I move—

I just want to indicate that the £14 asked for here covers payments which are usually made for evidence tendered by servants of the Administration in connection with theft and other cases. The £14 spent resulted in the conviction of 19 natives and of one European on ten counts, and I think the House will agree that it is a comparatively moderate expenditure to achieve so good a result.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time; House to go into Committee on the Bill now.

House in Committee:

Clauses and Title of the Bill put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

The CHAIRMAN reported the Bill without amendment.

Bill read a third time.

I move—

On the introduction of the motion for the second reading of the Bill I want at once to give the House the assurance that with the exception of two provisions, which I will mention later, the amending Bill does not introduce any new principles into the Act. The amendments are only with a view to giving a clearer definition of what was intended by the House expressed and which led to the original Bill being passed. I want to call the attention of hon. members to the fact that legislation of this kind is analysed and administered very strictly by the courts, and unless it appears clearly what the intention of the legislation is, it is possible that schemes under the Act may be declared invalid. We recently had an example of this when the Transvaal Provincial Division of the Supreme Court declared the Dairy Scheme and in consequence also the existing Dairy Board invalid. Fortunately, we were able to fall back on the Dairy Board which was appointed under the Act of 1930, and if it had not been that the people who were concerned in the matter had agreed that sale of butter and cheese through one channel could continue, notwithstanding that the scheme had been declared invalid and illegal, then many losses could easily have been suffered, and the whole industry could have been put out of joint. It is clear that we cannot allow any repetition of that. If there are flaws and doubtful points in the Act and they are not amended, then it is possible that to-morrow or the day after some other scheme, for instance a mealie scheme or a wheat scheme may be declared illegal. We know that there are always people who are out to discover and to exploit any flaw or defect in legislation. Moreover, I would like to explain that the Bill is an enabling Bill, under which we can from time to time, draw up different schemes. It goes without saying that inasmuch as the schemes cover such a variety of produce, it is quite possible that we shall in some cases have almost to contravene the provisions of the Act. It is only when you are actually drafting a scheme that you discover flaws in the Act, and that you discover where your powers are not sufficient. Hon. members will remember that when the original Bill was passed, a scheme which was subsequently to be introduced could not be given effect to without an amendment. I am thinking now of the Wheat Scheme of 1938. That could not be put before the country or approved of before an amendment was first of all approved by Parliament in 1938. At any rate when the principal Act was introduced, as hon. members who were then in the House will remember, the department issued a warning that it would be necessary from time to time to make amendments in the Bill according as we had to deal with other kinds of produce. It is clear that in the drafting of the schemes a risk had sometimes to be taken in connection with the Marketing Act. It was not always possible to act in accordance with the specific provisions of the Act, but my department says that they always acted in accordance with the spirit of the Act. It is however clear that when we discover shortcomings, then it is our duty to put them right immediately. That is what we are trying to do. I just want to refer to the fresh milk scheme. The drafting of that is prohibited until the flaws in the Act have been remedied. Such a fresh milk scheme will be in the spirit of the Marketing Act, and a new fresh milk scheme would already have been drafted but it was thought that it would be better to wait for the amendments which are proposed to be passed in this Bill. Hon. members will see that many of the amendments in this Bill relate to the fresh milk scheme. For the information of hon. members I may tell them that there are now eight different schemes, namely, schemes in connection with the following produce: Wheat, mealies, dairy produce, tobacco, deciduous fruit, citrus fruit, dried fruit and chicory. All the schemes have their own and separate problems and difficulties which arise in connection with them, if there is no general power to co-ordinate the conflicting interests. I therefore do not think that it is necessary to apologise to the House for introducing this Bill. I think the House can congratulate itself that I did not actually introduce this Bill last year or the year before. After this general explanation, I do not think that it is necessary to go fully into the details of the Bill. That can from the nature of the case be done more conveniently in Committee. I want, however, to point out the amendments in connection with Section 20 of the principal Act. That Section 20 is being amended by Clause 5 of this Bill. This contains, in the first place, the main powers of control boards with regard to the so-called sale through one channel. Provision is also being made here for most of the amendments which are necessary in connection with the fresh milk scheme. I just want to give a few illustrations to the House. It is admitted that in order to make a success of a scheme, the control board must have general control over the product. There is, however, uncertainty whether a scheme can for instance give the right to control a general pool in connection with a product. There is also a doubt whether control boards can act in connection with produce of members of co-operative societies. Although it is clearly a requisite that they should have general powers over such produce in order to make a success of a scheme, doubt does exist about their powers. It is also necessary, in connection with different products, to lay down different conditions in regard to the selling prices. I only wish to refer to one example, that of bread, which is sold cheaper wholesale to hotels and hostels and the like. Strictly this is doubtful under the wheat scheme. All amendments of this kind are being effected in Section 20 of the principal Act. I also want to draw the notice of hon. members to the fact that Clause 5 of the Bill, which contains the amendments, provides for retrospective force being given to the clause. That is necessary to protect and to legalise existing schemes. Then I also want to refer to a few amendments in connection with levies, and with representation on control boards. Provision is being made here for levies on the value of produce as well as the quantity of produce. The amendment, at the moment, only refers to deciduous fruit. It is in fact already included in the deciduous fruit scheme, and up to the present has worked well. Then provision is made here in connection with the representation on the boards. I hope hon. members will not be afraid of the amendment and think that it is something novel, because it is not novel at all. There is a doubt whether it is possibly not necessary under the old Act to allow every producer to vote personally about representatives. If that has to be done then of course you will not have a single scheme in the country in operation. It is necessary to consult organisations in connection with different products about nominations and what the clause now proposes is precisely what is being done to-day. The way in which representation will be given, as mentioned in the clause, is precisely what is happening to-day, but it is set out more clearly here in order to avoid any difficulties. I have referred to two new provisions. The first is the stipulation that a buyer as well as a seller will be punished in case they conclude a sale or purchase which is forbidden under a scheme. I do not believe it is necessary to defend the stipulation in this House. It is clear that the buyer, who usually knows more about a thing and who talks a seller round in order to effect an illegal purchase, that such a buyer ought not to be allowed to get away with profit which he has made, and nevertheless to escape punishment as well. I think therefore that it is necessary to make the amendment. A second provision to which I want to refer appears in Clause 13. That provides that a court, apart from an ordinary fine, will be obliged to impose a fine equal to the profit which the purchaser has made by evading the Act. But then the clause contains yet an additional provision, and that is that the court shall at the same time be obliged, by way of a civil judgment, to give judgment for the amount which the Control Board has lost owing to the evasion of the Act. That looks rather drastic, but my information is that although the provisions are drastic as set out in this clause, an effort will nevertheless be made to evade the Act, because when a man escapes once he will make sufficient to be able to pay the fine a few times. I am told that in one case where a buyer committed an evasion of the levy to an amount of £1,600, a punishment of a fine of £10 was imposed in the magistrate’s court, suspended for three years, on condition that the £1,600 was paid. The man paid the £10, and kept the £1,600 in his pocket.

Was he a Jew?

That is probable, but if an Afrikaner gets the opportunity he will also, in many cases, doubtless make use of the opportunity. In conclusion, I want to draw the attention of hon. members to Clause 5 (b) (c). That sub-clause (c), on page 10 of the Bill, gives the right of appeal to the Minister where anyone is refused an appointment as agent, or where his appointment is cancelled. I thought, first of all, that it was a desirable amendment and that it would promote better administration, but the control boards and also other people, protested, and on reconsideration I saw the reasonableness of the protest. The argument was that the control boards should themselves have the powers to act, and that in connection with these matters they alone should have the capacity of appointing representatives. In these circumstances I am going to withdraw the sub-clause when we come to the Committee stage. I have referred to the chief points where amendments are being made, and I think that we can more usefully deal with the details of the Bill in the Committee stage, and that we can then do there what is possibly necessary in cases where hon. members differ from me on certain points. I just want to say that there is a certain amount of urgency in connection with the Bill. We are asked on all sides to establish another fresh-milk scheme, and you will understand that, seeing we have now exposed some of our flaws, it is desirable that this Bill, which is getting rid of those flaws, should be passed into law as quickly as possible.

I cannot quite congratulate the Minister on the way in which he has laid this Bill before us. His explanation was extremely vague. The Minister must not forget that we are not all lawyers here, and especially as we are dealing with agricultural matters I want to ask the Minister in connection with such involved legislation, to follow the example of some of his colleagues, and to let us have a memorandum in connection with such a Bill. The Minister must not forget that it is especially difficult when such a measure as the Marketing Act, a long Act, is being amended, and you have amendments which occupy no less than thirteen pages, to find out what is intended by the amendments. On the one hand I would like to say that we do not blame the Minister for bringing the amendments before us, seeing that certain flaws have been discerned in practice. It is quite understandable, and therefore I have no objection to the Minister trying to get rid of the defects. But I object to the fact that the Minister has not made a clearer statement on the Bill. I may also add that I am particularly glad that the Minister has withdrawn Clause 5 (c). I can give him the assurance that we on this side of the House were strongly opposed to it, because it would have meant that the control boards would be made powerless, to a great extent. I am therefore glad that the clause has been withdrawn. If that had not been done we would have opposed the Bill on this point very strongly, but inasmuch as he has withdrawn it our chief objection falls away.

I wish to welcome the introduction of this Bill, and on behalf of the dairy farmers of Natal I wish to thank the Minister for having introduced it at such an early stage of the session. They wish me to express to the Minister the hope that a new Marketing scheme will be approved of at an early date after the passage of the Bill, because at the present time in Natal the fresh milk industry is in absolute chaos. Now I wish to deal with the need for this Bill to-day. Due to the old Dairy Marketing Scheme having been scrapped there was no control or regulation of the fresh milk industry except in such places as Johannesburg and Cape Town, where voluntary schemes were agreed to. Unfortunately in Natal the distributors refused to co-operate and agree to a voluntary scheme. This was in spite of all that producers could do to induce them to come to an agreement. They simply ignored them. The result of their refusal was that distributors reduced the price of milk to the producers by 4d. per gallon, and further they also reduced their quotas by about 30 per cent. After having done this they entered into a price war with the producers’ distributors, that is the town dairy men, and tried to disorganise their business by undercutting them. The result of this has, as I have said, led to chaos in the fresh milk industry in Natal. Any shortage of milk due to their reducing the quotas was made by buying cheap milk which was bought at a lower price for manufacturing purposes by cheese factories and similar institutions. I mention this to show the necessity of control in the fresh milk business, because if we do not control it, what I have reported now would be the result in every other part of the country, as every voluntary scheme is only a temporary measure until someone breaks it. Most of the non-success of our schemes in the past have been where the distributors and manufacturers have not been controlled effectively, so that they could not exploit producers and consumers, whenever the opportunity occurred, and this is an example of what would happen if control were done away with in any product in which the farmers have to sell their products through distributors or manufacturers. Now we are very thankful that the Minister has introduced this Bill and we are only hoping that he will not delay in bringing about the adoption of the new Dairy Marketing Scheme which will protect the producers and the consumers from the operations of the middleman. It is most necessary and unless this new scheme is brought in at once, very serious repercussions will happen. I may just mention that until the milk producers in Natal knew that this Bill was being introduced they had decided to go on strike and refuse to sell any more of their fresh milk to these distributors which would have meant that the consumers would have had to suffer severely as well as the producers.

That would have been the first farmers strike.

My hon. friend says that it would have been the first farmers strike, but it is necessary at times for the farmers to go on strike, because undoubtedly they are being exploited to the utmost extent by the middleman, even under these schemes, and even our present schemes do not sufficiently protect the primary producers, and the consumers, to the extent that is necessary. Even to-day I make bold to say that the middleman is geting undue profits out of handling our products and handing them to the consumers. Now I wish to say to the Minister that there is great dissatisfaction in the country to-day with regard to many of our marketing schemes, and that is almost entirely due to the composition of the Boards, and the working of the Boards, to their actions in controlling our products. We have instances of primary producers being represented on the Board by manufacturers and distributors, because under the definition as I see in this Bill, the producers also include the manufacturers, and the men who process any products. I hope the Minister in any new scheme will make it plain that every Board should have a majority of primary producers on it. I wish to say to the Minister that in accepting nominations from the Agricultural Union, he should use the powers which he has to make certain that any nomination made to that board shall be a bona fide primary producer who has no interest in any manufacturing enterprise which is buying that primary product to make profits for shareholders. Under the old dairy scheme we had an instance where the managing director of a creamery, because he also produced milk, was thought a fit and proper person to represent producers of cream on that board, although his principal interest lay in the manufacturing side of the industry. It has always been said that these control schemes are farmers’ schemes, that they are given power to manage their own affairs in their own interests, but I think that statement goes rather too far, because although we may put up a scheme the final decision lies with the Marketing Council, and whatever scheme is recommended to the Minister, the Minister is responsible for, because he has to approve of it before it becomes law. In arriving at their recommendations the Council and the Minister, in approving of them, should be satisfied that any scheme they approve of should carry out the objects of the Marketing Act, and I feel that in many instances that has not been the case. I would like to quote from the report of the National Marketing Council for 1938-’39 at page 6, Section 4—

And I may add, subject to approval of the Minister—

If the council and the Minister will keep these objects of the Marketing Act in view in considering any scheme and approving of it, I am sure that nearly all our marketing schemes would be successful. There is no doubt that in the minds of both consumer and primary producer failures of schemes in the past have been due to the fact that the interests of primary producers have not been safeguarded enough, nor have the interests of the consumers and the middleman; the distributor and the manufacturer have been allowed to make undue profits. I think that is the greatest thing we have to try to obviate, the making of undue profits by the middleman at the expense of our producers and consumers. As I have shown in the case of the Natal dairymen, where control was done away with, the middleman at once reduced the price to the producer by 4d. a gallon, and also reduced their quotas, whereas in Johannesburg, where milk was controlled by a voluntary system, better prices were realised. In Johannesburg, where the Natal Creamery was operating as well, they were paying 1s. 1d. to 1s. 2d. for their milk, whereas in Natal they were paying 8½d., and in the case of surplus milk only 6d. For that same milk the Natal distributors were charging 2s. a gallon, the same price as in Johannesburg to consumers, where milk was bought at 1s. 1d. I think that is conclusive evidence that the middlemen have to be watched very closely, in order that the primary producer and the consumer is treated in a fair and just way, and that the distributors should not make absurd profits at the expense of the producers.

I listened with close attention to the hon. member for Weenen (Mr. Abrahamson), but if you ask me what he said, then I must in all honesty say that I do not know, for the simple reason that we could not hear what the argument of the hon. member was, apart from the details which he referred to. I think that all hon. members on this side of the House will agree with me that we could not hear his speech. I do not blame the hon. member for Weenen, but I think that there is nevertheless something wrong with the manner in which we do our business here, and this has again come very forcibly to light in connection with this Bill. The Minister of Agriculture has made a statement, and I agree that his statement was quite clear. But what have we got to deal with here? We are concerned with a Bill which contains amendments, and important amendments, to two existing Acts, namely, Act No. 26 of 1937 and Act No. 19 of 1938. This Bill has only been in our hands for a very little while, just long enough to enable us to know that it contains a large number of amendments which, in order to understand them, have to be laid alongside of each section in the Act in force to-day. This requires a study of hours and hours, and I think that if I were to ask hon. members on both sides of the House whether they had studied the Bill as it ought to be studied, then they would reply that they had not been able to do so. I must honestly admit that I cannot say what the contents of the Bill are in all its details. That is wrong, and we cannot do our duty in that way. Although the Minister has been applauded from this side of the House for introducing the Bill—and I take it that he deserves the praise—he really should have treated us a little better. Especially on this occasion, but also on other occasions, hon. members ought to be assisted in order to facilitate the study of the Bill concerned. That ought to be done if Ministers expect us to do our duty—and our constituents certainly expect it of us. If we are expected to do our duty, then the Minister concerned ought, in such cases, to provide us with a memorandum containing the contents and explaining the amendments. At the moment too much is being expected of us. This is not the only Bill which we have before us. There are also other important Bills which we must study, and with all respect I would like to suggest that not only the Minister of Agriculture—I admit that he is courtesy itself, and I have no grievance against him personally—but that he as well as his colleagues should in future try, especially in cases like this, to provide us with a memorandum on the Bill concerned, which will make it possible for us in the comparatively short time which we have at our disposal to study the Bill and to be able to form an independent opinion. With regard to the black sheep of the Bill, that is clause 5 (c), I want to say that I think that the Minister acted wisely in withdrawing that clause, because we know that the agents of the Wheat Board are all, with a few exceptions, the co-operative societies, and we really cannot expect the Minister to be called upon in a case where a co-operative society is unreasonable, or where a mistake is being made, to act as arbitrator. The great point is this: Inasmuch as the Wheat Board appoints the co-operative societies as agents, the resonsibility for the appointment rests with the Wheat Board. If a mistake is made, then the Wheat Board is responsible. If the agent pays a man for second grade when his wheat is first grade quality, with the result that he gets £100 too little, then the matter has to be settled not by the Minister, but by the Wheat Board. It goes without saying that this clause ought to be withdrawn, and I want to compliment the Minister on having had the sound common sense to do so. To what extent his common sense has been exhibited in the other clauses I cannot decide at the moment, because I have not as yet had any opportunity of going into the details.

I think that by way of a protest we ought to vote against the second reading of this Bill, to wit, because the Minister has submitted such a comprehensive Bill to this House without a memorandum. I really want to note an objection against it, and I would like him, for himself and on behalf of his colleagues to make the promise that when a comprehensive Bill is submitted to this House, especially if it is an amending Bill, it should be accompanied by a memorandum, at any rate by a memorandum such as the Minister receives for the preparation of his second reading speech. Something of that kind should be laid before this House. I want to protest strongly against the fact that that has not been done in this case. Moreover, the Minister has not told us whether he has consulted the co-operative societies in connection with these amendments. I, for my part, would have felt much safer in voting for the second reading if the Minister could have told us that not only the control boards were in agreement with the amendments, but that he had also consulted the cooperative societies in connection with the amendments which he was proposing. I would very much like to hear from the Minister to what extent he did consult the co-operative societies. No objection can be taken to the principle of control. I think that all sections of this House agree with the control which the primary producer must have over his own produce. I do not want to refer now to the administration of the several control boards. We can talk about that at another time. The approval which we give to this Bill on the second reading does not imply that we are satisfied with that administration and with the action of all the agents. We have reason to feel dissatisfied with the appointment of certain agents. I should prefer to see the appointment of those agents being removed from the political arena rather than the appointment of agents at the moment gives us reason for thinking is the case. I want to give my own constituency as an example. The more directly the appointment of the agents is placed under the control board, the more satisfaction we hope to obtain. In a great part of the country it is in the hands of the board of control, but in the western area the appointment of agents did not emanate from the co-operative societies. I think that I am entitled to say that. I do not believe that all the appointments which have been made from the commercial community have emanated from the co-operative societies.

Not from the co-operative societies, but from the board of control.

If the Minister says that the appointments in the commercial world emanate from the board of control, then I must accept it. I only want to say that we are not quite satisfied.

I will reply to that fully.

I shall be glad if you will do so, because it is a matter on which there is some dissatisfaction. If this Bill is an effort to make the control of the primary producers’ produce more water-tight, then we agree with it. I only want to ask the Minister this. I can understand that the immediate demand for the Bill comes from the dairy people. We have no objection to assisting them, we would like to help them, but I merely want to have the assurance that there are no cases pending. It would be a great pity if we adopted the principle that we were passing legislation which would have retrospective effect in order to frustrate those cases. The amendments which are being made here will have retrospective force up to the date of the parent Act. It is a principle which we have always opposed, and still oppose to-day, that legislation should summarily be made to have retrospective force. This Bill makes drastic provisions with retrospective force, and before we can vote for that, we would like to have the assurance of the Minister that there are no cases pending. I think that those are all the remarks I wish to make. We approve of the second reading of the Bill, provided that the Minister withdraws that clause with regard to the agents, and he has said that he will do so.

I welcome this Bill, because it is necessary that our marketing scheme should be put on a better basis. They are to a certain extent in the probationary stage, and from time to time in order to make their working more efficient, amendments present themselves, which must be embodied in the original Act. I am, however, frankly disappointed at the attitude which the Minsiter has taken up in regard to the agent’s clause. There is nothing on which there is greater division of opinion amongst farmers themselves and even on the board, than this question of selling through agents, and the appointments of such agents by the board. I hold the opinion very strongly that as long as the farmer controls the price of his product up to the time of distribution, the more competition there is in the selling of that product in the towns the better, that is to say the more competition among the various agents the more business must eventuate, and to persist with this method of selling through one channel by means of an agent is likely to restrict distribution, restrict retail sales, and this will not assist the farmer. I agree that the price should be fixed to the producer, that the cost of manufacturing any agricultural product should be controlled, and the wholesale selling price fixed up to the time it leaves the wholesale distribution in the town. But the less restriction you put on the retail business that is done in those towns the more business you will do. There is however a big principle in regard to the appointment of these agents which would never be accepted in ordinary commercial life. The Dairy Board consists very largely of men who are interested, although they may also be producers, in the distribution through certain cooperative channels and also by certain proprietary concerns, and I put it to the Minister and I put it to this House, is it right that a body that is financially interested in distribution should have the sole right of appointing agents or the cancellation of the licences of existing agents, without any appeal on the part of those whose licences to sell are cancelled? It would not be contenanced in any public body in this country. Go to the magistrate’s court, if a magistrate is interested in any case which comes before him, he recuses himself as a matter of course. I speak of that of which I have definite knowledge. Take dairy products, only those agents who are licensed by the board may distribute. I am speaking of wholesale distribution, and I tell the House that there are men who during a lifetime have built up a profitable business in distribution, or sub-distribution of a product, and towards the end of an honourable business career, their business has been cut away from them by a decision of the control board, and they have no right to appeal to anyone, either to the Minister or to the Court. That is not right, more especially when the decision is taken by those who are interested themselves financially in the distribution of that product. I make no insinuation of bad faith, but it is impossible that people who are interested should not be influenced subconsciously in their attitude when they have to make decisions of that kind for or against what are their own interests. I am convinced that these boards will not function satisfactorily unless this system is altered. I hope the Minister is going to weigh very carefully this provision in the Bill and will not delete it after he has already decided to include it. There is another point which I want to bring to the notice of the Minister, and it is one which reveals the weakness of the boards, as well as their strength. I hope the Minister will take powers to see that the work which the boards are doing is brought home to the people of this country. To-day the boards are working behind a veiled secrecy, and no one outside the board knows what is going on. If you ask any farmer, let me say a dairy farmer, why the price of milk is fixed at a certain figure, he cannot tell you how it is worked out. The board is absolutely silent as to its actions. The chairman of the board never takes the trouble to tell the public of this country why they are acting in a particular way, and what may be expected to be the repercussions of any particular action.

Are you a member of the board?

I was, and I invariably pressed for this to be done; it was left to the chairman, and equally invariably the chairman did nothing. Not one of these boards issues weekly or monthy summaries of its activities, why it was taking certain action, and so on. We shall never get the confidence in these boards either on the part of the farmer or on the part of the urban dwellers, unless it is “cards down” on the table every time, and I hope that the Minister will, even in this amending Bill, take the necessary powers to see that the veil of secrecy is lifted, and that if necessary it is even made compulsory for monthly statements to be issued showing how the boards are working; in that way both producers and consumers would be taken into the confidence of the boards. Here I would make this suggestion. We have a very valuable body—the Marketing Council. To that body all schemes are submitted and any matter which is of real importance, whether it is a matter of routine or otherwise, is referred to the Marketing Council for investigation.

Are they not the graveyard of your schemes?

The request I want to put to the Minister is this, that wherever the Marketing Council makes investigations, wherever any board which has the power of price taxation puts to the Minister a request that certain prices be fixed, or alterations be made in prices that after the Marketing Council has considered the matter, and put its report, that report be immediately published. It is true that at the end of the year you get the Marketing Council’s annual report, and in that report you will find that these matters which I have referred to are included, but by that time they are stale. Those reports which the Marketing Council send to the Minister are entirely out of date by the time the public get them, and if the Minister would only consent to publication immediately he has received and adopted the reports instead of waiting until the annual report comes out, he would get a much healthier state of affairs. To-day in the cheese world you have no export of cheese. The total export of cheese out of an estimate of 14,000,000 lbs. has been 96,000 lbs. up to date, and yet throughout the deal there is a deduction of 1.65d. for estimated loss on export. These things want explaining. When the factories get an account showing a deduction of 1.65d. per lb. for loss on export, and there is no export, they want to know why this deduction? All these things could be much better dealt with if the Board would only be frank and publicly explain to all interested parties what is going on, and why it is going on. There is another matter: This amending Bill which is before us is largely necessary because of the breakdown of the fresh milk scheme as the hon. member for Weenen (Mr. Abrahamson) has explained. Now what happened when that scheme was first started was this: I think it was wrong, I think it would have been better if the Board had confined itself to one centre—but the Board started committees to organise in each big town of the Union. They had a perfect right to do so. But these committees could not work without funds and between £7,000 and £9,000 of the Board’s funds, which had been put up through cheese and butter levies, was advanced to all these committees in order to get on with their organisation. They were so grateful for the assistance given them and the interest which the Board took in trying to get the scheme under way that they sued the Board, and the result of their action was that the whole scheme was declared invalid. That was the gratitude the Board got for trying to assist the fresh milk distributors. Anyhow, between £7,000 and £9,000 was advanced to these committees in order to assist distribution of fresh milk. Under the Marketing Act every Board which is set up under the scheme is heir-at-law to the debts and assets of the old Board which, was set on foot by various Acts dealing specifically with that industry. You had the Dairy Control Act under which the Dairy Control Board came into existence. When under the Marketing Act the present Dairy Control Board came into operation, it was heir to all the liabilities, but it also took over all the assets of the previous Board. I see no reason why the same should not apply under this amending Bill, and when we come to set up new committees as soon as this Act is passed—which I hope will not take long—as soon as that becomes law and fresh committees are set up, it is only fair to those whose money has been squandered—it is only fair to those who contributed to the cheese and butter levy fund—it is only fair that these new committees should be responsible by means of a levy, if necessary, to be imposed on the fresh milk distributors, to return and refund to the Board an amount equal to that lent to the old committees. I do not think one is asking anything unreasonable, and I hope the Minister will accept that and will allow us to move that in committee. I do not think it is fair that the milk producers, the cheese milk producers, and the butter-fat producers, should lose this sum which has been spent by the various milk committees in order to try and organise the distribution of fresh milk. There are two other points I want to ventilate, and I want to suggest to the Minister that he should carefully consider the fixing of retail prices. Now we have the most unhealthy system in this country, in that we have no fixed policy throughout the system of Control Boards. I am very firm in the position that the producer should get a fixed price for his product, that the factories should be limited in the margin which they are allowed to charge. The manufacturing margin should be a fixed one. But once the article comes into a town, for goodness sake do not let it interfere too much with the price which is fixed for retail distribution. You have such an extraordinary mixture of policy among Boards on this matter. For cheese and butter the maximum price is fixed at 1s. 1d. and 1s. 6d. respectively. The retailer can sell cheese and butter at as much below that 1s. 1d. and 1s. 6d. as he likes. For cash over the counter you can buy butter at 1d. less than the maximum price. In the case of fresh milk there is no scheme in operation, but there was the old scheme, provision for a maximum and a minimum price. Then you get to wheat, also controlled by a Board, and there you have a fixed price. If anyone dare sell a loaf of bread under the fixed price you at once see the result in the paper—you see it every day. A man is charged with an offence which carries a fine of £5 or more. Then you have the National Supplies Board dealing with foodstuffs, definitely fixing a maximum price at which any article can be sold, but any such article can be sold at any price below that maximum.

Not wholesale.

No, not wholesale, but retail. I agree that the farmer should control the maximum retail prices for the protection of the consumer. But when it comes to retail, for heaven’s sake let us adopt a uniform policy. If we are going to have a fixed price let us say so, if we are going to have a maximum price, let us say so. Let us at least have uniformity and not have a policy which lays down that a can can sell his butter in open competition as cheaply as he likes, but if a man who sells bread dare do the same thing, he is a criminal of the deepest dye. Let the Minister adopt a maximum price policy only on all control board prices. Let him have the wholesale price fixed from the factories and let there be a maximum price on retail sales, and let the ordinary competition ebb and flow below that maximum price. That is the only policy which can eventually succeed. There is another point, and here I am afraid I shall be up against my farmer friends. I do think if the farmers interfere too much with prices in towns it is wrong. If we go in and lay down the minimum and the maximum prices and interfere with what should be entirely the province of the towns themselves, we are never going to get the confidence of the towns—unless they are represented on these boards. Is it not logical? What would the farmers say if a Board completely controlled by townsmen had the the power to come into our farming business and interfere with the prices which we charge for our primary products. We should resent it, and the same argument applies to the case of distribution in the towns. We have to work hand in hand with the townsman if we are ever going to make a success of our schemes to regulate the conduct of a retailer’s business in the towns themselves, and for that reason, so far from saying that we should have nothing but primary producers on these Boards. If we claim jurisdiction in towns, we must welcome a few of the representatives of the consumers and of the retail trade to sit with us when we discuss these matters. Now only one more matter. I raise it because I want the Minister to realise the absolute necessity of holding a certain amount of control and supervision over the actions of these Boards, more especially in the matter of price fixation. Now, the Dairy Control Board meets in October, and decides to fix the price of cheese milk. It has three vital factors to consider: first, the local price of cheese: that has already been fixed. Secondly, the amount which will be exported, and, thirdly, the price which the export article will fetch This year we are in the fortunate position of having a contract with the Imperial Government for our cheese, which I am certain will not be honoured—we shall not have the cheese to fill it; but who can sit down in October and prophesy what the season is going to be, and what the production of cheese milk is going to be? There is no country in the world where the seasons fluctuate as much as they do here. Now what has happened? The Board says: “We are going to fix prices, and we will assume that production and export will be the same as last year.” And on that assumption they reconcile the 6d. per lb., which is the net value of that article overseas, with the price of 1s. 1d. per lb. which it is worth in this country—and they reconcile the big loss on the 6d. export on what they assume to be 30 per cent. of the total production. It is assumed that there will be an export surplus of 30 per cent. of the total production; on this assumption they fixed the price of cheese milk at 6d. per gallon. Now there is going to be no export this year. The export up to date has been about 90,000 lbs., and there is certainly not likely to be more. Owing to the big demand of the military, and of the Defence Department, the cheese manufacturers cannot meet the local demand. There is not a pound of cheese being exported, and there is not the slightest possibility of any cheese being exported. That means that there will be no loss on export, but the Board estimates that about 4,000,000 lbs. will be exported, whereas not a single pound will be exported. We must realise, therefore, how much the Board must be out in their estimates. The position is this, that the supplier of cheese milk to-day should be getting 8d. per gallon, and yet at this stage when all farming production is subject to increased costs, he is only getting 6d. And the whole of that 2d. extra is going into the pockets of the proprietary cheese factory.

Why cannot they stop it?

I called attention in November last to these facts; I called the attention of the Board to it, and it was admitted, and yet the Board has never met and it is not meeting until April, and they are allowing this scandal to go on.

What has that to do with the Bill?

I am asking that the Minister shall take the necessary powers of control so that these things shall not happen. Surely someone must have control. We cannot have the farmers being mulcted in this fashion It means that the control is supposed to be in the hands of the producers, but they have no control at all, and they are getting no benefit.

The consumers are not benefiting.

The man who is benefiting is the man running a proprietary cheese factory. As far as the co-operative factories are concerned, it does not matter, because that overplus will go back to them in the shape of bonuses at the end of the financial year. All their profits are divided among the shareholders, so it does not affect the shareholders in a well managed co-operative concern so much, but it does vitally affect those people who are selling to the proprietary factories, and they are losing 2d. per gallon. And the Board must know it, and yet no meeting of the Board has been called to remedy the position. Does not that show that the Minister, instead of giving away powers, should take greater powers, and that there should be more supervision so that that kind of thing will not go on? The producers of cheese milk are beginning to realise what is happening, and they bitterly resent the price which they are getting —this 6d. per gallon, of which ½d. is taken for the cartage of the milk, so that they are probably getting 5½d. net per gallon. And therefore, I say to the Minister that it is necessary that these things should be controlled, and where these errors occur—and they are only errors of stupidity, there is nothing wilful about them; the Boards do not or will not realise the position—there should be some authority to put these things right. I say something should be done in order to set on foot machinery as soon as possible to rectify mistakes of this nature I hope the Minister will take, if possible, in this Bill, greater powers than he has at present, rather than relinquish any powers The Boards can do, and are doing good work, but they can do better work still; but they are in a stage of infancy, and they want a guiding hand if they want to keep on the rails.

I was very glad to hear the hon. member who has just sat down (Mr. Gilson) put in a plea for the consumer; particularly was I glad to hear his recommendation that a maximum retail price should be fixed as well as a minimum producer’s price. I was also glad to hear him suggest that the consumer should have more of a hand in fixing prices than is provided for at present. It was not clear to me, however, whether he meant that the farmers’ price should first be fixed by the present boards without the consumer coming into the picture, or whether the farmer would welcome the co-operation of the consumers in the fixing of prices. I hope he will use his influence as a past, and, I am sure, a future member of the Dairy Control Board in this matter. The Minister reminded us that this Bill does not introduce a new principle—and no more it does. It simply strengthens certain powers under the existing Act. And it seems pretty evident from the speeches which we have heard here this afternoon that the working of the principle in the original Act is regarded with considerable complacency on both sides of the House. Now I do not regard the working of the principle of this legislation with complacency at all, and I do not think that any member who represents the constituents whom I represent—the poorest of the poor in this country—could regard it complacently. And although I agree that no new principle is introduced, I do conceive that it is the duty of those who represent the poorest in the land to let no opportunity pass of protesting to the Minister against the way in which this principle works—I want to impress on the Minister the hardship which is caused by the working of this legislation to the poorest section of this country. As I understand the aim of marketing legislation, it is twofold. First of all the lowering of distribution costs by eliminating the middle man and co-ordinating distributive machinery, and secondly, improving the quality of the product by grading regulations. Both of these principles presuppose the existence of a competitive market. The aim of legislation or schemes based on these principles should not be to eliminate a competitive market, but to increase the return to the primary producer in such competitive market. Whatever success may have been attained under this legislation in improving the quality of the products, certainly the evidence seems to be that there has been very little in reduction of costs of distribution and the main effect of the legislation taken as a whole has been to undermine the competitive market altogether and to introduce a system of statutory monopolies of agricultural interests which are operating in a manner unfair to the mass of the consumers of this country, particularly where the basic necessities of life are concerned. The method which has been pursued is familiar to us all. The restriction of local consumption by raising local prices engineered by artificially secured export of so-called surpluses of goods needed by the poorest in this country. The hon. member for Griqualand (Mr. Gilson) said there would be no more export of cheese. That may be so in the case of that particular product. But it is quite clear from the latest report of the Secretary for Agriculture that those who are charged with the Administration of this Act are still looking to the export market as the main support of South African agriculture. In his latest report the Secretary for Agriculture says this—

And later he says—

So that apparently the policy is so far as possible to continue what was done before the war and rely as far as possible on the export market, rather than to institute a policy of raising the consuming capacity of the population of this country. I admit that South Africa is not the only country which has resorted to policies of restriction of consumption in order indirectly to subsidise the producer at the expense of the consumer. As a matter of fact that policy has been put into force in many countries, and the reason for it is this: that whereas in recent years the tendency of industry and finance to monopolise its organisation has gone very far, agricultural organisation has not kept pace with that. And the farmer’s predicament all over the world has been that he has to buy in a monopolistic market and sell in a competitive market which has relatively raised his costs so that he has had to turn to the State for assistance. One way of dealing with the situation would have been to take drastic action against monopolies and subject them to public control. That is one method which could have been pursued, and that is the method which I am sure most countries of the world will eventually pursue. Pending a reorganisation of our economic system that this would involve, two obvious ways lay open to governments to assist farmers, and nearly all of them resorted to one, namely, legislation which had for its object the creation of statutory monopolies subject to a certain amount of ministerial control. The object was an artificial rise in the price of primary products. That was one way, and it was subsidisation at the expense of the consumer. Another and better way would have been the direct subsidisation of the farmer out of the proceeds of direct taxation, levied not upon the consuming population as a whole, but upon the higher income groups—upon those best able to bear it. That should have been adopted, but that is not the course that has been adopted in this country or in most other countries. In the case of South Africa this process of creating agricultural statutory monopolies really got into its stride after 1930. It was in 1937 that that charter of monopoly, the Marketing Act, was granted, the powers under which this House is now being asked to strengthen. In commenting upon what the Marketing Act was designed to achieve, the Secretary for Agriculture in his report for 1937, laid down these objects—

I want to give the House, shortly, the extent to which these objects have been achieved, especially from the consumer’s point of view First with regard to the organisation of distribution, I want to give the House one example. Over 70 per cent. of the agri cultural producers of this country are natives and the effect of the scheme that has been brought in so far as maize is concerned is practically to put a stop, in the native areas, to any trade in maize at all, because a native may not sell his maize to another native close by, he may not exchange his maize for stock, which was a common practice at one time; he is limited to sending his maize to a few big traders who are registered under the Act. That is how the system works amongst over 70 per cent. of the agricultural population of this country, and the only peasantry the country possesses. So far as the next object laid down is concerned, namely, the better regulation of supplies, I want to say a few words, but before I leave the systematic organisation of distribution I want to say that this excludes the possibility of the majority of growers selling their products except to a few monopolistic private interests. It is, of course, possible to call that better organisation and distribution, but it is also possible to call it exploitation of the very worst type. With regard to the regulation of supplies, that seems to be chiefly confined in practice to taking the supply of essential foodstuffs off the market here in South Africa and giving them away cheaply to people overseas. The party on my right used to call itself—it has a number of names now—but it used to call itself the Nationalist Party. I personally would define a nationalist as a person who is prepared to put the interests of the people of South Africa, whoever they may be, before the interests of any other people, and yet from the Nationálist Party benches one has heard little criticism of this policy of giving away the products of this country cheaply to people in other countries, when our own people here need them. I wish they would adopt a policy of putting the interests of this country first.

We don’t say it, we do it.

In that sense I am a nationalist, and I wish I could hear a little more genuine nationalism from my friends on my right. Export of the necessities of life has been going on for many years principally as far as maize is concerned, and dairy products, and that from a country where malnutrition is rife and where consumption of dairy products, even amongst the European population, is low for a civi lised country. I want to quote a passage from the report of the Secretary for Public Health for 1937, the very year in which the Marketing Act was passed—

The next claim the Secretary for Agriculture made in reference to this legislation was that it would stabilise prices. That is something which I find it very difficult to understand the meaning of. If it means that prices must be laid down as fixed permanently or for a long period of years however much production rises, what is the benefit of increased production to the public? If production increases, the whole of the people in the country should benefit but that is not what has happened. Stabilised prices have been laid down for a number of products, but I refer particularly to the most important foodstuffs, maize and wheat—the stabilised prices have encouraged production of those particular products. That has necessitated heavy subsidies, or in the case of maize forced export, in order to maintain a given average price locally. In other words, production is stimulated by these stabilised prices which the department talks about, the export surplus grows, and in order to meet the loss on export the local price has to be pushed up higher and higher. Well, now, obviously that cannot go on indefinitely. If production is continually encouraged and consumption continually discouraged by pushing up local prices, there will come a point where the necessities of life will be beyond the reach of the masses of the people, or else there will have to be what there already is, to a large extent in industry, a direct attempt to restrict production. If we go on as we have been of recent years, such an attempt will have to be made. As I have already said, I appreciate the difficulties of the «farmers, but the question is: from what source should their assistance come?—and I maintain that it is in the interests of the poorer people that that assistance should come in the form of direct bounties, levied upon the higher incomes, because not only would that not penalise the poorer sections of the community, but it would tend to expand rather than contract the markets upon which the farmer has to rely. Some attempt has been made in the direction of increasing consumption, but that attempt has been strictly limited. In certain centres of the Union people below a certain income can get their butter at specially reduced prices, and also in certain of the schools of the Union subsidised milk is supplied, but the trouble with both of these schemes is that they are limited to a third of the population. I do contend that not a pound of butter should be exported from the country until every effort has been made to extend both these schemes to the poor among the whole population of this country. No doubt the Minister will say, as his predecessors have always contended, that that would cost too much. Well, I would like to ask the Minister whether there has ever been an investigation to discover whether it would really cost more to extend the scope of these schemes to the native population of this country, than to subsidise the export of butter to other parts of the world. I don’t think there is evidence that it would cost more. It might even prove that we actually have not enough butter to extend the scheme, and if so it shows again what a hopeless mess we are in when we declare that we have a surplus of the necessities of life, and yet have a population most of whom are sadly deficient in an adequate supply of the necessities of life. I am quite sure that there are other members here who have not spoken and who are not satisfied with the manner in which this principle has worked, I mean this principle, which has been accepted, in relation to the stabilisation of prices. Even where a step has been made to control prices in the interests of consumers, or rather to limit the ill-effects of the producers’ monopoly, these attempts do not seem to have succeeded. I want to give the House an example in relation to maize, which is a necessity for the majority of the population of this country. In the most recent report of the Department of Agriculture we have the following report of transactions which took place between the Government and the Maize Control Board—

That report was issued in August. I don’t know how long the consumers’ price was supposed to remain at 10/6. What I do know is that by December, according to a quotation I have here from a milling company, the price of grade 2 maize was 13/-, 13/3 up to 13/9 a bag. I have also been given information that in the native territories for months past the price has been up to 18/- and 20/- a bag. It is therefore difficult to know what exactly is meant by that passage in the report, and for how long that agreement was supposed to be in force. In conclusion, allow me to say this, in my view this policy of subsidising the producer at the expense of the consumer must sooner or later injure the producer himself. The country should rather concentrate on attempts to raise the consuming capacity of the masses of the population, especially of our native population, who, although they are the basis of our productive system, have hardly commenced to be consumers as yet. A short time ago a gentleman visiting this country who had had considerable experience in the working of control boards in the United States of America, and who is an economist of California University, wrote an article which appeared in the South African Journal of Economics in September, 1940, and I simply want to conclude what I have to say this afternoon by reading a passage from his general survey of the agricultural control policy here—

Admittedly the policy there is a long-term policy, but what I am concerned with and would like to see is some evidence that some attempt is being made to progress in that direction rather than to take steps towards increasing the monopoly of producers, as this Bill seems to do. I would rather see local consumption subsidised than a continuance of the policy of export at a loss, and the funds for that subsidy should be raised not from consumers but from the higher income groups. There is, of course, the further line of approach, which is an increase in the unskilled wages of this country. Finally, the planning of agricultural production should be co-ordinated with the consuming capacity of the country, and the utmost effort should be made definitely to increase that consuming capacity.

I cannot understand why the Minister is in such a hurry with this Bill. I have read it through a few times, but I must honestly admit that I have not had enough time to study it well. Why I cannot understand his being in such a hurry is because it seems to me that all the control boards are now controlled by the emergency regulations made under the War Measures Act of 1940. There is a control board for dried fruits, which is concerned more particularly with sultanas, raisins and currants. Power to fix the price and do other things this board of control had to obtain from the raisin farmers—they had to obtain the right to do certain things. Now suddenly difficulties have arisen. War has come and the farmers have been told that they do not sufficiently realise that there is a war on. First we were told that we should enter the war, or otherwise our produce would lie and rot here. Now again we are told that we do not realise that there is a war on, and that something special should be done in order to secure the sale of our produce. Under the War Measures Act, power is given to do certain things, apart from the Marketing Act. If the control board got its power from the farmers, then the farmers would have known what the object was of the steps which had to be taken, and why the control board wanted to have that power. Not one of the farmers, however, was consulted. They were not asked whether they wished it. The Government suddenly came along and said: Look, we have given full control over these matters to the control board. Now listen to what the reason for that was. The reason for that was because they had got a contract from England. They had sold a definite quantity to England. Suppose it was 6,000 tons that they had to deliver. Last year they had the same thing. They entered into a contract, and the buyers came and bought the best raisins for a much higher price, or otherwise the farmers would not have sold them to them, and when they went on the market the sellers said that they could not sell that class of raisin for less than what they could have got from the other buyers. Now they say that the average price last year was 1.93d. But how many of the farmers did not sell raisins for 3d. a lb.? Now they come and they take control this year and they say that the price is to be 1.93d. Once again of course there is a reference to a deferred payment, but our farmers have already learnt what to expect from a deferred payment. It never eventuates.

It lies and rots.

They say that they are doing it because they have a contract to carry out, and accordingly the board of control approached the Department of Africulture, to request it to grant full control over raisins, sultanas and currants. That request was granted by the Government. Accordingly, the control board is the sole purchaser of the raisins, sultanas and currants at a price which the board fixes with the approval of the Minister. In other words, no producer may sell to anyone else, and no other person may buy from a producer. That is the present position, and inasmuch as that is so, and that, we heard that this war would benefit the farmers, we would have thought that they would have fixed a reasonable price. But instead of that, they bring forward a price of 1.93d., not only for raisins but also for sultanas. It is always considered that sultanas are worth more than raisins. I am prepared to agree that owing to the war conditions and because it is difficult to get raisins from the countries in the Mediterranean, the price of raisins has gone up. But if Great Britain is not able to pay more than 1.93d. for raisins, what is the use of such a market to us? We cannot produce for that price. I also want to point out the following to the Minister. During the year before the war the K.W.V. subsidised the export of raisins.

And last year the K.W.V. refused.

I will come to that. The year before the war the K.W.V. paid a subsidy, and they said to the merchants that they could get the subsidy, but then they would have to pay at least 3d. for raisins and 3½d. for sultanas. That was the position. Now the Government intervenes, and they want to export them and they press the price down to less than 2d. The Minister now says that we did not pay the subsidy last year. The raisin farmers and the sultana farmers thought that inasmuch as they had been dragged into the war, and the Government had made a promise to see that there would be a decent price, it was not necessary for the K.W.V. to give that subsidy to the control board, and that the control board should get the subsidy from the Government if it was necessary. They had not yet, however, received even 6d. from the Government. The Government lost £10,000 last year on the loan to the control board, and I assume that it will be written off. In any case I hope so, because these farmers are the only farmers who have never yet received a penny by way of subsidy over and above that £10,000. In addition, I also want to say this to the Minister. Owing to the action of the Deciduous Fruit Board the position to-day is that the grapes which ought to have been exported or which should be distributed throughout the country among the people themselves, are being thrown into the distilling pool, with the result that that pool is overloaded with from 30,000 to 40,000 leaguers of distilling wine. That is not just a small matter. We have been obliged, owing to the action of the Government, through the action of the control board, to receive 30,000 to 40,000 leaguers of wine, which we did not handle in the past, and taken at £3 11s. a leaguer, that amounted to about £100,000. That is the consequence of the action of the Government. A deputation visited the Government to-day, and I was informed a little while ago that the Government will now be prepared to pay 2¼d. and the K.W.V. would then add another ¼d. But if the Government give 2¼d., it is not actually giving anything to the farmers. The Government will probably still get some profit out of it, because England cannot get raisins from the territories surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, and why should we give them these things for nothing? We want to obtain a fair price.

They are only protecting England.

I want to go a little further. They have never yet exported raisins to England. I think Ireland took 150 tons. As to raisins, they start with 4.20d., but there are very few raisins of the first grade. A farmer possibly gets 1 lb. or 2 lbs. of first grade raisins out of his whole harvest. But what do they do in connection with the currants? There they start with 3.25d. and end with 1½d. Do you know what the position in the country is? That you cannot import a pound of currants under 7d. a lb. Reference has been made to a surplus. What is it? Out of 1,000 tons the surplus is possibly 100 tons, if it is as much. I do not think it is as much, but let us assume it is 100 tons out of 1,000 tons. What does that amount to? They can give 6d. and deduct a halfpenny as levy, and then give away the 100 tons to the poor people. They can cover the surplus by the halfpenny. In the old days we already got 6d. and 5d. Only last year there was an outcry about a surplus, but over a period of two years there was only a surplus of 100 tons of currants. Where did this control board, where did the Minister get their information to fix this price for currants? If there was such a small surplus of currants which had to be exported, why then fix the price at that amount? We called the currant farmers together, and the merchants who wanted to buy the product said that they were prepared to pay 4½d. and 5d. if the Government was prepared to deduct the surplus of 100 tons. The farmers then themselves made the proposal that they should get 4½d. and then they could take a halfpenny as levy, and with that get rid of the 100-ton surplus, even if they got nothing for it. Now they come and fix the price at from 3¼d. to 1½d. So far as sultanas are concerned, the same difficulty exists. There they go from 2¾d. to .90d., and I feel that there is something radically wrong in connection with this scheme. There are bodies representing farmers in each of the districts, and as they wanted to fix prices could they not have consulted those bodies, could they not have asked: What can we do, what can we pay? The farmers want the balance to be preserved between the price of the producer and that of the sales in the country. This control board has not even paid a price for sultanas which had been sprinkled with sulphur. They now come under the same price. Sulphured sultanas is an article which is specially made for the local market. There is no export, and the price of sulphured sultanas usually fluctuates between 5d. and 6d. No provision has been made for that, nor has any provision been made for bunches of raisins. If there were to be such a board, and the board were under the present emergency regulations given the powers which it otherwise could not get under the ordinary law, and if it is necessary to get these articles for export, why, then, is this thing being dragged in which has nothing to do with export? And why did they not go to the farmers to find out what the costs of production were? You must understand quite well, this does not only affect the raisin farmers and sultana farmers, but it seriously affects the farmers who distil wine. For every pound of raisins that they cannot sell or which is sold below the price of distilling wine, the quantity of distilling wine is increased, and the distilling wine pool has already more than a 50 per cent. surplus. The price which the farmers should have got for distilling wine was reduced last year, and if the raisins are not marketed, then those raisins will be added to the distilling wine. We are already saddled with the export grapes. If the Government goes to work in this way it will kill the organisation which controls the distilling wine. Does the Government want to do that? That organisation has already existed for so many years, has conducted its affairs in a proper manner, and regularly paid its debts, and it needs assistance in these dark days. We do not know what the future will bring forth, and now the control board comes and reduces the price of raisins to the price of distilling wine, which is already taxed to death. The farmers have come here and, according to the information I am myself receiving from those parts, they are quite refractory I do not say that it is so, but they feel that their interests are being sacrificed to pay for England’s war. Even supporters of the Government have said that to me. Control is being given here under a war measure, and the price is being reduced to lower than what it was before, and now they want to carry out their contracts in that way. I want to let the Minister understand that the KW.V will do its duty. They will do what they can, but I say that it is wrong for them to have to pay, because the Government under the arrangement made by them did not do what they should have done. I am now being told that the price will be put up to 2¼d. I take it that, because the farmers cannot come out under 2½d., we shall be obliged to give a farthing, which will mean £20,000 or £30,000, and we now have to give that amount out of the large surplus quantity of grapes that we have. The Government say that they are risking something, that they may possibly not get any ships to carry the freight. But what is our position? We get nothing. The Government has the opportunity of recovering the money, but we have to pay the farthing just as a subsidy. The Government takes the raisins, and, if necessary, the local market can carry 1d. or 2d more, by which the Government will be covered. But we are tied up. As that is the position, and as the export grapes are now being converted into distilling wine because they cannot be exported, I want to ask whether the Government would not rather allow the wine to run to waste, or send the grapes to the towns and villages to give them away to the poor people, instead of further enlarging the distilling wine pool. Give it to the poor people, then they can at least get fresh grapes, and the farmers will be assisted. I ask the Minister to do that in order to assist us. It is not necessary, possibly, to put the grapes into boxes put them on the train and send them to Bloemfontein, or to other towns who apply for them, so that the poor people can get grapes, even if it is without payment. They can do so without incommoding the fresh fruit market. The Minister laughs at this.

I am not laughing at that, but I am laughing because I cannot see what that has to do with the Bill.

This Bill gives me an opportunity of airing our grievances, and I am making use of that opportunity.

Do so at the proper time and then we can give our attention to it.

I cannot raise it on any other occasion, because there is a motion on the Order Paper which is blocking me. In any case, it is my duty to air my grievances when I have an opportunity of doing so, and to make the position clear to this House and to the Minister. The Minister can do a good thing here, he has a golden opportunity to distribute the grapes in this way amongst the people, grapes for which he has no market. Then he will keep the grapes out of the distilling pool, and make provision for the poor people who are not in a position to get grapes. If the Minister has any sympathy for the poor people, let him prove it. I hope the Minister will do so.

I wish very briefly to deal with a few points raised, particularly those points which may affect the dairy industry Control Board. Hon. members have criticised the Minister for not having issued a White Paper in connection with this matter. A White Paper might have been very useful but on this side of the House we were not influenced by the lack of it, because we arranged to interview the chairman of the Marketing Council on certain points of this Bill. I should like to pay a tribute to that officer. He met a group, the so-called Farmers’ Group, of this side of the House and spent a considerable time explaining various points, and I have no doubt that had members opposite sought that opportunity they would have had the opportunity also of meeting him. I want to deal with one or two points raised by the hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno). He referred particularly to the necessity for supplying the submerged tenth of our population with the nutriments of dairy products. His criticism would have had more value had he in passing paid a tribute to the Government in making that large contribution of over quarter of a million pounds sterling in supplying cheese, milk and other products to the people he pleads for. I want to give hon. members, particularly those hon. members who represent the consumers, the assurance that the powers sought under this measure are just as necessary to prevent the exploitation of the consumer as they are to prevent the exploitation of the producer. The hon. member for Weenen (Mr. Abrahamson) referred to the exploitation of the producer during the interim period since the court declared the Dairy Marketing Control Scheme ultra vires. He pointed out that producers had been exploited through lack of control. I want to give members who represent consumers the assurance that under this Bill we shall be able to prevent the exploitation of consumers equally well as the exploitation of producers. The hon. member for Griqualand (Mr. Gilson) raised a powerful plea in requesting the Minister to retain the power of vetoing recommendations which might be made to him by the Dairying Control Board, or by other Boards. I hope the Minister will not do that. When any of these Boards evolve a marketing scheme, particularly under the Dairying Control Board, the question of agents arises. All those who have been carrying out the business of agents are advised through the Press and otherwise, and are invited to submit applications for becoming agents under this scheme. All these applications are considered on their merits. There is no preference given from any racial or other point of view in granting these applications. Either the Control Board is a Control Board or it is not. Either it knows its job or it does not. In regard to the Dairy Control Board I assume that it does know its job. What is the position if a Board, after exercising a great deal of care, after having made investigations into the bona fides of various agents, and after having arrived at a decision, were to have such decisions arbitrarily reversed by the Minister? The Minister would be inundated with petitions by people who thought they had a grievance. Life would not be worth living if the power were given to the Minister to override decisions from the Control Board. I hope the Minister will not listen to that appeal. The hon. member for Griqualand also made an attack on the Dairy Industry Control Board for not having met since last November. The hon. member knows perfectly well that the Dairy Control Board would normally have continued exercising its functions of control had not the dairy schemes been declared ultra vires. Any decision given by them would and could have been challenged. The Board also knew that it was the Minister’s intention to introduce the measure which he has done to-day, which removes the grounds upon which the old Dairy Control Board was attacked. The hon. member knew that perfectly well. As a matter of fact, he rather defeats his own case, because he says that in November last no one could judge what the production of cheese was going to be, or what the demand overseas would be, or what the demand for the army here would be. And then he proceeds to attack the Board for not having given decisions based on facts which no one could be aware of in advance. I submit that the hon. member completely defeated his own arguments. He knows that as soon as the new Board comes in under the powers given in this Bill, it can, and will, take such steps as will be necessary to recover some of the unearned increment—I will not call it ill-earned increment—which the hon. member referred to as having been made by cheese factories. I have no interest in cheese factories whatever. I just want to repeat that the powers given under this Bill are just as necessary to prevent exploitation of the consumer as they are to prevent exploitation of the producer.

I think we all this afternoon find ourselves in the same difficulty, namely, that it is very difficult to debate this Bill. I happen to have been absent for a few days, and only saw the Bill this morning for the first time. Nevertheless, however difficult it may be to deal with the matter in the circumstances, I find that I must express my views not only on the provisions of the Bill, but also on the difficulties that we have already experienced with control boards. In reading through the Bill one must compare all the amendments with the relative sections in the principal Act. Then only can one see what the changes are. I want to associate myself with the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren) who said that he could not understand the special hurry there was to get this Bill through. The Minister said that it would possibly lead to speculation if the Bill did not pass quickly. Because certain things are being made public it is not quite safe to carry on without this Bill. It must be passed quickly.

There are flaws in the Act which must be remedied, and I said that the flaws were there, and that I did not want people to exploit the position.

That is not a sufficient reason for all the haste in connection with the Bill. It is not a sufficient reason why we cannot have an opportunity of studying the Bill thoroughly. Now the Minister must not blame the farmers if they do not have the fullest confidence in the control boards. The acts of the control boards have in some cases been such that the farmers have entirely lost confidence in them. The Wheat Control Board, e.g. during the first year it functioned gave anything but satisfaction, but the Dairy Board, which has now been in existence for years, and which is now to have control over the dairy industry, is to-day almost the most difficult body to get on with. The Minister knows, I think, what happened last year. We were then battling with the Dairy Board. They only paid us 5½d. for cheese milk, and ultimately we induced them to pay 6d., and that although private undertakings were prepared to pay 7d. a gallon for milk. I think that the price which was fixed by the Dairy Board at 6d. is still being maintained to-day. But when the Dairy Control Board got into difficulties, and no longer had control over the dairy industry, then a splendid offer was made by a private person in my own town, where I live. Somebody there was prepared to put his capital into the establishment of a condensed milk factory. Now I must say that the Minister and his department in connection with that, have shown anything but sympathy. We have lost the opportunity, and will not be given another chance. That man was prepared to put his money into it. He asked for nothing from the farmers. He was prepared to pay a reasonable price, a better price than what we could get from any cheese factory or other institution. The farmers were prepared to guarantee the quantity of milk which the factory needed. But we could not get the assurance from the Minister and his department that if the man put up that factory, they would not stop him subsequently. If the Minister or his department had given that assurance, we should have had the factory to-day, and the farmers would have got a price which they cannot get otherwise. Accordingly, the Minister must not blame us for having lost confidence in the control boards. Let me just say something about the control boards. All the farmers know is that there is a control board. They do not know when is was appointed or how it was appointed. Only certain bodies are asked to make recommendations, I think. But in our district, for instance, where there is a great dairy industry, the farmers do not know how the Dairy Control Board was established there. A few meetings have, as a matter of fact, been held by the board, and certain members of the Dairy Control Board were present. But even they found it difficult to explain to the farmers how the board was appointed, and whom they represented. One of these days, I understand, a new dairy control board is to be appointed. The old one is being dissolved, and I think that the new one will be appointed about the 14th of next month. Now I want to express the hope that the Minister will see to it that all the interests of the dairy industry are properly represented on the new Dairy Control Board which is to be established next month. I agree with the hon. member for East Griqualand (Mr. Gilson) that the Dairy Control Board ought at least to lay their cards on the table from time to time, so that the dairy farmers will know what is going on there.

One is always very pleased to be permitted to support the Minister of Agriculture because one realises that his difficulties are probably as great as those of any other Minister. Now I just want to look at what the hon. member for Griqualand East (Mr. Gilson) said. He tells the House that there has been a fall of 33% in the price of milk and then he tells us further that none of that reduction has gone to the consumer. To me it is remarkable, a remarkable position, and I first ask myself the question “Where can it go to?” Because first of all the Board represents the consumer and the producer. Then another member tells us that this 2d. per gallon has gone to somebody else, that it has not reached the consumer at all, and I am afraid there is something in it. I should like the Minister to go into that matter in replying, because if that is the case then the time for Boards has passed, if there is a reduction and a loss to the producer and none of that finds its way to the consumer, then surely the time for restriction or reorganisation, or death, should be associated with these Boards.

Don’t you know about the middleman?”

Of course I do. I have heard about the middleman ever since I have been in this House, but there does not seem to be a middleman here, it seems to be the cheese producer, who has obtained the 33⅓%—not the middleman—this has gone to another producer. I am sure the Minister will be able to give the House some explanation because it will look very bad to the consumer if the fact goes forward that the producer has suffered a big reduction, and that no benefit has come to the consumer. The hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno) raised the very old point of our losses on export, and he instanced mealies. The question which he puts forward is one for grave consideration, but to-day there can be no loss on export because there is no export, and there will be no export of this particular article. Nor will there be a pound of cheese for export, consequently the loss of that £500,000, or whatever the money is, will be saved. Where will that go? We have had surplus commodities, which had to be exported at considerable loss, and the consumer has had to pay that loss, but that has disappeared entirely now, and I think the consumer has a right to ask the Minister that that saving should go to the right quarter, and that is to the consumer of this country. No more alarming statement could be made than that you have got over a great loss on export, and not a shilling of that saving will go to the consumer. We have been telling them for countless years that the high prices they have been paying are entirely due to the losses on export.

What remedy do you suggest?

There is no remedy required, it is one of those cases which brings a solution in itself. Unless this matter is put right there will be tremendous dissatisfaction in the country. Now I understand the Bill is brought largely because of a judgment of the court, and I support the Minister in the amendment which he proposes to meet that. This not only affects the one control board, but all the control boards, dairy, meat, livestock and so on, so that really this is rather a broad measure which will have a considerable effect. There is a tendency to harden monopoly by getting rid of what you call the townsman, and that leaves a suggestion of dictatorship, and in legislation of this kind such a tendency as that should never be overlooked. Then with regard to licences. I was pleased to read that there is an appeal to the Minister in that respect. I understand, however, that the Minister suggested withdrawing that. I hope that that will not be the case, because the appeal to the Minister is always a safety valve. We know the country and we know that many small petty things get into our national life. I feel very strongly that this appeal to the Minister would be a real safeguard, because it will ensure that a man whose licence is in jeopardy has the Minister to go to and ventilate his case, and in all probability have it put right. The other parts of the Bill I heartily support the Minister in.

I do not want to delay the passage of this Bill, but I cannot allow this opportunity to pass without making certain remarks. The Minister will remember that in 1938, when the principal Act was before the House, I pointed out that the public in the country, the producer as well as the consumer, were placed under the impression by that Bill that in future everything would go very well with them. The experience which we have had—and the Minister will be the first to agree with me—was that neither the producer nor the consumer has in any way had the satisfaction that they expected. That expectation they had from the Marketing Act, and what has happened to that expectation was just what I stressed in the course of my remarks. The disappointment in both cases is great to-day, and the proof of that disappointment is contained in the statements on behalf of both the producers and consumers which we have had to-day from both sides of the House. Is the price which the producer gets anything much better than what it was before 1938? Are the prices which the producer got for produce falling under these schemes so wonderfully improved since the Marketing Act was passed? I prophesied that that would not be the case, and it was not so. On the other hand, can we say that the consumer, especially in the big towns, has to any extent got great advantage out of the Marketing Act? No, that did not occur, and I therefore say that there was great disappointment on both sides about it. The Minister must not think that I am opposed to control. Just like other hon. members, I am in favour of control, but I differ about the way in which the control should be exercised, and say that the fixing of prices for the producer and for the consumer are of such a nature that we cannot attain our object. I said at that time that the difficulty was that only a part of the product was being controlled, and because only a part was controlled, it would handicap the marketing of the whole. In the second place, I pointed out that that part of the product which was being controlled had its price fixed in such a way that it was made injurious to the consumer. That is the chief reason why the thing collapsed. You do not control the whole of the produce, and you injure the producer. Hon. members have said a great deal here about control. I say again that I am in favour of it, so that we can allow distribution properly to accommodate itself to the needs in the country, and so that both producers and consumers will be benefited. But the control which we are dealing with now I can only describe in this way, that instead of our having hold of the steering gear of the motor car, we have hold of it by the back wheel, and it still goes just where it wants to. We cannot say that the producer is satisfied with the control that we are exercising. It is no use finding fault with the board of control now. Under the Act, which they come under, it is absolutely impossible for the control boards to take action to satisfy the producer and the consumer. It is no use accusing the control boards and to say that the fault lies with them. We may abolish the control boards and put others in their places, but under the existing law we shall only get the same position again. One hon. member opposite spoke about making the control watertight, and another hon. member said that this Bill was an effort to make the control watertight. Good gracious me—like a lot of sheep my hon. friends opposite agreed that the man with whom we were at war, the middleman, should have the same say on the boards of control as the producer—the middleman was to have the same say. How can my hon. friend now speak of making things watertight. Against whom? The principal Act of 1938 gives the same status to the speculator as to the producer; the speculator retains that status, and then my hon. friend says that he wants to make the thing watertight. I ask again, watertight against whom? The farmers have always been shouting— their cry has always been middleman, middleman, but here in the Marketing Act they are giving the same status to the middleman as to the producer. And any person, from whatever economic surroundings he may happen to come, will make use of that status when he gets it.

Use but not abuse it.

Wherever he has got a grip he has always as yet had the best of it, and my hon. friend who is au fait with the interests of the farmers will be the first to admit that the farmer has got hold of the short end, and the consumer no end at all. My hon. friends on this side and on the opposite side wanted the Minister to submit a memorandum to them in order to explain this Bill. The hon. member for Pretoria (District) (Mr. Oost) therefore now admits what he refused to admit in 1938—as I said at that time, that they were passing that Bill without having the least idea of what the effect of it was going to be. My objection to this Bill is not against the amendments as such, but my objection is against the whole of the Marketing Act, that it puts the people under a wrong impression. Possibly these amendments will now have the effect of making the consumers and the producers think that the Minister is introducing amendments now, and on this occasion everything will be in order, and things will be put right, and because they do not know what the meaning of it is, they will have to be pacified again. But the Minister will have to come along with further amendments. Hon. members opposite and on this side should listen to me. I say that the Minister will have to make further amendments, and that will happen vêry quickly. When then he comes and introduces further amendments, let him so amend the Marketing Act that the farmer who fails under the control schemes will find that his produce is not only partially controlled, but that it is entirely controlled, and then the Act will have the desired effect, and prices will be fixed in such a way that they will protect the consumer while they will assure a payable price to the producer. I could speak at great length on a Bill like this, but I want to meet the Minister and also the other hon. members who want to say something about it, and while I do not ask for a division, it must not be inferred from that that I approve of this particular control. Control, to my mind, means so much control that you will be able properly to protect the producer, and not merely partially protect him, but total control, so that the consumer will also have reasonable protection. Hon. members referred to the K.W.V., which was sending large quantities of grapes to those parts of the country where grapes were seldom sold. I want to pay homage to that organisation; that act does them credit. After the passing of the Marketing Act the farmers thought that their grapes would go to those areas. That did not happen, and we wish the K.W.V. good luck with the steps they are now taking. I want to conclude by saying this, that notwithstanding the Marketing Act, distribution in this country is still just as bad as before.

This is only an enabling Bill, and I don’t want to take up much of the time of the House, but I want to put one point to the Minister which has come to my notice by reason of the fact that I have been a member of one of these milk marketing committees—in Durban. The Bill is so framed that these milk marketing committees are composed generally of eight members. There is a proviso to Section 55, and it is on this proviso that I want to get the support of the Minister. I want, in fact, to get a little more protection for the consumers’ representatives. The Act provides that one of these representatives must be a medical officer of health. Now while I can quite appreciate the importance of that official being on the committee, I know in the light of my experience that that provision has been a failure. I understand that the medical officer of health at Cape Town has withdrawn from the committee, and, as far as Durban is concerned, I doubt very much whether the medical officer has put in more than three appearances out of a total of twenty. The reason advanced is that the milk question, at the moment, is purely one of economics; in other words, it is a question, first of all, of satisfying the producer that he gets a fair and reasonable price, and of satisfying the consumer that he pays the same. There are small difficulties in between, of distribution arid so on, but I want to suggest to the Minister that perhaps in the committee stage he may see fit, if he agrees with me, to provide that the medical officer of health need not be a representative on that committee. I have already given the reasons why the medical officers are not interested, and the fact that the medical officer in Durban has not attended more than three times out of twenty has made it difficult for the other consumers’ representative. The second point I want to mention is that the proviso in Section 50 should nominate a representative on these committees, one who has had some experience of economics. To give the House some idea of how necessary that is, I will say that it was my privilege to sit at one of these meetings and listen to a discussion between representatives of the Dairy Industry Control Board and one of these milk marketing committees. We were fortunate enough, or I was fortunate enough, to listen to a Government official who from the beginning to the end picked out faults in the case put up by either producers or distributors in regard to certain distribution costs. This Government official tore the whole thing to pieces, and the obvious conclusion I came to was that the distributors were putting up an unfair case for certain prices to be charged in order to produce the necessaryprofit. I am satisfied that if we had on that committee an economic adviser of the capabilities of this particular Government official, consumers would be assured of a squarer deal. In conclusion, I want to suggest to the Minister that he might help us at the committee stage by reconsidering the necessity for the presence of medical officers on these committees, and, secondly, he might consider the advisability of one of the consumers’ representatives having a knowledge of economics. If the Minister will take up these two points, I think we can at least be assured that the consumers in the country will get a better and a squarer deal.

I must express my appreciation of the manner in which this Bill was received. Criticism has been very fair, although a lot of it was entirely outside the scope of the Bill. I realise, however, that when one wants to amend a Bill like this one must expect that. What I do object to is that some members have made use of this Bill to attack the principle of the Marketing Act as a whole. Rightly or wrongly, the Act is on the Statute Book. Parliament deliberately put the power of dealing with their produce into the hands of the producers; I found this Act on the Statute Book, and all I ask hon. members is to assist me to make it as workable as possible. It is with that view that I have come with these amendments. The hon. members for Malmesbury (Mr. Loubser), Pretoria (District) (Mr. Oost), and Moorreesberg (Mr. Erasmus) have asked me why I have not provided a memorandum, but as the Bill is largely clarifying I did not think it necessary. I admit that I may have had an explanatory memorandum. I will try and have some sort of memorandum ready before the Committee stage. I do not know whether I can get the printing work done, but I will have enough copies to supply members who are interested in the Bill. I must say I do not pay very much attention to the criticism of the hon. member for Pretoria (District). It is an old excuse which I myself have employed on occasion, that members have had insufficient time to study the Bill. I would point out that the Bill has been in the hands of members for ten days, and anybody who is really interested has had time to study it. I admit that a memorandum would have been of great use, and since one or two of my colleagues have started the fashion, I shall try to carry it out in future. That is my reply to the hon. member for Moorreesburg. I cannot speak for my colleagues, but I will bear this point strongly in mind, and when I come with an amending Bill again, I will have a memorandum prepared, because it will assist me in getting the Bill through. The hon. member for Pretoria (District) has made another point. He said certain things are a responsibility of the board, that it is not my responsibility, and why should I meddle. Well, sir, I hope this House will take a leaf out of his book, because that is just my complaint. It is no good my coming to the House and saying this or that is the board’s responsibility, although I think that would be a fair reply. Parliament has set up a board to manage the job, but it is no good my coming to the House and saying that this or that is the responsibility of the board, because the House holds me responsible.

So you are.

All right, I say give me the authority, and then I will accept responsibility, which I think is a very fair proposition to put. Hon. members, however, say I am not to have the authority, but I must shoulder the responsibility, and that I submit is not a fair proposition. Now I want to mention the matter of agents. The hon. member for Moorreesburg is wrong, I have not appointed one agent, nor has my department appointed one. I have called attention of boards in different cases where I thought they were dealing unfairly, taking a man’s livelihood away without compensation, and in some cases the boards have recognised that I was right. In other cases the board has said “No, we are not going to listen to you.”

They have a policy, and you agree with that policy.

No, no. It is not a question of policy. You can still sell, for instance, wheat through one channel, and you can have two or three agents to sell it. The first important matter I dealt with when I took office was the approving of this wheat scheme, and I said to the secretary of the department that I saw a weakness in the scheme as a business man, which was that they were charging too high a commission. Then I say it is not my baby. I said the Commission was too high. The reply was that the co-operative societies tell us that they cannot do it for less. To the next one I said, “Well, now, if you want to make a success and sell through one channel, here is where we should be careful and not eliminate all agents in one year; we should go gradually and eliminate them if they do not do their job. Do not be in too much of a hurry and certainly do not take a man’s business away without compensation.” I don’t believe in confiscating a man’s business without compensation even if it is done in the interest of the State. I said to the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) that I think he was wrong. I did not appoint a single agent. He asked me whether I had consulted the co-operative societies. No, because they have nothing to do with the greater part of this Bill. The bodies I did consult were the Control Boards and the Agricultural Advisory Board. There is only one clause of the Bill which deals with the co-operative societies and that clause is in their interest, so for that reason I did not consult them. I did not think it necessary. I should like to tell the hon. member for Moorreesburg that we do not know of any case pending, and I would have called the attention of the House to any case that was pending. I would not like to pass legislation to protect ourselves when there is a case pending. The hon. member for Griqualand (Mr. Gilson) has given us a long dissertation but I suggest to him that if I did what he wants me to do I should do away with the Control Boards and give my department all the powers which the boards have. If he wants the Minister to take that measure of control which he asks for, then you cannot have a control board. It would be putting the responsibility on my department altogether and giving us the right to run our schemes. I am prepared to try the suggestion for what it is worth, but do not let us then talk about a Marketing Act and control boards and not give the people who run the schemes any power at all. Because that is what the hon. member’s request comes to. Now in regard to the principle of agents—the clause which I am going to drop. I put it to the hon. member that I thought as he did, but after all, if I have the power to do a thing—I suggest the boards to-day have the power to deal in every town—I must accept this legal principle that if the board has the power it has the right and it alone has that right, to appoint its agents. Perhaps I can make it plainer in this way. There is a principle in the Act that if a miller were refused a licence that miller has the right to appeal to the Minister. At first blush you would say this is the same case, but I submit it is not. I submit that here I am interfering with an absolute right which seems to be the right of boards alone. If they can be agents alone themselves and I have no power to stop that nor is it desirable to stop it, if they have the right to act as agents themselves, they must be the sole persons who can decide as to who their agents should be. That is a principle in law which I cannot interefere with, and that is why I have agreed to eliminate that clause. As to the issue of statements by the different control boards, as the hon. member should know—he was a member of one of the boards for a long time—it is a matter which my department has continually requested— they have continually asked that these people should supply statements and should take the public into their confidence. It is their job, they must run the business. I do not want to interfere too much, but what I promise the hon. member is this, that I am certainly going to take steps to give the Marketing Council more officials—subject to what my hon. friend, the Minister of Finance, may say about salaries—in order to have better inspection and to have reports on the business of these boards. I shall do that right away. Now I want to say this to the hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno). He really criticised the principle of the Marketing Act. I am not going to enter into that matter at all at this stage. The law is there, it is my job to carry it out and I am not prepared to enter into an argument with the hon. member, nor am I prepared to do so with the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Henderson). Parliament has decided to give these people certain privileges, certain powers, and as long as they do not misuse them I do not propose to assist in doing away with their rights. The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren) has admitted that most of what he said was outside the scope of the Bill. I am not going to follow him, but I want to ask him this: Does he want me to withdraw that proclamation—if I did the farmers would get nothing for their dried fruit. If he does let him tell me so—does he want me to withdraw these regulations, making it obligatory upon everyone to deliever to the Dried Fruit Board for them to sell the fruit. If he wants me to do that let him tell me so.

Ask the Secretary for Agriculture.

I also want to tell the hon. member for Somerset East (Mr. Vosloo) that I think he is wrong. I do not think my Department has turned down the requisition of any dried milk factory. My information is that the Dairy Control Board was not satisfied that this company would get the milk supplies, and they called the attention of these people to the fact and then the matter was dropped. The matter has not come before me personally, but that is my information. My hon. friend from Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) has asked me whether any producer has done well or any consumer has done well under these schemes. He says that I cannot say so. I most decidedly do say so. With all the drawbacks I say that the control has been to the benefit of the producers in all cases, and in most cases to the benefit of the consumers. I mention the instance of dairy produce. There is no question that since dairy produce has been controlled in this country a stable price has gone to the producer, but at the same time I think hon. members must admit that since there has been control of this article the public has had a very much better article. We have had decent butter in this country and we have certainly given a stable price. Prices of butter have not been 3s. one day and 9d. a little later. I say that that is all to the good. I say that the producer of wheat has done well under the Control Board. He cannot complain. There is an argument that they should have done better still last season. I am willing to argue that at the proper time, but I do not agree with the hon. member for Krugersdorp that I cannot point out a single instance where the control boards have been of any use, either to the producer or the consumer. He says he will not be satisfied unitl these boards control the whole of the products of the producer. I can only say that I most heartily support him. I agree that that should be done, and that is among the objects of this Bill. I hope with these few words hon. members will be willing to pass the second reading.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read second time; House to go into Committee on the Bill on 26th February.

I move—

I have a bone to pick with the Minister of Finance. During the second reading debate on this Bill I dealt with the financial and economic policy of the Government, and against that I put the policy adumbrated by this side of the House. I can well appreciate that the Minister was not greatly pleased with that comparison. The contrast certainly was not pleasing to the Minister, because the Government policy did not come off too well in that comparison, but I think it is high time now for somebody to give the Minister a piece of kindly advice: That was no reason for the Minister to lose all sense of good taste and to become offensive to this side of the House. When I listened to the Minister while he was talking I received the impression of a small man suddenly having become vested with great authority, so much so that his success became too much for him and went to his head. Eighteen months ago the Minister was a small personality in this House, pushed out of his own party, a political nobody in his own party—his political future was entirely obscured. Then the 4th September came, and with it came the betrayal that went with the events of those days, when some people received the opportunity of taking revenge on their own leader, and also of realising certain political ambitions they cherished, and suddenly that little personal ity became a great gentleman in this House and because the Minister simultaneously inherited a full exchequer from his predecessor and is now able to spend right royally, he imagines that he has suddenly become a marvellous financier. He is the only one in this country who knows anything about finance!—“I am that great I am.” That is the attitude he adopts. I should like to tell the Minister that the people of South Africa refuse to take him at his own valuation as a Minister. That valuation is too high, much too high, and I should like to tell the Minister this, that there is more required to be a successful Minister of Finance than an ability to spend and waste money. Before South Africa will recognise him as a good Minister of Finance, he will have to give us a little more proof of his ability. I know the Minister is well versed in classical history, and I should like to remind him of a well-known legend in Greek mythology. I want to remind him of the young man Narcissus, who became so enamoured of his own beauty that he repeatedly went and lay alongside a stream of clear water to look at his own image reflected in the water. The result was that he turned into a flower. I should like to tell the Minister that he should not become so enamoured of his own ability as Minister of Finance. He, too, might be turned into something, but I am afraid it will not be a flower; judging by the display the Minister gave in the House the other day, I think he will turn into a little bantam cock. That is more or less the impression the Minister made on me. During the second reading debate, we traversed the whole field of the country’s finances and of the Government’s policy. On this occasion I wish to confine my remarks to only one aspect, and that is the alarming increase in our defence expenditure, and the deplorable lack of treasury control in that regard. I do not think there is anyone in this country who does not feel ill at ease on this account When the Minister commenced this financial year he told us that he expected to spend £14,000,000 on defence. He finished up by spending £60,000,000. Ireland is very much closer to the great danger zone of Europe. Ireland’s war expenditure for the year is £6,000,000, ours is £60,000,000. The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) told us the other day what the expenditure of Canada and Australia was. Let us take our total expenditure for this year. It amounts to £121,000,000, or £60 per head of our white population. On that basis, Australia could spend £420,000,000 every year. What are the figures which the hon. member mentioned? He mentioned an amount of £186,000,000 being the amount spent by Australia. On the basis on which South Africa is spending, Australia could spend £400,000,000 and Canada could spend an amount of £670,000,000, and England could spend an amount of £3,000,000,000.

What is Australia’s population?

Seven million.

And Canada’s?

Eleven million. If we compare these figures, we find that Ireland which is close to the war zone, spends £6,000,000 as against our £60,000,000, and we further find that the war expenditure of Australia is a bagatelle compared with our expenditure per head of population.

Why do you exclude the coloured people and the natives?

I can only say it is perfectly clear from all we know that the defence expenditure in this country has got totally out of hand. The expenditure is going up at a mad rate, a rate which South Africa simply cannot keep up. There can be only one result, and that is bankruptcy for South Africa. And this is the charge which I make against the Minister—when we raised this matter in this House for the first time and said that one of the main causes of this expenditure was the fact that the Prime Minister was also Minister of Defence, and that there was nobody to say the Prime Minister nay—the Minister of Finance cannot do it, because the Minister of Defence only has to ask and it is done—the Minister came along and tried to reassure us by telling us that an Authorities Committee had been established. He told us it had been specially established by the Cabinet under the chairmanship of the Minister of Railways and Harbours, and he gave us the assurance that all defence expenditure was being strictly controlled by that Authorities Committee. As a result, we felt that in any case something was being done, and that the Minister had told us something which could put us at our ease to a certain extent. There is an Authorities Committee, a committee which is even able to say nay to the Prime Minister. Since then we have had the opportunity of carefully studying the report of the Auditor-General, and I regret to say that when the Minister of Finance gave us the impression that the defence expenditure was under the control of the Authorities Committee, he gave the House an impression which was not justified by fact. I am going to make a few quotations from the Auditor-General’s report to-day, and I hope the Minister will in his reply not say again that we in this House should not quote the report of the Auditor-General before the Select Committee on Public Accounts has reported on it. I only want to say to the Minister that the Auditor-General is an official of this House. He does not report on a matter unless he has all the information before him from both sides. The Minister of Finance said something which was calculated to cast suspicion on the Auditor-General’s report. I say that he who tries to undermine the authority and the confidence which this House should have in the Auditor-General does a tremendous lot of harm, and I want to ask the Minister please to display a little more sense of responsibility. Now let us come to the cardinal point, whether the Authorities Committee which the Minister spoke about has control of the expenditure. I take the report of the Auditor-General and the Auditor-General alone as my authority.

The Select Committee on Public Accounts has not yet enquired into that report.

The Auditor-General refers to the Authorities Committee, and he says that it consists of the Minister of Railways as chairman, the Secretary for Finance (he is the link between the Authorities Committee and the Treasury), and also the chairman of the Public Service Commission, and then there are several other people The Auditor-General says that this Authorities Committee has to deal with all matters in connection with the authorisation of expenditure for defence. Now I want to refer to paragraph 3, or rather to sub-paragraph (iii); there the Auditor-General says that in actual fact the Secretary for Defence does not recognise any authority over him. He refuses to submit to the control of the Treasury or of the Public Service Commission, or to the control of the Authorities Committee. If the Auditor-General is correct in that statement, and I shall quote his words just now, because they are of great importance—what right has the Minister to come and tell us here that the Authorities Committee exercises control? What right has he to hide behind the Authorities Committee? The Auditor-General says this in paragraph (iii)—

He does not mention the Authorities Com mittee there, but a little further on, on page 57, he says—

What does the Auditor-General deliberately say here? That neither the Treasury nor the Public Service Commission, nor the Authorities Committee, are consulted by the Department of Defence in connection with all the principal items of defence. In paragraph (iii) the principal items are mentioned. The Auditor-General mentions four items: (1) The extension and enlargement of the military forces. That means all the expenditure. That is where all the expenditure goes. Neither the Treasury nor the Public Service Commission, nor the Authorities Committee are consulted so far as the extension and enlargement of the military forces are concerned. Secondly, he mentions that there has been no consultation in connection with militarisation of administrative or clerical divisions. I should like to ask the Minister why the Authorities Committee was not even consulted there? The Secretary for Defence simply comes along and says, for instance, that he is going to militarise the Meteorological Department, and that they are going to pay the officials of that department an additional £150 or £200 per year. Neither the Treasury nor the Public Service Commission, nor the Authorities Committee, are consulted. They are not consulted at all in connection with the creation of fresh posts in the Defence Force. Fourthly, they are not consulted in regard to the re-grading of existing posts. Those four points are mentioned by the Auditor-General. The Auditor-General goes on to say: “At the time of writing this report the dispute had not been settled.” The attitude of the Secretary for Defence is that they have no authority over him, nobody has the right to control his expenditure. There was a dispute, and the Minister recently told us, I believe, that the dispute had been settled in favour of the Secretary for Defence, but we are not concerned with the legal aspect of the matter. We are concerned here with the Minister’s statement that the Authorities Committee has control over the expenditure. The Government has all the powers, and we are not concerned with the legal aspect. The Auditor-General says this—

I was dealing with the Authorities Committee which the Minister of Finance took refuge behind during this debate. The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) will naturally come and ask me now whether I do not know that this is wartime and that in wartime we are to expect such things. I just want to anticipate the hon. member for Kensington by telling him that in England too there is a war on. I think the danger which is threatening England at the moment is very much greater than the danger which threatens South Africa, and the Auditor-General, on page 57, deals with the control in South Africa as compared with Treasury control in England. I do not want to quote everything the Auditor-General says—I only want to read to the House the conclusion to which the Auditor-General comes in regard to Treasury control in England as compared with Treasury control in South Africa. On page 58 the Auditor-General says this—

But in South Africa it means this, that financial control is entirely taken out of the hands of the Treasury—

That is what the Auditor-General clearly states on page 56 of his report. The Minister cannot even take refuge behind this excuse of war time any longer. In England there is a war on; there is war in South Africa, and here we have the conclusions of the Auditor-General. The Authorities Committee behind which the Minister takes refuge is nothing but a sham and a delusion. It has no control whatsoever over the defence expenditure. Let us be perfectly clear on that point. I further make bold to say on account of what appears in the Auditor-General’s report the Minister gave a jaundiced representation of the position in what he told the House about the Authorities Committee. He brought the House and the people under a false impression. Thirdly, we cannot regard the position as described by the Auditor-General as being anything but dangerous. I should like to read to the House what the Auditor-General himself says. I refer to page 56 of his report—

Here the Auditor-General says clearly that we are dealing with a matter which concerns Parliament. “I am reporting this matter to Parliament.” On the other side of the House we have the high priests of Treasury and Parliamentary control. The Auditor-General does not only report the matter to this side of the House. He also reports it to the other side of the House, and I should like to know what attitude members opposite are going to adopt in regard to this matter. Now let us come to the next point:—the condition at Impala House, headquarters of the Defence Force. Having read what the Auditor-General has to say about it, I can only say that Impala House is an Augean stable which necessarily and urgently requires cleansing. The Auditor-General tries not to judge too severely. If we look at page 58 of his report we find that he tries to make every possible excuse for the Government and Impala House. He points out that a large organisation had suddenly to be created; he points out that inexperienced labour had to be used, and so he goes on from the one excuse to the other which he tries to find for Impala House and the Government, but in the end he comes to this conclusion—

He states that he was not able to audit the accounts. And what did he say further? It is important that we should take note of this—

The Auditor-General’s report goes up to the 31st March, 1940, and he says that recruiting on a large scale had not yet started then. The pay roll therefore was still on a relatively small scale, but although the pay rolls were small, the position at Impala House was already such that Impala House was not able to account for an amount of £99,000. That £100,000 has completely disappeared. There are no vouchers to show what has become of that money. Heaven only knows what has become of that money, and then we find that the hon. member for Kensington, and the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. Pocock) get up here and tell us, “tell us of one scandal in connection with defence expenditure, tell us of one case where money has been wasted by the Defence Department.” Have not those hon. members read the Auditor-General’s report, or do they regard the disappearance of £100,000 as a bagatelle? And that is not all. Let us see what the position is at Impala House. On page 170 the Auditor-General talks about motor transport in the Defence Department. A daily log is kept on which is stated the number of miles a motor car has run, by whom it is run, for whom and in what service the motor car is used. What does the Auditor-General have to say about those daily registers?—

And then he comes to this conclusion—

Now, what does he say further? He points out that an official letter was written by the Treasury to the Department of Defence, but that official letter was not even replied to. That shows the contempt with which the Treasury is treated by the Department of Defence. What was the result of this disgraceful condition of chaos at Impala House which one finds everywhere? On page 172, paragraphs 22 to 24, the Auditor-General deals with it. He tells us there that on account of there being no proper control it has been decided no longer to record the unit costs in connection with the Department of Defence. But that is not all. In paragraph 22 he says that they have also decided no longer to follow the system of standard stock accounts in their bookkeeping. The unit costs are no longer recorded, and the standard stock system of bookkeeping is no longer followed. There is one further point on which I should like to say a few words, and that is the purchase of stocks. This particularly applies to the hon. member for Pretoria Central. Immediately after the outbreak of war the Department of Defence with the approval of the Treasury decided no longer to follow the ordinary procedure of tenders. I am not going to find fault with that. I realise that we are in a state of war and that it is perhaps no longer possible to follow such a slow process, but what I do wish to emphasise is that with the approval of the Treasury it was decided to lay down a very much more convenient process which would fit in with war conditions. And what does the Auditor-General have to say about that? He reports that the Department of Defence takes absolutely no notice of the procedure which has been laid down. On page 51, in paragraph 70 of his report, the Auditor-General says that the Department of Defence does not take any notice of those regulations; and I want to emphasise this point, that it is not only the Secretary for Defence who takes no notice of regulations but the Auditor-General reports that the subordinates in the Department do not take any notice of them either. It is not merely a question of the head of the Department, but none of the subordinate officials in the department take any notice of them, and this is what he has to say about that—

This applies to every official in the Defence Department. It is not only the Secretary for Defence. And the worst of it is that it is the new regulation which is being contravened in this way, and that the Department of Defence has not even asked for the approval of the Treasury. The Auditor-General reports that although it was as long back as 1939-’40 that these irregularities were committed, they have so far not been referred to the Treasury for approval. They have not yet been condoned. I come to the conclusion and I ask hon. members opposite whether I am not fully entitled to come to that conclusion, that we are dealing here with a condition of malpractices in the Department of Defence which turn that department into nothing but a bottomless pit, in which money is being wasted, and unless this Parliament sees to it that an improvement is brought about and sees to it that control is exercised we shall get a condition which will become more and more aggravated. I therefore want to move an amendment at the end of my speech to delete all words after “that” and to substitute those words by the following words: “This House declines to pass the third reading of the Part Appropriation Bill until such time as the Government undertakes to terminate the chaotic conditions prevailing in the Department of Defence.” Let me briefly sum up the position. The hon. the Minister of Finance tried to reassure us by stating that there was an Authorities Committee in existence which exercised control. The Auditor-General reports that that Authorities Committee has no control whatsoever. It acts merely ex post facto as a rubber stamp.

No, that is not so.

The Auditor-General makes that statement in regard to four important matters.

That is only part of its work.

The Authorities Committee is a farce. That is No. 1. No. 2 is that the Auditor-General reports that Impala House is in such a condition that it is impossible properly to audit the books and that £100,000 cannot be accounted for. I should personally like to bring an instance to the notice of the Minister of Defence. Wives of soldiers have approached me and they first of all complained that they had to wait a few months before they could get their allowances. Eventually a cheque arrived for them. It should have been for £50. That cheque was for £70. One of the women concerned went to the Department with that cheque and said: “We got too much.” The reply came from Impala House: “You had better keep quiet, you are only mixing up our books.” The position is such that one now asks whether there are any books which can possibly be mixed up. I want to sum up the position briefly. We say that there is a chaotic condition prevailing in the Department of Defence. That is our contention, and that also is the contention of the Auditor-General. I should like to remind the House that that is not yet the whole story which is told in this report. We only have in this report what the Secretary for Defence approves of.

No.

I think it would be well to remind the House of that. In this report of the Auditor-General we only have matters which are approved of by the Secretary for Defence. The whole story will only come to light later, but even what appears here shows such a condition of chaos in the Department of Defence that the Auditor-General himself says that it is a matter which concerns Parliament. I have done my duty in bringing this matter to the notice of Parliament, and that is why we are proposing that not a penny shall be voted until we are given an assurance by the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Defence that this condition of chaos will be ended. We have spent £120,000,000 in the past year. The attitude adopted by this side of the House is that that money is more than adequate not only to put South Africa completely in a position of defence, but also to provide for all the needs of the people of South Africa. This side of the House has never yet raised any objection to the scale of pay of the Defence Force. We have not quarrelled about that, but what we do object to is to all those old crocks who are being pushed into the Defence Force. It looks as if the old men’s homes have been emptied and men of over 60 and 70 years of age have been put into the Defence Force. We object to those old crocks and we object to the double salaries.

You are jealous.

No, anyone on our side can get a double salary if we are prepared to sell our souls for it. I say again that we object to those old crocks in die Defence Force and to the double salaries. We object to the wholesale recruiting of coloured people and natives; we object to the unnecessary employment of women in the Defence Force.

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

Then I shall conclude by moving my amendment as follows—

I second the amendment. In regard to the charge which the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) levelled against the Government this evening, I wish to remind this House that we must not only keep in mind what the hon. member has already said, that the Auditor-General is not allowed to disclose everything in regard to the financial sins and waste of money of the Defence Department, but we must also take into account the fact that the Auditor-General’s report only deals with the first seven months of the war when recruiting was not taking place on a large scale. If we take into account what has happened since that time we can well imagine what the Auditor-General would have reported if he had also dealt with the period March, 1940, to March, 1941, and if he had been placed in such a position by the Department of Defence that he could have shown what had actually taken place. If he could have done that and if we could have had that report before us I am convinced that his report would have been of such a character that nothing that has happened so far would have shown up the Government and the Minister of Defence as that report would have done, provided, of course, the Auditor-General had been placed in the position of doing what this House expects of him. During the second reading of this Bill the Minister of Finance in his reply, answering an interjection by the hon. member for George, spoke—and he did so in a very distasteful manner—about the £2,500,000. I do not want to say anything about the manner in which he answered—the hon. member has already settled with him.

He puts him across his knees.

Yes, and I do not propose doing so again, but I want to deal with the answer itself. In reply to the interjection he remarked that the amount of about £2,500,000 which now comes to the Government in connection with the sale of gold by the Bank of England is an additional tax on the gold mines, and that that therefore is also the reply to the statement made by this side of the House that the burden imposed on the gold mines is too small altogether in relation to the burden placed on the ordinary population. The Minister of Finance went out of his way to make that statement, not only in that connection, but in accusing the hon. member for George in regard to the hon. member’s contention that it was not an extra burden on the gold mines. The Minister ….

He said it was not paid by the mines. Those were his words.

He put the question whether it was a burden on the mines.

No, that was his interjection; he said it was not paid by the mines.

The whole idea was that it was not an extra tax on the mines.

But that was his interjection and that was what I replied to.

The Minister gave the House to understand that if the hon. member for George contended that that was not an extra tax on the mines, he would be known as an absolute ignoramus so far as financial affairs were concerned.

What the hon. member said was that it was not paid by the mines; that was what I replied to.

The impression which this House received, and which it was bound to receive, was that the Minister contended and argued that it constituted an extra burden on the mines. Now let us go into the history of this matter. In March of last year I raised the question of the sale of gold to the Bank of England, and the re-sale by the Bank of England to America. And I pointed to the enormous profits which the Bank of England was making solely through the re-sale of our gold. The Minister of Finance on the 18th March replied to the matter which I had raised, and this was what he said in columns 3,566, 3,567 of Hansard—

The Minister of Finance gave us that answer He did not say a single word about our getting part of the profit which the Bank of England is undoubtedly making on the sale of our gold to America. But in April that matter was again raised by me, and it is interesting to note the reply which the Minister gave on the second occasion. Hon. members will notice that he only mentioned the Reserve Bank’s objection in regard to insurance, etc. In April I raised the matter for the second time, and the Minister’s reply on that occasion was as follows, as appearing in column 5529—

The Minister says that we have an arrangement with the Bank of England under which we are now to receive the full amount of the official price of gold, in other words, the full 168s. I emphasise the word “now.” The Minister talks of the full 168s. Hon. members will remember that gold is bought by America from the Bank of England at 175s. per ounce. That is the fixed price of gold in America, while we get 168s. From that were deducted insurance, etc., so that we got a net amount of 165s. It is perfectly clear that the mines have never had the benefit of the additional amount of which the Minister spoke, and that the £2,500,000 which is now being mentioned never went to the mines. This £2,500,000 is connected with the arrangement arrived at between the Bank of England and ourselves, that the insurance costs which in the past were paid by us were now coming to our Exchequer and will be paid by the Bank of England. The Minister knows perfectly well that the mines did not get the benefit of that in the past, and has not got the benefit of it to-day, either. In other words, the fact that that amount now goes into the Exchequer does not mean that an extra burden is being imposed on the gold mines. If the Minister does contend that, then I do not want to accuse him of ignorance, as he accused the hon. member for George, because the Minister is not ignorant and knows only too well what the position is, but I want to say this, that if he created that impression then he was guilty of a misrepresentation of the real facts in regard to this matter. This is not a thing which implies a burden on the gold mines. They have never had the advantage of that. Solely as the result of an arrangement made by our Government through the Reserve Bank with the Bank of England, we get that money, simply because the Minister of Finance could no longer maintain that the Bank of England was not making enormous profits on the sale of gold to America. The Government of South Africa had to see to it then that a change was made, and now we get this additional money. I repeat that that is not an extra burden on the mines. The Government intervened on account of the fact that the Bank of England was making such enormous profits on the sale of our gold. For the Minister, therefore, to create the impression that that will be an extra burden on the mines is incorrect and misleading. Now I just want to add a few remarks to what the hon. member for George has already said in a very effective manner. And I want to draw the attention of hon. members of this House to the malpractices and scandals which are taking place to-day as a result of the Government’s actions by means of the Defence Force. The hon. member for George referred to the comment by the Auditor-General in regard to the militarisation of clerical divisions in the Public Service. Do hon. members know what is going on? Large numbers of young clerks in the Public Service simply join up, and then they are made lieutenants or captains They are doing the same work as they did before, but simply because they are put in a khaki suit and are given the rank of lieutenant or captain they are paid a much higher salary than they were paid when they were doing the same work in civilian clothes as officials of the Department. They are not doing any different work, and the only excuse which the Minister puts forward, and which the Government has for this waste of money, is that by doing so they are better able to maintain discipline. That discipline is not necessary for the clerks who are put into khaki uniforms to draw extra salaries, but that discipline is wanted for the thousands of men who, uncontrolled and without any discipline, go right through the country from one end to another to cause trouble to people and to carry out their work of destruction on a large scale. If the Govern ment wants to introduce discipline, it should introduce it among those men, and it should not try to introduce it merely by putting Government officials into khaki. My information is to the effect that that is going on on a large scale, and that people are doing the same administrative work as they used to do before, but simply because they are in khaki they get higher salaries. For that purpose the taxpayer has to put his hands deep into his pockets, and the longer it goes on the deeper into his pocket will he have to put his hands. Then I want to mention a matter which has repeatedly been referred to in this House, and that is the unnecessary employment of women, particularly of women to drive motor cars and lorries. If one goes to Pretoria, one finds that there is hardly a single officer there who drives about without having a woman to drive his car for him. That applies to the highly-placed officials, but even ordinary lieutenants and captains, who one would expect to be able to drive a motor car themselves, have their lady drivers. I ask, in Heaven’s name, why all that waste of money? Apart from the fact that those men are able themselves to drive a motorcar, there are thousands of ordinary men in the army who are idle, who are only causing mischief and who can drive those motor cars and lorries. There are thousands in the camps who, day in and day out, do nothing at all, yet women have to be employed to drive motor cars. Apart from the pernicious influence which is being exercised in that way we have a scandalous waste of money, State money. There are more than enough men available to do the work, and it is not necessary to employ thousands of girls for that purpose. I further want to refer to the unnecessary way in which officers and others drive about between Johannesburg and Pretoria, and between other places. In Pretoria, officers drive from their offices to the hotels and so on. One continually sees officers with women drivers running about in cars there. Those self same Government officials who, when they were in civilian clothes, used to pay their bus fares out of their own pockets to go to their work, or who had their own motor cars to go to the office, those self same men, now that they are in khaki, drive about in Government cars with women drivers at their disposal. To say the least of it it is a scandal. We have a very fine example of that in this House. There is a General here who has a motor car at his disposal. Every other hon. member who comes to this House has to come at his own expense, but that General— otherwise a good, kind chap—because he is in khaki uniform now, has a Government car and a driver at his disposal. There are numerous other cases of the same kind; why all this waste of money. Why, if I and others have to come to this House at our own expense, should that person, if he comes here to do his work, come in a Government car with a driver? There are hundreds of cases of that kind, and the same applies to wages. I should like to know what conclusion the Auditor-General would come to if he had all the information at his disposal, and if he were given a free hand to report on the unnecessary wages and salaries which are being paid. In this connection I should like to draw attention first of all to the pay of ordinary men and coloured men, and I should like to compare what they are paid with what the poor semi-fit white labourers in the service of the State are paid. The other day I mentioned an instance here of the experimental station at Tawoomba in my constituency where married men with large families are paid 5/6 per day. Let us compare that with the scale of pay of coloured soldiers in the service of this Government. If the coloured man joins up, his wife gets £7 10s. per month. He himself also gets a few pounds per month and then so much is paid for every child, so that a coloured family with six or seven children get 100% more than the white man who has to work on the experimental station.

Coloured men do not get anything for children.

I accept that, but the fact remains that a coloured woman gets £7 10s. and the man himself also gets £1 10s. or £2. How does that compare with the wage which the white labourer receives? The white labourer gets 5/6 per day, but the coloured man who is put into a khaki uniform and into soldiers clothes gets much more from the Government than the poor white worker gets, the man who fought in the Second War of Independence, who was a Burger of the State, and who may have lost everything, and who to-day has to try and eke out an existence on relief works. Apart from the scandal of those wages in comparison with the wages paid to white labourers, apart from the fact that coloured men are paid so much more than civilised whites— which will redound to the eternal disgrace of the Government—one still has the terrible effects resulting from the employment of a large number of coloured men to go and fight. I also want to point out that we are wasting large sums of money by keeping an unnecessary large army in the field. I understand that they are talking of more than 100,000 men. They boast of having 120,000 men in uniform. I should like to know how many of those 120,000 are really at the front, and how many of them are idly loafing about in South Africa causing mischief. We know the old saying “The devil finds plenty of mischief for idle hands to do.” Is that perhaps the cause of all the violence and all the evil that is being committed in South Africa? Is not all this trouble caused by the fact that thousands of soldiers are kept idle in their camps? I want to ask the Minister whether he dare tell us how many of those 120,000 soldiers are at the front, and how many are here in South Africa doing nothing. What did the Prime Minister’s wife say about this unnecessary large army? It is very interesting to hear what she said. She recently accompanied the Prime Minister to Settlers in my constituency, where they had a big celebration. The “Sunday Times” had the following report in that connection—

England is in the middle of the fight; she is fighting for her existence; she is fighting a life and death struggle, but the Prime Minister’s wife tells us that we in South Africa, 6,000 miles away from the battlefield, while we are not really fighting for our existence, have, relatively speaking, a larger army than Great Britain.

Hear, hear!

Yes, hon. members over there may say “hear, hear,” but we say it is a disgrace, and we say it is one of the main causes of this unnecessary waste of money.

We managed to achieve that in spite of your propaganda.

It is very clear that the Government has no control over the money which is being wasted in connection with the Defence Force. Now I want to draw attention to other matters which have clearly shown the great lack of control prevailing to-day. The Government asked for tenders for the supply of meat for the army in South Africa. But I should like to quote the figures. One would expect that the Government which knows that enormous burdens are being placed on our people would have gone about things very carefully in that connection. What do we find? Tenders were asked for the supply of meat for the troops at Voortrekkerhoogte. Two firms tendered at 6d. per lb. for mutton. Those were the lowest tenders. Both are strong firms, financially strong firms. What did the Government do? Those tenders were not accepted, but the tender of a firm which tendered at 6.24d. per lb. was accepted. Why? Why should that firm put an extra ¼d. per lb. in its pocket?

Who got the tender?

D. Tomkin, Pretoria.

Read the whole list.

The hon. member is now an authority on all those things.

He is the Minister of public waste.

Now I come to beef for Premier Mines. Three firms tendered there, and the largest firm in Pretoria tendered for shoulders and hindquarters jointly at 4.1d. per lb. That firm did not get the contract. The Government went and accepted the tender of a firm at 4.26d. I should like to know why that extra money is put into the pockets of that firm because the other firm which tendered and which offered a lower price is financially a stronger firm and is able to carry out its commitments? But now I want to make a comparison between the prices which the Government pays in respect of the supply of meat at Johannesburg, Pretoria and Premier Mine. In Johannesburg the Government pays 30s. 6d. per 100 lb.; in Pretoria, peculiarly enough in view of the fact that the market for cattle is lower there, the Government pays 31s. 3d. I do not make a great point of that because the difference is only 9d. per 100 lb.; but then we come to the Premier Mine. While the Government pays 31s. 3d. in Pretoria it pays 35s. 6d. for delivery at Premier Mine, that is to say 4s. 3d. per 100 lb. more than in Pretoria. Premier Mine is about 18 miles from Pretoria, so for that small difference of 18 miles the Government pays 4s. 3d. per 100 lb. more for its meat. I should like to know whether the Government expects me to believe that the costs of transport amount to 4s. 3d. per 100 lb. Those things prove very clearly what is going on. Tenders are given to some company or other, while the lowest tender is simply put aside. At Premier Mine a much higher price is paid than in Pretoria— 4s. 3d. per 100 lb more. If one takes it that an ox when killed weighs about 600 lb., it means that the Government for each ox pays £1 6s. or £1 7s. more at Premier Mine than it pays in Pretoria. Do we want any further proof of the incompetence of the Government where business matters are concerned? And not only in the financial sphere does the Government show its incompetence, but I want to come back to the other malpractices of the Government in regard to the Defence Force. I do not want to go into that at length, but I just wish to refer again to these disgraceful assaults which in various parts of the country are committed by the Government’s soldiers, and I want to attribute those assaults in the first place—as has already appeared from a great deal of the evidence given—to the fact that the officers have not got the slightest control over their troops. It is further due to the idleness which prevails, to the fact that we have an unnecessarily large army, and to the fact that there is no work for that army in South Africa; but the final and most serious reason for all those malpractices is the incitement indulged in by the Government’s jingo Press in South Africa, and what is worse still, the incitement by the Prime Minister. Every statement he has made in this House in regard to disorders which have taken place has been nothing but an incitement of his troops to carry on. Now I want to come to another matter which I regard as a malpractice on the part of the Government in connection with the way in which it conducts the war, and that is the violation of the attitude of the Afrikaner in regard to the relationship between whites and nonwhites, a violation of the attitude of the Afrikaner in respect of a clear dividing line between the white and the non-white people in South Africa. I do not want to repeat what I said on a previous occasion, but I say that Afrikanerdom of South Africa is disgusted at the Prime Minister’s action in employing coloured troops here to fight against a white nation. I just want to remind the Prime Minister in this connection of the fact that Kitchener and Roberts were guilty of the same thing, and in those days the Prime Minister was a man who took up the cudgels against them, and who described what they had done as the greatest crime ever committed against white civilisation. Well, the Prime Minister sits there to-day as the successor of Kitchener and Roberts who committed those crimes in South Africa, and apparently it is not enough for the Prime Minister to train coloured troops; he apparently also puts them in the same uniforms as that which the Afrikaner has to wear. There is no distinction made between a uniform which the coloured man wears and that which the white man wears. Can you imagine anything worse, anything more calculated to destroy the prestige of the white man? The Prime Minister is now engaged to all intents and purpose in making “boeties” and mates of the coloured soldiers. And it does not stop at coloured men. I make a charge against the Prime Minister that he is not only undermining the prestige of the white man so far as coloured soldiers are concerned, but that he is also doing so so far as natives are concerned, and that as a result of his attitude towards the native he is destroying the dividing line between white and non-white. In that connection I again wish to refer to something which happened at Settlers. In December last year the Prime Minister went to Settlers to celebrate with his adherents the collection of funds to buy a “Spitfire,” but he did not go and celebrate with the white people only. Let me read what appears here—

The Prime Minister and his political coreligionists actually went to celebrate with the natives.

What do you know about that?

The hon. member for Springs is apparently jealous that he was not there. He would probably have felt at home in that company. Let me read further—

I wish to draw attention to the words “not yet.” I want to ask the Prime Minister whether he really has in mind—just as he has broken the principle of having a dividing line between white and black in connection with the employment of coloured men as soldiers—that the words “not yet” means that later on he may also employ natives as soldiers? I hope the right hon. the Prime Minister is not going to tell us that that kaffir commando arrived there on its own initiative, because do hon. members know what happened? The natives were brought there in their thousands by lorries from Skilpadfontein and other locations to take part in the celebrations. I only say that if we look at these things we certainly are fully entitled to say to the Government that we do not only object to these things, but we are not prepared to give our vote for a red cent being spent on this war unless the Government undertakes to put an end to its scandalous behaviour.

One cannot help feeling sorry for the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom). His blood runs cold. He has read a speech recently in which an august lady in this country declared that the proportion of recruits in South Africa is equal to the proportion of the recruits in Great Britain. That report is so horrifying to the hon. gentleman that he can hardly sleep at night. Well, sir, we on this side view the war from a totally different angle to the hon. gentleman. We are proud of the response made to the call by the manhood of South Africa; and, if it be true, as I have no doubt it is true, that South Africa’s share in the war effort practically man for man, and percentage for percentage, is so as to compare favourably with that of any other portion of the Empire, then we on this side of the House have the bad taste to be proud of it.

It is bad.

Why are you not fighting?

It does not rest with me personally. The hon. gentleman over there who has never worn a uniform, should be ashamed to make that retort. Let me say this, Mr. Speaker, in answer to the youthful and hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) a gentleman in the middle thirties, who has not yet answered his country’s call and sits under a leader who has declared that even if the enemy came to South Africa he and his party would not fight, let me say in answer to his interjection that I went right through the last war and in regard to this war, I have done everything I possibly can to serve. I have worn uniform for the last four months in trying to do my best. My only son has done his bit, and every other male member of my family, direct or indirect, is in khaki. I think the hon. member should be ashamed of an interjection of that sort, because I tell him in his presence here to-night that if I could get the word from the Prime Minister I would catch a plane to-morrow morning for Kenya.

For God’s sake let him go.

It is an ill-mannered and cowardly interjection for the hon. member to make. Let me return to my hon. friend the member for Waterberg, the hon. gentleman who declared in public some months ago that he, at any rate, would not attempt to defend South Africa; let the enemy come to this country and he would hands-up and hoist the white flag; and that is the hon. gentleman who dares to stand up in this House and criticise the coloured men who are willing to serve. He dares to do it, sir, and then he knows so little of his case that he said that the coloured man who enlisted in South Africa draws an allowance for his children, hoewever many they may be, and only when he was put right by an hon. member on this side did he admit that he was wrong. His case was so ill-prepared, and he knew so little about the facts that when he was corrected all he could say was that if it is not so, it is not so, and leave it at that. What are the facts? Coloured men are recruited for our army at a pay of 2s. 6d. per day if married, and 2s. per day if unmarried, and their wives, irrespective of the number of children, receive £7 10s. per month. These men are skilled motor drivers, or if they are not skilled when they join they are trained until they are skilled, and they do work which in civil life in this country, in all districts of South Africa covered by wage determinations, carries a minimum wage of £4 5s. per week. But I do not understand the hon. gentleman. Only a week ago he voted for an amendment which said that no more money was to be spent at all in this country, in fact the Opposition would refuse supplies unless the Government promised to confine its military operations within the four corners of the Defence Act, in other words, it meant “don’t send a single soldier outside South Africa.” Now, to my amazement, I heard him to-night stand up and give this advice to the Minister of Defence. He said “Satin finds mischief still for idle hands to do; you have got too many soldiers in the Union, they have not got enough to do, send them up North.” For the first time in ten years I find myself in entire agreement with the hon. member for Waterberg; I am glad to see that at last he is seeing the light, that he is undergoing a process of conversion, and that the sooner we send a still larger army to the North, the better it will be for this country. Now, sir, let me return to my hon. friend the member for George (Mr. Werth). This must be the fifth, or is it the sixth occasion in four weeks, on which my hon. friend has stood up to launch a heavy broadside of financial criticism against the Government. It is true that the first five broadsides were charged with blank cartridges, but that does not stop the hon. gentleman returning to the attack he reminds me of one of those toys you see in the shops that are weighted with lead at the bottom, so that however hard you hit them they bounce back again; that is my hon. friend the member for George. I will say this for him, he does come back smiling Unlike his colleague from Gezina (Mr. Pirow), he can “take it.” On a previous occasion, my hon. friend did content himself with financial criticism which contained nothing of the personal in it. You might agree with it or not, but it certainly contained nothing of the personal. But to-night he prefaced his oration with a ponderous and totally unnecessary personal attack or the Minister of Finance. [Interruptions] Let me, I beg you, reply to my hon. friend. He reminds me of the lady in the musical comedy who stands in the centre of the footlights with a chorus behind. The lady sometimes remains quiet, but the chorus is extremely vociferous, and that chorus here is dominated by my hon. friend the member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren), who seems to constitute himself the chief protector of the hon. member for George. I listened to the hon. member’s ponderous polemics against the Minister of Finance, when he made the grotesque accusation against the Minister that he had “grown too big for his boots” and that he was suffering from a swollen head—the Minister of Finance of all persons the most approachable Minister we have ever had, and the simplest and least assuming of all the Ministers I have ever known It seems to me a case of, when all arguments fail, “abuse the opposite side’s attorney.” My hon. friend has failed so badly in his attacks hitherto that now he finds it necessary to begin a personal attack on the Minister. I have a bone to pick with the hon. member for George. He moved an amendment on the second reading, and I asked him a direct and pertinent question. I asked him what his amendment meant, did it mean that if it were carried and he were placed in the seats of the mighty, he would recall every soldier from East and Northern Africa? The hon. gentleman refused to give me an answer, he sat quiet, and then he said “I will tell you on the third reading.” We are still waiting for an answer from my hon. friend. Of course, the hon. member for Waterberg has told us what the amendment means, because he is in favour of sending as large an army as possible up North. Apparently the hon. member for George, who refused to answer my question, still remains mum on the sub ject. The truth is the Opposition have no policy whatever in regard to Defence. They are willing to wound, yet afraid to strike; they are willing to frame ponderous amendments in the House, but they will not tell the House what those amendments mean. I said on a previous occasion that I am satisfied that if any turn of the wheel of fortune gave them the power, at least half of them would not call off the war in the North, and would not cry “halt” until the Italian menace had been removed from the northern parts of Africa. My hon. friend returned to the charge to-night with an entirely new series of accusations against the Government. He has been reading the Auditor-General’s report. Apparently when he last spoke he had not read that report, but to-night he comes along with fresh ammuniition. Having read the report, he is full of dark and sinister suggestions as to waste and extravagance and mismanagement in the Defence Department. He comes now with an entirely new amendment. We are not to give supply, to vote any fresh money, until waste and mismanagement in the Defence Department has been removed. To what document does he appeal for his evidence to support his case? He appeals to the report of the Controller and Auditor-General. For the benefit of those members who do not follow the financial procedure of this House narrowly, may I state what that report is. It is a report up to March 31st, 1940, covering the financial administration of this country, and it is presented by the Controller and Auditor-General to the Parliament of this country, and it is laid on the Table of the House at the beginning of the session by the Minister of Finance and referred to the Select Committee on Public Accounts. That committee is busy at this moment investigating the matters raised in that report. I have been a member of that committee, on and off, for 25 years. I think the hon. member will agree with me that in the party-ridden atmosphere in this House the Select Committee on Public Accounts represents the nearest approach we can get to an impartial enquiry by members of this House. I think he will agree that, whether we always succeed or not, we do endeavour to preserve an attitude of impartiality in our investigations. Let me remind the hon. gentleman that this report is prefaced bysome cautionary remarks from the Auditor-General who signed it. What does he say in presenting his report to Parliament? I am afraid my hon. friend must have overlooked the introductory paragraph—

Now, sir, why does the Auditor-General enter that caveat at the beginning of his report; why does he tell people who read that that this is prima facie only? I will tell you why, because the Committee on Public Accounts in 1929, under the chairmanship of Mr. Ben Pienaar and at a time when the Nationalist Party was at the head of affairs in this country, passed the following instruction to the Auditor-General—

That, sir, is the history of this first paragraph in the Auditor’s report, and it is a plain warning that these are prima facie conclusions for examination by the Select Committee. Now, here we have my hon. friend the member for George, who should know better, because he is the senior Opposition member of that committee—he is himself one of the judges—commenting on this report before we have commenced our investigation of these matters, before we have heard a single word of evidence, and before we know what Defence has to say in reply. Before we know anything whatever of the case, the hon. member has pre-judged the matter by his speech to-night and the amendment which he has moved. That amendment is a direct vote of no confidence in the Select Committee, and it is moved by an hon. colleague of mine who will have, with me, a fortnight from now, to deal with the Defence evidence. He knows as well as I that we will shrink from nothing in getting to the bottom of these matters, that if there are irregularities we will expose them, nothing will be covered up; if there are defects, as I have no doubt there are defects, those defects will be brought to light; but I ask you and I ask the country what are we to think of an hon. gentleman, a senior member on that side, who arrogates to himself the right to judge the matter without hearing any evidence and without weighing any of the arguments, pro and con? If this were an ordinary court and I were a party to appear before a tribunal, one of whose judges had so expressed himself as the hon. gentleman has to-night, I would, in legal language, invite him to recuse himself. I cannot remember any episode in the financial history of this House more regrettable than the hon. gentleman’s speech to-night.

Have not the reports been published to the world?

And then he went on to make the still more egregious blunder, still trying to make our flesh creep. Still trying to emulate Mr. Pickwick’s fat boy, he said “What you have read in the report is only part of the story that the Secretary for Defence has allowed to appear.” Sir, that resolution which we referred on a recent unhappy occasion—unhappy for the hon. gentleman—a fortnight ago, related only to defence stores, and not to defence expenditure as a whole, and most of the instances which the hon. gentleman quoted to-night had nothing to do with defence stores, and therefore, sir, are not subject to the censor ship of the Secretary for Defence. Why does not the hon. gentleman look up his facts before he comes to the House? He should know after what happened a fortnight ago, that that resolution applies only to defence stores, and that the Secretary for Defence has no power to withhold anything from being printed in this report, unless it relates to secret matters of stores such as munitions, guns, planes and things of that sort. Ordinary matters of defence administration he has no more power to keep out of the Auditor’s report than has the hon. member himself. Then the hon. gentleman went on to wind up his speech in his usual declamatory style, inveighing against the employment in our army of “old crocks.” It may well be, I have had people say to me and I have used my own eyes and seen it for myself, that perhaps too many elderly people have been recruited for our army, and that possibly we are laying up for ourselves a financial burden in regard to these people which may be very heavy. That is the sort of financial criticism that I have been inviting the hon. member to make for some weeks, and such criticism may be very useful. However, he returned again to the charge of double salaries and double pay, that some hon. members on this side were receiving double pay. Surely, sir, this question has been discussed so often that every member of this House knows the rights and wrongs of it? Has he invited his colleague, the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Tom Naudé) to resign his appointment on the Native Affairs Commission? I have not heard that he has done so. I should like to have the opportunity of getting the hon. member for Pietersburg to resign, and offering the appointment to the hon. member for George. I don’t know what would happen, but I would not like to take the risk. In any case, I have pointed out again and again that a man who joins up for full time military service, be he member of Parliament or private citizen, must under our military code draw military pay. He can draw it and return it if he wishes, he can hand it over to the Governor-General’s fund, but if he is a pukka full-time soldier, he must draw the pay of a full-time soldier. Therefore this constant jeer against hon. members on this side is unworthy, and I am surprised at the hon. member for George mentioning it. Now let me come to another point mentioned by the hon. gentleman when he wandered into the realms of war finance. I am not quite sure that I understood the hon. gentleman, and therefore I hope he will follow what I am now saying and correct me if I am wrong. He attempted to institute a comparison between the expenditure of this country, Canada and Australia, and he said that the expenditure in this country was £120,000,000, and of that £60,000,000 is for defence, and therefore on a similar basis Australia would be spending £400,000,000. As a matter of fact Australia is spending £183,000,000, according to the latest figures I have seen. We have our Minister’s statement for the financial year ending March 31st, 1941, and we know that he is going to spend £60,000,000 and no more. The figures I have been able to get for Australia and New Zealand only go up as far as the middle of last year, and whether they have presented any supplementary budgets I do not know. You will remember that our Minister of Finance started with a modest £14,000,00. Then he asked for £32,000,000, and then he brought it up to £60,000,000. Now with regard to New Zealand, where the white population is less than South Africa, as far back as June of last year, the Minister of Finance was asking Parliament for £38,000,000. In the middle of last year the Australian Finance Minister was saying that Australia’s war expenditure would be £183,000,000. As I said once before, that for every penny we are spending Australia is spending threepence, and as far as I know New Zealand would be spending at least as much as we are. My hon. friend spoke as if this was a country of white people only. I know my hon. friends opposite would like that, except when they want servants for their vineyards or their kitchens. But this is not only a country of 2,000,000 Europeans but one including 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 coloureds and natives. Economically three natives and coloureds are equal to one white, and if you divide up the population in that way you get a population in South Africa of between 5,000,000 and 6,000,000. If you take our population at that figure we are really spending very much less per head than Australia, and probably no more than New Zealand. What then becomes of my hon. friend’s argument? I admit £60,000,000 is a lot of money, and I admit that we had a shock when the Minister had to come to us and increase his original demand of £14,000.000 to £46,000,000 and then to £60,000,000. We didn’t like it; it was a shock, but, sir, what is the use of the hon. member inveighing against these figures when he knows that this country is committed, by the free vote of this Parliament, to seeing the war through, and he knows money must be found. Once again I say I will be sitting side by side with him and investigating expenditure, and if scandals or waste come to light I will take my place with him in exposing them. I know that we shall find things, I know that things will come to light which are bound to call for criticism, but I will say that up to now the record of the defence and finance in this country in this war has been immeasurably better than it was in the last war, when I was a member of Parliament, and in which I had experience. We want to screw things up where they should be screwed up, and we hope to bring to light any defects in the system so far as we can, and the country will reap the benefit. I would ask my hon. friend seriously to consider this amendment of his. The case as he presented it to this House was not based on any knowledge of any facts, but was based solely on what he had culled from the Auditor-General’s report, which the Auditor-Genneral himself says, “I am presenting merely a prima facie case.” The hon. member asked the House to judge a prima facie case, and to base that judgment on things which are being investigated upstairs by myself as well as by him. He asks us to condemn the Government, the Secretary for Defence and all his department unheard. That I am not prepared to do, and that is why I shall vote against this amendment.

A good many remarks were made by the other side of the House when we on this side spoke about the employment of coloured men as soldiers. I wish to mention a few figures to show the number of coloured men employed as soldiers up to the 18th January, 1941. The Minister in answer to a question said that up to that date 7,350 coloured men had joined up as soldiers. Now I should like to put this question: I want to know from the Minister of Defence what those 7,350 coloured men have done so far? Can he mention one single thing they have done? Has the money which we have paid them been productive and has the country in any way benefited from the money which the taxpayer has had to pay for these people? Those coloured men have simply been put into khaki clothes, and if we calculate the amount of pay received by those 7,350 men it comes to a large amount. I say that they were simply put into khaki uniform and were given red tabs, and we now find them here on the streets and at the stations. On the 4th of this month a question was put to the Minister of Defence on the subject of the pay of those coloured men, and the Minister’s reply was that a coloured private and his wife on an average received £9 per month. Many of those coloured men were perhaps able to drive a motor lorry on the farms. These men were taken away from the farms, they were put into khaki uniforms and they get £9 per month. If we take the minimum of £9 per month which those soldiers get as pay, it means about £63,000 per month for 7,000 coloured men. Where is it leading us? The coloured men who walk about the streets and at the stations in uniform are in receipt of that pay. When they join up they get their food, their uniform and other things, and in addition they get this large amount of pay. They get an allowance and they get lodging, and if they are married they also get an allowance for their family. It is a serious thing, and we are entitled to ask the Minister of Defence what benefit we are getting from all the money we are spending, apart altogether from the pernicious effect this must have on the relationship between the races. There is another matter I want to refer to as well. It struck me recently when I was travelling that there were a number of so-called “M.P.’s” on the train—military police. That “M.P.” has now been changed into M.P.C. I believe the change was made because some of the M.P.’s on the other side of the House felt rather bad about it. On this side we are L.B.’s, but on the other side they are M.P.’s. So it was changed into M.P.C., but I should like to know what those M.P.’s are doing on the trains, what are they there for? What are they wanted for? Are they on the trains to see to it that the soldiers behave themselves? If there were any discipline in the army, there would be no need to appoint extra police everywhere to see to it that the people behave themselves properly. It is the lack of discipline which makes these extra appointments necessary, so that M.P.’s have to be on every train to see to it that the soldiers behave themselves. But what struck me most of all was that at De Aar station there were also coloured M.P.’s, or coloured M.P.C.’s. Now I want to ask the Minister what those coloured M.P.’s are doing there Have they any specific work to perform? Is it their duty to see to it that the coloured soldiers behave as they should on the trains? What have they been appointed for? Now I just want to say a few words to the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) who told us that a man who joined up was entitled to get full-time pay. We have no objection to his getting full-time pay if he does work which benefits the country. They have dragged us into the war, and the people who join up have to be paid, but what we do object to is that people join up and are paid to travel about with a circus, and to tell the public of the platteland: “You are hiding yourselves behind our blood,” while they themselves sit here in Parliament with a double guarantee that they will never have to go and fight; then, when they sign the visitors’ book at Aliwal North, they put “Loyal Dutch” behind their names! They get their parliamentary pay, plus so much per day extra, but they sit here in safety and they do not have to go to the front. I can appreciate the hon. member for Kensington feeling sore when we mention these things. If I were in his position, or in the position of other hon. members opposite who voted for the war, but who are sitting here to-day in complete safety, and who get extra pay, I would also feel sore if anyone referred to it. If that were to happen to me I should also feel sore, because it is a scandalous thing that those hon. members over there should compel others to go and fight as a result of their decision to take part in the war, while they themselves sit here in safety and draw a double salary. We have been pleading here for higher pay for white workers, and in that connection I have repeatedly mentioned the case of the erosion workers. When the Government was asked to pay those people an extra 6d. per day, when they were getting 5s. 6d. per day—what was the answer? The department’s reply was that they were unable to give those men 6s. per day, they could not give them the etxra 6d. per day, because it would draw the bywoners and the people who were sowing on shares away from the farms, as that wage would be too attractive for them. They cannot afford to pay those white people an extra 6d. per day. The people on the erosion works have to be left to their fate, but the Government can spend £60,000 per month and more on the pay of coloured men who are put into khaki. I say it is nothing short of a scandal, it is a blot on this House. It is a scandal, and it will be recorded that this Government has taken the action it has taken and has put the skollies and the loafers who hang about the streets into uniform, and it pays them large wages, while it has no heart and no consideration for the interests of its own people. I do not want to go any further into the colossal waste of money which is going on. I got up here to bring another matter to the notice of the Minister. I notice that the Minister of Finance is smiling. Well, I should like to have an answer from him on this question. I have in my hand a small publication, “War News Bulletin,” which is written in the native languages. This is the news which is supplied to the natives. It is stamped “Official, free.” It is sent officially and free to the natives. This issue which I have here was sent to a native somewhere in a location in the Free State. I should like to know from the Minister of Finance what kind of news it is which they send free of charge to the natives? What does it cost to send that kind of war news to the natives? They go to the extent of supplying news free of charge to natives in the locations, but they are not prepared to supply any news to our own white people. It would be a good thing if the Government were to supply news which is really true to the people, but now they are discriminating and newspapers are sent out at the expense of the State to natives in the locations marked “Official free.” I shall be pleased to get some information in regard to this matter.

I want to deal with a few of the remarks made this evening by the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) when he dealt with the question of tenders and contracts. Criticism has been made on the question of the price of meat where a tender was accepted in one of the camps, and there were numerous remarks from the other side about the waste which was taking place. I want first of all to put a question to the Leader of the Opposition (Dr. Malan) before he goes out, to ask him whether he is in favour of having contracts for the supply of food to camps accepted on the basis of the lowest price without having regard to the quality of the food, or the qualification of the person supplying it? When contracts for the supply of food come up, it is very necessary to consider on what basis these contracts should be given out. In dealing with foodstuffs, it is not always the lowest tender which is the best, an important question is: “Who supplies the best food?” I think the hon. member will agree that a number of other factors, too, enter into the whole question when tenders are being accepted. Now in regard to this very difficult question of tenders for meat, steps have been taken to ensure that the troops in the camps throughout the Union get good quality meat, and all tenders are called for on that basis. Steps have been taken to ensure that every tender for the supply of meat throughout the Union is passed first of all by competent officials in the Agricultural Departement, who will veto all tender lists, and after that the supply of meat to the camps shall be on the basis of meat passed by the Government grader, and the hygiene authorities, and therefore the lowest price tender is not always accepted. But in regard to this question of the hon. member for Waterberg, who questioned the fact that the supply of mutton did not go to the lowest tenderer. Two persons in that case tendered at 6d., and two others tendered at 6¼d. The tender of one of the persons who tendered at 6¼d. was accepted. The hon. member did not explain that the person to whom the contract was given also tendered for the supply of beef at 3.24d. for certain parts and 2.41d. for other parts, and, taken right through, his tender was the best. These particular tenders were called for eight or nine months ago, and the position since then has been entirely revised, and to-day the determining factor which the Minister has laid down is that hygienic requirements and quality shall all be taken into consideration and they must be the determining factors in deciding to whom a tender shall be given. The great point is that the meat supplied to the troops is of good quality, which will be passed by Government graders, or other inspectors who are there for the purpose and that every possible care is taken to see that the troops are supplied with good quality foodstuffs. I do not want to go further into this thing, because no doubt other occasions will arise, but I just want to say this, that in regard to these contracts the greatest possible care is taken to see that there is no waste, and I can assure the House that in regard to all the contracts for food we are seeing to it that we are getting good quality, and as a result of arrangements which we have been able to make we have been able to save the Government many thousands of pounds on the contracts entered into.

Why the difference in price at Premier Mine and Pretoria?

It was a question there as to who was the most suitable person to supply the meat. There was a difference of .15d. in the tender. It was just a question of who was the most suitable contractor.

Yes, but why the great difference in price between Premier Mine and Pretoria?

When tenders are called, you place your contracts as much as possible with the local contractors, but in this case, as there was no local tenderer, we placed it at Pretoria, and the difference in price is due to cartage. We could no doubt save money on contracts if we were to cut out all the smaller villages and only went to the bigger towns. I wonder what hon. members would say if we were to call for all the groceries and goods to be supplied from Cape Town for the whole of the Cape, or from Johannesburg for the whole of the Transvaal. You must place your contracts as much as you possibly can locally. It has many advantages if you can do so, and for one thing you get fresher supplies and it is found more satisfactory, but in the case of Premier Mine it was not possible.

The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) in reply to an interjection by the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) and also in reply to an interjection made by me, accused us of treason because we, as young men, are sitting here and have not put on uniform. We take it amiss from the hon. member that he should use words of that kind. This side of the House is continually being reproached but what is the position of hon. members opposite? There are members opposite who as members of this House passed a resolution to plunge the people into the war. If hon. members are earnestly and solemnly convinced that it was in the interest of the people to have plunged the country into war, then to my mind, and I think to the mind of any right-thinking person, such members of the House should take the lead in the battle into which they have plunged the country.

Quite true.

Quite true, but what do we find? We find that those hon. members who on the 4th September plunged the Union of South Africa into the war sit here and draw double salaries. Take an example from Rhodesia, where members of Parliament who joined up resigned their seats. They went to the battlefield and they are taking their part in the struggle as men. And that is what we expect from hon. members opposite, but what are they doing? If they feel that it is their duty to carry on this war, why don’t they take the responsibility which is theirs? No, they go to the platteland and they try to induce other Afrikaners to go and fight. They try to convince people of the seriousness of this war, but they have not the courage of their convictions themselves. They have not the courage to go to the battlefield. What are we to think of the statement of the hon. member for Kensington? On the other side of the House we have the people who plunged this country into war, who are sending other people to the battlefield while they sit here and have not the courage to go to the battlefield and to resign their seats, as they would do if they were men at all. No, while ordinary people who join up only get their ordinary salaries they get double salaries, they get their Parliamentary salary together with an additional allowance. The hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. C. Strydom) has pointed out that there is even a General who is a member of Parliament, who comes to Parliament to do his work here in a Government car at Government expense, and then we find that the Auditor-General refers to £100,000 which cannot be accounted for. It has got lost. And that is the way in which money is being wasted on a large scale, and then the Minister of Finance comes along to put ever-increasing taxes on the people of South Africa, so that he may be able to spend more money on the war and pay additional double salaries to the people who are responsible for the country having been plunged into the war but who in spite of that do not want to go and fight. I got up here particularly to raise a few other matters. First of all I want to say that I fail to understand the attitude adopted by the Prime Minister in these times. I fail to understand how he dare come here to ask for additional money to carry on the war. Because what is the position? When in 1920 the Prime Minister associated himself with the Unionist Party he held a general election and after that he became Prime Minister. He went to the country to ask for permission to co-operate with the Unionist Party. He won that election and he was sent back to power. In 1924 he was still able to carry on, but his Government had become weakened and he took his courage into his hands and again went to the people. In 1932 when het joined hands with Genl. Hertzog as Leader of the Nationalist Party an appeal was also made to the people of South Africa, although Parliament at the time was only four years old. The people were asked for their consent; Genl. Hertzog was the Leader of the United Party, and under his Leadership the people gave their consent to the union of the two parties at that election. But what happened on the 4th September? A complete revolution took place. Genl. Hertzog was no longer the Leader of the Party. The whole Party fell to pieces and although the present Prime Minister had in the past asked the approval of the people when he entered into an amalgamation he now refuses to proclaim a general election. Even to-day he refuses to proclaim a general election, and yet he comes here and he asks the people to give him millions of pounds for the war. I say that I fail to understand his attitude, and now I want to ask what we are fighting for? We are supposed to be fighting for freedom. What freedom do the people of South Africa still possess which they are fighting for? Let us think for a moment of the internment camps; scandalous conditions prevail at Ganspan and I believe also in other interment camps. People are being punished there in the way martyrs used to be punished in the grey and distant past. If an individual is punished he is locked up in a small corrugated iron place 10 feet by 4 feet in extent and there he has to sit and pass his days in a heat of 108 degrees in the shade. Those people are being tortured in the way they were in die middle ages.

It is quite good enough for traitors in this country.

Has the hon. member ever made any investigations as to why a great many of these internees are in the camps to-day? He is the last man to talk about traitors. When he was caught in the Rebellion in 1914, was he a traitor in those days?

I did not howl about it. I took my punishment like a man.

Was he a traitor in those days or not? To-day the hon. member approves of even Union citizens being interned and treated in that way without being tried. And then the hon. member talks of traitors. Is that the freedom which we are fighting for to-day? I am reminded of another instance—I am reminded of members of Parliament who are put in gaol before they have been brought before a court. That is the freedom we are fighting for. Talk of freedom! I notice a report which states that permission has been refused to the secretary of the Bible Society to send bibles to the internment camps. I should like to know from the Minister of Finance whether that report is correct? I should further like to know whether the permission has been refused to the perdikant of the congregation in which the internment camp is situate, to hold service for the internees? That is the freedom of religion which we are fighting for to-day. The Minister of Finance tells us that we are fighting for three things—for three things after the war, namely (1) for an affective basis for International co-operation; (2) a better realisation of democracy, and (3) a better realisation of brotherhood among people, and social justice apart from religion or colour, and for all the things which make it worth while for humanity to live. Does the hon. member for North East Rand (Mr. Heyns) agree with the Minister of Finance that we are fighting for those aims? Is he fighting for equality of colour? Is that the aim which we have in fighting this war? If it is so then I should like the hon. member to be fair and just and tell the public outside that that is the aim they have in view. That that is the aim this war is being fought for. But so far as the Minister of Finance is concerned is it not strange to get that from him? What is even more strange is that our friends opposite sit there and allow it. I have one case in mind. We were together in the United Party and I know that my hon. friend felt very strongly on the Asiatic question. What happened? It is peculiar to me that he is now giving his support to that Government in regard to what it is doing now with reference to that problem. The Prime Minister at the Imperial Conferences of 1919 and 1923 consistently refused to appoint a representative of the Indian Government here in South Africa. He said there: “You people do not understand the position in our country.” I should like to quote his words from the year book—

That is what the Prime Minister said in 1923 and he refused to appoint an Indian agent for the Union. I voted with him, and also later when the Nationalist Party appointed an Agent-General for India here in South Africa, but what does the hon. member now do in that Party sitting over there to-day? He does not only agree that the Indian agent shall remain here, but during the course of this last year the Indian Agent General was given promotion as a result of the policy of the Minister of Finance. He has now become High Commissioner for India in South Africa. Did the hon. member say anything against it? Is the promise which was made that that question would not be postponed beyond 1941 going to be given effect to, and are we now going to get the legislation passed which as long ago as 1924 the Prime Minister promised the people of South Africa, that special wards for various races would be set aside in our towns and dorps? Can we expect it after the change of policy on the part of the Prime Minister, with the aid and assistance of the Minister of Finance who stands for equal rights, and who fights for that great ideal in the future? No, the hon. member for North East Rand (Mr. Heyns) keeps quiet now. I wonder how he is going to explain these questions to his people in days to come, and whether he still holds the view which he held in the past before he underwent that change of heart. I have not had the opportunity yet of saying a word or two on the wool position, and I should now like to make a few remarks on that subject. I am sorry the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry is not here. He had such a lot to say about the general satisfaction which the people felt as a result of the “terrible” wool prices which we are getting. What are those terrible wool prices which we are supposed to get? The Minister himself admitted that the wool prices which we got last year when we had an open market were 50% higher than the price of the year before. We now get prices which have been fixed at 30% higher, and the people are so highly satisfied with those terrible prices and the benefits which the Minister of Agriculture has conferred on the wool farmers. The Minister tells us that he has succeeded in getting the prices placed on the same basis as that which exists in Australia. But is Australia so highly satisfied? No, Australia is just as dissatisfied with the wool agreement as the Union is. Australia complains particularly of the exchange position, just as the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. Bekker) has done in regard to South Africa. He has particularly asked that that should be taken into account. Further, Australia asks that if the costs of production go up she should not be made to suffer any losses because she will suffer losses if prices remain as they are and if production costs go up. What is the position in the Union? Do hon. members realise the extent to which production costs have gone up? And that is not all. Australia complains and is anxious because of the accumulation of the wool in the hands of one country; we have been fighting for years to try and prevent the accumulation of wool in one country, because if that happens the result will be that artificial wool will score over real wool. Before the war artificial wool already bad certain advantages over ordinary wool, and now that we are keeping wool back from certain countries what is going to be the result? We are again going to get that position which Australia and all wool-producing countries are so afraid of. Thousands of pounds have been spent on advertising wool throughout the world. We have placed a tax on the wool farmers on every bale of their wool, in order to advertise wool, but by carrying on as we are doing now synthetic wool is again going to get the advantage in a large number of countries. We had a cable the other day which the Minister of Agriculture read out to this House stating that England had not sold any wool to Japan the year before. We did not say that England had sold wool to Japan, but was no wool sold to Japan after England had bought our wool? Why did not the Minister take steps, seeing that our biggest market the year before was in America and Japan? Why did he not take steps to enable Japan to buy some of our wool? We have allowed our opportunity to pass in regard to those countries. America to-day buys our wool through England, and then we are told that the profits will be divided after the war. What are those profits going to be? Look at the costs of administration in connection with wool? Look at the interest? Look at the profits which the wool stores in this country are making? The largest profit they are making is on the thousands of bales which are in their stores, and on which storage has to be paid. Look at the people who have been appointed to buy and to handle the wool, and only after the deduction of those costs will the profits be distributed. I say that if after all those large expenses there are any profits left the Minister of Agriculture must be a wonderfully clever business man, and he will have rendered the country a tremendous service.

This debate is something unusual in the procedure one is accustomed to. Usually a Bill of this kind goes through without much debate. On this side of the House we were a little bit surprised when on the occasion of the second reading debate we were treated to a rehearsal of a budget debate. Now on the third reading that has been repeated. One could understand an attitude like this from an Opposition in time of war if such Opposition had some contribution to make to the carrying on of the war in a better way than the Government is carrying it on. One would make due allowance for criticism of that kind, as a matter of fact one would welcome criticism of that kind, but neither in the second or third reading debate had the Opposition anything to offer but sabotage, pure sabotage; they don’t want to win the war, they want to lose the war.

It is lost already.

They want to hinder the progress of the country’s war effort. It has been rather interesting to note the change in tactics made by the Opposition in this attack on the Bill. At the second reading we had an attack on the Labour Party. I suppose the idea was that if they could destroy the Labour Party that would help to destroy the Government itself—all with the same idea, of course, of losing the war. I think the Labour Party came off best in that affray.

We cannot help it if you think so.

I have listened to about twenty speeches from the hon. member this session, and as this is my first I think he might give me a chance. It is most remarkable that during this third reading debate not a word has been said about the Labour Party. Not one single bomb has been dropped on them. That rather proves my point. I suppose that so far as this debate is concerned the Labour Party Spitfires, replying to the last debate, have shut them up for a time. Continuing this same policy of dropping “target” bombs, we have had this extraordinary onslaught on the Minister of Finance. The hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) said a lot of nasty personal things about the Minister of Finance, and I am certain when he thinks of what he did say he will be rather ashamed of himself. The hon. member for George is a sportsman, and in the personal onslaught he made on the Minister of Finance this afternoon he did something which is not quite up to his usual standard. The hon. member gets up and tells us what the people outside think about the Minister of Finance or any other Minister, or the Government, but how can he speak for the volk, the people? The people of this country are represented on these benches by an overwhelming majority. The hon. member refers to people who are specially interested in the Minister of Finance. I think it will be agreed that no Minister in the whole Cabinet interests the commercial and industrial people of this country, and the financial houses of this country, more than does the Minister of Finance. He is their contact, their measure of the worth of the Government. I want to say this, that there never has been a Minister of Finance who has commanded the respect of the commercial and industrial community of this country to a greater degree than the present Minister. He commands their complete confidence. I think on a matter of this kind I can give better evidence than the hon. member for George. The Government is proud of the Minister, and the country is proud of him. We have 100 per cent. confidence in him, and the attack made upon the Minister by the hon. member for George was unworthy of him. The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) has made reference to the unusual method of the hon. member for George in bringing up at this stage the Auditor-General’s report. We know that that is a very unusual procedure, because we are aware that very often when we start cross-examining upstairs on the Public Accounts Committee mountains become a good many molehills. The hon. member for George would rather have mountains of course, now, even if they afterwards turn out to be molehills. He riminds me of a hunting party I once went to. There was a very cheery fellow in the party. When someone saw a dassie he always took it for a lion and ran for his elephant gun. The whole matter of war supplies is one that we shall no doubt bear a great deal about as time goes on in this House. Naturally, one cannot run a war as one would run an ordinary commercial undertaking, and I would ask my friends over there to remember this, that when the Government took over our defence department they took over something that was described as chaos. In a very short time that chaos was transformed into an army which is recognised as one of the best disciplined and equipped armies in the world. All that has been done in a period of less than eighteen months. When those responsible for the equipment of the army were considering purchases for it, the first thing they had in mind was that they must supply nothing but the best for our boys and at top speed. I was speaking about six weeks ago to one who is, I suppose, the leading Nationalist in the whole of the Cape Province. I met him in Johannesburg, and he said to me, “I am glad that you personally have taken the interest you have in the equipment of the army.” He went on to say that he had just paid a visit to a certain camp, and he admitted that it had been a revelation to him, and that no doubt the Prime Minister had behind him in his army the flower of our young South African manhood.

Who was that?

He said to me, “You are one of those who is helping on this movement, you are one of those responsible for the equipment of these soldiers, and my advice to you is that you give them the best possible equipment; only the best is good enough for those boys of ours.” A leading Nationalist said that to me.

Give us his name.

Yes, I can give you his name.

Why don’t you?

Because it was a private conversation. I am giving you the benefit of something well worth listening to without disclosing names. Those of us who have been privileged to help in war supplies have set out in the spirit of winning the war, we have set out in the spirit of doing our job of work well and in the quickest possible time, and I think in all the circumstances something wonderful has happened in this country. I have said it before, and I repeat it now, the unfortunate thing, the sad thing, the tragic thing, is that not one of those members opposite have lifted one little finger to help us on in this war effort. The hon. member for George told us what England is doing about the committee they have sitting there over war expenditure, and so on. That committee is comprised of members of Parliament, and all parties are represented on it. None would welcome it more than our Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance if some of those people on the other side would come and do a job of work for us, help us to win the war, instead of sitting on those benches and criticising destructively, while outside the House they do all they can to help to lose the war. We shall in due course investigate the allegations made by the hon. member for George. I will be surprised if we don’t find out many things we can criticise, but we shall always bear in mind that the people who are doing the job are imbued with the one spirit, and one ideal, they want the job done as well and quickly as possible, so that they can say: “We have done our part in South Africa in the war for our freedom and for democracy.” [Interruptions.] Yes, Mr. Speaker, those people sneer, they hold a monopoly in sneers, it is their chief stock-in-trade, they are expert sneerers, but that won’t keep us from doing our duty. Nothing shall. That is the spirit of the army and of the Government to-day. We wish to God it was the spirit of the Opposition.

If I were to say anything about the speech of the hon. member for Maitland (Mr. Mushet), I would say this, that he tried to boast by telling us that they had the strength behind them and that they were going to win the war without producing any evidence to show why that would happen. He further remarked that we had the flower of the country in our Defence Force. This side of the House has repeatedly on previous occasions expressed the opinion that we do not deny the fact that a large proportion of the army is composed of the best men in the country, because there are hundreds and hundreds of Nationalists in the army, but the hon. member for Maitland, no more than any other member opposite, cannot deny that at the same time we also have some of the greatest scoundrels in the army, and I challenge them to deny it.

I deny it.

I expected that from the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg), but no man opposite with any common sense will deny it. Last year it was stated in one of the local papers that an escaped convict had evaded the police for three weeks; after wards he was found in the army, and by that time he already was a sergeant.

And before that he must have been a member of the Nationalist Party.

No, of the Labour Party.

Even that type of man is promoted in the army, and the hon. member opposite only proves his ignorance if he refuses to agree with what I am saying. He talks against his own knowledge if he tells us that there are no scoundrels in the army as well as other people. There may be 90 per cent. or more who are good soldiers, but there are scoundrels, too, in the army. What we are fighting against is that proportion whose only aim is to make the lives of their fellow-Afrikaners or of that section of South Africans whose homes are here, and who are out and out Afrikaners, a hell on earth. Those are the people with whom we never come into daily contact, and whom my hon. friend opposite even will refuse to associate within ordinary daily life. They are the people who are now represented as being 100 per cent. the flower of the country in the army. Possibly the hon. member for Maitland made that remark because he had listened to the hon. member for Calvinia (Dr. Steenkamp). As he has not been here the whole evening, I thought I would say a few words now because I want to pick a bone with him and tell him a few things. Unfortunately, he has escaped again. After the 4th September, 1939, the hon. member for Cape Town Castle (Mr. Alexander) held a meeting, together with the Minister of the Interior, and this is what a report in the “Cape Argus” of the 18th November said:

That is what he said in regard to a proposal by Gen. Hertzog, and that was his conception of one of the greatest men South Africa has ever produced, namely, that he had introduced a ridiculous motion into this House.

And you people have now stabbed him in the back.

And now the hon. member opposite boasts of the flower of the country which is in the army. Does he know what the hon. member for Calvinia says about it? He says that there are practically no Jews in the army. Those are the people who make most noise, and who made an attack on the Ossewa-Brandwag the other day. But, according to the hon. member for Calvinia, they are too miserable, too weak-kneed to go and fight, and they stay here and draw their salaries. The hon. member for Calvinia says further that he held a meeting with the hon. member for Cape Town Castle, and that on a Sunday night And then he went on—

He talks here about the Jews and he says further—

I only want to say to the hon. member for Calvinia who is so very much concerned about the Jews not going to fight and about their drawing double salaries, and about their standing on guard, where there is no danger, that I see Willempie every day walking about the streets here! Before coming to a few important points I first of all want to turn to the Minister of Labour who unfortunately is not here at the moment. We found out the other day that one of the weakest links in a weak Government is the Labour policy followed by the Government. According to the report of the Department of the Minister of Labour everything is in order. I just want to read what they say, because that report definitely creates a wrong impression. They say—

In view of the fact that soil erosion work is being stopped and that a large number of people who have been employed there are being put off, I want to ask the Minister how they can issue such a report.

Do you say that the Minister of Labour puts those people out of work?

Yes, the Department of Labour. The Minister of Labour knows that I approached him day in and day out, and eventually I got the reply that the magistrate could assist those people with rations. The reply I gave was that those people could not pay their rent with rations. Those people had been working there and they were put off, and yet the Department says that it is proceeding with its ordinary activities. In spite of that those people are being thrown out into the streets, and they are left to starve. What has the Department of Labour done further? The Department has practically shut up. It is no use going to the Department to try and find employment for young fellows of 18 or 19 years of age. I have done all I can to get work for the young men. They simply say that there are no openings for those young fellows. That is the position on the Railways. Go to the Public Service. The ordinary openings which used to exist for young fellows of 18 years of age have practically disappeared. Posts are filled with old crocks, as the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) has said.

Not in the clerical division.

One has all sorts of difficulties in getting employment for these young fellows.

If they have teken their Public Service examination they can be employed.

The Public Service examination! Let me say in that regard that those who go to the war are no longer asked to write the Public Service examination. Why is that distinction being made? When they come back they will be pushed in any they will get preference without their having to write the Public Service examination. Now I come to another point. A Bill was passed which to my mind was a very important Bill. I am referring to the Shop and Office Hours Bill. It affects no fewer than 75,000 people in this country. What is the excuse offered by the Department for that law not being given effect to? They say in their report that unfortunately at the moment there can be no question of giving proper effect to the law in connection with shop and office hours. Why not? Because they have not got 25,000 men to appoint as inspectors. If the Minister has not got 25,000 men I will supply him with 25,000 men. But they say that anyhow they have done something now, and that they are to a very small degree carrying out the law by asking the police to see to it that the law is carried out on the platteland. What is happening there? They point out that the law does not only deal with working hours, and with leave on full pay, and other questions such as sanitary conveniences, the lighting of shops, etc., and then they go on to say: “It is feared that too few shop assistants in the small dorps and platteland areas will take the trouble to report possible contraventions of the law.” In other words, the Department states here that the law to-day is of no value and effect on the platteland. And what is the condition in which many of those people working in the shops find themselves to-day? One gets small Jewish shops which have practically no windows. Afrikaner girls have to work in those shops, and what do they earn? £1 10s. We went to the Minister of Labour last year with a deputation. He made a great display and said “I sympathise with you and I shall see to it that it is put right.” Those shop assistants are still earning £1 10s. to-day. I can mention numerous instances. The hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg), that so-called Labour member, sits over there. Will he deny it? Those are the scandalous conditions which one comes across in this country. Those people are being made ripe for Communism and nothing else, and while that is going on the so-called representatives of the Labour Party sit here and draw a double salary and swank in uniforms. Now I want to say a few words about the wages paid to soil erosion workers. I put a question to the Minister last year. I have it in Hansard here. Do you know what the answer was? The answer was this: “The whole question of wages for unskilled labourers is having the Government’s serious attention.” I came this year and I put exactly the same question. The Minister replied that the question was still enjoying the same serious attention of the Government. How long it is to have the Government’s serious attention before they will realise that a man with a family of six, eight or ten children is unable to work at 5/6 a day? It is simply a scandal. A great many of those people who are employe don erosion works have to maintain two homes. Many of them have to go two or three hundred miles away from their homes to work for 5/6 per day, and do hon. members know what the Minister’s excuse is? Oh, yes, we cannot afford to pay higher salaries because if we do the bywoners and farm workers and shear croppers will leave the farms. “Our experience is,” so says the Minister, “that the wages are so attractive that farm labourers are attracted, so that the farmers are experiencing great difficulties.” But what kind of people are doing that work? I have the report of the Department here in which it is stated that the main object of the erosion scheme is to reduce unemployment on the platteland, especially among those who are old and physically unfit. The Minister of Labour is here now, and I want to ask him which farmer will find work for old and physically unfit men. I should like an answer from him. Which farmer will take old and decrepit labourers on to his farm as bywoners? But the Department says that they cannot pay a higher salary because if they do so they will draw these men away from the farmers. For two solid years this matter has been having the serious attention of the Government. Surely one can decide in half a minute that 5s. 6d. is too little to pay those people. One can decide straight away that that wages is too small. There is one other point in that connection which I want to mention. The Minister’s Department itself told me that they have been putting physically unfit and old people on to that work because it is easy work. Has the Minister and his Department ever done any work on the construction of dams? Do they know that it is one of the most arduous kinds of work to be found in South Africa? It is dangerous to talk about a thing which one knows nothing about. I can mention instances and support them by means of medical certificates to show that many of those people have ruptured themselves as a result of the heavy work they have had to do on the dams. And they say that they put old and physically unfit people there because the work is easy, and then they pay them 5s. 6d. per day. And then they say that they are solving the poor white problem. I say that the labourers of this country will one of these days call the Minister and his Government to account and settle with them. It reminds me of the book by Ward Price and Douglas Reed who wrote about conditions in Germany in 1918. They state in their book that the people in Germany in those days had no more inclination to fight because so they argued, “what is the use of fighting under existing conditions? If England wins and we come under England, we can be no worse off than under the Germany of 1918.” That was their argument. And that was why Germany collapsed. What is going to happen as a result of the treatment which our people are receiving when for days on end they have to do this tremendously hard work? Will not the day come when they will say “What difference does it make whether Germany or England wins, or whichever country wins. We cannot be worse off under any other Government than we are to-day.” May I say this in passing, that I notice that lately an amount of £2,600 has been spent on gangs for the eradication of noxious weeds. This has now been stopped. Let me tell the Minister that that money has been completely wasted. Does the Minister realise that if one stool of boetebos remains standing it produces thousands and thousands of seeds. All that work has come to a standstill and yet the Department in its report states that the ordinary activities of the Department of Labour are being proceeded with. I wish to say a few words in regard to the building question. But before coming to that I want to refer to the remarks made by the hon. member for Maitland (Mr. Mushet) who says that he strongly disapproves of the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) having made a personal attack on the Minister of Finance. I only want to say that if ever there has been a Minister who has disgusted this side of the House it is the Minister of Finance. I as a young member have always had respect for the Minister, but I never imagined that the Minister of Finance would indulge in hitting below the belt in the way the present Minister of Finance has done. I never imagined that we would ever get such a personal and undignified attack from the Minister of Finance as we were treated to here. Do hon. members recollect the sarcastic remark about the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys) who had done nothing to merit such a remark? Do hon. members recall the unworthy personal remarks about the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman)? The Minister said that the hon. member for Fordsburg talked about things he knew nothing about. Not only members on this side of the House but hon. members opposite too will admit that when the hon. member for Fordsburg gets up he talks about things which he knows something a bout. What then of the criticism of the hon. member for Maitland? One may perhaps expect an ordinary member like myself and others to make personal attacks now and again, but surely one does not expect it of the Minister of Finance. I always imagined him to be above that kind of thing. I thought that such a personal attack would be resented by every nerve in his body. Now I want to come to the wool question.

There is nothing new, is there?

Yes, so far as the fixed price of 10¾d. is concerned, I want to ask hon. members opposite whether any of them dare get up here and honestly say that the impression does not prevail that South Africa is to get an average of 10¾d. for its wool clip? We were given the assurance from another source. Members of the Wool Council have given farmers’ associations an assurance that if the average does not work out at 10¾d., we, just like Australia, which last year got £2,000,000 back, would also get an additional amount in order to bring the average up to 10¾d., and now we have to get the astounding and shocking information that 10¾d. has not been guaranteed. What did the S.A.P. members of Parliament tell the platteland last year? From one platform to another they boasted of the fact that this Government had secured a fixed price of 10¾d. for the farmers, and now we are to be told that there is no such thing. The little confidence which part of the people still had in this Government has now completely disap peared. And then we are told occasionally that there is going to be more than 10¾d Anyone making a statement like that must be totally ignorant of the position. Nobody dare deny that the average price is far below 10¾d. The Minister of Lands, who farms in the north-west, and who produces a light type of wool, hardly got 10¾d. as his average. What about the heavier types of wool? We cannot get near 10¾d.

We have got more than that.

The Minister of Lands got Up last year and boasted that he got 18½d. Where is he to-day? For that same wool he now gets 13d. and 14d. I per sonally have been getting 4d. per lb. less for that same wool.

Not dead wool?

The hon. member may be sarcastic about wool farmers, but those farmers will go for him in such a way that he will wish he were dead.

I am just as big a wool farmer as you are, in fact a great deal bigger.

Yes, we know the hon. member. He said that if the farmers in the Western Province did not get 6s. 3d. more for their wheat they would all be bankrupt, and he told them they were to get it, but when a deputation went to see the Minister the hon. member did not accompany them. He was far away. The farmers will call him to account. Hon. members are convinced in their very soul that things cannot go on as they are doing to-day, but in order to keep this Government in power for this mad war, they are prepared to sell their souls. This is one of the best years we have had for wool. We have had good rains and our clean yield is particularly high My own wool has a 2 per cent. higher clean yield than before, as a result of the excellent year we have had. If we do not get 10¾d. now what is going to be the position in dry years when our clean yield is lower? And this 10¼d. in the depreciated currency of to-day is much too low. In 1938 wool farmers were in danger of going bankrupt. To-day they are getting less in actual value. Now I want to put a question to the Minister, whether it is true that the same wool is being sold in America by England for 24d.? A further question I want to put to the Minister is whether the 11,900 bales of wool for France which are still in South Africa have not yet been sold? Is it true that America has offered a price of more than 10¾d. for that wool, but that the Government has prevented the French buyers from selling that wool to America? The Minister dare not deny it, because the Wool Council itself in its report last year stated that America would be such a big buyer that we would practically be unable to supply all the wool that she wanted. But now we are told that we are to be paid half the profit which England makes on our wool. Why only half? Why should our farmers not get the full amount? Why should they have to continue to suffer under the heavy bonds on their farms, and why should they have to give up half the profit to England to assist England in her war? It is a crying shame to think that the farmers of South Africa will have to suffer for years and years under their mortgage bonds, as a result of the fact that they are losing tremendous sums of money which England is making on our wool. I have put certain questions to the Minister in connection with the Wool Council and its functions. The new Wool Council has taken steps to secure new markets for our wool and to make our wool known in other parts of the world, and the Wool Council is costing us £43,000 per year. If all our wool is being sold to England, then I want to ask whether efforts are still being made to secure other markets, to make our wool attractive to Japan and other countries? Why all those costs? Every farmer has to pay 1s. per bale in order to keep that body going. If the Wool Council means nothing, why not abolish it? But what is worse still, we are paying this 1s. per bale. It is deducted from the bale, but the Wool Council has the money, and it only spends the money when the wool is exported. Thousands of pounds of money are lying there, and the farmers are not getting any interest. For more than a season already £8,000 of the farmers’ money is in the hands of the brokers, on which the farmers are not getting a penny in interest. This year again no wool is exported through the interference of the Wool Council, and £38,000 is held by the brokers It means an amount of £2,400 in interest per year, which our farmers are not getting and which the brokers are putting into their pockets.

At 10.55, the business under consideration was interrupted by Mr. Speaker in accordance with Standing Order No. 26 (1) and the debate was adjourned; to be resumed on 25th February.