliberately misled the country into believing that all we would need was these amounts. He even went so far as to describe the tactics of the Minister as “slim tactics,” and he used the word “dishonourable” in regard to them. May I suggest that, having succeeded to the position vacated by these gentlemen, he might address the House with a greater measure of responsibility.

Whom are you giving advice to?

We are not accustomed to hearing responsible financial members of the Opposition insinuating dishonourable tactics to a Minister. He quoted from the Budget Speech of the Minister and suggested that the Budget Speech indicated a policy of “pay as you go.” That is to say, that we were to meet the whole of our war expenditure out of revenue and taxation.

For this year

What did the Minister of Finance say?

Yes, what did he say?

He, the Minister, ended his remarks with these words: “It can thus be claimed that so far” … this was a speech made on the 28th February … “so far we are able to finance the expenditure caused by the war without imposing any burden on posterity.” “So far …” on the 28th February…. “That, I think, is a very considerable achievement.” Those are the only words used by the Minister in his Budget Speech which can be twisted into indicating a “pay as you go” policy. When we met last September the Minister indicated that, roughly speaking, his policy was to defray one-third of the war expenditure from Revenue, and two-thirds from Loan. Let me go back to the 28th February. When the Minister spoke here on the 28th February France stood unbroken. The Maginot Line stood unbroken—

Where is it now?

It never was broken.

Italy had not come into the war, and we were able to look forward to a very different war expenditure. Well, the whole war situation changed almost overnight. France was overrun and collapsed. Italy came into the war. Why does not the hon. member quote the Supplementary Budget Speech which the Minister made in August last when we knew what we were up against? Every word the hon. member has spoken this morning seems to betray his supreme unconsciousness of the fact that, rightly or wrongly—wrongly, he thinks—we are in this war, and that you cannot be in a war with one foot only. If the Minister of Defence needs money for war expenditure, he has to have it. I agree with my hon. friend that we should not waste money, that we should guard the expenditure as carefully and as closely as possible, under circumstances of war time, but I say again that the needs of defence are paramount. If the Minister of Defence comes to the Minister of Finance and says “I must have £6,000,000 per month for war expenditure,” he must have it.

And what if he wants £10,000,000?

Or £100,000,000?

This declamatory stuff which we have been having here this morning takes us no further. Let me deal with one or two of the points made by my hon. friend. He says—and I take it he says truly because I have not been able to check it— that this additional appropriation of £14,000,000 is more than the whole war expenditure for the first year of the war 25 years ago. That may be so. Surely he knows that war to-day is a different proposition to what it was then. War to-day is mechanised warfare, and £10 to-day stands for what £1 was then. Let us compare Great Britain’s war expenditure to-day with what it was then. There is no use arguing about it. If we are in this war, we are in it. If we have an army, it must be up-to-date and thoroughly equipped and mechanised, and you cannot put a mechanised army into the field without spending money—a lot of money. At the same time, let me remind my hon. friend of one fact. To-day the Minister of Finance can borrow all the money he wants at almost pre-war rates.

At less than pre-war rates.

I did not think it went as far as that. I remember that his predecessor in the last war had to go into the money market and pay even up to 6½ per cent., and we found ourselves burdened after the last war with a public debt, a great deal of which carried interest at the rate of 6 per cent., and we have been busy since then paying off these high-rated loans. And in spite of my hon. friend’s solemn talk about millstones round the necks of the taxpayers, the taxpayers seem to be able in South Africa to find all the money the Minister needs and that at a very low rate of interest.

For how long?

I do not know. Obviously as the war goes on the burden may become greater. We hope it may be less. If certain developments which have taken place recently continue, the burden may be less, but do not let us indulge in false optimism—whatever the burden is South Africa will meet it.

Hear, hear!

Yes, there is reason for hon. members saying “hear, hear.” Of course, we do not like these increased estimates.

Not even for the Empire?

We do not like them, we do not like having to meet an increased expenditure of £60,000,000. It is something we did not dream of; but when I say that I want to add that we would like Italian or German rule in this country even less.

We want South African rule.

And you have got it.

Then my hon. friend says that the Minister of Finance is a creature of shreds and patches, that he puts his war Budget before this House in patches. Well, that is true. Like Oliver Twist he always comes back for something more. But that is the trouble of all Ministers of Finance in war time. The war effort in South Africa has developed and it is true that the Minister has had to come in stages—he has had to come in three lots; so have other Ministers. I do not wonder at it.

You wonder at nothing.

May I remind my hon. friend that the original Budget was presented to a House which did not know of any war on the African Continent, but when the Supplementary Budget was presented in September, the second Budget, the war clouds over the African Continent were very threatening and the dangers of this country were real; let me remind my hon. friend over there (Mr. Werth) of a conversation which he and I had. We are very good friends. I remember early last year him standing up in this House and thumping his chest and saying in effect—“If the enemy comes to South Africa I shall defend South Africa to the last drop of my blood.” As we went out into the Lobby I said to him—“My dear Werth, do you realise that if the enemy came to South Africa it would be as the result of two things. The first is that the British Fleet would have been swept off the South Atlantic, and the second would be that a victorious army had come overland from the North, and through Central and Southern Africa to the borders of the Limpopo; and if that happened not all the blood of the Werths in South Africa and their friends would suffice to defend South Africa, because South Africa would be lost.” The fight for South Africa has been fought on the sands of Libya and on the plains of Kenya and we are voting this money to-day as we have done in the past, so that we might defend South Africa on these sands and on these plains. Now, my hon. friend concludes his remarks to-day with an unworthy sneer at the coloured community or at those members of the coloured community who have joined up and taken the red tabs volunteering for service wherever they might be sent in Africa. The coloured man who has taken the red tabs and is fighting on the plains of Kenya is a better South African than the hon. member for George is.

Are you judging from your standard?

Yes, of course.

Well, that is only your standard.

I have nothing but respect for that section of the community which has come forward in such large numbers to volunteer and to help to swell our army in the North—but all my friend can say about them is that it has happened because of that, that there has been a considerable dislocation in the economic position of the country, because his friends cannot get farm labourers and domestic servants as freely as they want, and that therefore, it seems, we should cease to recruit coloured labour for our army in the North. He spoke of this growing war debt as a millstone around the neck of South Africa. Well, we do not like swelling our public debt. He knows as well as I do that there is no country in the world whose public debt is in a sounder position than South Africa and there is no country in the world better able to bear its share of the war burden than we are, and if in God’s providence the war comes to an end this year, and we find ourselves saddled with an extra public debt of £50,000,000 to £60,000,000 or even £100,000,000 it is still well within the powers of this country to take that up in the course of the next five or ten years—that is, of course, if it remains a free country. So all these dire forebodings of the hon. member for George leave myself and us on this side of the House entirely cold, and I think they leave the country cold.

Yes, cold and indifferent.

And without food.

I wish to return in a moment to the hon. member’s attack on the Minister of Finance for deliberately understating the war costs. Surely he must on reflection be aware of the fact that that is not so.

Why not?

He must have forgotten that the circumstances under which the Budget of last February were made were entirely different from what they are today. He must have forgotten the war situation which existed then, and which has changed completely.

And in September?

Yes, in September. In September the black cloud of Italian aggression was over the whole of Northern Africa. We did not know where France stood. Italy was invading Egypt, had attacked and captured our outposts in Northern Kenya, and, frankly, the position in the Near East was such as to cause the greatest anxiety to every South African who loved his country. We did not know what the outcome would be or where we stood. I would ask the hon. member for George a personal question. Does he not rejoice with me that to-day that cloud has largely disappeared, that to-day the menace of Italian aggression in Northern Africa has either disappeared, or is about to disappear; must not every patriotic South African, whatever his political sympathies may be, rejoice that the foresight of our Prime Minister placed in Kenya many months ago a large and well-equipped army, and do not we know and acknowledge the fact with pride, the fact that South Africa’s part in the collapse which has already taken place, and is still taking place in the Italian menace in the North, has been a great one? Do we not recognise the fact that that collapse is as much due to the South African troops in Kenya and the South African war effort as it is due to the efforts of the other troops, the Imperial and Australian troops beyond Kenya? This is a matter beyond politics. We must be happy that that result has been achieved, and if we can help along our war effort by voting another £14,000,000 for war expenditure and thereby bring our armies to the greatest possible strength, bring up to the greatest possible technical efficiency the armies fighting our cause there, is there any South African who will object to our doing so? Is there any South African who will begrudge that expenditure? Of course, we want to eliminate waste. If there are people, as the hon. member says, who laugh over wasteful expenditure by the Defence Department, I would like to take the laugh off their faces, but in every war I am afraid that sort of thing seems to happen. In every war, especially where you have to build up an army from scratch, there is bound to be waste and overlapping. I hope the Government is doing all it can to eliminate such waste, and to prevent overlapping, and wasteful expenditure. The hon. member will no doubt sit with me on the Public Accounts Committee. We do not know what is in the Auditor-General’s report, but if that refers to these matters then they will receive impartial and non-pary investigation, but it is no use because of that attacking the motion now before the House. South Africa is committed to this war policy, it is committed to a large mechanised army in the North, and it has to pay for it, and we have to find the money.

When I sat here listening to the last speaker my mind went back to my childhood days when a previous Government imported an expert from overseas on the question of co-operation. That expert went to address the farmers in a certain dorp about co-operation. He could not speak Afrikaans, and his speech had to be interpreted. At the end of his remarks he said that co-operation was good for this and good for that, and all the rest of it. His remarks had to be interpreted, and the interpreter, who was a relation of yours, Mr. Speaker, said: “Ladies and gentlemen, this gentlemen says that co-operation is just like pink pills— it is good for everything.” The previous speaker got up here, and in regard to all the misdeeds and mistakes which had been referred to as having been made by the previous Government, he said: “But you must bear in mind that there is a war on, and because there is a war on the war has to cover all the faults and failings of the Government and of the Minister.” I admit that we are involved in a war and that money has to be found for that purpose— although it is against my wishes that we are involved in a war, and against my wishes that money has to be found for it. None the less, I can appreciate that it has to be done seeing that we are involved in a war, but what I fail to understand is that the Minister has come to Parliament three or four times in order to amend his own estimates. A second class municipality which has to prepare its annual estimates would be ashamed to have to come along three or four times with amendments in its estimates. A few months ago the Minister placed certain estimates before us. Has anything happened since that time which the Minister can adduce as a reason for his placing other estimates before us? He says that so many more people have joined up, and that provision has to be made for rifles and all the rest of it. He also told us that there is a coloured corps which has to be armed, and which must be taught how to fight, and that notwithstanding the fact that the Prime Minister has made us a promise that the coloured people will only be recruited to act as agterryers. But now we have to be told that those people are to be drilled to go and fight, and the last speaker even said that we should be proud of the fact that those coloured men were going to fight. Well, if he wants to be proud of that fact, by all means let him be, but we Afrikaansspeaking people object to it, because if the coloured people and the white people have to fight alongside of each other in this war, then I am afraid that when the war is over and they come back we shall be unable to refuse them the right to sit at the same table with us, and that is something which we as Afrikaners cannot tolerate. The Prime Minister made us a promise that the coloured people would only be used for certain kinds of work, that they would not be armed, and that they would not be used for fighting purposes. But now I understand they are being trained at Kimberley. They are getting bandoliers and rifles and they are to be used for actual fighting purposes. Well, the Prime Minister will have to account to the people for what he is doing here, and he will have to be satisfied with the people’s judgment of his actions. It is no use our trying to argue it away—there is a colour distinction in this country. The feeling is there, and by doing this sort of thing one hurts the feelings of one section of the population, even if one does not hurt the feelings of the other section. The last speaker, and even the Minister of Finance, admitted that the efficiency or otherwise of a Minister of Finance is judged by his ability to put forth correct estimates, and if his estimates are out it is proof of inefficiency so far as he is concerned, unless he can produce well-founded reasons to show why his estimates have been wrong. I have gone into these various votes, and I have also gone into the various votes in the Minister’s second set of estimates, and I have come to the conclusion that on practically every vote where the Minister is now asking for an increase of expenditure he could have made an estimate as long back as last year. In other words, his estimates in September of last year were wrong, and he has come to Parliament again to-day to ask Parliament for additional amounts on those votes. I do not want to accuse him of having deliberately put up wrong estimates in order to come and ask for the money in bits and pieces; I do not want to accuse him of having done so deliberately with a view to deceiving the country. Nor do I want to suggest that he has done so because of the fact that he is afraid of asking for one large globular amount straight away, or of having done so because he finds it easier to get the amount which he requires bit by bit from the House, than to get it in one amount. But I want to advise him to study what one of his own papers, published in this Town, has to say about this, and I want him to take note of the fact that that charge is definitely made against him. That being the case the Minister cannot blame us, or cannot take it amiss, if we point out to him that his own friends are accusing him of being afraid of coming along with a request for one globular amount, nor can he take it amiss if we say that there is something behind these methods of his. The Minister further said that we need not levy any taxes now to pay these liabilities, these commitments, because of the fact that there is only a short space of time to go before the Main Estimates will be introduced. He further told us that this £14,000,000 will be obtained from certain sources. He said first of all that an amount of £7,000,000 is available from the money which he has over out of the loan issued last year. Then, he told us that he could take further amounts from the reserve funds of the Reserve Bank. When the Minister said that he gave me a fright, because if a Minister of Finance can get up in this House and tell us that he can appropriate the funds deposited with the Reserve Bank, then I get scared, especially when I hear the Minister add that the Government is at liberty to take that money seeing it is our own money.

You misunderstand the position. Those funds are held by the Reserve Bank on our behalf.

Even if those funds are held by the Reserve Bank on our behalf they are still there for a certain purpose, and not for the purpose of waging war. Those funds were deposited with the Reserve Bank long before that time, and if the Minister takes that money he is taking money which was intended for other purposes. And the same applies to the so called savings which are now being taken by the Minister. It is a far reaching thing for the Minister to act in that way. Even the Minister will not be able to come and tell us that we shall not be called upon to pay for this expenditure through some form of taxation. It is quite true that he is not imposing any additional taxes just now but it only means that we are going to be hit doubly hard in March when we have to make provision for the country’s expenditure. He should not avail himself of the fact that is not imposing any fresh taxes now, because we know only too well that we shall have to pay. If we don’t pay now we shall have to pay all the more in March and thereafter. We have to pay, and the Minister will impose taxation in order to pay our debt, and if he borrows money to pay the debt we shall not only have to pay off those loans, but also the interest on those loans. Whether the Minister is not able to put up proper estimates, whether he is not able to make proper provision for the expenditure which has to be met, whether it is inefficiency, or whether it is done deliberately in order to deceive the country—whatever it is, I feel that the time has passed for the Minister to avail himself of war stories in order to cover up the financial position of the country. It is high time that he should face the facts, and that he should realise what is going on in the country, and it is high time that we should realise that we shall have to pay for all this expenditure. We are told there is a war on; in time of war there is expense and there is also waste of money; one cannot avoid it. I do not agree with that at all. If a country is suddently cast into a war and everything is upside down so that certain things for which no provision has been made have to be done suddenly it is something else. But when one has had years to provide for a war— and seeing that we have had a year to make the necessary provision during the course of this war—and it now appears that there was no need to make any provision at all—steps could have been taken to see to it that there should be no waste of money. We find that even the British Government has taken steps to prevent money being wasted. They learnt their lesson in the last war, and they are seeing to it that no money is wasted, or will be wasted and no unnecessary expense will be incurred in this war. I want our Minister of Finance to realise that every penny which is paid out has to come out of the pockets of the taxpayers, whether those taxpayers are in favour of the war or not, and if that money has to be spent, then it is his duty to see to it that it is spent in a proper manner. But when we find that a young fellow who, when living in a dorp, was earning £10 per month now, as I understand, sends £40 per month to his financee to deposit in the bank, then we begin to feel that things are not being carried on in the way they should be. Here we have a man who is worth £10 per month. He joins up and now he sends £40 per month to be deposited in the bank. I want to know from the Minister what provision has been made to see that no unnecessarily high grants or allowances are paid to people who are not entitled to those large amounts? The Government boasts of its policy of seeing the war through, and I take it that the people who join up do so in order to go and fight for the cause, and not merely for the pay they are going to get. They go because they feel it is their duty to go, and all they need is that they shall be paid sufficent to live on and to keep their families going. Why should a man be paid more than he requires and why should he be put in a position of being able to deposit part of his earnings in the bank? That sort of thing does not seem to be fair. If that is the potsion then I also want to know what steps have been taken in connection with the grading of these people. I do not know whether they receive any pay or not, but I have seen crippled officiers walking about here. They were crippled even before the war, and I do not know what the position is so far as they are concerned. They walk about here; perhaps they are doing office work, but I should like to know whether the services of these people are really required. It appears to me that when the Government asks this Parliament for £60,000,000 in one year for war expenditure—and the attack is only beginning now—we have to take note of these things. If the expenditure is as high as that even at this stage—what is the position going to be when we actually start firing bombs, and when rifles and big guns are smashed up? Where are we going to land ourselves if we do not take care of our expenditure? I feel that something has to be done because it will become a very serious matter so far as the public are concerned if we fail to keep our expenditure within certain limits. And if steps of that kind are taken, then I want to see a certain degree of efficiency on the part of the Government to see to it that our expenditure is kept within those estimates. The Government must not simply exceed the Estimates, and then come along afterwards with all kinds of excuses. The Minister came along and told us that he did not know that such a large number of people were going to join up. He also said that he could never have expected such a large quantity of material ordered from Overseas to be manufactured in this country itself. I do not understand those reasons put forward by the Minister. I have not been a member of this House as long as he has, and I do not propose criticising him on these points, but none the less it appears to me that those reasons adduced by him are frivolous and that the excuses offered by him are very badly founded. The Minister at the beginning of the financial year prepared his Estimates on the basis of his policy of seeing the war through, and he therefore must have made up his Estimates of how much he would require to carry out that policy. But now he comes along with those excuses as to why his estimates have been so enormously exceeded. I feel that I am entitled to lodge a protest against these financial methods. The Minister should have been aware of the number of men required when he made his Estimates. If he required a certain number of men, and if he took on more, then it is clear that he has taken on more men than he needs. I have a further objection which I wish to raise against the manner in which Estimates are submitted to the House. It really appears to me that the actual cost of the war is being hidden from the House. A huge amount is being voted for Internment Camps. That amount does not come under the Defence Vote. Does not that amount fall under our war expenditure? The amount is placed under Prisons, and in that way the people are being made to believe that the war is costing so much, while in actual fact it is costing more. The public are being made to believe that £60,000,000 is being spent on the war this year, while in actual fact perhaps a further £20,000,000 may be spent on the war. Seeing that the guards at the internment camps are under the control of military experts, I fail to understand why the expenses in coonnection with internment camps are not debited to Defence? The same remarks apply to the hundred thousand pounds which we are asked to vote as so called assistance to the wheat farmers. That £100,000 is not being voted to assist the wheat farmers, but in order to provide cheap bread to the public. Why then is it called assistance to farmers? That £100,000 is being voted so that the farmers shall get 1s. per bag more for their wheat than the consumers are prepared to pay. It has been made clear that the farmers are unable to produce wheat at the price which the consumer is willing to pay, and for that rea son this money has to be voted in order to keep the price of bread down. So 1s. per bag is taken out of the Government’s pockets and 1s. per bag is taken out of the farmers’ own pockets, so as to give him 2s. per bag more for his wheat, and then it is put on the Estimates in the form of assistance to farmers. It is a subsidy which is being paid to the consumers of bread. Let us take a vote such as that of the House of Assembly. I take it that the additional amount is caused by the special session of September of last year, and also before that time. I take it that the Minister of Finance knew, when he made his Estimates in September, that additional funds would be required. The same thing applies to the item in respect of Hansard. Then we come to the additional amount of £10,000 on the Prime Minister’s Vote. In September of last year we already knew what was going on. The Minister then already knew that there were people overseas who were in difficulties, and he must have already known at that stage that provision had to be made for them. So far as travelling and subsistence costs are concerned, there is also an increase of £7,930. The Minister did not explain that increase—an increase within a period of three months. The House is entitled to know why there should have been that increase in that space of time. The Minister must have known in September that this additional expenditure would be required: and so we could take the one vote after the other. These are very important items and amounts which are being asked for here, and the Minister has not given us any details. He did not even mention a great many of those amounts to us. We do not know what are the reasons for these increases, nor do we know why it is necessary to make special provision now. I really feel that it is not fair on the part of the Minister, because as we have not received the information from him we are not in a position now to discuss these increases on the various votes. It simply means that in Committee we shall have to ask the Minister to supply us with information on every vote, because if we do not get that information we are unable to discuss those votes and we are unable to do our duty towards our constituents in the country. We should be given the opportunity of having everything made clear to us and of knowing why this money is being spent. Let us take this question of the rate of exchange on money sent overseas. Can the Minister give us the assurance that he did not know in September of last year that this additional amount of money would have to be paid out? And if he did not know it, is there any reason why he should not have known it? We want to have clarity as to the need for these further additional estimates. That being so, the Minister cannot take it amiss if we raise objections to these methods of submitting his estimates bit by bit to us. I want to make an appeal to the Minister to give us information on all these points when he replies to the debate, so that in Committee we shall be able to say whether this expenditure was necessary or not, and why provision should not have been made for this expenditure in the previous Estimates.

I must say that these Supplementary Estimates are a surprise, not only to the members of this House but also for the public outside. What I feel is this. I listened attentively to the Government’s champion, that is to say, the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell), when he discussed our financial affairs. But I must say that the defence which he put up here this morning was not only a miserable one but was also of such a character that it will not make any appeal to the country, and I do not believe that his contentions will to any extent be accepted by the country as being at all well founded. He tried to defend the Minister of Finance among other things by putting forth the contention that the Minister was absolutely honest when he came here and asked this House to spend a definite amount for war purposes. Among other things he also wanted to tell us that the clear statement made by the Minister on the 28th February of last year was only a preliminary statement. I should like the hon. member for Kensington, as well as the Minister of Finance himself, to refer back to that statement made by the Minister. Let me read out to them what the Minister on that occasion stated so very clearly, and then I want to ask the hon. member whether he still wants to contend that it was merely a preliminary statement by the Minister of Finance. He quoted here from the Minister’s speech. He naturally only quoted a few lines, and if we read a sentence in that way it, of course, gives a totally different impression from what is really meant. What do we find? The Minister here clearly stated—

That includes the amount for war purposes. And the Minister having made that clear then says—

It is fairly clear. He tells us what the total amount is which has to be found, and then he adds that that is the financial position and that we can be proud of the fact that that is the position. He practically stuck out his chest and told the country that the position really was very good. On the occasion of the second Estimates he naturally came along and put forward certain excuses, and gave certain reasons why such a tremendous amount of round about £32,000,000 had to be asked for for war purposes; but in no way has the House been informed why further amounts have now to be asked for. How the hon. member for Kensington could come here and say that we were honestly informed what the position was I fail to understand. He himself knows, and I think the Government knows, and all the members who support the Government know, that if at that particular time the country had been informed what the actual amount was which the country would have to spend on the war, the country would never have tolerated it, and it would not have agreed to the expenditure of that money. It is interesting to note what the Minister said in regard to his Second Estimates. He stated, and he specially emphasised, that the country was satisfied. Why was the country satisfied? And what is the Minister’s evidence of the fact that the country was satisfied? He referred to certain by-elections and according to what he said those by-elections had clearly shown that the Government’s policy was approved of by the country. May I just be allowed to refer to what he said?

I do not think that that is relevant. The hon. member must confine himself to the Estimates of Additional Expenditure which are before us. We are not concerned with elections now.

May I just point out that the Minister of Finance in giving reasons for the justification of the Additional Estimates, inter alia, gave as a reason that the public in certain by-elections had shown that it was in agreement with the expenditure of those amounts.

The hon. member cannot now deal with what the Minister said at that time, because it has nothing to do with these Estimates.

May I just point out that I am of opinion that these Estimates are co-related—the original Estimates with the Additional Estimates.

The hon. member cannot go back to reasons adduced in connection with the Main Estimates, but he must confine himself to the reasons for the increases in these Additional Estimates.

I bow to your ruling, but I only wanted to point out that the reasons adduced by the Minister do not hold water. However, I shall not go into that any further. My contention is only that if the country had known that this huge amount was to be voted in the first year of war, the country would not have agreed to it, and in passing I want to point out that subsequent by-elections have clearly proved that the country not only does not agree with the Government’s policy, but that it is opposed to such a heavy burden being imposed on the public, a burden which will party have to be paid in the future, a burden which the public cannot stand. If one looks at the amounts one finds that the Minister has not explained the position clearly as he should have done. He only referred to the amount of £14,000,000 under the heading of Defence Expenditure, as though that were the only amount in connection with war expenditure, but one finds that other amounts are hidden away under other Votes. As has already been shown one finds that further large amounts are asked for, for instance under the heading of Prisons and Internment Camps, and these further items of expenditure are also directly connected with the war, and the whole amount should appear in one amount as expenditure for war purposes. Certain amounts are now put under other Votes, although they are also the result of the carrying on of the war. I only want to say this to the Minister, that these Supplementary Estimates did not merely come as a surprise, but that they constitute something which the country had never expected. The people outside feel, and the Minister will have to admit it, that other essential services are being curtailed. The amount is smaller, and savings are made in respect of essential services and all the money is used for war purposes. The Minister will agree with me that this sort of thing is undesirable and not in the interest of South Africa—that it is not in the interest of South Africa to curtail essential services in that fashion. One finds, for instance, that the amount under the vote of Agriculture has been cut down. The public outside are suffering great hardships, and the farmers are not only suffering great hardships, but they are facing dark days. In certain parts of the country the farmers have been hard hit by drought, and other pests, and in spite of that we find that the Government is going to economise on this Agricultural vote. I am in favour of economies where possible, but the Minister is economising on essential services. Take the vote Public Health. Here we find a saving of £52,268. If there is one vote in connection with which we all realise that there should be no economising, it is public health. We cannot allow the health of the people to be neglected. We want to have a free people here, but also a healthy people. The Minister is spending less on that vote, and public health is being endangered. For that reason I hope and I trust that the Minister, together with the Government, will come to realise that the spending of huge amounts for war purposes must now come to an end, and that we cannot allow money being spent in this reckless fashion. As has already been shown by the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth), money is not merely being spent in a reckless fashion, but in such a way that it is being looked upon as ridiculous throughout the country. That sort of thing cannot be allowed to continue any longer. Let me mention just one item. Is the Minister aware of the fact that in the Cape Province no fewer than 1,056 war marriages have taken place? How many marriages take place throughout the whole country in one year? Why are those marriages contracted? To ensure the woman getting the allowance. That is why they get married. Is that fair to the country? If the average allowance is £10, it means that under this heading alone £100,000 extra is being spent every year.

That is the reason why the Minister does not get married.

I do not know whether the Minister is trying to economise in that way, but the Department of Defence must take account of the fact that some of those people only get married in order to get these allowances. If people are already married and are then called up for service, the position is different, but if they only get married in order to secure those grants and allowances a stop should be put to that sort of thing. I feel the Minister will agree with me, and I hope he will see to it that some change is made in the present position. We read daily in the papers about war marriages which are taking place, and this imposes an additional burden on the taxpayers. I hope the Minister will look upon the matter in a serious light, because the public outside regard this aspect of the case very seriously, and they feel that we can no longer allow money to be spent in that way. We also find several amounts on the estimates in connection with which the Minister has not given any details, and I do hope that during the Committee stage, when we shall criticise certain items, and contest the expenditure of certain amounts, we shall get proper information placed before us, because I feel that the Minister himself will admit that certain items and amounts appear on these estimates which superficially at any rate do not only appear to be very large, but almost unbelievable. There are increases in respect of certain votes which are almost unbelievable. So far as I am concerned, therefore, I feel that the country has been very unfairly treated by the way, and the fashion, in which the Minister has given us information, and I want to express the hope that the Minister, if he is keen on maintaining his reputation, will at least give us further information, and that he will not leave us in the dark. Without the slightest doubt, the Minister has step by step come along here to ask money for war purposes, and he himself knows, and I think he will admit, that if at the very outset he had asked for such a tremendous amount, if he had intimated the unbearable burdens which were going to be placed on the country, this House would not have agreed to grant him these moneys. He now says South Africa can be proud of the fact of being in a position to be able to raise an amount like that, and he tells us that we need not be alarmed about the future, but I want to tell the Minister that the public are extremely alarmed.

I should like to say that in my view the second estimates presented to this House are very creditable, and I think that what has been achieved has been achieved as the result of a great effort on the part of the Government, and those associated with this war. A great machine has been created out of nothing, and I am sure that the people of the country not only highly appreciate what has been done, but have nothing but praise for the work of the Prime Minister, and those connected with the defence of the country. As a citizen of the country I wish to say that I am heartily appreciative of the great effort which has been made. The one black spot in the Commonwealth was South Africa.

I thought it was Ireland.

No, Ireland is a white spot.

We have never denied the right of the people of this country either to appear as neutral, or to be neutral. But we have brought them out of that position, and South Africa to-day stands high in the eyes of the world. That is due to what the Government has done. The position presented to us to-day in these estimates is entirely satisfactory. It has been said on the other side of the House that the policy of the Government was one of “pay as you go.”

The “Cape Times” had a huge letter about that.

Now, up to the moment we have spent about £60,000,000. I say that if it is £60,000,000 more the people of this country will not only provide the money, but it will be money well spent on their behalf, and on behalf of their descendants and for the protection of our friends over there. I believe firmly, as I have always done, that you are fighting this war partly to save those who are misled, just as we are fighting it to preserve the Commonwealth as it exists.

The old, old story.

For how many generations?

When hon. members say “pay as you go” I say it is not the kind of advice which we should tender to the Minister, but we know it is a ridiculous suggestion to begin with, and we know that it is an unprecedented thing in any part of the world to think of paying as you go. It is not good even to pay 50% out of your general revenue. During a period of war the distress caused to the taxpayers is great. The Minister of Finance may not agree with me, but I say that distress, even at the present moment, on the taxpayers, as a result of our prsent taxation, is very severe. So one point to be kept in view all the time is to leave something for posterity to pay—leave it to those for whom you are fighting, leave the greater proportion to posterity, and relieve your taxpayer so that at least he can exist. You must remember that South Africa is a model to many other countries. We are the most willing beasts of burden. We accept taxation which most countries would squirm at. We accept it to-day because we believe that our heart and soul should be put forth to render our best effort in this war. But I want to say this, that it would be the wrong policy to pursue this course of paying as we go; we should see to it that we do not impose greater burdens on the taxpayer than the taxpayer can afford to bear. I want to say to-day that our taxpayers are bearing the burden willingly, but do not press them too hard; do not overload the willing beast so that he is no longer able to bear the burden. There is just another matter of importance which was raised by the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren): He objects to this £100,000 for the wheat farmer. So do I. He objects because he says it is not for the wheat farmer, but for the man who eats the bread. If ever there was a false outlook with regard to the expenditure of this £100,000 it is the hon. member’s. I want to say a few words on that point. We are developing into a state of giving gifts to sections of the community. It is worse to-day than it has ever been. I want to point out what the position really is, and I say that the wheat farmer is almost as much protected as the gold industry is. Let us cast our minds back to 1909 when we gave that protection to the wheat farmer. The price of wheat landed at our ports was under 9/- per 200 lbs. We raised the price to 22/6d. The price on the Liverpool Corn Exchange was under 9/-. The country has borne that. Now there is a proposal to hand over £100,000 to these same people who have been the gentlemen of the farming industry. Why is this given to them? Is it on account of an increased cost of production? There is no increased cost of production, it is all nonsense. Is it for increased wages? Not a tickey. I think the House will agree that the Minister should withdraw this proposal. First of all because of the principle that these are amounts given to certain sections of the community—these presents are developing to such an extent in our National lives that they are becoming a perfect disgrace. I want the Minister to withdraw this, and I know he will, because it is not sound; it is unsound and unjust and unfair.

Quite so.

If it were the indigent mealie farmer whose production is erratic and whose markets are difficult to procure, I could understand it. He has been helped in the past but here you have an article which is protected beyond all reason, and I say that this £100,000 should be withdrawn. There is a motion before this House to enquire into the increased cost of production of wheat. I would ask the Minister to let that enquiry be made, and if that Commission of Enquiry recommends this grant, well and good. But what is the position to-day? Within the precincts of this House there are three reports on the cost of production of wheat. They are not worth a penny. In three years it is suggested that there has been an increase of 50% in the cost of production. Let the Government appoint a Commission of Enquiry to go into the whole question of the cost of production of this particular article. The whole position has always been totally unsound, and yet the Minister wants this House to approve of £100,000 being given to the wheat farmer. It is unjust and unreasonable. Other sections of the community want help much more than the wheat farmer. I shall oppose this when the time comes, but I am sure the Minister is going to withdraw. If the Minister will agree to a careful enquiry being made, then we may arrive at a better state of affairs. We are in the dark to-day, and for any member of the House to come and tell me that this £100,000 is not in the interest of the wheat farmer is ridiculous. I shall give details when we are in Committee, but I feel that the House should insist on this being withdrawn, and that it should condemn a system of gifts, bonuses and gratuities, developing in our life. Apart from that I again congratulate the Minister. The country, that is those who are worth considering, agree with the policy of the Government. The country agree that the Government is doing the right thing, and they want to thank not only the Prime Minister, but those associated with the defence of the country for what they have done in bringing about the position in which our troops find themselves to-day.

I had not intended taking part in the discussion at this stage but after the speech by the hon. member who has just sat down I feel it incumbent upon me to say a few words. First of all I want to remind the hon. Minister for Agriculture and Forestry of the warning which I addressed to him not to put this amount which he has on the Estimates under a false name. I warned the Minister of Agriculture that he must not represent this amount, this way of compensating the wheat farmers for an actual increase in production costs, to the public as assistance to wheat farmers. He has succeeded in doing so to such an extent that he has even brought one of his own front benchers under that wrong impression. Now, what are the facts? The fact is that the Marketing Board, after having gone into the matter on the basis of data supplied to it by the Board of Commerce and Industries, and also on the basis of other information, has come to the conclusion that the increase in production costs of wheat amounts to 2/- per bag. That is a finding which naturally is hopelessly wrong, if we enquire into the actual increase of costs of production. Anyhow, the finding of the Marketing Board has been that the increase in the cost of production during this season has been 2/- per bag. The Minister thereupon went along and took 1/- per bag out of the funds of the wheat farmers, and he now wants to find another 1/- per bag in this way in order to compensate the wheat farmers for the increased cost of production, in accordance with the findings of the Marketing Board. In actual fact this 2/- per bag is not a subsidy to the wheat farmers, but it is a subsidy which is being paid to the consumers of bread. Now, as I have got up to deal with this matter—and I am pleased to notice that the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry is in his seat—I want to avail myself of the opportunity to give him the assurance that his attitude in connection with this whole matter is strongly objected to by the wheat farmers. The Minister and his Government in this particular instance cannot put forward the plea that they have acted as they have done as a result of ignorance.

Hear, hear!

What do you know about it?

They were informed in good time on three different occasions by the wheat farmers, but notwithstanding this fact the Minister of Agriculture and his Government have not acted fairly and justly so far as the wheat farmers are concerned. What has the Minister done? When the wheat farmers waited on him with a deputation he said this to them: “If you are able to convince the Marketing Board that the advice which they have given me is wrong then I shall be prepared to reconsider the matter and submit it to the Cabinet.” I took up the attitude that in this particular instance the Minister of Agriculture was not prepared to take refuge behind the Marketing Board, that he was not prepared to push the obligations placed upon him on to the shoulders of the Marketing Board. If an injustice is being done to the wheat farmers then that injustice is being done to them by the Minister and his Government, and not in the first instance by the Marketing Board. We found that the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry expected the wheat farmers to go along and convince the Marketing Board that the advice which they, the Marketing Board, had given the Minister, had been bad advice. He then expected the Marketing Board to come and say to him: “Look here, we were wrong in the advice which we gave you, this deputation of wheat farmers is correct in their contentions.” That is what the Minister expected from the wheat farmers and from the Marketing Board, and that is the task which he imposed on the wheat farmers. It is a most unfair and unjust attitude for the Minister to adopt, and as a member of that particular deputation I only adopted that position because it was the only alternative that was left to us by which we might possibly still obtain something for the wheat farmers. The Minister found that those data and that information supplied to him by the Board of Commerce and Industries in actual fact had brought to light the fact that the basic price of wheat was wrong. May I now be allowed to ask the Minister why that report drafted by the Board of Commerce and Industries, that is to say the report dealing with wheat farming in the four sub-districts of the winter rainfall area, in the years 1938 and 1939, had not yet been placed on the table of the House. Why is that? This report was completed as long ago as the 20th October but so far it has not yet been published. The Minister expected the deputation to regard the report as confidential. But why? Three months after the report of the Commission of Enquiry was completed it had not yet come into our possession, and that is the position now. I want to put this question to the Minister. Am I entitled at this stage to quote from that report, or am I still to regard it as confidential? I should like to have a reply from the Minister because he knows that it is made clear in that report that the basic price of wheat is wrong.

I deny that.

Will you allow me to avail myself of the information contained in that report? The Minister states that what I have said is not correct, but he dare not allow me to avail myself of the information contained in that report. I shall be glad if the Minister will tell me if he will allow me to make use of that report. It will assist me in going further into this matter. He denies that the findings of that Commission show that the basic price of wheat is too low, but in spite of that he does not want me at this stage to make use of the information contained in the report. If the Minister is not prepared to give me that permission and the right to use the report, then it is impossible for me to go into the details of this whole question. Let me say, however, that according to the findings of the Board of Commerce and Industries, it is very clear that the basic price of wheat has been fixed at too low a figure. Now I should like to point out to the Minister that the average expenditure, the additional costs in connection with labour, have been put down at an average of £3/18/8 per farm.

The hon. member must not anticipate the motion of the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus).

May I be allowed to point out to you, Mr. Speaker, that I am not at this stage discussing the costs of production of wheat for the current year, but for the past season.

This whole matter is wrapped up in the motion of which notice has been given by the hon. member for Moorreesburg, and the hon. member cannot go into that now.

Am I not allowed to make use of the findings of the Marketing Board contained in the reply given by them to the deputation?

If that comes under the motion of the hon. member for Moorreesburg, then the hon. member cannot use that.

Then I shall leave it at that. I wish to lodge my protest against the statement of the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) in respect of what he said this morning about the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth), namely, that he thinks more of a coloured man who has joined up for military service than of the hon. member for George. I regard that as an insult which will not easily be forgotten in this House. If that hon. member who comes from overseas, and who perhaps does not understand the sentiments of the Afrikaner towards the coloured question, is in that unfortunate position, then he should not come and speak here and pose as an authority on the Afrikaners. Let me tell him this: why does he not go to the platteland, to the supporters of the Government Party, and tell them that he thinks more of a coloured man who is doing military service than he thinks of those Government supporters who stay at home? Why does he not tell them that, and why does he address an insult like that to the hon. member for George? It is a dire insult to the Afrikaner who differs from him in connection with the colour question. I also wish to lodge a protest against the way in which coloured men are recruited for military purposes. I want to draw the attention of the Minister of Finance to the fact that there is a scarcity of labour on the platteland, and that the Government is busy depriving farmers of their farm labour. The Government is doing this at a stage and at a time when it is extremely difficult for the farmers to purchase machinery which would enable them to curtail their labour. All of us know that the price of machinery at the moment is particularly high, and while that the farmers find themselves in great difficulty through having to pay high prices for their machinery, we find that the Government, by paying high wages for military service, is drawing the coloured men away from the farms. If those coloured men want to go and fight for love of the Empire, let them do it for nothing then, but they should not be tempted by a wage scale of 7s. 6d. per day, which is more than the average coloured man has ever earned, and more than they get in public institutions in the Cape. Even the City Council of Cape Town and the Divisional Council of the Cape do not pay ordinary coloured men 7s. 6d. per day. Why does the Minister at this stage take this step of paying those excessive wages to coloured people? Is is nothing but a temptation and an inducement to get these people to go and fight, not for love of the cause— it is nothing but a temptation to induce them to go on military service. If we are to believe the reports which come from overseas and from North Africa, then there is not going to be much more fighting in Kenya. Africa is practically clean; then why does the Prime Minister go on recruiting those coloured men on such a large scale, if he does not intend using them for other purposes? If we are to believe the reports, the position in Kenya has been practically settled, and if that is so is it still necessary then to go on incurring military expenditure on a large scale? We definitely want to know why the Government continues recruiting coloured people in this way. Is there an idea at the back of the Prime Minister’s head of sending these people overseas? He promised us that he would not do so, but when we are asked to vote this money we want to know what that money is going to be used for, whether it is to be used to equip people and to train them to do military service overseas. I consider that the Minister of Defence owes this explanation to the House, and seeing that he is asking us to pass this large amount of money, we want to know definitely from him whether those people are being trained to serve in Africa, and what his intentions are?

You will probably not allow me, Mr. Speaker, to go at length into the question of savings which have been effected in connection with expenditure incurred during this year, but as this matter has been raised by several members opposite I just want to say this, that it is quite wrong to pretend that any excessive economies have been effected in connection with social services. So far as those services are concerned, no extraordinary savings have been effected by us. Each year it is possible at this stage to come before the House with a considerable amount which has been saved. This year that amount is much larger than usual, but so far as social services are concerned we certainly have not followed any policy of curtailing, especially in respect of any of the money voted by Parliament for those services. It is therefore definitely wrong to pretend that we have followed a policy of curtailing pensions with the object of saving money. It is also wrong, for instance, to say that in respect of a vote like Public Health we have deliberately economised. The savings in respect of expenditure of that kind are simply savings which could have taken place during the course of any year. Some of the hon. members opposite have also complained that on other votes amounts are making their appearance which are connected with the war, and that those amounts are not debited to the Defence Vote. I want to tell them that it is necessary to put those amounts under those votes because we have to vote the money to the vote on which the salary of the accounting officer responsible for the spending of the money appears. The vote under which the salary of the Secretary for the Interior appears has to be debited with the money for which he is the accounting officer. We therefore have to vote it on the vote “Interior,” and not on the vote “Defence.” For that reason it is impossible to avoid all Defence expenditure not appearing on the Defence vote. The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren) complained that I had not given sufficient information in regard to the details of the different votes. I believe that my hon. friend is aware of the fact that the stage where these details in connection with minor votes can be obtained is in Committee, and it is not usual nor is it possible for the Minister of Finance to go at length at this stage into all the details of every vote. My hon. friend will be able to obtain all the information he requires at that stage and he will then get it from the Minister concerned. Now I particularly wish to confine my remarks to what has been said by the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth). He particularly discussed our increased expenditure for Defence purposes. But he also put a question in regard to Vote 45, the allowances in respect of increased cost of living. It is true that I did not give any details on that question in my introductory remarks. It is also true that the matter is one of sufficient importance and I should perhaps have mentioned it, but I did not refer to it owing to the fact that the Government has made its policy in regard to that question very clear to the public. So there was nothing new left for me to say and I thought that any further information required could be given during the Committee stage. May I be allowed to say this at this stage, that the Government a few months ago adopted certain suggestions in regard to an allowance for increased cost of living for Government servants including Railway servants. That decision was come to on the ground of the recommendations made by two Committees, one a public service Committee, and the other a Railway Service Committee. Those two Committees made certain unanimous proposals and we decided to accept those proposals. The whole position was fully explained to the public in the Press. According to that scheme the allowance for cost of living would become payable when there was an increase of 4% in the cost of living, according to the official figures for the previous three months. That stage was reached since the 1st of January of this prsent year. During the previous three months that is September, October and November, there was an increase in the cost of living of about 4½. For that reason we had to make provision for the pyament of these allowances for the first three months of this current financial year, which are also the last quarter of the financial year. In accordance with this scheme these allowances are only payable to officials in receipt of the lower salaries when there is an increase of 4%. They are the first to benefit. The higher paid officials have to wait until there is a further increase in the cost of living.

Up to what salary do they now get those allowances?

I have not got all the facts before me but I shall give the details at a later stage. I believe that at the moment officials in receipts of up to £200 get these allowances. Those in receipt of less than £200 are paid allowances in respect of cost of living, but I should prefer to give more definite information on this point during the Committee stage.

Does that also apply to Railway officials?

Yes, exactly the same scheme applies to the Railway Administration—the same scheme as that which applies to the Public Service. I now want to revert to some of the contentions of the hon. member for George which I cannot allow to pass without replying to them. If I understood him correctly he said that we are being asked here to approve of Estimates of Additional Expenditure amounting to more than the whole of the expenditure for the first years of the pervious war, that is to say for the year 1914/15.

The expenditure from Revenue Account.

Yes, but my hon. friend did not say that in that period the country met all its war expenditure from Loan Account. In that first year of the last Great War we spent a little under £20,000,000 on the war from Loan Account. Why did not my hon. friend tell the House that as well? In the first year and a half of the last war we spent £20,000,000 out of borrowed money. In the first year and a half of this war we expect to spend £35,000,000 from Loan Funds. If we bear in mind the changes which have taken place in the methods of waging war we must come to the conclusion that the comparison is not too unfavourable a one, so far as to-day’s conditions are concerned. Then my hon. friend, the member for George, further declared that I had undertaken to meet war expenditure without issuing any loans for the purpose. He alleged that I had said that our policy was “to pay as we go.” I never used those words and I never gave that undertaking. I know that it has been repeatedly stated in the papers supporting his Party that I had made that statment, but I never made that statement. I only said that as regards the first £14,000,000 we were able up to that stage, “so far”—I always used those words—to find the necessary money without placing any burden on the shoulders of posterity. I said that it was undoubtedly a great achievement for us to be able to find that £14,000,000 for war expenditure without having to borrow one penny for the purpose. And it was an achievement. I have before me the speech I made on that occasion, and on every occasion that I referred to this matter I used the words “at this stage” or “so far.” My hon. friend is therefore not entitled to pretend that I should have ever undertaken to meet all the war expenditure from revenue. Then the hon. member also said that I had not adduced a solitary reason for this additional expenditure in connection with Defence. Apparently he did not listen very carefully to my previous speech. He said that I had given reasons in August but that I had not given any reasons on this occasion. I mentioned the reasons very specifically. The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren) must have listened more carefully to my speech because he mentioned the reasons adduced by me. I therefore only want to refer the hon. member for George to his own colleague. He can learn from him what were the reasons actually mentioned by me. But now I come to something which is of a more serious nature, or apparently of a more serious nature, and that is the contention of the hon. member for George that I have deliberately deceived the people. I say that it is “apparently more serious” because I really do not take it too seriously.

Your papers also say so.

I am now dealing with the hon. member for George. While he was talking in his usual high falutin manner and levelled those charges against me, I could not help thinking of the old English saying, that “It was only pretty Fanny’s way of talking.” Well, the hon. member is at liberty to carry on doing so. I know that in his heart of hearts he does not really mean it because he has enough common sense to realise that one cannot run the Union’s finances in the way the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren) apparently wants to do it, namely the way in which the finances of a second-rate municipality are run. The hon. member for George takes it amiss from me that it was impossible for me a year ago to anticipate what would be involved in this war. He knows, just as well as I do, that it was quite impossible, and consequently when he accuses me of deceiving the public that same charge. I take it, must apply to all Ministers of Finance of the belligerent countries, and a great many of the Ministers of Finance of the neutral countries. He takes me to task for having had to come twice in one year with an additional appropriation in order to cover war expenditure. May I just remind him that in the United States of America, before they changed their policy, they came three times in two months for additional appropriation. Was that also an instance of deliberate deception of the public?

Quite possibly.

No, the hon. member for George knows that there is no question of deliberately misleading the people, and now let me come to more important points. The hon. member for George stated that expenditure had also gone up in consequence of the fact that there is no treasury control over Defence expenditure, and in order to support this contention, he mentioned, inter alia, the fact that the Minister of Defence is also Prime Minister. I feel that it may be useful if I were to state for his information that the Prime Minister, who is also Minister of Defence, has handed over his functions in this connection to a committee of which the Minister of Railways and Harbours is the chairman, and on which the Department of Finance and the Public Service Commission are represented. My hon. friend will therefore realise that there is no possibility of the Minister of Defence being able to, or wanting to, abuse his position as Prime Minister in order to obtain funds for defence purposes. There is ample machinery for control, and that machinery is used. Then the hon. member for George also stated that our financial position was unsound. When it is possible for a country of the size of South Africa to find £60,000,000 for the purposes of war, and to find all that money from its own resources without having to go overseas to borrow a penny, and if, in addition, such a country is able to repay a loan of £8,000,000 overseas, then it cannot be said that the financial position of that country is unsound. In addition to that we have the fact that the country to-day is able to borrow its money at a very much lower rate of interest than it was twelve months ago. Which goes to prove that people who have money have ample confidence in the soundness of our country’s fiances. More than that it is unnecessary for me to say at this stage. Just one final word. The hon. member for George said that if the public on the 4th September, 1939, had known that we were going to spend £65,000,000 in one and a half years of war, the public as a whole would have been opposed to the Government’s war policy. I am sorry that the hon. member has so little confidence in the determination of the people of. South Africa to defend their liberty. The people of South Africa, with the exception of our friends opposite, do not merely talk about liberty, they are also prepared to fight for that liberty and to pay for it.

Motion put, and the House divided.

Ayes—73:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Baines, A. C. V.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Blackwell, L.

Botha, H. N. W.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Collins, W. R.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

Deane, W. A.

De Kock, A. S.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, J. C.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Egeland, L.

Faure, P. A. B.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Henderson, R. H.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Klopper, L. B.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Marwick, J. S.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Pocock, P. V.

Reitz, D.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Rood, K.

Shearer, V. L.

Smuts, J. C.

Solomon, B.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Steenkamp, W. P.

Steyn, C. F.

Steytler, L. J.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Sutter, G. J.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C M.

Van d. Byl, P. V. G.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Zyl, G. B.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

Tellers: G. A. Friend and J. W. Higgerty.

Noes—52:

Badenhorst, A. L.

Badenhorst, C. C. E.

Bekker, G.

Bekker, S.

Bezuidenhout, J. T.

Boltman, F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Bosman, P. J.

Bremer, K.

Brits, G. P.

Conradie, J. H.

Conroy, E. A.

De Bruyn, D. A. S.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Du Toit, C. W. M.

Erasmus, F. C.

Fullard, G. J.

Geldenhuys, C H.

Grobler, J. H.

Haywood, J. J.

Hugo, P. J.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Le Roux, S. P.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Malan, D. F.

Olivier, P. J.

Oost, H.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Pirow, O.

Schoeman, N. J.

Serfontein, J. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. P.

Swart, C. R.

Theron, P.

Van den Berg, C. J.

V. d. Merwe, R. A T.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Venter. J. A. P.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Viljoen, J. H.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Werth, A. J.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

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

Motion accordingly agreed to.

House in Committee:

On Vote No. 3—“House of Assembly,” £4,222,

I should just like to know from the Minister of Finance whether there has been a miscalculation in connection with Hansard. I notice an additional amount of £2,665 for Hansard, and I should like to know whether there was any extra work, or what was the reason for this increase?

The sittings of the House in the financial year lasted a little longer than was expected.

Vote put and agreed to.

On Vote No. 4—“Prime Minister and External Affairs,” £20,018,

Here is an amount of £7,930 for travelling and subsistence. I should like to know from the Minister of External Affairs why this amount is so very high? The amount originally voted was £6,550, and an additional amount is now being asked for even larger than the original amount for the whole year. I assume that part of that money is due to the fact that our Ambassador in France, instead of returning to his post as he should do, sits in London. We understand that normal diplomatic relations prevail between the Union and France, and in accordance with the practice of the diplomatic service, whenever an official or an Ambassador, or whoever he may be, is away from his post, he is paid a certain extra allowance per day. I should like to know how much of that £7,930 is extra subsistence allowance being paid to our Ambassador in France, who is in London instead of being at his post in France. Then I also want to know how much of that money is being paid to our Ambassador in Holland, who has been on a trip to South Africa? How much were the travelling expenses incurred by him in coming to South Africa when he came here to make propaganda on behalf of the Government? How much do we pay him in respect of extra subsistence allowance while he was in England? What justification is there for paying our Ambassador in Holland a subsistence allowance while he is in England, seeing that there are no interests in Holland to be attended to by him, as Holland is occupied by another country? Then I am also anxious to know in what way the compensation is paid to officials in respect of loss of property suffered by them? An amount of £10,000 has been put down here for that purpose. Let me say straight out that I am not opposed to compensation being paid when actual losses are suffered under such circumstances. But what I want to know is whether those losses have been actually suffered. Are these losses in respect of furniture which was the property of the officials which has disappeared? Were those goods lost from the Embassies, or is that furniture now being looked after under the aegis of the Government concerned in accordance with international law? We want to be given information to show why it is necessary for us to pay out these amounts. In principle, I am not opposed to such losses being compensated for, but in view of the fact that the amount is a fairly large one I feel that we can look to the Minister to give us the information.

In regard to the travelling and subsistence expenditure, this amount relates to Embassies which, as the result of certain developments, have had to move away from the places where they were situated, and have had to go elsewhere. That has been the position in Berlin, in Rome, in Holland, Belgium and France.

Why France—why does our Ambassador in France sit in London? We have recognised the Vichy Government.

Travelling and subsistence expenditure has naturally gone up and compensation has had to be paid in that respect to officials. In regard to the position of our Ambassadors in France and Holland who have not yet returned to their seats, I want to say that Dr. Van Broekhuyzen, naturally, cannot return to Holland. I wanted to have him here, however, in order to consult him on a number of questions, and I wanted to discuss matters with him, and make certain arrangements. That was the reason why he was asked to come to South Africa, and his expenses in that connection are included in this amount. In regard to our Ambassador in Paris, he has not yet been sent back to the seat of the French Government because that seat has not yet been definitely fixed. There are other reasons as well why not only we, but other Governments as well, have considered it necessary not yet to send our Ambassador to Vichy. It does not only apply to our case.

Is he connected with the French Government?

We maintain our diplomatic relations with Vichy. The Vichy Government is represented here in South Africa and we are on an ordinary footing with the French Government, on a friendly footing, but there are special reasons why our Ambassador has not yet been sent to Vichy. As to the other point touched on by the hon. member, the Committee will notice that we have set down a round sum for compensation to officials, for loss of property on account of their having left the houses in which they lived in the various capitals, and on account of the loss of furniture, domestic goods, etc., which was their property in the capitals in which they were domiciled. It is difficult for us to fix exactly what the amount of the damage suffered is, and that is why a round sum of £10,000 has been estimated for the purpose. Later on it will be possible to set down the exact amount.

The reply vouchafed by the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister is rather interesting, particularly in respect of our relations with the French Government. Even during the previous session I put a question about the Union Ambassador being sent back to France. On that occasion the Prime Minister gave the reply that there was uncertainty about the seat of the French Government. It is a long time ago that that reply was given, and the French Government still has its seat at Vichy. One would have thought that even the Prime Minister would have realised by this time that the French Government is very definitely situated at Vichy. And now the Prime Minister has told us that there are certain reasons why Capt. Bain-Marais is not returning to France. On the one hand the Prime Minister admits that friendly relations prevail, diplomatic relations between the Union Government and the French Government, but in the same breath he tells that there are other reasons as well why the Union is not sending its Ambassador back to France at this stage. I hope the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister will avail himself of the next opportunity offering to inform the House what the special reasons are why the French Government has its Ambassador here in South Africa, and why South Africa is not in accordance with the diplomatic and international practice, doing what it should do, namely also to have its Ambassador in France. If it is impossible for us to send the Ambassador himself then I want to know why at least in accordance with diplomatic and international usage, a Charge d’Affairs ad interim is not appointed to attend to our interests there in the meanwhile. The Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister considers it necesssary to send Dr. Van Broekhuyzen to London with the alleged purpose of looking after the Union’s interests there, while Holland is occupied by the Germans, but no Ambassador is sent to France, a large portion of which is not occupied, and where the Union has considerable commercial and other interests. The Prime Minister does not consider it necessary to send a Chargé d’Affairs there to represent the Union in accordance with ordinary diplomatic and international practice. I feel that in accordance with international and diplomatic practice it is an insult to France, seeing that France has an Ambassador in South Africa, and seeing that France is doing her duty so far as she is concerned, the Union keeps its delegation in France closed, and is not even taking the trouble, and has not even the courtesy to appoint a temoprary Chargé d’Affairs there to keep the normal diplomatic relationship in force. I hope the Prime Minister will give us the reasons why it is not being done.

I should like to have some information about the compensation which has to be paid to officials who have lost their property. Were some of those officials also domiciled in London? Are those people included under this Vote?

No, the officials in London do not fall under this. I should just like to say for general information that the hon. member for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw) is under quite a wrong impression when he thinks that our attitude towards the French Government, is offensive. Our attitude is thoroughly understood by the French Government. May I point out what the position is? Pretoria is our Administrative Capital and it is perfectly natural that the French Ambassador should stay there. We have not yet lost Pretoria. So far as France is concerned the position is extraordinary. Paris the recognised Capital of the country, is at the moment—we hope temporarily—not the seat of the French Government. The French Government has moved to another place; they themselves do not know how long for or what conditions are going to be. The position is an uncertain one and the French Government thoroughly understands the attitude adopted by our Government and acqueisces in it.

They are not in London. What is our Ambassador doing there?

There is a great deal to be done from London. The hon. member and the country may take it from me that the relationship between ourselves and Vichy are good and normal.

I think the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister will realise that the answer he has just given is as unsatisfactory as it can be. He says that because the French Government incidentally happens not to be in Paris but in Vichy, we therefore do not send our Ambassador there. Is that perhaps the reason why Dr. Van Broekhuyzen sits in London, because the Holland Government is not in The Hague, but in England?

Yes, the Holland Government is in London.

And the French Government is in Vichy. Naturally, there is the difference that Vichy is in France, and London in England. But it really surprises one that the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister can come forward here with an excuse of that kind. We expect better things from him. If anyone else were to put forth such a frivolous reason one could understand it, but when it comes from the Prime Minister we really have cause to be surprised. Surely it is too ridiculous to say that we do not send our Ambassador to France because the French Government is at Vichy. And what about America? They do not see those difficulties. And what about the other countries whose Ambassadors at the moment are with the French Government?

America’s position is very different from ours.

But from a diplomatic point of view, surely what applies to America applies to us. If France has her Ambassador here, then surely we should have our Ambassador in France?

What about Canada’s Ambassador?

Yes, of course, we have to follow Canada’s example. The reasons which Canada has are similar to those which the Prime Minister has for the attitude he has adopted, and I shall now say what those reasons are. The reason why the Union has no Ambassador there, and why Canada has not got an Ambassador there either, is that the Prime Minister prefers to have an Ambassador with De Gaulle rather than with the French Government. If we have to judge from the attitude adopted by the Prime Minister, then De Gaulle is the legal head of the French Government, and not Petain. That is the actual reason which the Prime Minister has for not being prepared to have an Ambassador with the Government of France. And he should not treat this side of the House with such a display of contempt as to expect us to accept the reasons which he has given us. We are not children. If he has a good reason why South Africa should not have a representative in the French Government, let him give us that reason, but he must not come and tell us that Canada has not got a representative there, and that for that reason we should not have an Ambassador in France either. He unblushingly wants South Africa to follow Canada’s lead, and because Canada does not do this or that South Africa must not do it either. It is no longer only England whose lead we have to follow when it suits her—Canada has to set the course for us. It is a disgrace that the Prime Minister should adopt that attitude, and he has not done justice to himself by putting forward these ridiculous reasons.

Seeing that we have been asked to vote this additional money, portion of which is to be expended on the allowance that is being paid to Capt. Bain Marais in London, and in view of the fact that the Prime Minister says that there are certain reasons why he is in London and not with the French Government, we should like to know from the Prime Minister what those reasons are. It is true that the Prime Minister came along later on with the Vichy story, but as the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) has shown, the reasons adduced by the Prime Minister were of such a nature that he did not do justice to himself by putting them forward. But as the Prime Minister tells us that there are certain reasons why we should vote money to keep Capt. Bain Marais in London, we are entitled to ask him to take this House into his confidence and to tell us what those certain reasons are, why an Ambassador or a Chargé d’Affairs for the Union cannot be at Vichy. The Minister cannot come along to us with this Vichy story. There is no need to put up an Embassy building or to secure an Embassy building there if he wants to appoint a temporary Chargé d’Affairs. Our Chargé d’Affairs can take rooms in an hotel just the same as other Ambasssadors do—the Ambassadors of the South and North American countries do so. They stay in hotels, and it will cost our Government a great deal less money to have a Chargé d’Affairs living in a hotel in Vichy than to maintain an Embassy in London. The Government can even let Capt. Bain Marais go to Vichy, and he can live there in an hotel instead of in London. Then it will only cost us his salary and his hotel expenses. The point is one of the utmost importance. The Prime Minister says that the French Government knows what the position is. Naturally, the French Government is aware of the fact that we have not got a representative there. I am convinced the French Government is not satisfied with the position that while France has an Ambassador in South Africa we have no one with the French Government in France. It cannot be satisfied with the fact that we do not even have the courtesy—that we are guilty of the flagrant discourtesy of not even doing the French Government the honour of keeping a Charge d’Affairs in a room in Vichy. We demand that the Prime Minister shall tell us what those certain reasons are, and if he is unable to give us those reasons then we must simply guess what they are. We can only guess that they are reasons which coincide with the attitude of Downing Street and Ottawa, and that the object of this attitude is to give an indication of their displeasure with the present Government in France, and that because this Government is more in sympathy with General De Gaulle than what they are with the present French Government. That is the real reason; and the Prime Minister knows just as well as I do that one of the best known diplomatic steps one can take to express one’s displeasure with the Government of a country is not to appoint a representative in that country, not to have a Legation there, and not even to have a Chargé d’Affairs there. I want to express the hope that the Minister will take us into his confidence. He did not do so in his first reply, but I do trust that he will now tell us what these certain reasons are, and if he does not do so then we are entitled to draw our own conclusions, and I am convinced that the correct conclusion is that which I have given—that he has more sympathy with De Gaulle than with the present French Government.

I am not going to be more than two minutes, Mr. Chairman, but I must say the Opposition are throwing up a very nice smoke screen. I was appalled to hear the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) saying that because the American Minister was in Vichy, why should not the South African Minister be in Vichy. I did not hear him draw a parallel with the countries conquered by Germany; I did not hear him ask why their representatives are not in Vichy. I would like to ask the hon. member through you, sir, whether the Minister representing Holland is in Vichy, whether the Minister representing Poland is in Vichy; whether the Minister representing Norway is in Vichy. No, sir, these are not parallels at all to hon. gentlemen on the opposite side. They are living in this wonderful neutrality maze of theirs. I certainly do not like to think that this is the hidden hand again of the hon. member for Waterberg trying to assist Germany. He wants to arrange trade agreements again, possibly with captured France, he wants the Union to arrange to send foodstuffs over there through their Minister who is in Vichy, so as to feed his German friends. Oh, no, Mr. Chairman, our Prime Minister is far too much alive for that. Surely, now, hon. members over there should stop. I think that it is time that they should stop throwing this dust in the eyes of the poor public whom they think they are misleading. It will be a very small section of South Africa that they will mislead, but unfortunately hon. members are mixing amongst that small section. If only they would come along and mix with the people who really do count, the people who think sanely, these idle suggestions thrown out by the hon. members for Beaufort West (Mr. Louw) and Waterberg would not occur.

Vote put and agreed to.

Vote No. 7—“Treasury,” £2,215, put and agreed to.

On Vote No. 8—“Public Debt,” £400,000,

I want some information from the Minister of Finance in regard to this additional amount of £289,000 for Interest. Could not the Minister have calculated how much would be required for interest? Why is it necessary to put an additional amount on the estimates for interest? We find that the amount is now being increased by £289,000, and surely either the Minister or his Department should have known what the interest on our public debt was, and they should have been able to work out exactly how much would have to be paid. There may be an excuse for it, but I am anxious to know from the Minister what the position is. Then there is an additional amount of £106,000 in respect of the rate of exchange on money sent away. According to the information given to us by the Minister, this is in respect of the amount of £7,900,000 paid off in London. I have already pointed out that it is desirable that we should pay off our loan debts overseas, and I am very pleased the Minister has seen fit to do so. But the Minister told us that there were certain amounts in England standing to our credit. We had certain credits in London, and I want to know why those amounts were not used to pay off this debt? If that had been done there would have been no need for us to have paid this large amount for expenditure on the fate of exchange.

No, we did not have those credits. Those credits did not belong to the Government.

I was under the impression that we had that money there. Well, then that is the explanation. I wanted to know the reason. Then there is an amount of £5,000, additional expenditure for control. I should like to have some information about that.

So far as this last point is concerned, that refers to the arrangement which we had with the Westminster Bank in regard to the redemption of the loan of £8,000,000. This money is paid by way of commission. Now, as regards the £289,000 the increase in the amount of interest, that is due to the additional amounts of money which we borrowed. We concluded those loans; they were higher than we expected, and for that reason more interest has to be paid.

Vote put and agreed to.

On Vote No. 10.—“Provincial Administrations”, £10,067,

I should like to know in connection with this Vote and the item of grants to the Provinces, why there is such a large difference in the increases in regard to the four Provinces? In the case of Natal we notice an increase of £7,000 while the increase in the case of the Free State is £280. This is particularly noticeable if we look at page 6 and find that the Natal University College gets £3,000 more while the Potchefstroom University College only gets £37 more. It is further very patent when we cast our eyes at the Loan Estimates and find on page 8 that the Natal Technical College gets £5,000. It appears to me that all the money goes to Natal. Is that because Natal wholeheartedly supports the war effort, while Potchefstroom does not do so? Why have we got this enormous difference here?

These grants are fixed by law. The various Provinces are paid their grants on the basis of school attendance, that is to say on the basis of the number of children multiplied by the number of days of school attendance. The grant for the year 1941-1942 is fixed on the basis of school attendance for the year 1940. When we prepared the Estimates at the end of 1940 we did not yet have the final figures for school attendance, and we only had an estimate at our disposal. We received the figures from the Auditor General in the course of the year. He goes into the figures and supplies us with the final figure. Consequently when we submit our main estimates we can only calculate the grant on the estimated figure; and not on the final figure; when later, ip the year we receive the final figure from the Auditor it becomes possible to calculate the grants exactly, and to provide for the necessary additional amounts.

The same thing happens every year. The original figure is the estimated figure, and the revised figure appearing here is the final figure based on the actual school attendance.

Then why was there such a tremendous under-estimate in Natal—an estimate of £7,000? Has there been a tremendous increase in the number of children?

The explanation is not that there has been a tremendous increase in the number of children attending school, but only that in the first instance the Natal Provincial Administration apparently greatly underestimated its school attendance and when the Auditor went into the figures he found that a considerable addition had to be made to the estimated figure.

Vote put and agreed to.

On Vote No. 11.—“Miscellaneous Services”, £30,000,

I should like to have some information from the Minister in regard to this amount of £1,000 “Expenses of Civil Re-employment Board”. Is that the Board of which Mr. Albert Kuit is a member?

Yes.

Vote put and agreed to.

Vote No. 12.—“High Commissioner in London”, £6,600, put and agreed to.

Vote No. 17.—“Union Education”, £11,968, put and agreed to.

Vote No. 19.—“Commerce and Industries”, £3,500, put and agreed to.

On Vote No. 20.—“Agriculture”, £52,175.

While I believe that the provision of £2,000 for Nagana Research will be welcomed by all sides of the House, I feel the occasion is a fitting one for acknowledgment to be made in this House of the services rendered by the Nagana Research Officer, Mr. Harris. It is a truism to say that for centuries the pest of Nagana has been the chief barrier to the exploration of the so-called Dark Continent and the opening up of its resources.

What has that to do with this vote?

I am talking on Vote 20, item B.17. Until lately it was impossible in large areas, particularly in the constituency which I have the honour to represent, to undertake any schemes of development owing to this pest. It was given to Mr. Harris to make signal contribution towards eradicating this scourge. His was the important entomological discovery that tsetses find their food by sight. On this discovery he based the traps which bear his name. Systematically employed these traps have captured millions of tsetses and successively cleared one area after another of Nagana. Although this discovery was for a time the subject of acute controversy, as most discoveries are, and although there may still be divergencies of opinion as to the extent to which it is necssary to thin down the wild game which act as carriers of the disease, and as to the practicability of restricting the wild game within specified limits, it is true to say that there is no longer any room for doubt as to the efficacy of the traps and the value of the services rendered by Mr. Harris to science and to South Africa. After twenty years of service, despite certain difficulties and obstacles and misunderstandings, he was able to report, just before his retirement last October, that in no less than in three areas, namely, Nkwaleni, Ntambana and the whole of the Lower Umfolozi district, the pest had been eradicated, and that in none of them had there been a single outbreak for over three years. Even in the lower area of the Lower Umfolozi Reserve, where, in the month of September, 1931, no less than 200,000 flies were captured in 50 traps, and the pest was now on the verge of total extermination. So striking has been the success of this work that for over six years at the Nagana Research Station itself a herd of cattle have been safely maintained without any special treatment of any kind, and without contracting Nagana—and that in a district where, prior to that, it was not possible even to keep a dog alive. As a result of the work accomplished in this direction, there are to-day throughout Zululand more cattle than at any time within man’s recollection. Large additional areas have become possible for fruitful stock farming, at the same time ensuring the preservation of our unique national asset, the wild life in the Game Reserves. It is true the pest has not disappeared from South Africa nor even altogether from Zululand. But the way has been shown and the first stage, namely, the destruction of the fly itself, has been successfully tackled. There remains still to deal with the second step for complete extermination, namely, the effective control of the carriers within specified areas. The Government is to be commended on making this bonus. It is also to be commended on having decided to retain the services of Mr. Harris in a part time supervisory capacity. His retention was anxiously desired by increasing numbers of settlers and others who are cognisant of the results of his work. So far as this amount of £2,000 is concerned, it is indeed a measure of the Government’s appreciation, but it is not actually a gift. It is in the nature of a payment to which the recipient is entitled, for, in patenting his invention he entered into a contract with the Union Government by which the Government was given the use and still enjoys the full use for an indefinite period, free of all royalties, of his patent, and the agreement was subject on the Government’s side to an undertaking that if the invention proved successful in any areas a suitable bonus would be granted, and this amount of £2,000 is the assessment by the Government of its indebtedness under the agreement. I feel that the amount might very well have been twice as large. The amount represents cheap value for the services which the Government has obtained in the use hitherto and for the future use of this invention. It is true that other forms of recognition will no doubt come to Mr. Harris. In 1939 the Scientific Society honoured him with their medal, but his best reward will remain the knowledge that he has won through to achieve a lasting and a noteworthy contribution to the welfare not only of this country, but to the African Continent, and I hope the Government will be able to retain his services, even if it be in a supervisory capacity, for a number of years to come, so that the work initiated by him may be maintained and carried on even to greater successes.

I want to ask the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry to tell us what the position is in regard to the locust menace in our country. We notice that there was an Estimate of £100,000, and that the estimated expenditure was out by £50,000. Has the position become more serious, and if so, in which parts of the country? Then money is also asked for the destruction of locusts in areas adjoining the Union. I should like to know which areas those are and whether those areas are also contributing towards the destruction of locusts. Then I would also like to know what the position is to-day? There is a further amount of £158 subscription to the International Institute of Agriculture, Rome. Have we still got any relations with that Institute, and are we continuing to pay those subscriptions, or is that Institute now domiciled in another capital?

I wanted to bring the same point to the notice of the Minister of Agriculture, and I should like to know from him which swarms are being destroyed now? We have noticed from the papers that there are isolated swarms in the Transvaal, but none the less we should like the Minister to tell us why this additional amount of £50,000 is wanted. The Department’s policy regarding the destruction of locusts has been changed in two ways, namely that locusts which are spread and which originally used to be destroyed at great expense are no longer being destroyed. I should like to know whether that is still the Department’s policy, or whether they are again destroying such swarms now. Secondly, it also was the Department’s policy no longer to destroy the flying swarms. I want to know whether that is still the policy, and then I also want to know why these tremendously high amounts of £150,000 are being incurred.

I am glad to be able to inform the Committee that the locust position is fairly satisfactory. The outbreak of red locusts which we did not expect at the beginning of the season to be so serious, has somewhat disappointed us. Our expectations were not realised because larger swarms than we expected came in to the country. So far as brown locusts are concerned we expect practically no campaign at all. Some amount is being spent on the work of spying out the country. There is a small swarm in the Karroo which has been destroyed, but we do not expect a campaign against the brown locusts, and I hope no campaign will be required either during the next two years. In regard to red locusts we did not anticipate so many of them. We have been disappointed, and that is why more money is being asked for. I am pleased to be able to say, however, that the position has improved considerably. The locust birds are rendering the State a great service, and I hope that a considerable proportion of the expense which we had anticipated may be avoided. The birds have destroyed a great many swarms and are still doing so. The largest campaign against the red locusts will be in Natal, but even in a number of the districts there the work has already been stopped and for that reason although we have asked for an additional amount of £50,000 from the Treasury, my Department believes that it may perhaps not be necessary to spend the whole of that amount.

Will the amount of the saving then be used for Defence purposes?

We have kept a very careful eye on the various outbreaks, but we are unable to say at this stage definitely that we shall need less money. We do not expect to spend the whole of this money. Although we are asking for a large amount here it is none the less, less than we usually ask for—it is less with one exception, than the amounts which we have asked for in the past eight years. I believe the exception was in 1937 or 1938. This is by a long way one of the smallest amounts spent on locust destruction in the past eight years.

†I am very glad to endorse the remarks made by the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Egeland). Mr. Harris has rendered very good services to the State under particularly difficult circumstances. The life which he has led in this campaign against Nagana would not be liked by many of us. He lived in a very unhealthy part of the country. As the hon. member has said it was an agreement that if this trap proved successful, and if it could prove to the satisfaction of the Government that in any area it had reduced Nagana considerably, the Government would recompense him. This amount which the Government is granting him was looked upon as a fair amount. I must say that I do not think it is equivalent to the services he has rendered, but the Cabinet thought that it was a fair amount in comparison with the other amount of £3,000 paid to Sir Arnold Theiler and £2,000 paid to Mr. Bodenstein. I should like to say that the Government appreciates the services rendered and gladly agreed to the amount placed on the Estimates.

I should like to ask the Minister what this amount of £158 is for subscriptions to the National Institute of Agriculture at Rome? South Africa is supposed to be at war with Italy. Is this the balance to be paid for the Italian subsidy?

This amount was paid before Italy declared war, by the High Commissioner, and this reprensents the difference in Exchange. We were bound to pay in gold and this is the difference of exchange. But there is no amount on the present Estimates, and it is not intended to make any further payment.

Vote put and agreed to.

On Vote No. 21.—“Agriculture (Assistance to Farmers)”, £105,600.

Here we have an amount of £5,000, an additional amount in connection with subsidies to farmers for purchase of bulls in cattle improvement areas. I should like to know from the Minister whether it is his intention now to take the country into his confidence in regard to the coming year, and whether he intends telling us whether he proposes to apply the scheme also to the coming year. It is important that the farmers should know this in good time. Then I also want to say something about this £100,000 which appears here under the heading “Assistance to Wheat Farmers”. I am anxious to know what is included in this amount, whether it is perhaps in connection with any amount which the Government is going to give for raising the price of wheat as compared with last year? We know that the wheat farmers have asked for an increase of 6/3d. per bag for this year. The Board of Control for the wheat industry has, so I hear, recommended an increase of round about 5/- per bag. We hear that the Government has definitely refused this and as the Minister is now coming along with this insulting amount of £100,000, which is now to be paid out after the Government has refused to allow what the farmers have asked for, we want to know what the position is. As a result of the Government’s refusal the farmers will lose about £1,000,000 on what they would reasonably have got for their wheat if the Government had not turned down their request. Now £100,000 is asked for here under the heading of Assistance to Wheat Farmers. This is nothing but playing with the wheat farmers, and it is not in actual fact giving any assistance to wheat farmers, but it should be called a subsidy to the consumers of wheat in the country. Now I am anxious to know from the Minister when he talks of assistance to wheat farmers whether he really has any intentions of helping the farmers to secure a better price for their wheat. He knows what the position outside is. The wheat farmers have not asked for an unreasonable price. They have not asked for £3 or £4 per bag, which was the price of wheat during the last war. The wheat farmer only asked for a reasonable price taking into account the increase in the costs of production of wheat, but the Government has consistently refused to come to their aid. Now we want to know from the Minister whether he is going to persist in his refusal to comply with the reasonable request of the wheat farmers, and whether he is going to content himself with this £100,000 which I can call by no other name but an insult. That is not giving assistance to farmers.

I should also like to know a little more about this amount of £100,000 appearing under the style of assistance to wheat farmers. I understand that it is money which is being given by the Government and by the farmes themselves so as to prevent the price of bread going up, and my question is whether the Government could not have come to the aid of the farmers to a greater extent without inflicting this extra expenditure on the country. I want to know whether it is not a fact that we have retail dealers to-day who are close to the mills, and who are able to buy first grade A wheat for 22s., and who can sell it for 33s. 3d. They are able to sell the flour for 33s. 3d., and they buy the wheat for 22s. The only expense they have is the 3s. milling fees. Consequently, they make a profit of 8s. 3d. per bag. In regard to the second grade wheat, best second grade wheat, the flour price is 30s. So the profit per bag is more or less the same in that case. It seems to me that the spread is tremendously large, and that the consumer has to pay a very high price while the farmer does not get a reasonable return. I want to ask the Minister of Agriculture to have an investigation made into this matter. Last year we were told about a miller who had made a profit of £180,000 in one year, and it would appear to me that there is a tremendous leakage with the miller and with the trader. I feel that if this question is enquired into it will be found that without raising the price of bread the farmer should be able to get a price for his wheat considerably higher than he gets to-day—which he urgently needs at the moment.

I want to know whether this £100,000 is the amount which the Government is prepared to contribute in the form of 1s. per bag in order to give the farmers an extra 2s. per bag for their wheat. We know that there was a tremendous storm raised about the farmers getting 2s. extra for their wheat, but it was never pointed out that 1s. of those 2s. actually belong to the farmers themselves, and actually came out of a fund which the farmers themselves had collected in their industry. That fund was built up through the Board of Control, and for the Government now to try and create the impression that it is compensating the farmers for the increased cost of production is creating a wrong idea. I want to know from the Minister whether he deliberately acted in conflict with the advice of the Board of Control of the wheat industry? I want to know from the Minister whether the Board of Control of the wheat industry unanimously found that the costs of production of wheat had gone up by 6s., and whether the Minister, in spite of that finding of the Board, refused to give effect to the recommendation of the Board of Control to the wheat industry, accordingly to raise the price of wheat? The Board of Control, so I am told, unanimously passed a resolution and made a recommendation to the Minister, and I am anxious to know whether the Minister put aside that advice without taking any account of the basis on which the Board of Control arrived at its conclusions. It is true that there was an enquiry in which the Board of Commerce and Industries took part, and now I should like to know to what extent the basis of the Board of Commerce and Industries accords with the advice which the Board of Control of the wheat industry submitted to the Minister? Undoubtedly the Board of Commerce and Industries, in making its investigation, also had the advice of the Board of Control of the wheat industry at its disposal. What appears strange to me is that one has a Board of Control over an industry, and when that Board passes a unanimous resolution and gives advice to the Minister, that the Minister can simply put that advice aside. How then can the existence of such a Board of Control be justified? Such a Board should have resigned as one man, because it passed a unanimous resolution, and the Minister simply refuses to take any notice of their recommendation. I should like to know from the Minister how the Board can justify its existence in that way? The country is waiting for that information. All of us have heard about the difficulties between the Board of Control and the Department of Agriculture, and the farmers are anxious to know, the wheat farmers want to know, how we stand in regard to the Board of Control?

In regard to this question of a subsidy to farmers for the purchase of bulls in cattle improvement areas, I should like to know why it is necessary for the Government to pay out subsidies year after year as they have been doing, when as a matter of fact we have a Meat Control Board in existence who have had at their disposal quite large amounts of money running to quarter of a million pounds? I understand that the Board was brought into being chiefly in order to get our South African meat placed on the market in Smith-field, and a levy was imposed on our farmers of 2s. per head for cattle killed at abattoirs, and 6d. for sheep. Large amounts of money have been accumulated as a result, and particularly during times of war difficulties are experienced in regard to importing bulls into the country for these improvement areas, and that being so the Government should certainly consider the desirability of telling the Meat Control Board that they should put up the money for this particular purpose. I see no reason why the Government should keep on year after year paying out these amounts, when there is a Board in existence with plenty of money set up for this particular purpose. They have no right to go to the Government year after year for assistance. If the Meat Control Board could put their house in order instead of sending men on world trips to study conditions overseas and to get information which they could get for 2s. 6d. by post, it would not be necessary to go to the Government for any assistance. I hope the Minister will look very carefully into this and see whether it is necessary to allocate this money every year. This, I maintain, is one of the amounts which could quite easily be eliminated in regard to assistance to farmers. We know there is quite an amount of criticism levelled against farmers for the help they get from the Government. Let us eliminate this one source of complaint. I hope the Minister will look into this, and that the amount will disappear from the estimates.

Mr. Chairman, I wish the Minister would give the House a few words of explanation in regard to this £100,000, because it is impossible for the ordinary member to realise what this is for, and how it is to be spent.

It is for the protection of the farmers.

Well, there are many ways for protecting people, but this seems a most extraordinary way of protecting any section of the country, the Government to vote £100,000. I just touched upon this this morning, and I had hoped to see this wiped out, because it does seem to me the most simple thing to deal with this matter under the item following. It is all called stabilisation, stabilising the price of bread, and it is really a stupid—no, I won’t say that, but it is foolish.

The hon. member should wait till we come to the next vote to discuss that.

We have to bear in mind the position that exists, the protection that wheat has at the present moment, and the protection it has had for all these years. If that protection is not sufficient, surely the reasonable way is to give it more. I don’t think any case can be made out for any more protection, but to come forward with a vote of £100,000 for the assistance of the wheat farmers seems to me to be an extraordinary method. We don’t know how it is going to be distributed. Look at the reports we get year after year from the wheat growers. I have reports myself about the cost of growing wheat, and they put the cost decidedly under 15s., but it is difficult to use that information, because there seems to be a sort of freemasonry amongst these wheat growers; they will give you the information, but they say you must not use it. That is a very awkward position, and it is very difficult to prove anything in that connection.

The Chamber of Commerce can prove anything.

My hon. friend does not know much about Chambers of Commerce. I am not always a defender of Chambers of Commerce. Will the hon. Minister, before we debate this, tell the House what it is and what this £100,000 is? What will happen in the future if you come with these votes to the House? There is no more unsatisfactory position in the country to-day than that with regard to the flour and bread position and its distribution in the country. You find people being prosecuted for selling flour too cheaply and selling meal too cheaply, and there is no reason for all this, it cannot possibly do any good. If you go on raising the price of wheat it simply means that you will have more unfit land put under wheat, and then you will have the problem of exporting a surplus. I wish this whole matter to be taken into consideration before we pass this vote. There should be an enquiry into the cost of production. Our friends over there want it, they are ready for it, and the one thing the country desires is to know the cost of producing wheat. All the reports you have are not worth twopence-halfpenny. The first thing the Government ought to do is to give us a reasonable commission on the cost of production of wheat. Until you do this all these muddles and all these prosecutions will go on, it will do no good, and there is no sense at all the way flour and bread is handled and distributed all over the country. I would move that this item would stand over. We are passing it in the dark. The country does not know what it is for and how it is to be distributed, but what the country does know is that everything is entirely unsatisfactory for the grower, and certainly tremendously unsatisfactory for the consumer. If we get a promise of such a commission, it would be a step towards a solution.

Do I understand the hon. member to move that this stand over?

No, not yet, sir.

I don’t know whether I should reply to these criticisms in regard to wheat because on the one side of the House the Government is blamed for giving this paltry amount, and on the other hand, members for whom the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Henderson) speaks, exclaim at the iniquity of giving anything at all. I would like to agree with what one of the members of the Opposition has said—it is not very often I agree with them—and that is that this is not so much a subsidy to farmers as it is a subsidy to consumers.

No.

The hon. member says no.

He has never grown wheat.

I think it is quite fair to accept the principle that if it costs more to grow a bag of wheat to-day than it did before the war broke out the farmer is entitled to get the difference. I say that principile can be accepted if the country can pay for it. I don’t say that if the costs of producing wheat were doubled the wheat farmer would have the right to come to the Government for the difference and say the Government must make up that amount, not by a long way, but it is perhaps fair to accept that if there is an increase in the price of production, the farmer should be allowed to make that up. He can only make it up in one of two ways, either we must put up the price of bread or the Government must give a subsidy, the Wheat Board must give a subsidy. Iit was agreed that it cost more to grow a bag of wheat, and the Government accepted the position that it would be fair to compensate the farmer to the extent of 2/- a bag. It was agreed that the increased cost of production was about 10%.

Is that the advice of your Wheat Control Board?

The Government accepted that it does not cost more than 10% more to grow a bag of wheat than it did before the war, and it was therefore agreed that the wheat farmers should get a subsidy of 2/- a bag, the Wheat Board to pay 1/- which they get out of the levy from the miller, and the Government to pay the other 1/-. I hope my hon. friend will not faint when I tell him that this £100,000 is not the whole amount. There is another £150,000 on the Main Estimates, so that the amount to be paid to the wheat farmer is £250,000.

That is paid to give the consumer cheap bread.

I have already admitted that consumers benefit. Now we come to the argument that it is an insult to give this to the farmers. The hon. member for Wodehouse (Mr. S. Bekker) wants to know whether this was done on a report from the Wheat Control Board. No, the Wheat Control Board said the increased cost was more. The Marketing Council, the body that Parliament put there to scrutinise the resolutions of the Wheat Board reported that the correct amount was 2/-, and not 5/- or 6/- as the farmers said. Mr. Chairman, the producers have had a chance to prove their case, they have had two deputations to Pretoria, and they admitted that they could not prove the 5/- or 6/-. That is the reason why I agreed with the Marketing Council, with which the Board of Trade also agreed, and not with the Wheat Control Board. The Wheat Board, after getting the report from the Marketing Council, which I had referred back to them, agreed that 2/- should be paid. Now I would like to say to the hon. member for Greyville (Mr. Derbyshire) that I wish I could get the Wheat Control Board to pay the subsidy.

Why not?

They cannot do it because the sum is too big. The hon. member knows that the Government has paid £400,000 over a period of a few years and where is the Wheat Control Board going to get that amount? The hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. Le Roux) has asked me whether I can say that the scheme will be continued, and I can only tell him it will be considered very favourably as far as I am concerned. I have not had a chance to discuss the matter with my colleagues, but we shall have to consider whether it can be continued for another year. At this stage I am not prepared to make a statement. There is jut one point more which was raised by the hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen). We are enquiring into the difference in cost of a bag of wheat and a bag of meal of flour. The millers maintain that they do not come out. Together with the wheat farmers and the wheat producers’ interests they also came to me with a request for a subsidy, I think the amount they claimed was 1/- a bag. I turned that down at the time, I do not think they made out a case. There seems to me to be a very great difference between 22/6 and 37/- or 37/6. The matter was gone into by the Board of Trade at one stage, and they thought it was justified. I agreed with the Minister of Commerce and Industries that the Marketing Council and the Board of Trade should hold a general enquiry into this matter to see whether we could get the figures. I am expecting that report every day, but I do not think there is a very large amount sticking out for the farmers there. This is a matter I would like to discuss when the motion of the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) is taken.

I hope the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Henderson), when my motion for the appointment of a Commission of Enquiry in connection with the cost of production of wheat comes before the House, will support us after the speech which he made here to-day. We are just as anxious as he is to get a Commission which will tell us exactly what the costs of production are. If I had the right under the rules of this House to move I would, undoubtedly to the surprise of the hon. member, have moved that this amount should have been not £100,000 but £200,000, and that it should appear under a different Vote, as both the amount and as it appears here constitute a scandal. There is a great scandal connected with it. First of all it is now the farmer who has to pay for it. The Minister himself has admitted that this amount is a subsidy to the consumer, but none the less it appears here as a debit against the farmer, and when hon. members opposite get up they tell us that here we have another instance of the farmer eating out of the hands of the Government. Every time it is the farmer who comes along for a subsidy—that is what they tell us. Even in the course of this discussion we have repeatedly heard interjections that it is again the farmers who are getting a subsidy from the Government. That is a lie. And it is wrong for this amount to be placed under this heading. The Minister concerned admits that it is not correct to place it under this heading, and that it is not a subsidy to the wheat farmers, but a subsidy to the consumers. In spite of that it is pretended to be assistance to the wheat farmers.

None the less it is being paid to the wheat farmers.

That is a technical excuse.

It is the farmer who gets the money.

Yes, that is how it is technically represented. But the Minister knows, as he admitted, that it is a subsidy which is paid to the consumer, and other ways have to be found to explain that to the public. At the moment the farmer is branded as though he were getting that assistance. He does not get the assistance; it goes to the consumer.

He gets £250,000.

I would welcome it if he did get it, but the Minister knows what the position is. The Minister himself said a few minutes ago that it was not actually a subsidy to the wheat farmers but to the consumers. Is that not what he said?

Yes, but none the less the farmer gets it.

The Minister now hides himself behind a technical point that the money is paid out to the farmer. I want to put up a plea on behalf of the wheat farmer. It is generally said that the wheat farmer gets a subsidy and that is not true. So far as the amount is concerned that is also a scandal. I want to call the wheat farmers on the Government benches to bear testimony to the fact that it is a scandal. First of all the Government relies on the good or less good advice given by the Marketing Board to fix the price on the ground of the fact that production costs have been increased by 2s. per bag. That does not reflect the true condition of affairs. At a later stage I shall go into that point in detail. When the wheat farmer tried to bring the facts to the notice of the Government and to convince the Government that it was a disgrace to contend that production costs had gone up by 2s., they were unable to convince the Government. The second disgrace was that the Government told the wheat farmers that this amount which they had saved up as a nest egg, which they had built up from the levy fund for years of over-production, that 1s. per bag out of that fund had to be used to be paid over as a subsidy to the consumers. This is a fund which the wheat farmers built up out of their own pockets, in order to meet difficult years of overproduction, but now the Government comes along and says “We are going to take out of the pockets of the wheat farmer 1s. per bag of wheat and we pay it back to him, and then we try to make him believe that he is getting so much more for his wheat. I say that it is a disgrace. When the motion was before this House, that the wheat farmer shoulld impose a levy on himself, the wheat farmer was prepared to undertake that burden and to save that money against the evil day of over-production in South Africa, so that the wheat farmer, when those difficult times arrived, would have this fund at his disposal. We are now going through an abnormal condition of affairs, created by the war, in which costs of production have suddenly gone up, and now the Government turns to the wheat farmer and tells him that it is giving him £250,000 on condition that out of his own pocket he contributes 1s. per bag. I say that that 1s. per bag is not something for which the wheat farmer should be made responsible. Technically he pays that 1s. per bag to himself, but in actual fact he pays it as a subsidy to the consumer.

Who pays that 1s. per bag?

It is paid in the shape of a levy.

It is the miller who pays it.

I say that it is the wheat farmer who indirectly pays it. It means that the farmer gets 1s. per bag less for his wheat.

How can the 1s. per bag be put on if the price has been fixed?

The hon. member knows that the price of wheat is fixed so that it is the farmer who loses that 1s. per bag. It is not the miller who pays it. If the Minister had said that he was going to take out of a fund created by the consumers a certain amount to assist them, there would have been something to say for it, but the position to-day is that 1s. per bag is being taken out of the funds of the farmers in the shape of a subsidy for the consumer. You have taken 1s. per bag out of the money which the farmer had saved for the days of over-production, and you hand it over to the consumer. I am pleased the Minister has admitted in front of this House, and in front of the country that it is not the wheat farmers who get this subsidy, but that it is really a subsidy to the consumers. If he admits that, and he has admitted it, then he must also admit that it is wrong to take money out of the funds collected by the wheat farmers in order to pay it over to the consumers, and that it should have been taken out of the fund established by the consumers if there were such a thing.

It is not my intention on this occasion to discuss the wheat question at length, as I know there will be ample opportunity to discuss the subject, and to go into the merits at a later stage, and to state what I feel the position really to be. But certain points have been raised in connection with the £100,000 which I think call for an explanation. Certain statements have been made here which I think should be controverted in connection with this £100,000 if we do not want a wrong impression to prevail in regard to this particular subject. Let me say this first of all, that what the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Henderson) is asking for here—I am very anxious to have the attention of the hon. member for Hospital, so that I may put the position clearly to him—that where he asks for a Committee of Investigation to prove that the wheat farmer is getting too much for his wheat, we are asking for a Committee to prove that the wheat farmer is getting too little for his wheat. Numerous commissions have investigated this question in the past, and we recently had an exhaustive enquiry made on behalf of the Government, as a result of which enquiry the price of wheat was fixed last year, and as a result of that investigation a mistake was made to the detriment of the wheat farmer, in consequence of the fact that the investigation was made in a very favourable year, one of the most favourable we have known in these wheat districts, and it is because of that that we find ourselves in the position of having to get this £100,000 as a subsidy. If they had not based their investigation on a general production of wheat of 15 bags per bag in the Western and South-Western areas, we would not have been in this unfavourable position. I feel that nobody is more convinced than the hon. the Minister of Agriculture himself that the production of wheat in these areas, generally speaking, is not 15 bags per bag, but 13½ bags, and if the cost of production on the basis of 15 bags is fixed at 22s. or 23s. per bag, then it must be clear to everybody what an enormous difference one and a half bags in the production makes in the production costs of wheat. I am afraid that I will not have the time at this juncture to go into the details of the matter, but I feel none the less that it should be done in order to prove to the hon. member for Hospital that we are absolutely convinced, after having gone thoroughly into the whole matter, that the cost of production of wheat has been incorrectly laid down. This £100,000 appearing on the Additional Estimates creates a wrong impression, and I am very sorry that it should appear on the estimates in this form. It creates the impression that we are being spoonfed. All that was required was for the Minister to raise the price of wheat in accordance with the request made by the deputation, and by the Board of Control, and if that had been done this £100,000 on the estimates would not have been needed. Let us take this question of the price of bread, which has also been raised. Are the wheat farmers to be penalised in order to assist the consumers of this country? It is an impossible condition of affairs if one section of the population is to be penalised for the benefit of another section. I should like to know where the hon. member for Hospital has obtained his information. When he tells us that he has first-hand information to the effect that the cost of production of wheat is 15s. per bag, I want to tell him that there may be such cases, and if he wants an explanation from the Minister in regard to this £100,000 then we want to know from him where he has obtained his first-hand information, and to which areas in the country this applies? It certainly does not apply to the Western and South-Western areas. Many people are concerned about the price of bread, but the Government may be congratulated on the manner in which it has kept down the cost of living, and I should like to know whether there is any other belligerent country in the world where the cost of living has gone up as little as it has done here in South Africa, and where the price of bread has gone up as little as it has done in South Africa. But it has been stated here that the 1s. is given out of the levy money, and the other 1s. is given as a subsidy. May I be allowed to make it perfectly clear to the House at once that this 1s. levy definitely comes out of the pocket of the wheat farmer, and out of nobody else’s pocket. If it were not for the fact that the millers have to pay that 1s. levy on every bag that is milled, they would have been able to pay 1s. more on the price of wheat. They are not going to pay that 1s. for nothing. It is added to the price of flour, and consequently it depresses the price of wheat. If they are unable to bring down the price of wheat on account of the price of wreat having been fixed, then we can take it one price of wheat has been fixed too low, and that that 1s. per bag should reasonably have gone into the pocket of the wheat farmer by way of a higher price. It should be clear to this House and to the country that the 1s. which is taken from the levy funds is rightly regarded by the wheat farmers as coming out of their own pocket, and from no other source whatsoever. I am very much concerned about the lower grades of wheat, and the prices which have been fixed for those grades, and I hope to get an opportunity at a later juncture of going into this matter in order to make it clear to this House, and to the Department, that there is a great anomaly in connection with the price of lower-grade wheat, an anomaly which cannot possibly be allowed to continue any longer if we intend to do justice to the wheat farmers. The time which I have at my disposal now will not allow me to go into the merits of this position, but let me say this to the House and to the Department, that although the price of wheat has been fixed at 22s. 3d. and 23s. 3d., there is not a solitary wheat farmer in my district who has obtained £1 per bag for the whole of his crop. The price of the different grades of wheat is affected by various factors over which the farmer has no control. There are climatic conditions; there is rain, and there is even bleaching by the sun, which affects the position, and when one takes the lower grade of wheat and sees the enormous difference in price caused by a quarter of a lb. weight per bushel between the grades, then we must realise how impossible the position becomes for the farmer. It is almost unbelievable that a quarter lb. per bushel may result in a difference of 2s. 6d. and more to a bag of wheat. Let me give a few instances to illustrate the position. Grade 6 wheat has been fixed at 14s. 3d. per bag less 9d. commission for the agent. That brings the price down to 13s. 6d. per bag. When we get to 13s. 6d. per bag for grade 6 we must take it that the price of the wheat at that grade also drops to 12s. and 11s. per bag for lower grades, and the position is that for those lower grades of wheat the millers have been offered 17s. to 18s. per bag. That is wheat which, according to the grading, had to be sold for 11s. and 12s. Let me mention a case where under grade wheat was supplied which in the ordinary course of events would have been worth about 11s. or 12s., according to the grading, and which was sold at this price. After it had been sold that same wheat was re-sold, and I am prepared to show the receipts to the House to prove that it was sold at 22s. 6d. per bag. If such a condition prevails, such an unheard of, and I would even say disgraceful, condition, we cannot be surprised at the wheat farmers throwing up the sponge and becoming discouraged. We can only be surprised that more of them are not being driven off the land. Can we be surprised that many of them have decided no longer to grow wheat? They do not drift away from the land, they are forced away from it. Conditions are being created which make it totally impossible for those people to make a living out of their industry. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Henderson) has been pleading an unpopular cause in criticising what has now become a system, namely, the paying of tribute out of public funds or out of the consumers’ pockets, to certain vested interests. I think nothing could be more expressive of the extent to which that system has developed than the fact that the hon. member for Hospital is thus far the only member who has got up and made a plea for the consumer in a matter which concerns the necessities of life of the poorest class of consumers in this country. I may admit at once in supporting what the hon. member for Hospital had to say that I regard this type of subsidisation as less objectionable than that of exploiting the consumer by price fixation, etc. But the curious case which we have here is this, that already the possibilities of price fixation have been exhausted and, the consumer having apparently been mulcted to the fullest possible extent, the Government is now coming on the taxpayer in order to help these particular interests still further. That is what is happening here. In passing I cannot help expressing a little amusement at the contention of the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. H. C. de Wet) that the 1/- levy is really paid by the primary producer and not by the miller. Because if that is the case why have it at all? Apparently 1/- is being paid by the primary producer in the form of lower prices but then the 1/- is given back again. Then why tinker with it at all? The fact of the matter is that here we have a case where after years of attempts to exploit the consumer apparently nothing more can be done and now we are coming down on general revenue. Now, hon. members representing the wheat interests and the Minister, are in agreement on this point—they say that this is a subsidy to the consumer and not to the producer. You have in this instance put a statutory monopoly in the hands of the producer. You have come to a point where the Government in order to deal with the position has approached the vested interests and has said “Please don’t put up the price any further, we shall subsidise you.” The point is that the Government through the power conferred on the control board has created a situation where it is necessary to buy off the producers out of general revenue, because nothing more can be got out of the consumers. This is a matter affecting the necessities of life. Only a few years ago the Government presented one-third of a million to the millers shortly after they had put up the price of the loaf by 2d. in order to prevent a further rise. I heartily support the remarks made by the hon. member for Hospital and I just want to say a final word on the subject which he particularly referred to. He asked for an investigation into costs. It is only a few months ago that the report of the Secretary for Agriculture was published. And the report says that “so far the production side of the industry has been affected in only one respect by the war—there has been a slight increase in production costs. When the war broke out the crop was almost ready for harvesting, and consequently a rise in production costs was experienced only in respect of certain harvesting requirements, such as bags, twine and oil. When the Wheat Board met shortly afterwards to fix wheat prices for the new crop year, it gave consideration to the increased costs which producers would have to incur in connection with the harvesting of the crop and its preparation for the market. Although there was evidence of only a slight rise in costs the Board decided to fix the same prices as those for the previous season, but at the same time to pay out of its own funds a subsidy of 1/- per bag on grade wheat.” That was in August. Last time therefore that this matter was investigated in a form that the public had access to the results we were told that there was only a slight rise in costs. I listened to what the Minister said and I could not get any information from him to show by how much the cost had gone up. I hope this question will be still further investigated. I am glad that the consumer has not been further mulcted. All I want to draw attention to is that once you give what amounts to a statutory monopoly you have in the long run to pay the price.

While I sympathise to a great extent with the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Henderson) on consideration I feel that under present conditions, however pernicious the system of subsidising may be, unless the Government does what it is proposing to do now there is a grave danger of the consumer being mulcted still further, because there can be no doubt that for a variety of reasons the cost of production has gone up and if the Government washes its hands off everything and has no control, then there will be no means of checking the price which the farmer will be able to charge the miller, no means of checking what the miller will charge the baker, and what the baker will charge the consumer, with the result that the cost of living will go up. And at the moment it is essential to see that the cost of living shall not be raised, and therefore I feel that we must accept the position of the Government paying this subsidy; although it may be that the cost of production has gone up, it may be that are profits are still sufficient. There are just two aspects which have not been touched upon. The one is this: the only method by which we can do away with this subsidy and perhaps reduce the cost of wheat, and through that the cost of flour and bread, would be by allowing importation of wheat into the country, but that, I believe, would be a wrong policy at present. Because however much it might be possible to import wheat at present, and thereby force down the price of wheat and flour and bread, under present war conditions it would be wrong policy because we want to preserve all the shipping accommodation as far as possible. Therefore it is necessary not to place further burdens on shipping.

It has not been suggested.

No, that would be the only method of bringing down prices, but that is not practical to-day. Then the second point Iwant to touch on is this enquiry. I think an enquiry is long overdue, but I hope that when the Minister sets up that enquiry it will not content itself with an enquiry only into the cost of production. According to the reports of the Secretary for Agriculture we know that as a result of this policy of fixing pretty high prices for wheat, land in South Africa quite unsuited for wheat has been put under production, and that has forced up the cost of production. As a result of the policy of protecting wheat it has become profitable to grow wheat at an expensive price, and therefore when dealing with the ordinary cost of production you have to make provision for the fact that land which is unsuited is used for production and land which is at a much higher price than it should be is used for that purpose. An enquiry should not content itself with going into the question of the costs of production but should extend its scope in order to enquire which unsuitable land is under production and also it should go into the question which land has been put under production to the detriment of the farmer and the consumer.

I do not think the Natives will thank the hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno) for the doctrine which he has put forth here to-day. It would appear to me that he does not understand the position, or if he understands it he misunderstands it. The Board of Control which has been appointed can only give advice to the Minister. The Minister receives advice from those bodies and then fixes the price. In this particular instance he differed from the Board of Control and he fixed his price in conflict with that advice. I do not know where the Minister obtained his infomation and his data. During the previous war there was no Board of Control at all and in those days the Government did not interfere at all so far as the price of wheat was concerned. The result was that the wheat farmers got up to £5 per bag for wheat. Let the Minister cast his mind back to those days. Prices were such that the poor people could not afford to eat bread but had to eat sweet potatoes and pumpkins. To-day the price of wheat is so low that if the hon. member over here and the Minister would accompany me to my constituency I would be able to show them a great many small poor farmers who are unable to make a living on the prices they get to-day for their products. The costs of production have gone up, and they have to cope with other difficulties as well, so that they are unable to pay their accounts, and find it impossible to carry on their farming operations. A great many of those people are working on the roads because of the fact that the prices they get for their wheat are inadequate. That is the result of those low prices. Now the Minister comes along and asks for £100,000. I at once pointed out that that £100,000 is only meant to keep the price of bread down, and that in actual fact it is not “assistance to farmers”. I am pleased the Minister has at last admitted that the increase in the cost of production is at least 10%. On that basis he has allowed the price of wheat to be raised by 2/- per bag. But if the costs of production have gone up by 10% and if the price of flour and bread is kept down with the object of preventing the cost of living from going up, then surely it is unfair that the farmers themselves should be called upon to pay half of the 2/- increase in the price of wheat. The wheat farmers have to assisst in order to provide the poor people with cheap bread by contributing 1/- out of their own funds. Surely that is not fair, and I am making an appeal to the Minister not to allow the levy funds to be used for that purpose. Hon. members opposite, representing urban constituencies, are not entitled to raise a grouse about this matter. They should be highly delighted. The people who really suffer are the farmers who produce the wheat. If the costs of production have actually gone up by 10% then it is not fair that the farmers should themselves have to pay and make up half of the increase in the price. Everybody in the country eats bread, and everybody needs wheat; that being so why should the wheat farmer be called upon to produce half of the increased cost of production. That sort of thing is most unreasonable, and the Minister should not be allowed to adopt that policy. Hon. members opposite are completely losing sight of the fact that when the price of wheat was fixed last year, the price was so low that when wheat had to be imported, it was found that it was impossible to import wheat at the price which our own farmers were getting, and Parliament was called upon to vote £10.000 in order to supply the wheat to the millers at a fixed price. For that reason I feel that this £100,000 should not appear under this particular vote at all, but that it should appear on the vote, “Cost of Living Allowances” (Vote 45), seeing that it is the intention to use this money to keep down the cost of living. The hon. member for Hospital had a lot to say about wheat. Partially I can understand his objections, but apparently he wants a minimum price or a maximum price to be laid down. The position, as was also shown by the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. H. C. de Wet) is that one gets instances of people who have received 18/- for under grade wheat, while for other grades they have only got 12/-, that is to say for graded wheat. The position is that there are big millers to-day, especially companies, who are in a position to mill in—to mix this under grade wheat with other wheat. The small millers are not able to do so. If the small miller mixes inferior wheat with other wheat he finds that he is unable to produce good flour, but the big miller with the machinery which he has at his disposal is in a position to mix the under grade wheat with good wheat, and then to produce good flour. It is for that reason that they are prepared to pay that price for under grade wheat. The position is thoroughly unsound. There is one other point I should like to touch upon. An additional amount is being asked for here as a subsidy to farmers for the purchase of bulls in cattle improvement areas. The additional amount appearing on these Estimates is £5,000. The district of Robertson is well known for the high class of stock produced there because the ground is expensive in that area, and it only pays the farmers there to keep a good class of animal. Last year various farmers associations made application to have the district proclaimed as a catttle improvement area, but the Government refused to comply with that request. To-day we have a tin milk factory there and people are trying to improve the quality of their cattle. Consequently, in order to achieve that, they made application for the area to be proclaimed as a cattle improvement area so that they would be able to secure certain advantages in connection with the purchase of bulls. That application was turned down. Is it fair for an application like that to be turned down in respect of a district needing assistance of that kind. And now I am asked here to vote more money in order to assist other favoured districts. I want to make an appeal to the Minister and ask him in regard to assistance of this kind to select the districts which can really be assisted and which actually require assistance in regard to the improvement of their stock. If that were done a district like Robertson could also be helped. It seems to me to be unfair to favour certain areas over other areas. Robertson also wants to share in these benefits.

In regard to this item of the purchase of bulls, the Minister said that he was under the impression that the Meat Control Board was unable to finance this scheme. That is what I want the Minister to look into. My submission is that at any rate during the duration of the war it is impossible to import bulls from overseas to distribute to various farmers under this scheme. They simply cannot get into the country. If the Minister says that the Board has not sufficient funds, they should at any rate make some contribution; that is what they are there for. No serious attempts can be made to-day to get any more supplies over to the Smithfield market. If the Minister says that this scheme is to attempt to improve our cattle for home consumption, then I say that the Meat Control Board are making no effort to improve our cattle for home consumption. They are of £7 per ox to get on the Smithfield market, where they will make no progress in 100 years. How can they ever hope to compete with the Argentine if it cost us a subsidy of £7 per oox to get on the Smithëeld market? Let the Minister go into this whole matter carefully. It is for the Board to prove that they are worth the amount of money they are costing the farmers to-day. It is wrong that at a time like the present the country should be saddled with finding an amount of approximately £80,000 for these purposes—we are not getting any results. Of course, the Board cannot finance these things if they are allowed to send people touring overseas, to the Argentine and Australia and London, to get information which can be obtained for a few pence by means of the air mail. It has cost us thousands. That is what I am asking the Minister to go into and to see whether the time has not arrived for us to do away with the Meat Control Board. It has not served any good purpose in the past, and is not likely to do do so in the future.

I should like once again to remind the Minister of Agriculture of the fact that on the 20th November a deputation of wheat farmers waited on him and urged strongly that what the Minister is now describing as assistance to farmers should not be described as assistance to farmers, as that would create the impression among the public that it was really assistance to farmers. The Minister this afternoon admitted here that in actual fact it was assistance to the consumers. At that particular time, when the deputation waited on him, we asked the Minister to call it by a different name. We find that even the Minister himself is not able to convince those on his side of the House that it is not assistance to farmers. The impression has been created, and the Minister himself is unable to remove that impression. I therefore want to remind him again of the fact that the deputation asked him to call it by a different name. If I correctly understood what the Minister of Agriculture said, then it is that the deputation of farmers admitted that they were wrong.

No.

If the Minister denies that that is what he said, then I leave it at that. May I just be allowed to say that the deputation, which on the last occasion met him in Pretoria, definitely refused to leave Pretoria before they had met the Minister of Agriculture. Let me say that that deputation had a conference with the Marketing Board, and that representatives of the Board of Grade and Industries were also present at the discussion which took place after. After the different points of view had been put forward and explained the deputation submitted its point of view to the Government. Now I look upon it as being very unfair that if the Marketing Board has taken up a certain attitude, and the deputation has taken up a certain attitude, the Minister should take up the view that the judgment of the Marketing Board was the correct one, and that the figures and data given by the deputation were wrong. In other words, the Marketing Board was placed in the position of giving judgment in favour of themselves and their data. If the Minister really in all seriousness wanted to find out who was correct, the deputation of the wheat farmers, or the Marketing Board, and the Board of Grade and Industries, then the Minister, or if it was impossible for him to do so personally, the Secretary of Agriculture or a responsible official of the Department of Agriculture, should at least have attended the discussions that took place. The Marketing Board is now appointed as an arbitrator to decide whether the Marketing Board was right or wrong. That sort of thing is not fair towards the wheat farmers. Now I should like to know from the Minister whether he is hiding behind the findings of the Marketing Board, because in the communication directed to the deputation on behalf of the Minister, the following is stated, inter alia—

I again want to remind the Minister of the fact that the deputation in very clear language told him that they still adhered to the 6s. 3d. increase in the cost of production which was the basis the wheat co-operative society in Cape Town had placed before him. The Marketing Board at that time refused to accept those figures. They were only prepared to discuss the position on their own figures. I want to remind the Minister of the fact that I asked him whether it was fair, when we used the agricultural census figures, in order to controvert the figures of the Board of Trades and Industries, that he should refuse to recognise the correctness of the agricultural census figures? What were the findings of the Board of Commerce and Industries? They found that the production per morgen on an average was 7.5 bags, while the agricultural census of the past three years gave a figure of less than 6 bags per morgen. Was it wrong to quote those figures as against the figures of the Board of Commerce and Industries? The Minister of Agriculture did not go into these figures and these facts, but he gave us to understand that he based his judgment on the findings of the Marketing Board. I should like to know from the Minister whether in the decision he came to he wants to take refuge behind the findings of the Marketing Board? We are entitled to know this, so that we will know what attitude to adopt in future. I further say that it was not fair to the wheat farmers that the Minister or the Secretary for Agriculture, or some other responsible person, failed to attend the discussions which took place. If they had done so they would have been able to judge who was right, the deputation of the wheat farmers or the Marketing Board, and the Board of Commerce and Industries. I want to make it perfectly clear that so far as I am concerned I am not in any way making an attack on those two bodies. If they tell me that in their minds the deputation failed to convince them, I must accept that, but I protest and say that it is wrong that they should be the ones to judge whether we had convinced them or not. Then I want to say something else in regard to depreciation of machinery, etc., the extra depreciation as a result of the increased price of machinery and so on. The deputation put that at about 6d. per bag, while the Marketing Board put it at 1d. per bag, because in the opinion of the Board this extra cost cannot be written off in one year, but over the course of ten years. Now, the Minister should know that although this may be theoretically correct, there is not the slightest ground for expecting that in fixing the price of wheat, account will be taken of that fact for a period of ten, or even five, years. If we also take into account the fact that in regard to the increase in miscellaneous expenditure the Marketing Board has only put this at .64d. per bag, in other words an average of £2 10s. per farm, then I ask whether the wheat farmers have been fairly dealt with? Naturally, there is a theoretical side and a practical side in connection with this matter, and I say that one cannot expect, if one raises the price of wheat by 2s. per bag, that it will cover all the additional expense. Then I again want to protest against the 1s. being taken out of the pockets of the wheat farmers. The Minister and his Department know that the object of the levy was merely to save the farmers if certain definite contingencies arose, and that it did not apply to the conditions which have now arisen. In the event of over-production and in extraordinary years when more wheat is produced than required in the country, that fund was to be used in order to prevent the price of wheat going down, and the position of the wheat farmer being rendered impossible. That was the object of that fund, but what is the Government doing? For two years already it has been taking money out of that fund, and it is taking 1s. per bag out of the pockets of the wheat farmers, and then it is called a compensation for the increased costs of production of wheat. Is that fair?

Vote put and agreed to.

On Vote No. 22—“Agriculture (General,” £790,

I should just like to know what this £790 is for? Is this expenditure in connection with keeping down the price of bread? Why should that be paid for, seeing that the price of bread has not gone up?

This £790 is an ex gratia payment to certain firms of millers, and it arises from an agreement entered into in 1937. They were to have got a certain subsidy for 1937/’38 in case of shipments having to go from one port to another port. They claimed a payment of £1,500. The matter was discussed from both sides, and both sides put forward certain objections. Eventually we arrived at an agreement to pay them half the amount at issue. And this is the amount.

May I ask the Minister for further information regarding this item of the stabilisation of the price of bread. Who is this paid to?

The South African Milling Company. This relates to the 1938 agreement.

Surely, Mr. Chairman, this is entirely new business. Part of this must have been paid before then.

This arises out of the agreement made in 1938. It simply cleans up that business.

I want to tell the House about the extraordinary position in which this price of bread stands at present. It is a position that no sensible community would allow to continue. Some two years ago the department came to the conclusion that a minimum price for bread was wanted, and in practice that has meant guaranteeing the profits of the trader. The Minister knows it. I have nothing to say against the traders or trade, but this principle is so entirely unsound that it should not exist at all. Take the case of a most respectable baker in Springs, Mr, Kelly—I take it there is no objection to his name being used. Mr. Kelly was prosecuted for selling bread too cheaply. This is one thing that I want to drive home to the Minister of Agriculture. No country can afford to fix a minimum price and restrict competition in that way. It is nothing short of a charge upon the community making it impossible for the trader to sell below a fixed price. What, after all, gives us the balance and level of trade? It is competition mainly amongst the small men. Here we have a principle which in reality guarantees profits. The case I quote was most exasperating. I saw the evidence and the trader said that his proft was quite large already, or words to that effect. The magistrate fined him, and that is one thing that should be wiped out of our thoughts. In every free country traders should sell their goods at any price they wish, and the Government has no right to place restrictions of that character on any trade, because it simply means guaranteeing profits and making it impossible for people to get the benefit of competition. I want that removed, and without delay.

Vote put and agreed to.

Vote No. 23—“Agriculture (Education and Experimental Farms),” £6,000, put and agreed to.

Vote No. 24—“Agriculture (Forestry),” £117, put and agreed to,

On Vote No. 27—“Government Motor Transport and Garages,” £11,800,

I notice under this Vote ban increase of £10,000 for petrol, oil and grease. We know that during the last session we on the Opposition benches warned the Government that if matters continued as they were going on at the time, and as we suspect they are still going on to-day, there would be a great increase of expenditure in connection with Government motor cars. We mentioned an instance of a lorry which was sent 25 miles to take one button. Is not it due to this unnecessary waste that this tremendous additional amount of £10,000 for petrol and so on is being asked for?

This has nothing to do with military vehicles.

It is not yet the Minister of Public Works’ turn to speak. I want to know whether this additional amount is not due to the unnecessary wastefulness which prevails in regard to Government vehicles? We are dealing here with an increase of £10,000 over a period of a few months, and that only for petrol, oil and grease. This is a tremendous additional amount, seeing the amount which we have already voted. Originally provision was made for £23,000 but after a few months the Minister comes along and asks for an additional amount of £10,000. Can the Minister give us an assurance that this money is not being spent in the way shown up by this side of the House during the last session?

I stated last year that everywhere throughout the country we are told about the large number of Government motor cars one comes across. Every official has a car, and we have been told particularly that in the Railways there are many officials who have cars placed at their disposal where they should have no Government cars at all. We should bear in mind the fact that this amount of £10,000 for oil, petrol and grease, has been added to the expenditure since last September; in other words, in the course of three months we have spent an additional £10,000, and I feel that we are entitled to know from the Minister why there should be this increase, and we want to know whether the use of Government cars is not being abused? I raised this matter last year because people had specially asked me to do so. They particularly referred to the position on the Railways and I take it that the Railway motor cars also come under the Government Garage. In any case it appears to me that this amount is very high—£10,000 is very high—it is an increase of 50% on the original amount, and I think we are entitled to ask the Minister what the increase in the number of Government motor cars is. I take it that the price of petrol has not gone up so far as the Government is concerned. The Minister knew about the tax when he introduced his budget. I also take it that this increase occurred since September, and if that is so I should like to know from the Minister what the position is.

I forgot to ask whether this £10,000 is in any way related to the “Steel Commando” which a few months ago went through the country?

No, it has nothing to do with that.

Does this fall under the Minister of Defence?

Yes, directly under that Vote.

The hon. members are entitled to replies to the questions they raised. This is the Government garage vote, and for the first time it appears as a separate vote. It has nothing whatever to do with the mobile column that went through South Africa. The increase is due to the increased use made by the Government departments of the Government vehicles, and the increased cost of tyres and petrol. The departments’ requirements have increased from what they were formerly, and let me say that so far as the £151,000 is shown here in this vote, the garage recovers from various departments a sum considerably in excess of that for the use of these vehicles.

There must be something wrong.

There is nothing wrong. It is impossible at the beginning of the year to say how many miles Government officials will travel. It can only be an estimate.

This is almost a 50 per cent. increase.

The cost of petrol is increased and various other items. Formerly there was no vote; there was an account placed at the end, and the Government garage was able to purchase requirements from month to month. Since the institution of this vote they have had to estimate the mileage. It is estimated that they will require this extra £10,000.

I had not intended speaking on this subject, but the explanation given by the Minister is so unsatisfactory that I feel we cannot leave it at that. The question put to him is why there is an increase of almost 50 per cent. in the expenditure on petrol, grease and oil. He replied that the traffic had been more extensive. That was not the question. The question was put very clearly to him, and it was this: What do you attribute the increase in expenditure to? The only indication the Minister has given is that the price of petrol and tyres has gone up. If that is so, then I want to put this direct question to him: Whether the price of petrol and tyres has gone up by 50 per cent., so that the increase of £10,000 has been caused by that? It is a question here of an increase of expenditure, and this House and the country are entitled to know definitely whether that money has been spent in the service of the country, and whether expenditure has not been incurred in a way which is leading to a waste of money, as has been shown on previous occasions. That is why we want to know from the Minister exactly why there has been this increase of £10,000. The other reason mentioned by the Minister is very far fetched; that reason was that in the past this amount was spread over various votes, and that it was not put together under one vote of Government garages. He told us that there was no separate vote on the Estimate. He said this was the first occasion on which there was a separate vote on the Estimates, and that being so it was difficult to make an estimate. Just because it is a new vote there is a double obligation on the Minister to tell the country what he attributes the increase to, and if the Minister is unable to do so, then he must acquiesce in our drawing attention to this matter and in our taking it as an indication, as we have shown in the past, that this amount of £10,000 includes a great deal of waste.

The Select Committee on Public Accounts has placed before it every year the number of miles covered by Government vehicles and the cost per mile. For that reason I fail to understand the excuse put forward by the Minister that this is the first time this Vote appears on the Estimates as a separate vote, and that consequently it is difficult for a calculation to be made, and that that is the reason why he was out by almost 50 per cent. The Minister of Defence told us that this vote has nothing to do with Defence vehicles. If that is so, why then is there such a large increase of expenditure in connection with this running around which is taking place throughout the country, which has nothing to do with the war? Has the Post Office business and other business grown to such an extent that it has become necessary for cars to chase around the country to such an extent that there has been an increase in expenditure of 50 per cent. The Minister has the data which in the past used to be submitted to the Select Committee; he has the data in regard to the average mileage covered every year, and the cost per mile. For that reason I fail to understand the reason put forward by the Minister as to why it was impossible for him to make a calculation. We cannot attach any value to his excuse. We are dealing here with something in connection with which the Minister owes an explanation to members of this House. The country is entitled to know why this tremendous amount of an additional £10,000 has to be spent. Have we got another case here of a large amount of money being voted so that the Minister of Finance may come along later on and say that economies have to be effected so that the money saved may be used for war purposes? Are we dealing here with money which is being indirectly voted for war purposes? That is what we are afraid of, and I want the Minister to give us a direct reply before this vote is passed.

Vote put and agreed to.

On Vote No. 28—“Interior,” £33,150,

We are dealing here with an increase of £20,000 for assistance to and repatriation of needy South Africans. I shall be pleased if the Minister of External Affairs—I do not know who is going to deal with this vote on his behalf—will explain to us why there is an increase of £20,000 on this Vote? The reason why I am asking this question is that the interpretation which the Government puts on the word “Afrikaner” is so wide that it includes people under that term who enter South Africa and who do not even know that they are Afrikaners. For that reason I should like to have an explanation of this increase.

I already gave an explanation of this when I introduced the Additional Estimates. On that occasion I pointed out that it has always been our custom to provide for our Union Nationals who go into difficulties in other countries, in order to give them an opportunity to return to South Africa. We do so by way of loans which in most cases are repaid. In this particular case it appeared necessary to make provision on a larger scale for this service, which was due to the fact that it was not merely a question of repatriation, but also a question of supporting those people. There are many of our Union Nationals in other countries who are unable to get away from those countries, and through the aid of Foreign Nations who are looking after our interest there, in most cases the United States of America, we provide for their support, and eventually, when it appears possible, for their return to South Africa. There is no new principle involved in this matter, but present day circumstances render it necessary to make provision on this year’s Estimates on a much larger scale than was the case in the past.

Vote put and agreed to.

Vote No. 32.—“Public Health”, £7,200, put and agreed to.

Vote No. 34.—‘Social Welfare”, £1,000, put and agreed to.

On Vote 36.—“Lands”, £20.

I should like to know what is the reason for this enormous increase of £20 and whether it does not cost more than £20 to print this item on the Estimates?

Vote put and agreed to.

On Vote 40.—“Justice”, £4,122,

I should like to know from the Minister why the cost of Civil Government Civil Proceedings and miscellaneous legal charges should have gone up by an amount of £3,600? It is more than one third of the orignal estimated amount. What special cases have there been in respect of which these costs have had to be paid? We have a Government attorney, and in view of the fact that he is there I want to know why the expense has gone up to such an extent? Then I also should like to have some information about this £522 refunds and remissions of grace or favour. I take it that these were cases in which legal costs were paid for certain people, where for some reason or another they were made a present, either because they were unable to pay, or because the Government realised that the judgment it had obtained was an illegal judgment. I feel that we are entitled to know even though the amount is small who the people were who were given ex gratia absolution from payment of certain debts?

I should also like to have some information from the Minister in regard to this amount of £12.800, costs of civil legal cases and miscellaneous legal expenditure, because I am convinced that this amount includes costs in connection with different water court cases, in which the Government is often involved, as well as private owners. The irrigation Act lays it down that Water Court costs shall be fixed in accordance with the Magistrate’s Court tariff.

The hon. member can only discuss the increase at this stage.

I do not want to discuss the principle of the matter. I only want to explain why I consider the position to be unfair. The amounts laid down in respect of costs in accordance with the Magistrate’s court tariff are far too low because they are sometimes applied to big cases involving amounts of £20,000 and £30,000. The parties to these cases employ attorneys and senior advocates, and then they are allowed a small amount for costs. I do not ask the Minister to reply to this off hand but I do ask him to go into this unfairness under the existing law.

I want to give the assurance to the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Tom Naudé) that I shall go into the point he has raised. This is a matter in respect of which a great many representations have been made lately. In regard to the increase of £3,600 I want to say that it is very difficult to say exactly at the beginning of the year what the costs of such legal proceedings are going to be. The amount laid down is an arbitrary amount because we do not know how many cases there are going to be and how long they will take. In some years there are more and in other years there are fewer cases. It is difficult to make an accurate estimate.

You should arrange matters so that the Government has fewer cases.

These are not only cases brought by the Government, but the Government itself is also summoned.

That is because the Government issues so many regulations which are ultra vires.

No, no, we are doing good work as well. In regard to the refunds and remissions of grace or favour, this applies to a certain Holtzhauzen under the Quota Act. In the case of Kallie judgment was given that mealies which were sold in November were illegally sold under the Quota Act, and the magistrate had fined this man in November in respect of 2,000 bags, and this fine had to be refunded.

Vote put and agreed to.

On Vote No. 43—“Prisons and Internment Camps,” £153,000,

We are dealing here with an increase of £153,000. I had imagined that all enemy subjects had already been interned by this time, and that there were no more of them left in the country. I had also imagined that all other sinners in the eyes of the Government were already in the camps. But now we find a further amount of £153,000 being asked for for this purpose. Are some of us also to be interned? I hope not. I notice from the Press that a large number of Italian prisoners of war are to be brought here, and I want to know from the Minister whether this additional expenditure is in connection with them. Failing that, it is not clear to me at all why such an enormous additional amount has to be voted. I want to know from the Minister whether we have to pay the cost for the internment of these people. It may also be that the Government has now decided to put an end to the illegal actions and the hooliganism prevalent in the country at the moment, and that it is the intention to put in gaol people who assault others, throw stones at them, knock them about with bayonets, or try to pull out other people’s beards. Is it possibly the Government’s intention now to take steps against those people? I should like to know from the Minister what is the reason for this increase.

I should also like to have some information from the Minister about the increase of this vote. The reason why I am anxious to get information is because I see that there is an increase of £5,000 in respect of medical services. I do not know whether it is the Minister’s intention to appoint additional medical men there. I want to give him the assurance that I know of a man who has a certificate, inter alia, from three specialists to the effect that he is ill and that he cannot stay in an internment camp as it may be fatal to him, but he is unable to get such a certificate from the medical men in the camp. And he has been at those people for a long time. He has his certificate from English-speaking doctors, not from Afrikaners or Nationalists, but it makes no difference. It is peculiar that we should have an increase here for medical services. Then there is a rumour in the papers about 20,000 Italian prisoners who are coming to South Africa for internment. The Minister during the last session replied that the Governments concerned paid for such internees. I thereupon asked how much money we received, for instance, from the British Government, and the Minister of Finance stated that it was difficult to lay down what the costs per day would be but that he would be able later on to tell us more or less. I should now like to know from him whether we are going to get that money back from the other Governments. I also want to know whether we have already got any money, and what his idea is as to the total amount which we are going to get. The Minister should be aware of the fact that threats about people being interned in this country are still being indulged in. We are still receiving visits from people who come and put questions about all sorts of trivialities and things which have never happened. If the Minister has made his Estimates on the basis of those trivialities and questions which are asked, then I think he has put down far too large an amount. Perhaps the Minister can give us some information as to what the position is.

We find a tremendous additional Estimate here of £153,000. If we are to believe what the papers say about 20,000 Italians will be coming to this country very shortly, and I should like to know from the Minister what the position in regard to them is going to be. We were given an assurance by the Minister on a previous occasion that if prisoners of war were to be sent here, the costs would be paid by the English Government, but if we look at the large amount which is to be spent under this Vote this year, an amount of more than £1,250,000 for prisons and internment camps, we realise that if enemy prisoners are to come here in large numbers, if these 20,000 Italians come here, a large proportion of them, possibly the greater proportion, will be interned here, and we want to know what the position is going to be in regard to those costs. Even though those costs are paid by Englaid we still want to know whether England will pay those costs after the war or whether she will pay them now. So far as I know England has not paid her debt to America since the 1918 war, and I am somewhat nervous that the same sort of thing may happen in regard to South Africa. England may possibly tell us that she is not going to pay her debts, and then we shall have spent millions of pounds in order to intern people in South Africa. I should like to have an assurance that we are not going to have the same thing happen to us as has happened to America.

In regard to this increase I want to point out that more people have been interned than the Government had hoped would be necessary. That naturally brought with it an increased expenditure. That is also the reason why medical expenditure has been increased. Seeing that we have these people in the internment camps it is essential to make provision for very good medical treatment, and that is being done. In regard to the 20,000 Italians those costs with the adjustment of the accounts and my hon. friends opposite need not be afraid that those accounts will not be paid.

And what is going to happen if England loses the war?

Has England paid her debt to America?

Hon. members need not worry about America, the debt will be paid.

I put a question on this subject during the last session. I believe that on that occasion I put the question to the Minister of Finance, whether we should be repaid the expenditure in respect of people coming from outside the Union and being interned here. He gave me the assurance that such expenditure would be borne by the country concerned. We have an increase here now of £153,000. The answer which the Minister of Justice has given us in regard to this increase of expenditure is that internments have increased to such an extent in this country that the expenditure has gone up to the extent shown here. The question has also been put here, and the Minister has evaded that question, but it is a question to which this Committee is anxious to have a reply—how much of these costs are connected with the Italians to be interned here and also connected with people coming from outside and being interned here? That is the question which we are putting to the Minister, and that question the Minister has not replied to. Now I want to say that we are fully entitled to put that question. Last year we were given certain assurances. The Minister of Finance told us last year that the Governments cóncemed would pay the expenses in connection with those people.

It is still the same year.

He told us that they would pay, but he has not yet told us how exactly the allocation will be made. We are anxious to know from him now whether provision has been made so that a clear discrimination will be made between people from South Africa itself who are interned, and people coming in from outside, or imported from outside to be interned here—at least to begin with at the expense of South Africa. We want the Minister to answer this question. I feel that he should make a clear statement on this point, seeing that a large proportion of the increase in this expenditure is attributable not merely to an increase in the number of local internees, but mainly to internees who come in from outside.

I just want to make two points clear. First of all, this amount has nothing to do with the 20,000 Italian prisoners of war who are coming to the Union. No provision is made here for that. They are not to be put into the ordinary internment camps in respect of which provision is made in this vote. This additional provision only concerns existing internment camps, and, as I have explained, the increase in the expenditure is partly attributable to the fact that under this vote we bear the expenditure in respect of military units guarding the camps. To that extent it relieves our vote of Defence. But I also clearly stated that one of the reasons why we do this is because it should be in all fairness regarded as part of the internment expenditure which pro rata will be borne by other Governments whose internees we look after here. It is therefore the intention of this additional provision partly to make it possible to bring this expenditure also pro rata into account in the allocation of the expenditure between ourselves and other Governments. That adjustment will take place. As soon as we know what the expenditure is for the whole year, we shall have the adjustment made on a pro rata basis in accordance with the number of people whom we have looked after for the other Governments.

After the reply given by the Minister of Finance, some light has been shed on this matter in regard to the question why this war expenditure has gone up so tremendously. The Minister has told us that part of the expenditure for internment camps is attributable to the payment of those who guard those camps. In those circumstances I feel that the House is entitled to ask what the exact number of internees is, and how many soldiers are being used to guard them. We have been told that the number of Italian internees which first of all was 700 is not even 500 to-day, and yet the number of soldiers to-day is still about 250. Two hundred and fifty armed men are employed to guard 500 unarmed men! No wonder the expenditure goes up; no wonder there are so many difficulties with the soldiers! Only the other day we heard about a soldier who had not had much drill who shot an internee when he was quite a few yards away from the wire fence. I think the House is entitled to be given more details about the number of internees so that it may judge whether this extra expenditure of £153,000 is justified. In my constituency there are a great many internment camps—so many, in fact, that I have to step warily in order to avoid getting caught in the wire fences of some of those camps.

You would do very well inside one of those camps.

Yes, I know that some hon. members on the other side of the House would like to see me in an internment camp, but possibly they may land there themselves before I do. There is another matter in connection with internment camps. I wonder whether it has already been brought to the Minister’s notice that there are many soldiers who do not know what to do. Naturally, it has been brought to the Minister’s notice that at Koffiefontein public bodies had to make strong representations to the authorities to have the soldiers kept in check because they turned the whole town upside down. Those people have not got enough to do. But in spite of that, those in charge of the camps employ farm labour. We are suffering from a shortage of farm labour in the country, and I want to ask the Minister whether he thinks it fair to use that kind of labour in the internment camps. If the Minister makes an investigation he will find that here, too, there is a leakage, and that a great deal of money is going astray in that way. A lot of stuff disappears in the Koffiefontein Location—stuff which is described as “the remnants from the camp.” Cars full of bread and meat disappear from the camp, and some of it even finds its way to the natives on my farm. I feel there is a tremendous leakage, and I shall be pleased if the Minister will prevent this sort of thing going on, and if he will prevent farm labour being used in internment camps. There is some other information which I should also like to have. Money is being asked here for additional buildings. I should like to know how those buildings are being erected, and what is the size of them? How much room is there in those places which are called the gaols in the internment camps? In what way are those buildings put up? We pretend that we are fighting for noble ideals, and if we want to be faithful to those ideals I feel that we should make a change in the kind of buildings which we find in those internment camps to-day. I do not want to pursue that question any further, but I should like to know from the Minister what kind of buildings are being erected, and what kind of material is being used?

I hope the Minister will not think that we are discussing this matter at unnecessary length but he himself admitted that the amount was a large one, more than £1,000,000. The original and first additional estimates already amounted to £1,137,930 and now we get this additional amount of a further £163,000 while I notice that on the Loan Estimates there is a further £200,000. When we get to it I shall ask why that amount appears there. In regard to the internees, however, for whom the British Government and other Governments are responsible, I am anxious to know—I don’t know whether I should address myself to the Minister of Justice or to the Minister of Finance—how that expenditure is to be accounted for. Are those items being carefully accounted for? Let me put the question in this way. If the question is put to the Minister what share is at the moment owing by the British Government, or by any other Government, for the maintenance of internees, will the Minister be able to tell us on a given date how much the amount is, or will an estimate only be made at the end of the war? We are dealing here with a large amount of money. We know that the war debt in many cases is not being paid. England to-day still owes America a large war debt in connection with the previous war which has not been paid.

I am surprised at hon. members opposite being so greatly concerned about the amount which England will have to pay us in respect of internment expenditure. So far as I know we still owe a lot of money to England, many millions of money, and all we have to do is to ask England to deduct the amount which England will be owing us from the amount which we owe. I want to say, however, that our friends opposite strongly protested because according to their statements we did not treat the internees well enough. We accepted their suggestions and now we are going to treat them better. We are going to spend more money on them, and I am surprised that they now protest again. So far as I am concerned I feel that we are going too far and that we are treating the internees too well.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

I understand that they were treated better here than in any other country in the world. I believe that without breaking any international law we could demand that less money be spent on those people. They live to-day on the fat of the land.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

It is a fact that they are treated better here than in any other country in the world, and I would go further and suggest that the Government should place some of these people, especially some of the Italians, at our disposal to work on the farms.

How many Afrikaners are interned in Germany?

If the Government did not take up such a moderate attitude a great many Afrikaners would be interned in this country. I would therefore suggest that some of these internees should be made available for work on the farms. The farmers say that they would be very good labourers and there is a shortage of farm labour to-day. They are very much inclined to run away in the same way as their troops in the North of Africa are doing, but we should easily be able to bring them back.

What is the position in Germany?

Hon. members opposite are even now running away from each other, but if some of those Italian internees were made available for work on the farms the State would have a very considerable amount of money. Such work on the farms could be rendered voluntarily, but we can be sure that many of them would be willing to undertake such work. The farmers would look well after them and would give them food and clothes and also a small amount of pay. It may astonish hon. members opposite to hear that the average amount earned by an Italian workman in Italy only amounts to about £15 per year.

Do not talk nonsense.

I am not the member for Mossel Bay (Dr. Van Nierop). I do not talk nonsense. The farmers in the Eastern Transvaal have approached me. They are prepared to pay those people. In that way the burden resting on the State will be relieved and the shortage of farm labour will be met. I want to put this forward as a matter for serious consideration.

On this Vote we have an item under the heading “Grants to families and dependents of internees”. Will you allow me to bring a specific case to the notice of the Committee in that regard. The hon. member who has just sat down spoke about the extraordinarily good treatment of the internees. We appreciate the fact that these people are well treated, but now I happen to know of one specific instance of Union citizens—the father and mother are both Union citizens. The father is interned. He was born in Germany, and the mother and her nine year old son were left behind and have now come to live in Paarl. They are in receipt of a grant of £5 15s. per month from the Government for their subsistence. This has been stopped since August, and it now appears from the correspondence which we have had with the Minister that the payment of that amount has been stopped because the company for whom this man worked had paid him out his pension and had dismissed him. That pension was arrived at and was paid out on the basis of equal contributions paid in by this man, while the other half was paid in by the company, and now because that man has received £244, money for his old age, the Government withdraws its support, and the mother and her child have to live on that £244 the money which this man has been saving up for his old age. One does not know how long that man may have to remain in the internment camp, possibly for a longer time than the money will last, and when he comes out his pension money will be finished. Is that sort of thing fair and just? The Minister is forcing people who are Union Nationals to a state of ruination when they reach their old age.

I should like to put a direct question to the Minister of Finance. The Minister told us that the first item, namely salaries, wages and grants —staff, guards etc., falling under this Vote, represents pay which has to be made to the soldiers guarding the internees, and he stated that as a result of this the Vote ‘Defence’ was being relieved. Now I should like to know whether the amount of £60,000,000 which the Minister has mentioned, and the amount which is being spent on defence during the current year, is still correct, or is the amount mentioned by the Government’s afternoon paper, namely £79,000,000 correct? Is it possibly a fact that considerable amounts like this one come under other Votes, although they are also spent for defence purposes? Is it possible that this amount of £79,000,000 is correct?

I do not know anything about that, but the House has voted £60,000,000.

I have not got up to say much on this Vote, but I only want to say that I object to what the hon. member for Ermelo (Mr. Jackson) has said in regard to the use of internees as labour on the farms. I must say that I deplore the fact that a member of this House should make suggestions of that kind in this Parliament, and I hope the Government will not take any notice of it. We should understand that we are involved in a war, and South Africans may possibly also fall into the hands of a belligerent power, and I would not like to see Afrikaners badly treated. It does not become a responsible member to come here and make such suggestions. If money is being spent to look after these people and to treat them in a proper way, good and well. Then I approve of it. The Government has to meet its responsibility towards the people who are put into the camps and it must treat them properly.

I just want to give an assurance to the hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Olivier) that the adjustment will take place from time to time and that it will not be left over until the end of the war. The additional amount constitutes an increase in the general expenditure.

I think the Minister neglected to reply to part of my question in connection with the expenditure—I am referring to the increase in the amount for medical treatment of the internees. He stated that there were additional internees and that more money was required for their treatment, but I want to ask him how those people are being treated. I mentioned an instance to the Minister of Justice in regard to an individual who had handed in three certificates from specialists that he should be allowed to leave the camp on account of his health. A fourth certificate from a different doctor, not a specialist, is also to the effect that this person is ill and that it may result in his death if he has to remain in the camp.

If you give me the facts I shall go into them personally.

I only want to know from the Minister how the investigation is made. This case has been going on for months and it is cotninually being put off. Through which channels does a case like that have to go? What has to be done, how does the investigation take place? I am surprised that the hon. member for Ermelo (Mr. Jackson) should tell us that these people in our camps are being treated better than in any other country in the world. He told us that the workers in Italy earned only £15 per year. I do not know whether the hon. member belongs to the fifth column, but he apparently gets very special information from belligerent countries. I want to ask him, however, whether it is not better for an individual not to be in a camp at all, and I want to ask him whether he can tell me whether a single Afrikaner has been put in an internment camp in Germany? That now is the country of the barbarians and students who have returned from that country tell us that not a single Afrikaner has been put in a camp. On the contrary the Germans help the Afrikaners who are there to get back to South Africa if they want to return. Yet the hon. member talks about our treatment of enemy subjects, while I have just mentioned an instance of a Union subject who has been put in an internment camp and who according to the doctors should be allowed to leave the camp—yet in a case like that nothing is done. He is not allowed to leave the camp. But naturally if anyone puts up a plea in a case of that kind it is stated that he is pro-German. I imagined that hon. mebers opposite were fighting on behalf of Christianity, but it does not look like it. Is it not the duty of a Christian to act in a Christian spirit? That is why we plead on behalf of such people. In Germany, the land of the so called barbarians, Afrikaners are not put in camps, but it is here that we get treatment of that kind.

I should just like to inform the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. Labuschagne) that he has misunderstood me. I did not speak about compulsory labour. I quite appreciate the fact that they have compulsion very much on the brain to-day, because I understand that they are busy trying to compel the minority on the Opposition benches. I spoke about volunteers and not about compulsion.

Vote put and agreed to.

On Vote No. 45—“Cost of Living Allowances,” £35,000,

The Minister stated that he would give further information in regard to this matter. I believe the position to be that allowances for increased cost of living will be given to people earning less than £200 per year, that is to say to officials. We welcome this, but now one gets the case of an unmarried person who has no obligations and who earns just under £200. He will then get the allowance, while another man may perhaps have to keep a family and earn just over £200. That man feels the increase in the cost of living very much more severely.

We discriminate. I shall make that clear.

I shall be pleased because I feel that a man who earns just over £200 and has to keep a family will feel the increase in the cost of living very much more than an unmarried person who earns just under £200.

As I have already explained, we are acting on a scheme drafted by a Committee from the Railway Service, and also from the Public Service. According to that scheme, if the increased cost of living is between 4 per cent. and 6 per cent., an allowance of £6 will be paid to all married officials earning less than £200 and an allowance of £3 will be paid to unmarried officials earning less than £100. Unmarried officials earning between £100 and £200 do not get anything extra according to that scheme when the cost of living goes up by between 4 per cent. and 6 per cent. If the cost of living goes up by more than 6 per cent. and less than 8 per cent., then the unmarried people earning under £200 begin to benefit. The married people get the allowance sooner, and the allowance is higher than in the case of unmarried officials.

I want to make an appeal to the Minister to extend greater consideration to the impoverished people in our country who are not members of the Public Service. I feel that actually the Government is the direct cause of our being involved in this war, and it is particularly on the platteland that the consequences are being felt very severely by the poor people.

The hon. member is going too far now; he must confine himself to the vote.

I feel that I cannot acquiesce in the Minister’s answer. The more poorly paid officials cannot possibly come out on their small salaries, and the small allowances are not sufficient. Those people, faithful servants of the State, work hard, and their duties are just as onerous as those of the highly-paid officials. It is impossible for them to come out on those allowances. The Minister should do more for the less privileged people. Then I should also like to know from the Minister which Committee applies or considers the increases. Has a Special Committee been appointed to do the work and to consider the question of increases in the cost of living?

Vote put and agreed to.

I should like to have some information from the Minister about this vote. I want to know what land is being bought, what land had to be bought, and what the object is of those purrchases?

This applies to several pieces of land which the Department of Lands had to buy. The principal bit of land is at Bellville; that land had to be bought for a lunatic asylum. A new lunatic asylum is being put up at Bellville to take the place of the asylum at Valkenburg. My hon. friend will know that Valkenburg is being taken over by the Cape Town City Council.

Has any arrangement been come to about the price of the land?

In regard to the land at Bellville?

No, I am referring to the land handed over to the Cape Town City Council.

I believe so, but I cannot say with any certainty. That does not come under these Estimates. I believe, however, that a decision has almost been come to. Perhaps my hon. friend could place a question on the Order Paper; it would then be replied to.

Is not a large proportion of this expenditure attributable to the fact that small plots of land are being bought all over the place in order to serve as gun emplacements?

No, not a single penny is attributable to that.

Vote put and agreed to.

Loan Vote E.—“Irrigation”, £32,000, put and agreed to.

Loan Vote F.—“Local Works and Loans”, £5,000, put and agreed to.

Loan Vote N.—“Defence”, £14,000,000, put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—57:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Baines, A. C. V.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Blackwell, L.

Botha, H. N. W.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Clark, C. W.

Collins, W. R.

Conradie, J. H.

Davis, A.

Deane, W. A.

De Kock, A. S.

Derbyshire, J. G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Faure, P. A. B.

Fourie, J. P.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Henderson, R. H.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Neate, C.

Pocock, P. V.

Rood, K.

Shearer, V. L.

Smuts, J. C.

Solomon, B.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Stallard, C. F.

Steyn, C. F.

Sturrock, F. C.

Sutter, G. J.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Merwe, H.

Wallach, I.

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

Noes—32:

Bekker, S.

Booysen, W. A.

Bosman, P. J.

Conroy, E. A.

De Bruyn, D. A. S.

Du Toit, C. W. M.

Haywood, J. J.

Hugo, P. J.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Le Roux, S. P.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Olivier, P. J.

Schoeman, N. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. P.

Swart, C. R.

Van den Berg, C. J.

V. d. Merwe, R. A. T.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Venter, J. A. P.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Viljoen, J. H.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Werth, A. J.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

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

Loan Vote N.—“Defence”, as printed, accordingly agreed to.

Loan Vote O.—“Fishing Harbours”, £17,000, put and agreed to.

On Loan Vote P.—“Capital for Manufacture of Ammunition”, £135,000,

I should like to know from the Minister of Finance why there is such a large increase, namely of £135,000 and when this increase came about? Did it come about during the past three months, since the last session, or did it come about since the beginning of the year. The Minister of Finance in his Budget speech stated that ammunition was now being manufactured here which in the past it had been intended to order from Overseas. I shall be pleased if he will give us a better idea of the position.

We have made provision for the establishment of an Ammunition Factory in connection with the Royal Mint at Pretoria. This has been going now for almost a year. First of all it was started on a comparatively small scale, but it turned out that we were able to do very good work there and for that reason it was decided within the last four months to extend that factory. A considerable extension has already taken place, and the work is still progressing. In view of that extension it has become necessary to increase the capital in connection with that factory, and that is the reason for this provision.

Vote put and agreed to.

Loan Vote Q.—“Police”, £15,000, put and agreed to.

In Loan Vote R.—“Commerce and Industries”, £501,000,

I should like to know from the Minister of Commerce and Industries— he is not here, but I take it the Minister of Finance will be able to reply—whether the Corporation is already functioning? Whether industries are already being financed, and whether efforts have been made to create industries? I should like to know from him whether the matter is still in its infancy and whether the corporation is actually already functioning.

The directors were appointed in October. So far they have only been engaged on a general review in order to arrive at a decision as to the potentialities. No definite scheme has been started. A great deal has been done in regard to the investigation of various potentialities. In the meantime we are providing for the first portion of the capital of the corporation. Nothing has been paid out to them yet. This is merely a preliminary provision which is being made, and I expect that ere long something of a larger nature will take place, as a result of the investigation.

Has any capital come from the public so far?

No.

Vote put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

The CHAIRMAN reported that the Committee had agreed to the Second Estimates of Additional Expenditure from Revenue and Loan Funds without amendment.

Report considered and the Second Estimates of Additional Expenditure adopted.

Mr. SPEAKER appointed the Minister of Finance and the Chairman of Committees a Committee to bring up the necessary Bill in accordance with the Second Estimates of Additional Expenditure as adopted by the House.

The MINISTER OF FINANCE brought up the Report of the Committee just appointed, submitting a Bill.