I move as an unopposed motion—

seconded.

Agreed to.

When the debate was adjourned last night I was speaking in support of the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) that we definitely refused to approve of this Bill and to vote this money for the Government until such time as these malpractices of the Government, this waste of money and maladministration in the Defence Department are put a stop to, and until such time as we are given the promise by the Government to reform its practice. I fear that it is a pious wish because the Government will not deviate from the line of policy which it has adopted, with all the maladministration and waste of money that it involves. I want to analyse those malpractices. On the 4th September, 1939, when we entered into the war, we had the Defence Act, the same Defence Act under which we operated in the previous war from 1914 to 1918; it was the same Defence Act under which we were protected, and under which the first line of our defence, namely the police force, fell, together with the Police Act which regulated the services of our police force. When I think back to the police force which has been built up in South Africa, then I believe there is no country in the world which can view its police force with greater pride. Our police force is our first line of defence. The Government thought fit a year before the war to remove this self-samé first line, under the Defence Act, which laid down that it was to be used for the defence of the Union within the boundaries of South Africa. I want to go still further, and I want to show how the Government, in addition contravened the Act under which the police were employed in the service, and which they had the right to appeal to. That right of theirs was also taken away, and that by nothing less than a proclamation by the Government. In that way the protection of that Act was taken away from them, and it has been still further taken away by the red oath which has been established. When that red oath was introduced, we found in my own and other constituencies that there were men who were on the point of reaching that time of retirement for which they had worked so nobly and so hard. They were called upon to take that red oath, and if they refused then they ran the risk to be deprived of that opportunity. Many of them took the oath, and they are to-day in the fighting line up in the North. They were taken out of our police force, and they are at the front. What was the result of all that? I want to emphasie here that persecution and victimisation and spying was introduced into our police force, because those who were at the head of the service exercised influence on all junior and subordinate men to induce them to take the red oath. There was victimisation and intimidation, and now we find that the Prime Minister shields behind the fact that the war in the North is being conducted by volunteers. He does that notwithstanding the fact, I repeat it, that he deprived the first line of defence of our country of the protection of that Act, and that the red oath was imposed upon them by means of threats. If they are volunteers, then they most certainly are not the volunteers about whom the Prime Minister spoke in his speech of the 4th September, as it is reported in Hansard. We have to-day reached the position with our first line of defence, that the police who had to render service in South Africa within the limits of the Police Act and the Defence Act, were intimiated, and persecuted by a criminal love of war on the part of the people who are only out to force people to take the red oath. I say deliberately that the Prime Minister cannot shield behind the fact that those men who are conducting the war in the North are volunteers. That is the wrongful way in which many of them were induced to do so. We had numbers of honourable men in the service who did not want to take the red oath, and they were persecuted and victimised. I say it deliberately, because I can prove it, that they were victimised because they did not want to take the red oath. There are some of them who did take that oath because they hoped and trusted that they would be allowed to go on quietly with their police work. They sold their rights for a mess of potage. The other line of defence, the other big line of defence, is that big army of defence which consists of nothing else than the rifle associations, a body which suits our system in South Africa, namely, the commando system. What has happened to them? It was not long before they also were dragged in under the red oath. There was a further persecution, so that in the end it became a shame to belong to this defence force in the eyes of the Government. They were insulted; they were disarmed, and they were humiliated to the depths in full view of the coloured people and the natives. The native women have the protection of the law, but they are not allowed to defend themselves. The miserable red tab oath played its role in this case also. What has become of those rifle associations? They were disarmed. Now attempts are being made to establish small sections in the different districts of, I believe, 127 men each, and arm them for the protection of women, children and others on the farms. But there also the wretched red oath has crept in again. It is the class of people who do not go ahead who have now been put into those sections. As I have emphasised before, we are not fighting people who have gone to the front from honest conviction, but we have no respect for the kind of people who remain behind and only make money, and then, in addition, are apparently members of the Defence Force. Now I ask the Prime Minister whether he wants to disarm the mounted force, without any expense, and what he is going to do? He did subsequently go and introduce a mounted force again, of course for carrying on the war. I believe it is under the command of Brig.-Manie Botha. I would like to know from the Prime Minister for what purpose it was brought into existence, and where it will be used. In the North? We know that we cannot use it there. There is considerable expense connected with equipping a mounted force, to provide the horses and the training and the equipment, and therefore I would like to ask where he is going to use them. I now understand that that brigade will also be mobilised and will be divided up amongst other units. Is that so? I would like to know with what object the force was formed. You cannot use it in the fighting area up north. Apparently they are to be used for another purpose against us here. But in the meantime we have the great expense. There is another matter that I want to deal with. Yesterday, in answer to a question by the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. van Nierop) we got a great deal of information, and we know now which of the hon. members here draw good pay for carrying on the war, and what kind of war they are carrying on. It was very amusing to find a reference to a recruiting officer who gets a good salary, and a little lower down on the list to find a demobilisation officer of the same rank. The one has to recruit volunteers and the other has to demobilise. In that way jobs are being created for pals, and money is being wasted. The wheel turns. I recruit and you demobilise. Demobilisation is already taking place. People are being discharged and put out of the army. That is probably the work which those officers have to do, but it shows what bad conditions are prevailing. In passing, I want to say a few words about the espionage which is going on. There are several of the other hon. members who will go into details, but I do know that I am being spied on. I am not afraid of it, because I know about it and I know that I am doing nothing underhand. I am at any time prepared to say outside this House what I have said in it, and I challenge the Government to punish me for it. I see the Minister of Agriculture is also in his place. It was so interesting to hear his description two days ago of the flourishing condition of the farmers. He spoke about the splendid prices that slaughter stock were fetching at the moment. Can you have a more childish and childlike statement than that? He got his information from the stockbuyers. Now just think of it. If at that time in 1932 and 1933 in the time of drought and depression, I could fatten up old ewes and sell them for 32s., because I had to feed the animals; is that a proof that the country was prosperous at that time? It is amusing to hear the Minister of Agriculture say that things are going so well with the farmers, but it is also tragic. I want to say a few words to the Minister of Finance. He thought it necessary to read us a lecture here about good taste. I must say that the last few times that he has spoken he dropped down to a level which we do not expect from him. He made criticisms on the remarks which an hon. member made here, and he took the remarks out of their context. We do not expect that from him. The hon. member for Caledon (Mr. H. C. de Wet) also made a charge against this side of the House, and stated that we were abusing those who were carrying out their duty according to their convictions. That also is not true. But I want to come to the great subject with which we are concerned. It seems to me that there is no longer any control over the financial position, and my question to the Minister of Finance is in what way he will find means to cover the colossal sum required for next year. On all sides one sees terrible waste. It is of course true that the spending power is being temporarily increased—even that of members of Parliament who are getting double salary— when you waste so much on such a scale. It goes without saying that certain persons get an advantage out of it, and that it also brings money into the country, but a people which builds its future on the advantages which arise out of extravagance is building on sand. So long as the waste goes on it looks very well, but there will be an end to the war, and there will be an end to the waste. It must come. Then you will have a state of depression, and any thinking person in our country is filled with anxiety about the future. Does the Minister for one moment think that when the war is over the financial affairs of the country will again be based on the old system of capitalistic demands. Not in the least. The new order will bring with it and demand the following of a different system. Even England did not adopt the demands of capitalism in the last war. South Africa did do so, and she has paid her debt. But we will take care that we do not get into that position again. No, there will be a different position. Does the Minister think that he can be the creditor of the democratic countries, i.e. America?

Surely the Nationalist Party is also capitalistic.

America entered into the last war to make sure that her debtors won the war, and for no other purpose. What will she do now? She is now taking securities, and will then have all the power in her hands. There is not the least control at the moment on the expenditure on defence, but we shall be affected by the consequences of them. On the whole, people are out not to increase their debts, but to reduce their liabilities. That is a sound thing, but the Government is doing just the opposite. Another psychology must be introduced in the place of the war psychology, a striving to promote social welfare in the true sense of the word, to create a better economic position, not a position under which only those who join up will get a chance, while there will be no other chances given to the people. I trust that we on this side of the House will continue to protest against the waste that is taking place, and will keep on protesting inside and outside of this House, and will point out to the people the way things are being conducted, so that this Government may be put out of office as soon as possible.

It is quite clear that the other side of the House does not understand the psychology of Afrikanerdom. This fact is proved by the accusations which the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) made against this side of the House, and by the language he used when he accused us of being cowards because we did not fight and did not defend this country. A man like the hon. Minister fails to understand the psychology of the Afrikaner. Let me emphasise again that Afrikanerdom does not believe in the present war. We do not believe that it is our war. It certainly is not a war of Afrikanerdom, and we emphatically decline to have any association whatsoever with the war which in actual fact is England’s war and not South Africa’s war. I hope, Mr. Speaker, you will not call me to order, and will not require me to produce proof in support of my contention that on the 4th September a coup d’état was staged in this House, a coup d’état which had been very ingeniously engineered. Gen. Hertzog had to be pushed out and it was very cleverly engineered. Gen. Hertzog might possibly have been an obstacle; even if he had associated himself with the suggestion that South Africa should take part in the war, he would have been an obstacle in the matter of the waste of money. That is why he was pushed out and that is why the coup d’état was performed. I further want to emphasise that the emergency regulations which were introduced at the beginning of the session are nothing but martial law. It is martial law under the name of “emergency regulations.” If we take into account what has taken place latterly it must be clear that it is nothing but martial law. It is a sword which is always hanging above our heads. Nobody on the other side of the House can justify it. Nobody can hold against Afrikanerdom that it has committed any wrongful act or done anything wrong. There has been no incendiarism on our parts; there have been no riots; there has only been a protest against the war. That is the only sin this side of the House has committed, and because of that, martial law has been proclaimed in consequence of which the sword is suspended over the heads of Afrikanerdom, and as a result Afrikanerdom is silenced. In that way this Government wants to suppress all criticism in regard to this unholy, unwanted, unjust British-Jewish war. I can assure the Prime Minister that we do not take those emergency regulations very seriously. We are not going to take much notice of them. If we look at the amendment proposed by the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) we find that it amounts to this, that this side of the House declines to allow public money to be wasted in this reckless manner. We protest against that with all the power that is in us. Now I want to refer to a few instances to show the way in which the money is being wasted. We would not protest if money were spent on necessary things; we know that we are at war and that the other side wants to see the war through; but we are concerned here with a state of indifference in regard to the waste of money such as we have never yet had in this country. They do not care how they waste our money. I mentioned for instance the “stay-at-home brigade, a unit numbering thousands, consisting of people who play at soldiering and who do nothing. Their work is to maintain the home front. Against whom? What enemy have we here? Do they regard Afrikanerdom really as the enemy of its own country? Is that the reason why a few thousand soldiers are kept here to maintain the home front, to act as watchdogs over the Afrikaners in their own country? The home front so far has done nothing except draw large salaries. They enjoy all the privileges and they do nothing. If an official in the service of the State draws a salary he is expected to work. One cannot draw a salary without rendering service. If one does not render service it is equivalent to a crime and to dishonesty— not to use the word “theft.” Is that the work of the home front, to behave in the way we saw at Potchefstroom, where they attacked, plundered and humiliated innocent students? And to behave as they did in the streets of Johannesburg, in the streets of Cape Town during the 12 o’clock prayer pause when they attacked innocent people, in the trains where they assaulted innocent people? They are kept on the home front to humiliate, taunt and aggravate the Afrikaner. Why does not the Prime Minister send them to Abyssinia and to Kenya? We have hon. members here drawing a double salary, as we were told yesterday, when our attention was drawn to the additional pay they are getting, amounting to £15,000 per year. I ask what are they doing? What service are they giving in return for that £15,000? It is their duty to sit here as representatives of their constituencies. That is what they are paid for. I say, Mr. Speaker, that hon. members opposite are doing their duty in this House by representing their constituencies. That is right, but it is unjust and unfair towards the State that in addition they should be drawing double salaries and do nothing. I say that those hon. members are not doing any work for the double salaries they are getting. They do not render services for the salaries they get, and they know it. They do not render service to the State, and it is dishonest to put money into one’s pocket which one does not earn and for which one has not rendered any service. The home front consists mostly of English-speaking people. I say that the great majority of them are English-speaking. They are here to play the watchdog over Afrikanerdom and to taunt Afrikanerdom, which remains perfectly quiet and does nothing and interferes with no one. Where are the Afrikaners? They are suffering on the battlefields; they are being used as cannon fodder in Kenya and Abyssinia—to do what? Defend our country? No, it is the greatest nonsense to think that South Africa is being defended there. They are busy restoring Haile Selassie, Emperor of Abyssinia, to his throne, and Afrikaners have to sacrifice their blood for that purpose. Most of the English-speaking people sit here and contribute nothing to the war effort. Why do they not go to the front and do their bit? We would applaud them if they went. We would say then that they were men who practised what they preached, but not a single one of them has so far shown himself to have the courage to do so. Not one of them has gone forward; they sit here with double salaries to fight Afrikanerdom. I further want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that unnecessary services are being created which cost thousands of pounds. In this connection I want to refer to the employment of women in the military services. When I speak of those women I speak of them with the greatest respect. They are taken into military service, they wear military uniform and they get military pay. I say that it is non-Afrikaans for a woman to be a soldier. We do not know that sort of thing, and we don’t understand it. It is something unknown to us, it is wrong to use a woman as a soldier in place of a man, and that sort of thing has never yet been done in this country. She is out of her sphere, and hon. members will have noticed how frail and sickly those women look who wear khaki uniforms. Why? Because they are placed in a position which is unnatural so far as they are concerned. Is it not ridiculous to employ those women as chauffeurs for the officers? The officer comes along with his gloves and his cane, and the lady has to jump out of the car to open the door to the gentleman; then she is at the wheel to drive him, she has to open the door for him again, and when he goes back the same thing happens again. Is not that sort of thing degrading to the women of South Africa?

And if they have a puncture, who is to mend it?

Is it necessary to spend those tens of thousands of pounds to make a woman do a man’s work? There are a few thousand soldiers here who can handle motor cars—why cannot they do that kind of work, why must our daughters be used to serve officers in that way? There is a much nobler work, a much nobler calling for the daughters of South Africa. They can serve the State in a different way—in a way which will ennoble them. They can serve as nurses; it becomes women to render that service of love to the wounds of men. It is noble work, and we must not lose sight of the fact that every nation regards women as the country’s sacred possession which has to be protected.

But he must not call her names.

I am not calling her any names.

I do not say that you are doing it.

Every country needs the noble services of women—in time of peace as well as in time of war, and surely we do not want woman to serve as a soldier and to play at soldiering, and to do work which is unbecoming to her. The officers of the Cape Command, Col. George Brink, Col. P. de Waal and others who served here, never had chauffeurs. They drove their own motor cars. Who are those little officers who have no past records, who have to be attended to in this way by the daughters of South Africa? That is what we protest against, this needless waste of money. Now I want to say a few words about the employment of coloured men, and the coloured unit which has been established. Our coloured men do not know what military service is, and now the Government is actually militarising between 7,000 to 8,000 coloured men —it is arming and equipping them to go and fight. Do hon. members know how much that is costing the country? The coloured brigade is costing us at least £57,000 per month in pay. It cost the State an additional £57,000 per month to equip them and to supply them with all they need. It amounts to the huge sum of no less than a little over £1,000,000 per year to keep going this coloured brigade which has to go and fight for South Africa. If the country is in trouble and if we are seriously threatened, then we have to do anything and use all means at our disposal, but what danger have we to face to-day? The enemy is 6,000 miles away from our borders. Have we not got enough men? We have too many, because in days like the present it is not so much the men that count, but the equipment, and the type of armament one has. What need is there for us to spend more than £1,000,000 on this coloured unit? It is uncalled for, it is unnecessary. We have no objection whatsoever to use coloured men as drivers, as leaders of teams of horses, and as batmen in the way they used to be employed. They are accustomed to it. In that way they can be useful to us, but why make soldiers of them? We know, and hon. members know as well as we do, that it is in conflict with the feelings of Afrikanerdom to see a coloured man armed—especially if the coloured man is armed when the Afrikaner has been disarmed. Is it fair? Is it not flouting the feelings and the soul of the Afrikaner?

Are they not Afrikaners, too?

I want to refer to another point, and that is the question of our own requirements. While millions of money are spent on the war, nothing is being done for the needs of the country, and the country is in a precarious position. Our economic condition is giving rise to considerable concern. The country’s condition is getting out of hand. I am sorry, but I must ask the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) not to distract the Minister’s attention. I want to ask you, Mr. Speaker, to call him to order.

The hon. member for George is not out of order.

I am addressing the Minister of Finance, and the hon. member for George is distracting his attention.

The hon. member may proceed.

May I be allowed to say then, that it is discourteous on the part of an hon. member to make it difficult in that way for another hon. member and to interfere with his speech? I now want to deal with the question of water bores. The hon. Minister of Lands is not in the House. In answer to some questions of mine, he admitted that in the North-West, in Namaqualand, for instance, in a huge area there was only one water bore. The area is drought-stricken. Imagine, one drilling machine in a country where there is a drought and there is no money to help the farmers to bore for water. There is a water famine in that part of the country, and the rainfall is getting less and less, and there is no money to assist the farmers. The Land Bank is empty. That comparatively small amount of money placed at the disposal of the farmers to assist them by means of the Land Bank is so small that it is practically no use. We go further, and we expect help from the Farmers’ Relief Board. The Farmers’ Relief Board to-day exists only in name, and nothing else. I say that the condition of the platteland and of the farmer of the platteland is precarious, and there is no money to assist him. We agree that there is no money, but why is there no money? It is because all the money of the country is being wasted, as we have already heard, on the war. I wish to express a few final thoughts before I sit down. I want to admit that England is passing through very difficult times, and that she is doing her best to overcome those difficulties. We are prepared to admit that. England is engaged in a death struggle. We understand that London has been partly reduced to ashes, and I must say that the position certainly is very precarious. We admire England for the manner in which she is keeping up her courage, and for the fact that she is not giving way to the enemy. I imagine that even Germany admires England for the fact that she has not yet given in. Possibly Germany had expected her to have done so long ago, but England still stands and her soul still lives. Even if she is defeated and knocked down a hundred times during the night, when the day comes she puts out her head and says “Final victory.” It rouses my admiration, and Germany’s as well, I am sure. And hon. members know that when a nation is inspired with that spirit, it will not be easy to vanquish her, and that is why I still have a little hope for England; but what I want to get at is this: Afrikanerdom deserves the same credit from that side of the House. Afrikanerdom has refused for the past hundred years to give in, and has fought in the same way, and even though our goods and possessions were destroyed, the Afrikaner soul has remained alive. Do not hon. members admire the soul and the spirit of the Afrikaner who has refused to give in and submit to the overwhelming power of Great Britain? It is that great Afrikaner inspiration which has led to the Afrikaner taking up this attitude and saying—

And should we not respect the inspiration of the Afrikaner which continues to live? Should not hon. members over there give credit to this side of the House for that spirit? Just as little as England is prepared to give way to her enemy, so little will Afrikanerdom give way to the oppressor and the enemy who has so far had his foot on the neck of Afrikanerdom. Let us think of the motto of the Ossewa-Brandwag. Is it not a fact that the Afrikaner soul lives, and that nothing will ever vanquish the Afrikaner soul which has as its motto “My God, my people, my country, South Africa”? But while the soul of the Afrikaner continues to live in that way, instead of hon. members opposite paying a tribute to us they take it amiss, and they look down upon us, and they taunt and humiliate us. They go and they proclaim martial law, in order to humiliate and enslave the Afrikaner. I ask whether that is just and fair, and that is why I said at the beginning of my remarks that that side of the House, and our English-speaking friends, do not understand the psychology of Afrikanerdom. They do not understand the psychology of Afrikanerdom, they do not understand that the Afrikaner wants to be himself, and that he will be himself as a nation and will not give in, but that he will live even if the other side humiliate him with their martial law, and their punitive measures. They cannot destroy the soul of the Afrikaner, and no country in the world, whatever force it may use against the Afrikaner, will be able to destroy that soul. Whatever may happen, the soul and the spirit of the Afrikaner cannot be broken. It will live, and will not die. That immortal spirit of nationalism will, in the same way as Great Britain, hold on to the great idea of eventual victory. Nationalism will triumph, long live Afrikanerdom.

I am sorry the Minister of Agriculture is not here because he has put me in such a position that I have to settle two matters here this afternoon, and I shall be very sorry if he does not come in during the course of my brief remarks as I shall otherwise be obliged to mention those two points in his absence. As, however, I am fortunate in that the Minister of Finance is here I shall address myself to him. He told us here yesterday, and he did so before as well, that the country was in a very flourishing position. Fortunately we have become acquainted in the past with this cry of prosperity which has been raised, and we know to-day how dangerous that cry is. It will seem strange to him that I should come and plead with him, and as I am pleading with him I want to assure him that I am not doing so merely because large numbers of my constituents have approached me with a request to put certain matters to him, but I am approaching him also at the behest of the Relief Committee in my constituency. This is what I want to ask the Minister—that if he asks Parliament for money he should also provide a reasonable amount to assist the tenant farmers who in the past have never been helped. I want to assure the Minister of Finance that there are large numbers of young farmers who in the past few years have not had any assistance but who really require assistance in that direction. There are also people who in the past were employed on relief works and could have been employed there, who in consequence could not obtain any other assistance, and who to-day as a result of war conditions, and the prevailing state of affairs, have to fall back on farming. Those people need our help, and with these few words I want to make a serious appeal to the Minister to comply with my request. I further want to say a few words to the Minister about the stopping of work on small dams and soil erosion works, and I want to ask him to reconsider the Government’s decision in that respect. If ever good service was rendered to the country it was rendered by the institution of the subsidy system for the construction of water works in the dry parts of South Africa. I want to ask the Minister, and I want to ask him very urgently not to allow the Water Conservation Act which is in force to-day to be dominated by the war spirit which has taken possession of members on the Government benches. I want to make a final appeal to the Minister of Finance and that is in regard to a scheme for housing on the platteland. We have reached the stage when the bywoner housing scheme, as we called it, has come to an end. I feel that that scheme should not have been stopped. We should have improved it, but in consequence of the fact that that scheme caused a lot of trouble the Government thought it fit to put a stop to it; some time ago I urged that it should not be stopped but that it should rather be converted into something more comprehensive, something that could be carried out more successfully. If I may suggest something I should like to say to the Minister that he need only do for the platteland what he has done for the towns. That would solve all our difficulties. If he would lend us money at ¾% interest on a forty-year basis, we would be able to solve the housing problem on the platteland. I would ask the Minister to come to our assistance in that regard. I want to ask the Minister to give his serious attention to this uplift work, and to help it along as far as he can. Housing in the first instance means uplifting the people; the Minister knows this as well as I do, and seeing that he has so much money at his disposal to-day for other things, and seeing that the money is being squandered in a most extravagant manner and is being wasted all over the place, I want to ask him to undertake this very necessary work. Surely, whatever the conditions may be under which the money is being squandered, the Government has to face the essential services and has to keep them going. Although the urban population has reason to be grateful to the Government for looking after their interests during this session I, as a representative of the platteland, am entitled to ask the Minister to look after the interests of the platteland just as well as he is looking after the interests of the town. I specially want to ask for three things, (1) loans for tenant farmers, (2) the continuation of the subsidy system for dam and erosion works, and (3) the introduction of an effective system of housing on the platteland. I am not asking the Minister for any favours or for any gifts; I am only asking him to see that we are not treated any worse than the urban population are treated. Give us money at the same rate of interest and under the same conditions so that we may be able to solve the housing question on the platteland. I am sorry the Minister of Native Affairs is not here because I have a bone to pick with him. Two years ago I was sent by my constituents, together with the hon. member for Lichtenburg (Mr. A. P. Swart) as a deputation to see the Prime Minister in regard to the kaffir corn position, as we found that there had been a conflict in consequence of certain by-laws granting powers to municipalities and town councils to prevent the making and selling of kaffir beer in urban areas. Together with the hon. member for Lichtenburg I went to Pretoria and asked for an interview with the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister received us very courteously and said: “Go to the Secretary for Justice and tell him that I consider it is time that this matter, which has been pending for five years, should be settled, and give the Secretary for Justice the information which you have given me to-day, and tell him what suggestion you have made to me.” We thereupon went to the Secretary for Justice and there we arrived at the conclusion that the only way to get the matter solved was to have a proper discussion between all the people interested in the question of production, and those entrusted with the maintenance of law and order in urban areas, namely, the urban authorities. We felt that there should be a discussion between the producers of kaffir corn and the urban authorities. I was thereupon advised to go and see the Minister of Justice and ask him to call such a conference. I did so and the Minister of Justice said: “You should go and see the Minister of Native Affairs, he is the man to call such a conference.” The hon. member for Lichtenburg any myself did not want to make it a party question and we thereupon decided to call all producers of kaffir corn together and have a deputation of the producers of kaffir corn sent to the Government. All parties had to take part in it. We thereupon went to see the Minister of Native Affairs and he gave us his word of honour on that occasion that he would immediately take steps to call a conference so that we might consider ways and means of preventing the market being taken away from the producers of kaffir corn, and at the same time to enable the municipal councils to maintain law and order in urban areas. We have been waiting ever since. It must certainly be more than a year ago since that promise was made to us and we have been waiting all the time to see whether anything would be done, whether there was going to be the slightest move on their side to do anything in that direction. I now rise on behalf of the producers of kaffir corn in South Africa to say that the Minister of Native Affairs has not looked after the interests of the kaffir corn farmers by the way he has acted, and I ask him now if he can do so, to get up and to say “Look here, I have done this or that in accordance with the promise which I made to the kaffir corn farmers.” I know that I have made a serious complaint against the Minister of Native Affairs and I hope he will get up during this debate and reply to the categorical charge I have made against him. Now I want to come to the Minister of Agriculture and I am sorry to say that I do not think the Minister of Agriculture has acted quite as he should have done towards me and the hon. member for Lichtenburg. H e has not treated us as we have treated him. The question I first of all want to deal with is that when we got here on the 27th January we availed ourselves of the first possible opportunity to approach the Minister and to interview him in order to discuss certain interests of a large section of the mealie producers, namely the North-Western Co-operative Agricultural Society, and to remove a certain misunderstanding prevailing among the Minister and his department. The Minister then told us that he did not have his papers in connection with that matter in Cape Town but that he would send for them. We approached him from time to time and the Minister has had every possible chance to go thoroughly into this question. We purposely avoided saying a single word in this House on the matter because we thought it would be possible to settle the matter on a friendly basis, and we felt it would be discourteous on our part to raise the matter again before we had received a reply from the Minister. We were anxious to settle the question by means of a friendly discussion. In the meantime the people sat and waited for the Minister’s decision, and yesterday I again approached the Minister and I asked him whether it would not be possible to get the whole matter settled, seing that a month had passed since we had first approached him. The Minister thereupon told me that I should go and see the secretary and get the papers. This morning, however, I was informed that an answer had already been sent to the Co-operative Society on the 25th January, and that the application had been refused—an application in respect of which I, and the hon. member for Lichtenburg, wanted to have a discussion with the Minister. If ever there has been a thing which I have had to condemn it is the attitude adopted by the Minister. I do not think we deserved it. Now I want to go further and I want to say that the Minister’s reply to those people gives evidence of one of two things. If I had not got up here to criticise the attitude adopted by the Minister the 2,000 organised farmers would have considered that the hon. member for Lichtenburg and myself had failed in our duty towards them because they asked us to approach the Minister for a conference, in order to keep him informed of the position as it existed. His reply proves that he does not understand the position at all. And that is why those people will either have to find us guilty, or they will have to find the Minister guilty, and that is why I have got up, so that the Co-operative Society will know that I have not failed in my duty, that I have done my best to put the matter right in the best manner possible, but that the Minister allowed the matter to be passed over and showed a feeling of contempt by the way he ignored us. The Minister ignored us and sent a reply without consulting us and his attitude is not, one which redounds to his honour. I do not know whether there is any reed for me to go into this question any further, but I would like the Minister to get up and give us an explanation of his attitude. I defintely say that the Minister’s reply is due to the fact that he does not understand the request made to him by the farmers. He did not want to give us the opportunity of supplying him with the information which he required before coming to a decision. I think I have to say further that the loss suffered by the Co-operative Society has been suffered as a result of the guarantee of 9d which was given. In 1939 we approved of a plan for the stabilisation of the mealie market, and that 9d. was a guarantee above the advance made by the Land Bank for the stabilisation of the market, and for the purpose of securing payable prices for the mealie farmers. The Co-operative Society was employed for the purpose of stablising the mealie market and it was realised at the time that if a loss was incurred that guarantee of 9d. would be the cheapest way for the Government to raise the market price by 9d. But it went further than that. At the end of 1939 war broke out. The outbreak of war caused a position of uncertainty to arise and this made it impossible for the Co-operative Society to realise the 9d. But the Minister comes along and demands his pound of flesh. He says: “You have to pay every penny.” Now the Co-operative Society comes and says: “Give us three years in which to pay. We turned ourselves from an unlimited liability company into a limited liability company. We have to meet all our old financial obligations and we have to establish a new society on a new basis, and we are now in a period of transition. Give us three years in which to pay back the £9,000.” But now the Minister comes and says: “But you can get a building loan from the Land Bank, and if you do that it will cover your debt.” Does not the Minister realise what that means to a Co-operative Society? He does not realise it and that is why he gives us that advice. I know that the Minister will get up and say: “I refuse to give them any time because the Lichtenburg Co-operative Society can get money from the Land Bank on an eleven years’ building loan.” The Minister will get up and make that statment and I want to answer him in anticipation. We have already met our commitments in regard to the building of our stores and sheds out of the ordinary 5 per cent. commission to which the society is entitled, but all we need is three years in which to pay off the £9,000 in instalments. If we are not given time to pay we shall have to take up a bond and that will mean that the society will have to pass a bond over all its property. I have a list here of the society’s stores and properties which it will have to mortgage. It will put a burden of at least £100 on the society, and it will have to call meetings throughout the area it serves in order to get the right and the authority from its members to enter into such a loan. Now is it necessary to cause the Co-operative Society all that inconvenience; one could almost call it that irritating inconvenience, seeing that the society has been the means of stabilising the market, and bearing in mind the fact that in spite of everything the society is in a perfectly sound position. All it asks for is a reasonable period, a reasonable amount of time, for the repayment of the loss it has incurred as the result of the fact that it has been used for the purpose of stabilising the market. I hope the Minister will realise that he does not understand the position. I hope he will understand that what the Co-operative Society has asked him can easily be given effect to, and that it is quite possible even now to give effect to their request. Now I want to come to another point. This self-same society which is now being asked to find £9,000 to pay back is now, as a result of the precarious position of the mealie market, again being compelled by the Government to put the balance of the cron which is still on hand on to the market below market price. Hon. members will say that that seems to be impossible, but it is so. The Minister with the powers he has at his disposal has forced the Co-operative Society again to show a loss on the final portion of the 1940 crop, because the Government has threatened them that if they do not sell the mealies at a certain price it will cause the mealies which it still has on hand to be put on the market by means of the Mealie Control Board, and that will bring down the market to the level where the Minister wants it to be. By doing that the Minister is bringing about a position under which the self-same co-operative societies which are pleading with him for time in connection with the repayment of the £9,000 loss which they suffered when they were used for the stabilisation of the mealie market, will suffer a further loss. He compélled them to sell their mealies at a price lower than the price they can get in the open market. I know that the Minister will say that the position is as it is because of an agreement we made with the Mealie Control Board that mealies would not go down below a certain price. The understanding was that if mealies went below a ce rtain price the Mealie Control Board would come into the market, but, on the other hand, if mealies went above a certain price they would see to it that the price was stabilised at not more than the maximum price. But in all the circumstances, and in view of the very bad position in which the mealie farmers find themselves, I want to know how the Minister can have the heart to say to the mealie farmers: “You had a loss last year and you will probably have another loss this year, but you are not to sell for 3d. more.” To whom would the mealies be sold? To speculators who will make large profits as a result of contracts they entered into as long as nine months ago to supply mealies to bodies and institutions using mealies on a large scale, such as the mines, for instance. That is the attitude adopted by the Minister of Agriculture, and he expects the mealie farmers to be satisfied. In addition to that we have the fact that the minimum price level has not been maintained right through, because large numbers of farmers have been compelled, on account of the accumulation in the grain elevators, to sell their mealies at 1s. per bag and even less below the minimum price level; but when there was a chance of getting 6d. above the price level they were compelled to put the mealies on the market at a low price. The mealie industry is in a precarious position, and we, as the representatives of the mealie farmers, are anxious to bring about the greatest possible degree of co-operation with the Minister if he will only make it possible for us to do so, but after the treatment I have had from the Minister of Africulture in the two cases I have mentioned I shall have to fight him tooth and nail. I am not going to allow the interests of the mealie farmers to be ignored and neglected in the way the Minister of Agriculture has done in this particular instance. We are expecting a large crop, and I hope the Minister of Agriculture will keep his eyes open to the position and will make the necessary arrangements in time so as to assure the mealie farmers of a market for their products in the coming season.

I think it has become clear during this debate that the Government, so far as principles are concerned, is still pursuing the same course, which means that we members of the Hertzog group will undoubtedly also continue to maintain our principles so far as we can do so, and shall also proclaim our principles to the country. It is therefore self-evident that on this third reading of the Bill we are going to adopt the same attitude in regard to the war as we adopted at the very start. The object of the Afrikaner Party is simply this, to bring together and keep together all people who are in actual fact Afrikaners and who feel like Afrikaners, body and soul, no matter whether they are Afrikaans- or English-speaking. I want to stress that point simply because it has always been our strong point, and it will always remain the foundation on which our party will stand. Our former party comrades who are opposed to us today are trying to make the people believe that we are the people who want to destroy Afrikanerdom, while they are the people who want to bring Afrikanerdom together and keep Afrikanerdom together. Nothing is more untrue than that. On the notice board in the lobbies a news item appeared to-day which I want to make the subject of my remarks. That news item contains a quotation from a speech by the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. Bekker) which was made to-day or yesterday in connection with the by-election at Fauresmith, the seat of the former Minister of Finance (Mr. Havenga). That news item appearing on the notice board reads—

It is not my duty, nor do I feel called upon, to go into the question as to how far the statement of the hon. member for Cradock, made on a public platform, is correct, where he says that Gen. Smuts is the only enemy of Afrikanerdom. I leave it to hon. members opposite, if they feel inclined to do so, to express their opinion, but what I want to say is this, that that speech at Edenburg was apparently made with no other object than to make the electors believe that the Afrikaner Party has divided the people, and that the re-United Party is the party which is bringing the people together, so that the electors will vote for them. A greater untruth and a greater injustice has to my mind never been proclaimed from a public platform. It is a historical untruth. Where does the division among Afrikanerdom come from? All we have to do is to direct attention to what happened in 1933. The history of those days is still clear in our memories. We who passed through that struggle know the disappointment which followed the effort that was made to bring Afrikanerdom together, and the failure of that effort was due to the attitude adopted by hon. members of the re-United Party. I was in a position in those days carefully to observe what was going on, and let me say that our leader, Gen. Hertzog, our then Prime Minister, did everything in his power to get the people together again, and to keep them together, and let me say further that he even humiliated himself before the leaders of the present re-United Party, but what was the result? Even in those days he was insulted, his person was insulted. In 1933 Gen. Hertzog was called a traitor publicly at congresses which were held, and from public platforms. No hon. member can deny it. I personally made a proposal at Somerset West at that time. I said: “If it is so, if it is true that Gen. Hertzog is a traitor, as you allege, then I am not going to follow him any longer, because I shall never follow a traitor.” I thereupon moved at that congress that a commission should be appointed to enquire into the question whether Gen. Hertzog was a traitor. That was in 1933. I said that I would abide by the decision of that commission, and that if the commission proved that he was a traitor I would immediately resign as one of his followers. And what happened? That sensible proposition which could only lead to honesty was rejected, I believe, by 500 votes to 19. What was the result? When Parliament met Gen. Hertzog said: “Very well, you people can appoint a commission yourselves, you can select the commission yourselves, and I shall abide by its findings.” They did not have the power to do so. They knew that if such a commission of enquiry were appointed it would be proved that Gen. Hertzog was right. What was at the back, what was the background of the attitude of hon. members over there in those days? It was this: “Divide the people,” because our group will then be boss.” That was their only object. Naturally, the consequences were detrimental, because I can say this, that as a result of their breaking away from us in those days, their breaking away from the then united Afrikanerdom, two things happened which were detrimental to our people. The result was that on the 4th September, 1939, a resolution was passed in favour of a declaration of war which would never have been passed had it not been for hon. members over there. Had they not been disloyal to the people, it would never have happened. Yet they are the people who now want to warn the public against the Afrikaner Party, alleging that the Afrikaner Party are dividing the people. Let us study history a little further. They agitated, the Malan Party did, and I must say they did so most enthusiastically. For six and a half years they have been inciting the people, and have been creating an outlook which can only be described as detrimental to the people. Then we had the events of the 4th September, 1939, and after that we thought we had come together again, and that we would remain together. We tried. I say that we who are sitting here did so with the greatest honesty, and with no object other than to get the Afrikaner people together again. What has been the result? At Monument Koppie a great meeting was held, solemn declarations were made, oaths were taken, but in the background of that same meeting Gen. Hertzog was again referred to, was again pointed to, as an undesirable person, and it was said there “We shall still get him.” Oaths of loyalty were sworn there, but if they could get a chance they were going to stab him in the back. That was the position, and no other. And what was our position after that? We Hertzogites in the so-called reunited Party were looked upon as nothing but hewers of wood and drawers of water. Those are not my words, they are words which I am quoting, as used by prominent people in that party, who said: “We need you just now, and we are going to use you as long as we need you.” Their intentions were not honest in regard to reunion, and what happened subsequently was one of the greatest scandals ever perpetrated in the political history of South Africa, namely, the way in which Gen. Hertzog was worked out of the party, the way in which he was driven out, to use their own words. Did that go to prove that they aimed at bringing Afrikanerdom together? I know that this sort of thing is being done on public platforms with the object of catching votes. This contemptible way of trying to catch votes by means of false representations and distortions. It is a contradiction in terminis—one of the contradictions which one comes across. I and others have to be turned out. Other sections have to be turned out. The Jews have to get out, the Freemasons also have to get out—

And you are sitting with your arms round the necks of the Jews.

If I have my arm around the neck of a Jew, then in any case I want to say this, that I am not going to be so foolish as to kick the Jew because the Jewish vote is worth just as much as my own. Hon. members over there want to rule in their own way, and they want to make use of anyone who, as the Englishman says, is fool enough to allow himself to be used by them. Let me tell them this, in regard to the report which I referred to earlier on, if ever there has been a party which has not only divided Afrikanerdom, but which has created a deeper schism among Afrikanerdom, and which in addition is itself divided, it is the so-called re-United Party, and if ever there has been a party which is inspired with a spirit of Afrikaner unity, it is the Afrikaner Party. Behold the various streams in the re-United Party! I have on previous occasions spoken of the Jingoistic, Chauvenistic clique in that party which takes up the attitude that anything and anyone not belonging to that clique should be cast aside and rejected. Then we get the people of the new order. Now let me say this in regard to the new order, that I do not understand too much about it, because this booklet of theirs does not tell us much. I want to say this, however: it appears to me that the people of the new order in that party are the happiest of all, because if the new order means anything at all, it means that they want to have a totalitarian State. That, as a matter of fact, is stated expressly in the Red Bible of the new order. It means a dictatorship, because a totalitarian State without a dictatorship is an impossibility. It means that they want one man at the head of the Government. He will have a few assistants, and they will rule by means of regulations. Laws will not be made, but decrees will be issued. Well, in that respect we already have a new order to-day. We have somebody at the head of the State to-day possessing dictatorial powers. We have a Government which rules not by means of laws, passed by this House, but by means of regulations and decrees which are issued. The only trouble so far as my hon. friends opposite are concerned is that they have not appointed the dictator and they have not got the power in their hands. It is the old ambition again to form the Government, so that they may be able to settle with the “only enemy.” May I be allowed to say this to hon. members? I am wholly convinced that neither along the course followed by this Government, and even less along the course aimed at by the Opposition, shall we find the welfare and the salvation of the people of South Africa, and least of all shall we be able to find the unity of the South African people along that course, for the simple reason that with their system and their principles national unity is an impossibility in South Africa. Unity can never exist under the principles they stand for. The real unity of Afrikanerdom can only be achieved and carried out by people and by a party which stands for a policy such as we have laid down in this House, and such as was laid down and adhered to for many years by that leader whom the members of the so-called re-United Party has rejected and treated with contumely and contempt. I protest against expressions and views which we have had to listen to here, and I only want to say this in conclusion, that I hope I may live long enough— because my whole life has been devoted to it, and will continue to be devoted to it—to see real national unity in South Africa. But, in order to achieve that, we must refrain from expressions of bitterness which lead to division in our national life. We must aim at becoming one, and we must not be inspired by the desire of everyone wishing to express his own opinion, or wishing to promote his own private purposes, or the purposes of his own small clique.

I was much astonished at one of the front benchers of the Afrikaner party making such a speech here. Those hon. members must take care of themselves, if he is to be the leader, because then they will yet split as far apart as it is possible for people to fly apart. I want to prophesy that the Afrikaners amongst them will come and sit here with us, and he will be left over there sitting with the Government party. The day when the party on the other side was torn asunder, and when those hon. members came over to this side, that hon. member said that his heart was broken, and he parted in tears from his brothers on the other side. We can read his speech in Hansard, and it is to be found there. It looks as if he is still shedding tears now, because he no longer sits with them. He may go and sit over there with them in order to fight against us with those brothers of his, but the other hon. members of his party will not accompany him. I do not want to fight against them, but I say to the hon. member for Pretoria (District) (Mr. Oost), the sooner he goes and sits over there the better. I do not want to waste any more of my time on him. The other day the Prime Minister said something here which I do not like. He said that he also was now a pet khaki. It is an ugly expression to use against anyone, and I do not want that expression applied to one of the leaders in South Africa. I do not want it to be done. I do not know whether the Prime Minister has enquired as yet what it does mean. The people on the other side say that they are pet khakis. Well, I have pet sheep on my farm. They are always fat, and have plenty of food. They are animals who do not know who their mothers are, nor who their fathers are. They lie about the house and they are as fat as butter, and the biggest revolution in the world does not affect them. They do not worry themselves about it, and lie and sleep in absolute calm. The hon. members opposite have heard all the speeches from this side of the House about the things which go on in this war, and the money which is being wasted, but they remain as quiet as death, just like my pet sheep, and take no notice of it. It has been so dry in our district that the other sheep in the veld have almost died„ but the pet sheep lie as fat as butter, resting at home. It looks as if hon. members on the opposite side are lying about and resting just like the pet sheep, while millions of pounds are being spent, and they are also being fattened up out of those millions, just like our pet sheep. I do not want to hear names of that kind applied to them. I am not going to detain the House long, and I am not going to say things that other hon. members have already said.

Hear, hear.

Yes, that hon. member said that I was of Jewish descent. If I am of Jewish descent then my ancestors must have been part of the 5,000 who were converted by St. Paul. I just want to say this. I got up to speak about the dried fruit farmers. I have a group of small farmers in my constituency—the Minister of Agriculture knows about them—who are making dried fruit and raisins in places like Barrydale and Vanwyksdorp, and they are in a parlous position with their raisins and the dried fruit that they are making, and which is practically their only means of existence. I receive one letter after the other that they get 2¼d. for good raisins. They can go and sell these raisins just on the other side of the mountain for 3d. a lb., but they may not do so now because the Government has fixed the price of good raisins at 2¼d. That is not right. When I see how much money is being spent on the war, then I say it is not right. I do not want to go into the war again, but when we look at those poor farmers, and on the other hand we look at the war expenditure, then we feel that it is not right. The Minister of Agriculture tells us at agricultural shows that we must work economically, and he also admitted that things were not going so well with the farmers. The Minister of Finance, however, told us in this House that the farmers were flourishing. It is a very long time since he went amongst the farmers on the countryside. He only sits in his war office. He knows a great deal about the war, but he knows very little about the farmers. I gave him this advice before, but he has not yet followed it, and I want to advise him again now to get into his motor car and travel about the country, and go and see the conditions which the people are living in. When he speaks here about farmers that are flourishing, what farmers does he refer to? Does he only refer to people who shear large numbers of bales of wool and reap thousands of bags of wheat? But what about the 80% of the farmers who have no sheep, who have no mealies, and who do not have any whether either? What about them? Are they not farmers as well, vegetable farmers, poultry farmers and the rest of it? They are all farmers and I want to tell the Minister that things are going badly with those people. They are in a deplorable position. Everything that they have to buy for their farming and for their table has gone up in price. It is no use saying that things have not become dearer. They are at least 20% dearer. When a farmer buys a plough or a plough share or anything, then they are at least 20% dearer. And then you have the Government coming and it takes away from us the things that we used to have. Take the erosion works. Take the small dams at Riversdale and other places. The people have been deprived of their work. Fortunately 50 out of the last 75 have again been taken on after I had struggled a long time. That was done at Riversdale, but it has not yet been done at Vanwyksdorp or at Barrydale. These are old and decrepit people who have been selected for that work, and it is those people who are now walking about without work. They do not want to live without money. I want the Minister to have ears and eyes to realise what is going on there, and that he should do something to find a living for those people. It is not right that those people should have to suffer in that way in our country, while millions are being spent on the war. I do not want to go into the war again now. We can do so again later. I only want to say that millions of pounds are being wasted on the war, and the Minister knows it. There are things like a coloured persons’ corps, and all kinds of corps which are being created, and wherever you look you see people walking about with red tabs. When I sit and look at the khaki uniforms they have on, then I think of the fact that there are only two Jewish factories in the Union which manufacture those khaki uniforms. There is not one Englishman left who has a factory of that kind. The Afrikaners have never had them. Both factories belong to the Jews. They have got them in their hands, and they are making money. We can understand why the Jews shout that the war must be carried on. They are making money out of the war, and the Government is buying all those things from them. The blankets are all made in Jewish factories. They are making money. All those people who are making money out of the war, of course, shout in favour of the war. They do not worry themselves about loyalty to England, they are loyal to their own pockets, and it is their pockets that speak. I do not want to detain the House. A great deal has already been said by my hon. friends on this side, and I would like to advise the Minister to keep his ears open, and not to do what the pet sheep does, lie perfectly still and become as fat as a pig.

I do not want to discuss the matter raised by the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. Labuschagne) on its merits, but I want to reply at once to his complaint that I have acted in an unfriendly manner, or that I have acted in bad faith. The facts of the matter are as follows: the Co-operative Societies wrote to me on the 29th January and sent me a letter in which they put forward the suggestions which the hon. member mentioned here to-day. That letter was received on the 3rd February. A reply acknowledging receipt of the letter was despatched on the same day. On or about that same day the hon. member for Lichtenburg (Mr. A. P. Swart) asked whether he could come and see me about the matter. I told him that I had not yet seen the letter but that as soon as I had seen the letter we would be able to discuss it. The hon. member will understand that I do not personally open all the letters, and in the meantime the Secretary for Agriculture wrote to the Land Bank on the 7th February and asked the Land Bank what the position was so that I might be put in a position of knowing what to reply to the Co-operative Society. The Land Bank replied on the 13th February and wrote me a letter which arrived here on the 17th February. That is ten days ago. In that letter the Land Bank enclosed a letter which they had sent to the Co-operative Society on the 4th February, in which they already notified the Co-operative Society what they were prepared to do. My department wrote a letter the day before yesterday, that is on the 25th February, to the Co-operative Society, more or less in terms of what the Land Bank had said; that was the day before yesterday. Now I want to admit at once that there was a misunderstanding and that the hon. member was entitled to have seen me before I took the decision.

That was our agreement.

I enquired from the Secretary for Agriculture whether there was such a letter, and he told me that the letter had been sent to the Land Bank, and I notified the hon. member for Lichtenburg of this fact. I told him that as soon as a reply was received from the Land Bank we would be able to discuss matters. The letter received from the Land Bank did not come to my personal notice, and the Secretary for Agriculture sent that letter to the Co-operative Society as I have already said. I do not know whether the Secretary for Agriculture realised that I had made the promise that I would see the hon. member on the subject before the letter was sent. I believe the hon. member will believe me when I say that I acted not knowing what the exact position was. This is the first time the file has come into my possession, and this is the first time I have seen the letters from his Co-operative Society, the letter to the Land Bank, and the letter from the Land Bank, as well as the letter sent to the Co-operative Society the day before yesterday.

Will you review the matter.

I am prepared to discuss the matter with these hon. members. I am naturally prepared to do so as soon as I can find the time. I have also been extremely busy the last few days in this House, and the hon. member will realise that there has been a misunderstanding which I regret, but there is no question of bad faith or of ignoring anyone.

During last week or weeks the statement has been made by various Ministers, as well as by various hon. members opposite, that the position of the farmer is so excellent, and only yesterday the hon. member for Caledon (Mr. H. C. de Wet), who unfortunately is now not in his place, himself went to extremes about the prosperity of the wool farmer. I do not want to go into the position of the wool farmers. There are other people here who can do that, and possibly do it better than I can. I therefore leave the matter there. But it is striking that the man who, in my opinion, represents a constituency where more wheat is produced proportionally than wool, has not touched upon the wheat position. I cannot deal with the wheat position either, because there is a motion on the Order Paper which will probably come up for discussion next week. But I want to say this, in connection with the wheat farmers, that I was present along with the hon. member for Caledon at a conference of wheat farmers, and there the hon. member put up a plea about the position of the wheat farmers, and he represented the parlous condition of the wheat farmers in such a way no one else put it at that conference. He pictured the position of the wheat farmers more pessimistically than anyone else at that conference pictured it. Yesterday afternoon he said nothing about wheat growing, but when the same conference asked him to go to Pretoria to consult the Minister he could not go; and when the second deputation went, he could not go either. But there is also another product which is very prominently dealt with and produced in his constituency, and that is export fruit. He did not speak about that either. He did not tell the people in the country how tremendously rosy the position of export fruit was! He kept silent about that, possibly because the majority of the people who grow export fruit in his constituency are mainly people who want to see the war through, and accordingly the hon. member could not state the position so openly as other people could. Will he then allow me to speak just briefly in regard to the position of the fruit farmers. In order to do that I must tell you what the average price of export fruit was. I am confining myself, in the main, to export grapes, but what is true of export grapes is also true of other export fruit, with the exception of apples, which are in a somewhat more profitable position. In connection with export grapes I must inform the House that the average price of export grapes for the past year was 8/3 a box. The cost in connection with them was as follows: Freight 2/6; boxes including woodwool 8d.; commission on the sale overseas 7d.; cost of transport from the farm to the ship including cooling, inspection, etc., 6d. Those are all per box. The handling costs overseas were 4d., the thinning-out and packing on the farm 4d., which brings the total up to 5/- a box. Then there is a balance of 39d., which the farmer made during the past year. Let us for the sake of convenience put it this way, that as every box contains 10 lbs. of grapes, the farmer got about 4d. a lb. clear for his export grapes. When I say clear, then it means that the farm work which had to be done from the beginning during the winter, and the fertilising are not included. Now let us compare that with the position this year. With the assistance of the Fruit Board, and we can justly say that the money which they pay out to the farmers comes from the Government, it was decided to pay out to the export grape farmers 2d. per lb. on the first 7,500 boxes, 1½d. per lb. on the next 7,500 boxes, and 1d. per lb. for any quantity thereafter. Let us compare that with the price of the previous year. For 7,500 boxes the man would have received £1,250 last year at 4d. nett. This year he receives 2d., that is £625. We can therefore say that the grape exporting farmer will this year, at the best, whether he sells 7,500 boxes or less, receive 50 per cent. of what he received last year. If he sells 15,000 boxes, then he will receive 44.5 per cent. of what he recived last year, and if he export larger quantities, for instance 22,500 boxes, then he will receive 37.7 per cent. of what he received last year. Here then we now have a true comparison between the position of the export grape farmer last year and this year. If he is a small farmer then he gets 50 per cent. of what he got the previous year; if he is an average farmer then he gets 44.5 per cent. of what he got the previous year, and if he is a big farmer then he gets 37.7 per cent. of what he got last year. What becomes of these grapes which are received by the Fruit Board? They take the grapes at 2d. a lb. and turn them into wine. We are very glad to say that during the last week or two the Fruit Board has been engaged in trying to sell the export grapes on certain markets in our country. But the grapes which have been pressed and are still being pressed, which will probably mount up to 2,600,000 boxes, will go to the K.W.V. If we take that number of boxes, then we find that the Fruit Board, or the Government, will pay the farmers out on the basis of 2d. a lb., 1½d. a lb. and 1d. a lb. for the different groups, an amount of approximately £185,000. If the Fruit Board or the Government had actually given that £185,000 to the farmers and had made away in some way or other with the grapes, as the K.W.V. do by sending them to places where few grapes are eaten, then it would have been better. Instead of that they are turned into wine, and they are loaded on the shoulders of an overladen K.W.V., and the amount which they are expected to realise is about £51,000. The amount which the Fruit Board will pay over to the export grape farmers is therefore £134,000. It looks as if the export grape farmers are receiving special treatment. But compare this for a moment with what is being spent on this war, £134,000 for the export grape framers against £60,000,000 for the war. In other words, for every £450 on the war, £1 is given to the export grape farmers. But what is the position of the overladen K.W.V.? The K.W.V. already had to deal with a surplus of 52½ per cent. They are now sending grapes to different parts of the country to try and save the K.W.V. and the wine industry. They contribute a certain amount to the making of raisins, with the same object of trying to save the K.W.V. and the wine industry. That being so, you will agree with me that it was unwise of the Government to try to save this £51,000, and in that way if not to break the neck of the K.W.V., at any rate to rick it in such a way that it will suffer from the consequences for a long time. And what is the general position now? I have dealt with the position of the farmers so far as the export grapes are concerned, but what is the general position? I am now dealing with my own constituency. There has been some boasting here, amongst others by the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) and the Minister of Finance as well, that mortgage bonds are being paid off. I can testify with a clear conscience that in the Paarl division, which is generally regarded as a reasonably flourishing division, there is no such thing as paying off of bonds. I have tried to give a sketch here of the state of affairs which is prevailing there. The wine farmers are still worse off, or in any case just as badly off. They get poorer prices than in the past, and if they were unable to make reductions in the past, how can they do so now? I have taken the trouble to go and consult the secretary of one of the financial institutions there, and I said to him: “The Minister and others say that the people are paying off their bonds.” His reply was: “Tell the Minister that instead of paying off bonds, the position in the Paarl is such that we shall have to go to work very carefully indeed, or otherwise some farmers will be compelled to go through the insolvency court.” But I want to mention another authority here, the previous Minister of Finance. We know that he did not say so just because he is no longer a Minister, we also know that as long ago as 1939 he laid a White Paper on the Table in which he referred to the parlous condition of the farmers. But let us listen to what he said at the opening of the Malmesbury Show—

I also want to quote somebody else, namely, Dr. J. S. Marais, head of the Stellenbosch-Eisenberg Agricultural School. He opened various shows. I heard one of his speeches, and, according to the newspaper reports, the speech was more or less on the same lines as those made at other shows, and it was that he considered the position of the farmers as being a very dark one. He was concerned about the conditions, and he could not sufficiently strongly advise the farmers to go to work carefully, to be very economical, because otherwise, especially after the war, they would not make ends meet. Things are going badly now. What is the position going to be after the war? The Minister of Finance said the other day: “We do not know what the position will be after the war.” If the Minister meant that he did not know how bad it was going to be after the war, then I can understand it, but if the Minister possibly meant that he did not know whether it was going to be bad or good after the war, then I cannot understand him. History has shown us that without exception one has a depression after a war, whether you want it or not, whether you want to admit it or not. You are going to have one. But let us once more quote ex-Minister Havenga, speaking at Malmesbury—

A man with the experience of ex-Minister Havenga holds out that prospect at a meeting where there were wheat farmers and fruit farmers present, and I think that the whole country should at least take notice of it. Even the present Minister of Finance, who we admit is a clever man, certainly does not have the experience of his predecessor, and even he should pay attention to that statement. But I want to quote someone else as well. In a radio talk, Dr. Viljoen, the Secretary for Agriculture, spoke on the subject, “Eat more fruit,” and he said—

That is the Secretary for Agriculture speaking, and he points out that in his opinion the market, after the war, will in any case be much weaker than it has been up to the present, and he says that we must prepare for that state of affairs. We are in the position to-day that we, and every right-thinking person, realise what the position is going to be after the war, and I say that the Government to-day is in a position to tackle this problem seriously, and to save the farming position, and not merely to do patchwork. Farming is the backbone of the country. If the Government does not do that, then it must be compared to a man who waits until it rains before he repairs a hole in the embankment of his dam. In such case the embankment will not only retain that broken place, but it will wash away entirely, and then what constitutes the backbone of the country to-day will have to disappear. And why does that happen, why does that danger exist? Because we are using all our powers to help to maintain the backbone of a country 6,000 miles from here, and because we, while we are doing that, are strengthening the backbone of members of Parliament and of the Provincial Councils who are now drawing doube salaries. I do not believe that a Government which does not tackle this position seriously deserves the respect and love and devotion of the people in the country.

I should like to associate myself with what the hon. member for Pretoria District (Mr. Oost) said earlier on in this debate. The hon. member referred to a news item which arrived this afternoon according to which the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. Bekker) gave certain advice to the electors of Fauresmith. The advice which the hon. member gave those electors was that General Hertzog’s followers should not be so foolish as to play into the hands of the only Afrikaner enemy (General Smuts) by dividing the people at this stage. The hon. member for Cradock surely had no right to speak to the followers of General Hertzog in that way. If I am not mistaken he is the man who immediately after General Hertzog had been driven out of the Bloemfontein Congress, wrote a letter in a hurry to “Die Burger” repudiating his former leader. It is not a question to-day of dividing the people. They have been divided, they have been divided by the actions of hon. members over there who saw to it that General Hertzog had to get out of politics. It is not a question to-day of playing into the hands of General Smuts; those people in acting against General Hertzog and Mr. Havenga did not think that by driving General Hertzog and Mr. Havenga out of politics they were also driving then followers out of the party, not because those people were only concerned with their persons but because they followed the same policy as those two men, and they had the same feelings as those two men. I am surprised that the United Party dare go to those two constituencies to-day where those by-elections are taking place and dare ask for the votes of the followers of General Hertzog.

It is better than to ask for the votes of the Smuts followers as you are doing.

The hon. member for Harrismith (Mr. E. R. Strauss) is prone to talk of Afrikaner unity. Does he not want the votes of the Afrikaners who to-day stand by General Smuts? Let him be honest and say that he does not want their votes. The hon. member should stop and think a little before making interjections. Let me get back to the point to why General Hertzog has left the re-United Party, and why there is no room in the re-United Party for his followers to-day. Let us consider the evidence which we have. We have the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom), the leader of the re-United Party in the Transvaal. As I said during a previous debate he is the strongest man in that party, and he is the man who to-day controls the spirit of the party. He is an honest man because he has always stood by the policy he has pursued. The hon. member for Waterberg has never stood with one arm round General Hertzog’s neck and a knife in the other hand with which to stab him in the back. That is why I respect him to-day. He realised long ago that between him and General Hertzog there was a serious difference of principle. Shortly after the creation of the Afrikaner Union I accused the hon. member for Waterberg of being responsible for General Hertzog’s departure from politics and for his resignation from Parliament, because he refused to allow the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) to move a vote of confidence in General Hertzog at the Transvaal Congress. He said that he would fight it tooth and nail. The hon. member for Waterberg reacted on that in his own paper, if I am allowed to refer to it, when he said that he expected General Hertzog to hand in his resignation as a member of Parliament and as a member of the party as a whole because of what happened at the Transvaal Congress. He added that General Hertzog would never be able to associate himself with a party which adopted a principle such as that laid down in clause 1 (3) of the programme of principles. And he went on to say this:

Where does this allegation of his being kicked out come from then?

It is there. General Hertzog was kicked out as the hon. member calls it, and if I am not mistaken the hon. member for Harrismith so far as the Free State is concerned was part of the boot which kicked General Hertzog out, also on a fairly large difference of principle. Since General Hertzog as an honourable man has resigned because of a difference of principle, I want to know how the re-United Party can go to the Free State and ask General Hertzog’s followers to vote for their party?

They are Afrikaners, and we want them with us.

I do not know whom the hon. member for Riversdale (Mr. Badenhorst) has in mind when he speaks of Afrikaners.

Those people who do not stand with one foot in England and with the other foot in South Africa.

Now we know. I hope the hon. member for Riversdale will admit that we on this side are also Afrikaners, and that the Afrikaans-speaking people who sit on the side of General Smuts are also Afrikaners.

They stand with one foot in England.

We are being accused of only fighting on behalf of the English-speaking. They can look after themselves, but what should be realised is that when we speak of rights in this country we mean rights for all sections who swear loyalty to South Africa. We know that that is the only sound policy. We know that if one tries to oppress another man’s language one makes that language strong. That is the history of this country. Let me tell hon. members of the re-United Party that if they tinker or tamper with the language rights of the English-speaking people they are going to make the English language strong in this country and English will flourish here. There is only one policy and that is the policy of equality, the policy for which this party stands. General Hertzog’s name is being used as a bargaining factor (gesmous). That is the difference. I understand that certain members have stuck to the re-United Party because it was said that it was Gen. Hertzog’s wish that they should stick to the party. I want to say here that that is untrue and it was again confirmed by Gen. Hertzog yesterday that that is not so. What he said was this, that every man has to decide for himself whether he wants to stay with the party or not; he said it was a matter for each man’s conscience. I hope we will now see the end of that smouching. Now I want to deal with a very serious point, a point which to my mind everyone in this country should give serious attention to. When we voted as we did on the 4th September we had one thing in mind, a thing which is of the greatest importance to all of us, and that is the preservation of our sovereign independence. Everything built up by Gen. Hertzog of the old Nationalist Party aimed at achieving our sovereign independence. We wanted to preserve that and when, on the 4th September, we voted in favour of neutrality, we did so because we felt that it was the wisest and best thing in order to preserve our sovereign independence. We felt that we had to keep out of the war. We in this party still hold the same view, and we do so for the same reasons. But I want to put this serious question to the re-United Party: are they not doing the very thing which they have always accused Gen. Smuts of? Are they not, because they think such a lot of Germany’s chances of winning the war, and because of the German propaganda which has taken such a firm hold, inclined to think that the only future for this country is to crawl in under Germany’s protection?

We want a Republic.

An hon. member says they want a Republic. How are we going to get it? What is the story which is being told? That if Germany wins we will get a Republic. What kind of a Republic are we going to get? A republic under Germany’s protection? Is that what they want? Where then is our sovereign independence. Talk of principles—one cannot fight the re-United Party on the question of principle because in the re-United Party one finds every possible principle one can think of to-day. One finds the so-called democrats there; one finds the Fascists there, and the Lord knows what not.

The new order.

Someone says the new order. What is their policy? Some of them say that they are National Socialists. Are they the National Socialist Party? But there is another section which says that they are democrats, and another section again which contends that they are still following the course of South Africa. That party is not going to ask itself whether it is going to carry on following Germany in the same way as some hon. members have accused Gen. Smuts of holding on to England. I say that we must stop this; we must stop this idea of being pro-German and of thinking that we are going to get everything from Germany.

Does not Gen. Smuts stick to England and hang on to England?

I have always said that about him, but I say that the re-United Party is doing exactly the same thing. I want to be under Germany no more than I want to be under England, but the party over there is quite willing, if Germany comes here, to surrender. They will not fight against it. What then will become of our freedom, of our sovereign independence? Let me say that if the Germans come here I shall fight, whatever it may cost; whether it is life or death, I shall fight to the bitter end, just as my father had to fight to the bitter end in the Boer War. That is what I am going to stand by, because I stand here on a pure South African foundation. I am not looking for salvation with Hitler. I know that I cannot find my salvation with Hitler. I say to this Party: “Beware of the tendency there is among your members, get away from it, restore the position, come back to the policy which is pure South African, but beware of the German spirit which is animating a section of the people and which is rapidly infecting your party.”

I am sorry that the hon. member who has just sat down (Mr. Quinlan) rose to rake up old sores. I think that the question that he dealt with should be rectified, and that it will yet be rectified among the Afrikaners themselves, between the re-United Party and the Afrikaner Party. If he expects that it will or should be put right, then I want to advise him not to wash his dirty linen in public. We cannot put matters right in that way. We must mutually agree on the matter. I leave it at that. But I hope that the hon. member will realise that things will not right themselves in that way. There can be no doubt that things are in a bad position with the farmers. That is admitted by everyone, except possibly by the Minister of Agriculture, who himself knows very well what the position is, but he is not consistent either. One day he admits that things are bad, and another he comes, as he did the day before yesterday, and says that they are going very well. That is the manner in which he repudiates himself. But even his colleagues, the Minister of Finance and the Minister without Portfolio, have repudiated him. The Minister of Finance the other day issued a warning and said that the farmers must be careful, that they would have to work doubly hard if farming was to go on, because he did not know how dark the future was. And the Minister without Portfolio, at Swellendam, even advised the people to abandon their tractors and fall back on mules. That was very sound advice, but the Minister of Agriculture, notwithstanding the fact that the position was so unsound, and that the farmers were groaning under heavy mortgages, are being ruined, comes and says that the farmers are flourishing. There was a scheme to relieve the burdens, or at any rate an enquiry was to be instituted and the country was looking forward to a scheme, but the Minister of Finance said the day before yesterday that so far there had not been any success in the matter. The wheat farmers, the fruit farmers, the wine farmers, the mealie farmers, the raisin farmers were all bending under burdens which had become too heavy for them to bear, and now the Minister of Agriculture actually comes along with a certain amount of pride, and tells the people how good and rosy their affairs are, and that general satisfaction is prevailing. It seems to me that the Minister of Agriculture is not quite au feit with the true position in the country, and I would advise him to go to the farmers himself and institute an enquiry as to what the real position is. I want to invite him to go to the fruit farmers of Ceres, and to ask a few of the chief fruit farmers to allow him to examine their books, to see that the position actually is. He will then find that most of those farmers are not able to cover their expenses, to say nothing of making a profit. And if that is the position of the big farmers, what then about the small farmers? With them, of course, things are going much worse still. You can understand that. Not only are those people suffering particularly severely because they have no market for their fruit, which is the consequence of the war conditions, but they are suffering still more in the struggle which they have to carry on against the fruit diseases, of which the codling moth is the worst, and the Minister of Agriculture sits and looks at it, with folded arms. He went so far as to say that he would have an enquiry instituted, but we have as yet seen nothing definte that he has done. I have learned from an authoritative source, from farmers in the warm bokveld, in the basin between the mountains of Ceres, that they have spent, £43,000 this season in spraying measures, and nevertheless they were not effective. All this money comes out of the pockets of the farmers. It goes to the mechants in America. One might have expected that the Minister could have done something to establish a factory here to manufacture that spraying material here, which the farmers needed. The codling moth have become immune to the arsenic spray, which previously used to destroy them, and the farmers had to find something else which was more effective. The other remedy is called Black Leaf 155. It is a mixture of tobacco extract an Bantonide. This remedy is very expensive. It is applied according to the directions of the Elsenburg Agricultural College. But the cost of using it according to those directions is too great for the farmer to stand, with the result that some of the farmers who use it cut down the quantities in the mixture to effect a saving, because they cannot afford the cost, with the further result that their fruit still remains infected with the codling moth, and not only their fruit but that of their neighbours as well becomes infected. The spraying period runs from the 15th September to the end of February, and the spraying has to be done in such a way that every tree is Sprayed every ten days. On the average the farmer handles 4,000 gallons of spraying mixture per day in order to spray 800 trees. This costs the farmer £16 or about £20 a thousand. It works out at £320 for 8,000 trees, supposing the trees are sprayed five times. Perhaps they may have to be sprayed still more often during the season, or during the spraying period. The spraying of the trees alone then costs £1,500, and what about the cost of labour, the pumps, appliances, etc., which costs hundreds of pounds? The representatives of the fruit farmers have repeatedly urged, as I have already done the last few years, that assistance should be granted to the fruit farmers in fighting the codling moth. It has become a national pest. The whole country is suffering from it, although the fruit farmers suffer most, as a result of it. The Minister himself promised an enquiry, bút he has done nothing yet. The Government have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds in recent years in exterminating locusts. This year there is £109,500 on the estimates for that purpose. We are not opposed to that, because we consider it a national business which must be done on a national basis. We are all in favour of it. But the codling moth is not less also a matter which should be combated on a national basis. It is the duty of the Government and the public to assist in doing that, and I feel convinced that if the Government tackles the matter there will be no protest uttered on the other side against it. But what do we see here now? Up to the present the Government is doing nothing. Thousands of people are dependent on fruit farming, and if that farming is ruined, then the people will be ruined as well. Those people will then be the responsibility of the Government. There was a prospect, although it was a poor one, that the fruit farmers could fall back on the cultivation of vines. But the K.W.V. has now put a stop to the planting of vineyards. That prospect therefore no longer exists. It is indeed true that the Deciduous Fruit Board has bought pears from the fruit farmers at £10 a ton up to a definte number of boxes, but how does it benefit the farmer having that market if he cannot deliver the fruit in spite of the high spraying costs. I have been told that notwithstanding the high cost of spraying the farmers could only keep one third of their fruit sound. The raisin farmers spent sleepless nights because they did not know what would become of their produce, inasmuch as it could not be exported owing to the war position. The Minister of Agriculture told us that we had to enter the war, or otherwise our produce would lie and rot. That statement of his has indeed become realised, but not along the lines that he intended. The amount offered for the raisins is 1.93d. It is impossible for the people to make raisins for that price. The Government did indeed intervene, and offered an additional one-seventh of a penny, and half of a farthing, provided the K.W.V. did the same. That is not enough to help the farmers out of the difficulty. The result was that farmers were obliged to press their sultanas. I pressed mine because the Government waited too long before coming to a decision. Now that it is too late the Government offers a guarantee of 1.93d. in order to assist the people. Then there is another matter, and that is the drills. I was surprised the other day to hear the Minister of Lands say that notwithstanding the great demand which existed for boreholes, notwithstanding that the farmers were thirsty and wanted water, there were 38 drilling machines which were doing nothing, and which were not working because the people had gone to the war. We hear so much about key men. They walk about the streets of big towns. It will be better if the Minister will recall his key men to operate the drills. The war will pass, but if we allow our country to retrogress, then we shall not be able to pay the expenses of the war. If we do not put fertiliser to the roots of the tree then we cannot expect fruit from that tree. While one Minister warns us to be thrifty, another Minister allows his men in charge of drills to go to the war. They are the real key men, and let the key men, who are walking the streets and who are not really key men, let them go to the war. I do not want to revert to the war and enlarge on it. A great deal was said about it at the third reading. It is not our custom to do so, but I felt myself compelled to bring these few matters which I have dealt with more particularly in connection with the fruit farmers, to the notice of the Minister.

I am glad that the Minister is in his place, because I would like to discuss a matter with him in regard to certain questions which I had on the Order Paper last year and put to him. I asked the Minister questions in connection with certain stock inspectors who had been dismissed, and he gave me an answer to them. Inter alia, he said that the persons who had been dismissed were dismissed for retrenchment purposes. I also asked him what the number was of those persons who had been discharged, and he gave the number to me, and thereupon I asked him whether the persons who had been discharged would be replaced by other people. The Minister of Agriculture replied: “No, they will not be replaced.” His answer was: “The posts which they occupied will not be filled up again.” What has happened now? I went into the position at Hopetown, and their posts were filled up again. One person with the name of Barends, 49 years of age, was discharged, and the Minister admitted that there was absolutely nothing against Barends. But Barends had hardly left when he was replaced by another person. No less than eleven of the stock inspectors were dismissed, and in the case of all the eleven other persons replaced them. The Minister admitted that he has absolutely nothing against these persons; that they have all done their duty by the Department, and nevertheless they are replaced. If that is not victimisation, then such a thing does not exist. I am familiar with the position in Hopetown, and I want to point out that one of these persons was discharged, and shortly after he was discharged he was interned. It was Barends. The Minister admitted that he had done his duty as a stock inspector, but why he was sent to the internment camp no one knows. I tried to find out, but we cannot learn the reason. All we know is that his great-grandfather was a German. The matter is still more difficult. Barends received information that his little daughter was very ill. The little daughter is four years old, and had to undergo an operation, and it is only human that such a father would like to discuss the matter with the mother before the daughter went to hospital. I went to see the responsible person, and asked whether Barends could not be allowed out on parole. He said that it was possible, but then Barends must have a medical certificate that it was necessary. The question now is whether the doctor would be sympathetic towards a man who is interned. You possibly find one who is sympathetic, but nine out of ten will simply He was discharged from his post, when 49 years old; he was put into the internment camp, and when his daughter had to undergo an operation he had no opportunity of going to consult his wife. Those are things which are going on in the country to-day. Another matter that I want to bring to the notice of the Government is the question of soil erosion. It is alleged that the Prime Minister from revengeful feelings refuse to permit it. Here, therefore, we have the case of Barends, is the father of the anti-soil erosion scheme. I do not know whether that is so, but it is remarkable that this is the first scheme which his Government has killed. This scheme for the prevention of soil erosion is one of the most important which we have had in the country, and it is a pity that it should be the first one which is killed owing to this war. There are schemes A and C. In the case of scheme A, the farmers make application, the works are surveyed, and the man then carriers out the work on his own account, and when it is finished then he gets a subsidy of one-third. A is also stopped, but when works have already been approved, whether the farmer has started them or not, the farmer can go on with them. But so far as C is concerned, not only has an end been put to it, but even in cases where the man’s works have been surveyed and where a start has been made with the work, it is stopped. Now you can yourself understand that that is very hard on those farmers, but what I want to emphasise is this side of the matter. Owing to the rains that we have had I almost said owing to the excessive rains which we have had in my constituency, a great deal of the anti-soil erosion works has been made useless. Quite a number of dams have been washed away, and other works have been destroyed. I am still getting letters from my constituents, who asked me what the Government is going to do. It is not the fault of the farmers that the works were washed away. No one will blame the farmers for that. The works were surveyed by the engineers of the Department, and we will not in the least blame the engineers either for the works having been washed away, because the rainfall was absolutely unprecedented. My rainfall for the past year was eight inches, four inches below the normal, and in six weeks time we have had 8½ inches of rain this year. Many of the splendid dams which were made at that time have been washed away, and other works along with them. That is exactly what happened in my area, where I have for three years been working under the A scheme. The people would now like to know what the Government is going to do in connection with all the cases where the dams have been washed away. We simply cannot allow things to remain as they are. I know the Government will not blame the farmers, and the farmers will not blame the engineers. They did very good work, but our rains were extraordinary this year, with the result that the washaways took place. Under the A scheme a farmer could go on with the work on his own account, and he can still go on with it if the works are approved of. Under the C scheme, he cannot go on any longer to-day, even if a start has already been made with the work. It is stopped immediately. Under the A scheme the farmer gets his own workers, European or coloured, and the Government pays one-third of the cost of the work. Under C, the Government pays seveneighths, but there are conditions. The first is a very good condition, namely, that Europeans must be used. The second condition is that at least six people must be employed, of whom four must be semi-fit. I agree with that also, because work is being done with ploughs and scrubbers, and if there are two fit men to hold the tail of the plough and the scrubber, then the other four can be semi-fit men. Now the difficulty is that those semi-fit men write to us for work. They want to know what they are to do. Rightly or wrongly, the impression exists that the anti-soil erosion works have been stopped to induce the people to join up with the army. Whether that is so, I leave there. These semi-fit men say that they cannot go into the army, and there is no work for them anywhere else. I say that the Government must assist the farmers and these people at the same time. Where dams have been washed away, the Government must start the work again. The country is under the impression that the Prime Minister is the father of this scheme. Whether that is so I do not know.

We know, however, that he has now killed the scheme.

Things will only come right if the Government allows that scheme to be revived again, especially now that the washaways have taken place. It causes the farmers to lose courage when they think that those dams have disappeared, and that they will not be assisted in repairing them again. I hope that the Minister will consider the matter. The hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Tom Naudé) a little while ago made an appeal to my hon. friends on my left who have formed a new party, and also to members of this party, and he asked us in a very nice manner not to wash dirty linen in public here. We on this side have listened to that advice, and those hon. members in the corner there must admit that we listened to it. No hon. member who rose here has said a single word against them. But what do we experience now from day to day from their side? One hon. member after the other rises there without exception, he starts by making a small attack on the Government, as in the case of the motion of no confidence, and then he begins a big attack on this side of the House. Eventually he devotes three-quarters of his time to an attack on the Leader of the Opposition. Member after member has done that. To-day the hon. member for Germiston (North) (Mr. Quinlan) went still further and he devoted the whole of his speech to us. Now, as I have already said, this is a matter which we can settle amongst ourselves, and which does not concern this House. There are hon. members here who think that those hon. members in the corner may as well leave the party. But we say that they are good Afrikaners, and if there has been a misunderstanding, then we should not act in such a way as unnecessarily to drive in a wedge between us. We cannot, however, remain silent any longer, because if we remain silent then the country will get the impression that they are right, that they are the real people, and that we are not only the accused people, but also the guilty people. As my foreman says, they are the “more better” people. We do not know what the policy of those hon. members is, and we would very much like to know. I have for all these years been a subscriber to “Die Vaderland,” but although I read “Die Vaderland,” I still do not know what their actual policy is now. Take a question like segregation. I would like to know what their policy is in regard to segregation and separate residential areas. We have been fighting all these years for separate residential areas. We want to have them in the Cape Province. Let them tell the country what their attitude is. I know that they are in a very difficult position in the Cape Province, because they will not be asked anywhere to come and make speeches, except by the Saps, and it would look a little bad if they have to act on behalf of the South African Party. Our own party in the Cape Province will not ask them. Now we are in the unfortunate position of not knowing what their policy is, and we would very much like to know it on questions such as segregation, the colour question, and the question of the uitlanders. We do know, for instance, what their opinion is about the Jews. Let them frankly state their point of view, and not rise here every day and make irresponsible charges against this side of this House against our leader. Not one of them is worthy to tie the shoelaces of our leader. That is beyond all question. There are very important questions before the country. Let them, for instance, get up and tell us what they think of a cause like the Reddingsdaad. Some time ago an article was written in “Die Vaderland”—I will not say that it was opposed to the Reddingsdaad, but it as much as stated that the Reddingsdaad was not a good cause. That is the conclusion that we had to come to. What is the opinion of our friends about the Reddingsdaad? Another matter is the Ossewa-Brandwag. What is the attitude of our friends in connection with the Ossewa-Brandwag? Some time ago some of them were probably members of the Ossewa-Brandwag, but I am almost prepared to state that they are no longer members now. We would very much like to know what their policy is about that matter. We would also like to know how they stand in regard to a question like that of the republic. Now they are no longer 100% republican. There is a flaw somewhere in connection with a republic. What the flaw is no one knows. We would also like to know how they think that the republic is eventually to come into existence, whether there has to be a majority of one or 50% or 100% or what.

Tell us what your policy is.

They now have the opportunity of stating in this debate, or during the budget debate, clearly what their policy is. Those hon. members remind me of a watch which only has one hand. The watch is going, but it never indicates the time. That is their position. There is only one hand. How then are we to know what their policy is? Let them tell us: “This is the position.” Perhaps we may be able to welcome them again into our ranks. We do not want to repel them, we feel that there is no difference between us, that they are good Afrikaners, and I am certain of it that one of these days they will be sitting at our side again. They feel a little bit sore now, but perhaps we can meet them about it. We know that they do not feel at home in the Government party, that they are too good Afrikaners for that. My personal opinion is that in South Africa there is only room for two parties, the S.A.P., which is now called the United Party, and only one party on this side of the House, namely, the Nationalist Party. There is no room for three, four or five parties. We are the Nationalist Party. That is our name. If my hon. friends will join up again, we will otherwise have another “or-party” again. I hope that the day is not far distant when we shall come together in one party, the Nationalist Party.

Before I deal with the points that I want to discuss, I would like to refer to a charge which the hon. member for Germiston (North) (Mr. Quinlan) made against us, and I want to protest against it. He said that this side of the House was definitely pro-German. No one knows better than he does that that is an untruth.

The hon. member should not attack another hon. member in that way. He knows the rules of the House.

Then I want to say that the hon. member knows that what he says is not correct, he knows that we are not pro-German.

That amounts to the same thing.

Then I say that we are not pro-German.

On a point of order, if an hon. member makes a charge against another hon. member or against other hon. members have hon. members not the right to deny the accusation? I presume that that is what the hon. member is engaged in doing.

The hon. member cannot say that another hon. member has spoken an untruth, knowing that it is untrue. The hon. member for Heidelberg (Mr. de Bruyn) said that the hon. member for Germiston (North) made certain charges which he knew were not true.

Then I say it is not correct, and that we are not pro-German. All the people know it. But we are just as little pro-English. We are only proAfrikaans. The hon. member knows that I have stood on the same platform with him, and I said that the party which placed its hope on one of the two great nations that were fighting which expected its salvation from one of the two nations, had no right of existence. The Minister of Agriculture said here yesterday that the farming population was in a flourishing state, and in order to support that he gave the prices which were being obtained for slaughter stock and for wool. As to wool, enough has already been said about it, but in regard to slaughter stock, I would like to point out that only super-prime stock were realising payable, good prices, but not the other stock. We also know that the farming industry is made up of many kinds of farmers, and for the most part consists of small farmers. They are mostly concerned in other branches of farming, more particularly in the mealie industry, and the Minister knows that in the mealie industry the vast majority is composed of small farmers. It is even said that more than 60 per cent. are small farmers who produce under 500 bags of mealies. These small farmers mostly produce mealies as lessees and bywoners and settlers. The people get prices for their produce which are far below production cost, and which do not pay. I only want to refer to what the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Henderson) said the other day. He certainly is not a mealie farmer, but what he said also proves that the mealie farmers have cause for complaint, and that they are in a very bad position. I only want to refer to one case, which I recently had, with a Jewish company which had a farm and many deelsaaiers. They sow half for the company. The manager then said that he could not understand why the farmers who sowed on that farm and who were hard working, and produced many mealies, lost everything one after the other. I said that it could be worked out very easily and quickly. The people got their fertiliser, their ploughshares, their sacks and everything from him. They were using his machinery, and all the other things for which they had to pay. If then one calculates how much they produce and what they have to pay, then you will see that the expenses work out at 4s. a bag. The land has to be ploughed and the working costs, etc., bring the cost per bag up to 4s. The price of mealies is 8s. per bag. If a farmer produces 2,000 bags, then he has to give 1,000 to the company, and his 1,000 bags therefore cost him 8s. a bag. Then the man said: “Yes, now I can quite understand why the farmers are ruined.” The more they produce the sooner they are ruined. There are thousands and tens of thousands of that kind of small farmer, and the Minister realises that the farmers do not get a price for mealies on which they can exist. They cannot produce at that price. There is no possibility of their getting land, because the land which the Government owns is being kept for the people who came back from the war. Therefore the people have to remain bywoners, and one after the other they are ruined. When they are ruined there is only one way out, and that is to go to the North. It is in this way that the Government gets so many volunteers. They become impoverished and hunger drives them to join up with the army. The hon. member for Caledon (Mr. H. C. de Wet) warned us yesterday, and said that the reason soldiers made attacks of that kind on the public was because they were provoked by the public. I now want to relate what happened in the district of Heidelberg. The knights of truth had a film which they called “Northwards.” The man who went about showing this film—there is nothing wrong with the film itself—made speeches after the film was shown, and then he insulted the Afrikaners and everything that was Afrikaans in the lowest language you can imagine. Even supporters of the Prime Minister’s Party told me that the fellow ought to be beaten to death, and that it was a shame for the Government to allow such provocation. We have heard of the case at Grootvlei. There is a store there which is only about a mile and a malf away from my home, and there were at least 500 people in the hall when the picture was shown. When at the end the abuse started once more, a few people got up in the meeting—I was not there, but I have been told this—and said that if he did not remain silent they would give him a hiding. When he restarted his abuse, a man walked to the front and a Jew said to him “Take this iron.” And he then gave him an iron to beat the man with. The statement of the police is that the man hit first, and then the Afrikaners commenced knocking each other about, but the Jews fled to their houses and sat down there. That is the way in which this class of person makes one Afrikaner maltreat the other. Then the same Jew ran to the telephone and reported to the newspapers, but what appeared did not contain a word of truth, so far as the occurrence was concerned. Now the detectives have already been busy for two months tracing people to decide what took place there, and to get witnesses. I may say that there were ten red-tabbed detectives there, and they could find no one to give evidence to bring a case against anyone.

Has there ever yet been a case instituted?

No, they are still engaged in collecting evidence, in order to get an innocent man convicted. And then people come along who know nothing about these things and say that the public are provoking the soldiers. I also want to ask the Minister of Labour and members of the Labour Party, who always say that they are the people who stand up for the poor people and the workers, what they are now doing for the poor people. They know that the cost of living has gone up, and has gone up very much. The proof of that is that they are providing a cost of living allowance. During last session a reply was given to a question to the effect that the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) got an allowance of 28s. a day for his military work. This year it has already gone up to 34s. a day. The Government just has to pay. But what have they ever done for the poor unskilled workers? Have their wages ever gone up? There are thousands of them who work for 5s. and 6s. a day, and they have wives, and possibly five or six children. While those hon. members are looking after themselves, nothing is being done for the poor people. They get double salary, and are trying to persuade other people to go and fight. I hope that they will tell the poor people how they should live on their meagre wages. Then, in conclusion, I want to appeal again to the Minister of Justice to remove the friction in the police force. In consequence of the red tabs which some wear and others do not, hatred and friction are being caused in the police force. In such circumstances, how can the police force do its work properly? The one does not trust the other. What happens to co-operation in the service if such a thing is allowed? The red tab people are used to watch the others, they do not trust each other, and there is mutual hatred to-day in the police force. I hope that the Minister will see that the cause of the hatred, the red tabs, are abolished.

I move—

I second.

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—63:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Baines, A. C. V.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Blackwell, L.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Collins, W. R.

Davis, A.

Deane, W. A.

De Kock, A. S.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, H. C.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Egeland, L.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman, H.

Hare, W. D.

Henderson, R. H.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Lawrence, H. G.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Moll, A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Payn, A. O. B.

Pocock, P. V.

Reitz, D.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Shearer, V. L.

Smuts, J. C.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Sonnenberg, M.

Stallard, C. F.

Steyn, C. F.

Steytler, L. J.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Zyl, G. B.

Wares, A. P. J.

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

Noes—38:

Badenhorst, C. C. E.

Bezuidenhout, J. T.

Boltman, F. H.

Brits, G. P.

Conradie, J. H.

De Bruyn, D. A. S.

De Wet, J. C.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Du Toit. C. W. M.

Fagan, H. A.

Hugo, P. J.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Malan, D. F

Naudé, S. W.

Oost, H.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Rooth, E. A.

Schoeman, B. J.

Schoeman. N. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, F. R.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. P.

Swart, C. R.

Theron, P. V. d.

Merwe, R. A. T.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Venter, J. A. P.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, J. H.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

Tellers: F. C. Erasmus and P. O. Sauer.

Motion accordingly agreed to.

Question put: That all the words after “That”, proposed to be omitted, stand part of the motion.

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—65:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Baines, A. C. V.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Blackwell, L.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Burnside, D. C.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Collins, W. R.

Davis, A.

Deane, W. A.

De Kock, A. S.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, H. C.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Egeland, L.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D

Gluckman, H.

Hare, W. D.

Henderson, R. H.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A

Kentridge, M.

Lawrence, H. G.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Moll, A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Payn, A. O. B.

Pocock, P. V.

Reitz, D.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Shearer, V. L.

Smuts, J. C.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Sonnenberg, M.

Stallard, C. F.

Steyn, C. F.

Steytler, L. J.

Sturrock, F. C

Stuttaford, R.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Zyl, G. B.

Wares, A. P. J.

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

Noes—40:

Badenhorst, A. L.

Bezuidenhout, J. T.

Boltman, F. H.

Brits, G. P.

Conradie, J. H.

De Bruyn. D. A. S.

De Wet. J. C.

Du Toit, C. W. M.

Haywood, J. J.

Hugo. P. J.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Malan, D. S.

Naudé. J. F. T.

Naudé, S. W.

Oost. H.

Pieterse. P. W. A.

Rooth. E. A.

Schoeman, B. J.

Schoeman, N. J.

Serfontein, J. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. P.

Swart, C. R.

Theron, P. V. d.

Merwe, R. A. T.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Venter, J. A. P.

Verster, J. B. H.

Viljoen, J. H.

Vosloo, L J.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

Tellers: F. C. Erasmus and P. O. Sauer.

Question accordingly affirmed and the amendment dropped.

Business suspended at 6.2 p.m., and resumed at 8.5 p.m.

I should like to have some information from the Minister in regard to the definition of the word “sell.” In clause 1(d) we find the following—

That means therefore that the person who supplies the goods falls under the definition and he may get into trouble if he supplies goods, the sale of which has been prohibited. He may not be aware of the fact that he is supplying goods which have been prohibited and he may get into trouble. Take the position of an ordinary carrier; he carries a farmer’s products. He knows nothing about these things, and because he supplies these goods or conveys them he gets into trouble. I should like to know from the Minister what the position is.

The whole object of this sub-clause is to prevent sales by means of “futures.” One gets instances of people selling their crops for five years ahead and the price is fixed every year. The object of this clause is to prevent a man from selling in the distant future. This clause has no relation to the man who delivers the goods.

Mr. Chairman, I see that this clause deals with the definition of “producer,” and I take it the intention of that is to bring everybody who can possibly be regarded as a producer into the ambit of this Bill. Unfortunately, there are people who, although they are even within the existing definition of “producer,” are precluded in practice from being regarded as such. The class of persons to whom I am referring is the native labour tenant on farms, particularly on the farms of the Transvaal. There is no racial or colour bar in the definition of “producer,” and there was none previously. As a matter of fact, in the native areas natives are regarded as producers as much as anybody else, and receive the subsidy benefits which accrue to producers, but on European farms native labour tenants are, according to my information, excluded from what small benefit the small producer can get under this legislation. I understand the reason for that is that the farmer might distribute his own produce among his labour tenants and get a higher levy as a small producer. I am sure if that was the real reason it is a considerable slur on the farming community, and I am sure hon. members representing farmers will not admit that any farmer is capable of this practice. But in any event, what is the position of the ordinary bywoner, I mean the European bywoner? He, I take it, is treated as a producer under this legislation, and gets a subsidy from levy funds. What would there be in his case to prevent a similar practice such as that which I have said is alleged to justify the practical exclusion of native labour tenants from the status of producers? It may be, of course— the Minister may tell us—that bywoners also are excluded from the benefits of this legislation, and if so then I am as much opposed to that as I am opposed to it in the case of native labour tenants. I ask now that the Minister is extending the definition of “producer,” that he makes a statement as to the position of native labour tenants, particularly in relation to the maize scheme framed under this legislation. I hope the Minister can give us the assurance that native labour tenants, like other small producers, will get whatever benefits there are under this legislation.

I may tell the hon. member at once that he has stated the position fairly correctly, but nothing can change the fact that no producer is excluded. I think he will agree with me legally that the native is a producer, and nothing can alter that. This Bill instead of limiting rather extends the definition of “producer,” so if there is any evil, if the native is not getting a fair deal, it cannot be remedied by this, it will have to be remedied in some scheme propounded under this law. I agree that last year there was this difficulty with the native living on a white man’s farm, the labour tenant. At the beginning the Maize Control Board thought that the position would be met if the white owner took his servant’s maize in with his own and marketed it, but there was this difficulty that where a man got extra payments for his first 500 bags, he naturally did not want to increase his own supplies. As the hon. member knows, the position was met in the territories by paying the native out when he delivered his maize, paying him the 1/6 that the small white farmer got. Now this is a difficulty that I do not think has been quite met, and I can only tell the hon. member that I am aware of the position as he is, and I realise the hardship to the native. I shall certainly watch out and put both the Marketing Council and the Maize Control Board on to this question to see whether they can effect something satisfactory.

I fail to understand the Minister. This clause deals with selling, exchanging or disposing. I quite understand that, but when the words “transmitting or conveying or delivering” are put in it means that the man who carries the goods, who conveys the goods, is looked upon as the person selling the goods. “Sale” no longer means just the actual sale but it also refers to the man who delivers the goods. If that is so then the transport rider also comes under this clause if he delivers goods the sale of which is prohibited. He may perhaps know nothing about it. I do not understand why that is being done and I should like the Minister to explain it.

Surely the hon. member does not contend that if I am somebody else’s agent and I carry his goods, if I deliver them, I may get into trouble if those products fall under a prohibition clause. I cannot be accused or I cannot be found guilty. Experience has taught us that we have to tie down a man so far as the delivery is concerned. If a man carries products from place to place he may be accused.

A man who carries the goods may not be aware of the fact that he is not allowed to do so.

Then he can prove that he is carrying the goods on behalf of somebody else. If he does it on his own behalf he is guilty; if he does it for somebody else he is not guilty, and the person on whose behalf he carries the goods is responsible.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 3,

I move the following amendment—

In other words, I am moving that the control boards should be made up of producers of the product concerned, and of someone who is appointed by the Government. We have now had experience of the Marketing Act for the last few years. We have different control boards in connection with different farming produce, and I think that it has been clearly proved that although the principle is quite good in regard to sale through one channel, and control over a produce—and we all are in accord with that principle—there is still something wrong with the schemes, and that is why we have had all the dissatisfaction. If that dissatisfaction becomes very strong, then it will ultimately become the cause of an agitation for the repeal of this Act. We have, for instance, a board like the Wheat Control Board which consists of representatives of the wheat farmers, and representatives of the bakers, representatives of the wholesale millers, and representatives of the retail millers. The control board consists out of all those elements. The idea may look sound, that all the elements should be represented on such a board, but I say that that is just the reason for all the dissatisfaction in connection with this control board. Take, on the other hand, a body like the K.W.V., which controls distilling wine. The directors of the K.W.V. consist exclusively of farmers, and I do not think that there is one hon. member in this House who will say that the producers have abused the power they have of the sole control of their product. It will possibly be argued by the Minister that all the elements which deal with the product should be taken into consideration in forming such a control board. I do not agree with that, and I can speak from experience that where the producer can control his own product he is always in a far better position to do things for that industry than when all the other elements have seats on such a board. Take the Wheat Board. If only farmers had served on the Wheat Board then so far as the farming element was concerned, they could have advised the producers, and there would have been more confidence in them than there is now. They can in such case almost act in a perfect way in connection with the industry itself, but they cannot do so when all those other elements are also represented on the board. The merchants have their say, and the farmers say what they want to say, and ultimately there is a compromise. I think the entire House will agree with me that a compromise is always a muddle and unsatisfactory. The farmers do not really have a say over their own produce. The farmers cannot have confidence, not full confidence, in such a board. I have no objection to the producers also organising themselves. I do not want to speak about the millers and the traders, because they are organised, and the consumers are represented on the board by the officer of the Government. And to make a long story short the decision in any case finally rests with the Minister. The control boards are more or less advisory boards. They are appointed and are given certain powers, I think, under Section 20 of the Marketing Act. But the position is that the wheat farmers, for instance, have to decide in conjunction with the bakers, about the produce of the farmers. Their interests are conflicting. They further have to decide things in conjunction with the millers. Their interests are also conflicting, and the position is that even if the farmers are in a majority so far as numbers are concerned, you find that they are nevertheless talked over. Compare the position of the wine farmers with that. The K.W.V. has control over the whole of the business. If the interests of the merchants are affected, then the dealers have their own organisation, and the two organisations meet each other, but the farmers do not come there as servants but as people who actually have a say over their own produce. The farmer is able to dictate, and to say to the other one “Look, this is what we consider to be the best thing.” And if the merchants do not agree then they always have the opportunity of appealing to the Minister. However, the only way in which you will get satisfactory control boards is when the producers have the control over their produce. They are entitled to it. I therefore also feel that the control boards will never be a success as long as all sorts of other elements sit on the control boards along with the farmers. I propose, therefore, that the control boards should only consist of farmers, and that they should be put into the position of controlling their own produce. The other people, the brokers, the shopkeepers and businessmen are in a position to take action through their own organisations, and the Marketing Act provides for the protection of the interests of the consumers. They can place their interests before the Minister. Let me give an example. The board of control in connection with dried fruits consists of merchants, brokers and farmers. The first thing the brokers did is that they were given the advice to register themselves and did so. No one could buy raisins or dried fruits otherwise than through the packers. When the market was difficult last year, the packers bought a tremendous amount, and when they had done so they said that they would not buy any more. Then the producers were left with their produce. They could not sell it to other people. The big interests have their own organisations, and settle matters secretly. Take a shop in a place like Calitzdorp. The farmer came there to sell five bags of sultanas, or a few bags of raisins or currants, or to barter them. [Time limit.]

I would like to support the amendment of the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren). As we know, the control of wheat and also of other produce has not always in the past given satisfaction to everybody. We assume that it was an experiment, and that in the initial stages there were also various difficulties which had to be overcome by the control boards. We do not want to judge them unnecessarily harshly. But we have always had the feeling that under these control boards the producer does not actually get control over his produce to sell it through one channel. Actual control is not given to the producer. He does get a majority on the board, but even on the Wheat Control Board, for example, we find that all the representatives of producers are not in all respects producers themselves. We find, for instance, that your milling industry is also considered amongst the producers. I therefore feel that the control boards should be constituted out of producers alone, with a representative of the Minister on the board as chairman. The representative can keep the Minister informed and advise him. Then the Minister can eventually give his decision, and he will have all the necessary information at his disposal. I feel that the Minister ought to accept this amendment. Try it. See whether the producers, when they get control over their produce, will actually act as unreasonably as is sometimes alleged. The argument against it usually is that if the representatives of the producers have all the power, that they will abuse it. I am not afraid of that. As soon as the representatives of the producers get full power over the produce, then they will immediately feel the great responsibility which rests on them. We know, for instance, that the wine farmers to-day practically have full control. Full control has been entrusted to the wine farmers, and I think there will be no one who will say that the K.W.V. has not in the past borne the general interests of the public in mind. The K.W.V. is a clear proof to us of what has to be done, and it justifies us in coming to the Minister and asking him to give the producers full control. I believe he will not be disappointed with such an experiment, and the producers will be more satisfied.

We are concerned here, of course, with a very important difference in principle, and it has already existed a long time in South Africa, but I want to associate myself with hon. members who have said that the experiment has succeeded in this respect, for instance the experiment in connection with the K.W.V. The K.W.V. have proved that you can only obtain success when the producer of an article is allowed to get control. The farmers are not represented in the Chambers of Commerce, nor do the Chambers of Commerce invite the farmers to come and have a seat there. They do not want to have the farmers there. The Chamber of Commerce fixes its own prices for its own articles. The farmers do not sit with the millers, either. The millers have their own organisation, and they keep the farmers out. The farmers are not there for the purpose of fixing the price of flour.

The farmers will not meddle in the matter, either.

No, and the millers would not allow it, either. But just as soon as you come to the farmers, then it is thought that the farmers cannot control their own affairs, and when other people are dragged in to fix the prices for the produce of the farmers. That is an anomaly which does an injustice to the farming industry. We have always started from the point of view—this was, for instance, the case in connection with the Wheat Control Board—that you must not turn the wolf into the shepherd. Why should other people whose interests conflict with those of the producers have representation on the control boards of the producers? The Minister will be rendering a great service to the public if he gets up and says: “The K.W.V. have given proof that it will be best for the farmers to control their own produce.” Only when the farmers do control their own produce will the control boards be a success. The Minister will always continue to retain the control in his hands. If the Wheat Control Board fixed a price to-day, then the Minister can upset that price, as in fact, he has done. Quite apart from the fact that the Minister also appoints the chairman, the Minister has a final say when a control board does not fix a reasonable price, in his opinion. I want to tell the Minister that he need not be afraid that the farmers will abuse their powers, and there is, moreover, also the safety valve that the Minister has the final say, and accordingly I want to ask the Minister to do the big thing for the benefit of the farming population and of the population generally.

Before hon. members go too far, I should like them to read this clause again. It is permissive.

But they do it always.

No, I don’t do it.

On what control board have you not appointed other people?

The Citrus Board, the Deciduous Board. There is not a single man who is not a producer.

That only concerns export.

They have nothing to do with the fixing of prices.

But they run the whole show. In any case, I want to say immediately that I cannot even consider this amendment. In the first instance, I want to point out that this was what made the Marketing Act possible. I want hon. members to keep an honourable agreement. Members who were in this House in 1937 will remember that this was one of the points. And I think that the producer class gained a victory in getting the absolute right of getting a majority on the board. The people who spoke for the producers and other parts of the community were not enamoured of this Bill, and I would suggest to hon. members to be very careful how they go. If anything will kill control boards, what you are now proposing will kill them. You will have such feeling against you throughout the country that you will not—

Is not the K.W.V. a success?

I am not so sure. I do not want to be drawn into an argument about the K.W.V., but I want to say that the K.W.V. and the other side of the industry, the merchants, are not the happiest people, and I have my doubts whether you can say that the K.W.V. is making a greater success of things than, for instance, the Dairy Board, where you have all parties represented. I do not think hon. members can claim that, and they must not forget that the K.W.V. deals with a special article, and a luxury article at that. It is not the same thing by a long way, and I do not think that the mere fact that it only consists of producers is a reason why it has been a success, or a comparative success. I do not want to be drawn into that. But the main point is that this was an honourable agreement at the time the Act was passed, and I am not going back on it.

It was not a compromise Act.

We fought for weeks here, and this Act could never have been passed as it was then constituted had there not been give and take, and this was one of the things on which a compromise was made.

You will remember that we proposed the same amendment.

You accepted the position, and that side of the House, the Opposition, were the people who pressed for the Marketing Act, and it would never have gone through—

On this point we proposed exactly the same amendment.

You were wrong then, and you are still wrong.

But you say that we compromised.

If the hon. member thinks otherwise than I do, then he is welcome to his opinion.

Why do you say that we came to a compromise?

I do not mean that the Opposition agreed to it, but I do say this, that if they had not eventually acquiesced in the matter and if the side which pressed that part of it had succeeded, this Marketing Act would never have seen daylight. The House as a whole would never have accepted the Marketing Bill. That is my first objection; my second objection, I think, is that if there is a special reason why there should be only producers on the board the Act gives you every right to have it. But what is sought here is to take out the permissive condition, and I say that if hon. members there will not even agree to that, to take away the permissive clause, then I think they are doing quite an unfair thing, and I certainly cannot accept it.

I want strongly to associate myself with the motion of the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren). It always seems strange to me that a control board in connection with a certain article had to be constituted out of representatives of all kinds of interests. Why cannot the farmers themselves have control over their produce? The Minister said that this House would never have introduced the control boards if no one but farmers were to be represented on it. Well, that is a reason why the parliamentary system does not answer its purpose. We have always had the position in our country, and also in other countries, that the farmers always have the thin end of the wedge. They bring their produce to a dealer and ask the dealer what he is prepared to pay. After the price of their produce is fixed, they ask the dealer what the price is for a pair of boots, and then they have to pay the price of the boots. In the case of the farmer it is “Heads you win, tails I lose.” The Chamber of Commerce asks the consumers to sit on their board in order to fix prices. The Chamber of Mines, which is an industry in which the miners sacrifice their lives in order to make big profits for the mines, does not allow the miners to have a seat and a say on the board of the Chamber of Mines. But when you come to the farmer then all kinds of interests have to be represented on the control boards. He is always at the short end. The hon. member for Swellendam rightly said that when a control board suggests anything then it has, in any case, to go to the Marketing Board and ultimately to the Minister. I think that it is fair, inasmuch as the farmers do the work and produce the article, that they should have full control over the sale of it. We find that there have already been many protest meetings in order to abolish control boards. There have been two control boards which were a success, namely, the K.W.V. and the Tobacco Control Board. The Minister said that he was not certain that the K.W.V. had been a success. I want to say that if it had not been for E. K. Green, the wholesale merchant, and if the K.W.V. had had the right and the opportunity to take their wines to the public and to put up their own shops, then the K.W.V. would have been a complete success. It was only the wholesale merchants who, to some extent, handicapped the success. I hope that the time is not far off when this anomaly will be removed, and the farmers will have control over their own produce.

I cannot see why we are now so terribly keen on insisting that all the members of control boards should be farmers. Then we might just as well insist on compulsory co-operation. Are they in favour of that?

I am.

I am glad that the Opposition is becoming converted. They were always opposed to compulsory co-operation. We know that that was the case at the time of the Nationalist Party. We also know that after the coalition government came into office a commission was appointed to go into the question of co-operation. The present Secretary for Agriculture was chairman, and they brought out a report against compulsory co-operation, and “Die Burger,” Keerom Street, welcomed it and so did hon. members on the other side. Now it looks to me as if they are becoming converted to compulsory co-operation. But I want to say that even if you do put only farmers on the boards, then you still do not have compulsory co-operation. If the Minister of Agriculture has a final say in connection with every matter, and if he approves or disapproves of it, then that does not amount to anything either.

What has compulsory co-operation got to do with this?

They want the farmers to have the say. I want to show that if you have no one but farmers on the boards, you will still be no better off than you are to-day, because to-day the majority of the members are farmers, but whatever they may decide in connection with prices, it must have the approval of the Minister. The point is that we are going to get nothing more by it. They are now putting up a point which does not amount to much. To-day we have the advantage of having farmers as the majority on the boards, and the farmers’ representatives do what they can to benefit the population. But in addition to that you also have, for example, the millers on the Wheat Board, and we get the co-operation of the millers.

Do they get it?

Yes, let me say this. On the Wheat Control Board, of which I have the honour of being a member, the millers have never yet gone against the farmers. When it was a question of the interests of the farmers, the millers have always stood by the farmers.

You are a miller.

I represent the cooperative societies who own mills. Hon. members on the other side talk so much about the economic awakening of the Afrikaner people. Here a group of farmers have come together, and acquired their own mills in order to grind their own produce, but now they are speaking contemptuously of it. I am not astonished that they have differences with each other every three months. The advantage we have to-day is that the majority of the members are farmers, and we have the co-operation of millers and consumers and bakers on the board.

Do you prefer the existing system to what we are proposing?

I am opposed to the amendment of the hon. member for Swellendam, because it will give nothing more than what we have, and the amendment will only cause friction in the country, which will not be beneficial to the farmers. I am in favour of compulsory co-operation, and if you really want to give powers to the farmers then we must have it. But if hon. members opposite want it, then they must change their whole policy, and say that they are now in favour of compulsory co-operative societies. But I know that we cannot get that, and therefore I say that the existing system is better than the one proposed by the hon. member for Swellendam.

My criticism of this section is based on precisely the opposite grounds to hon. members on my right. According to the section as now framed not only must there be producers represented on the Board but they must be in the majority, and there only “may” be representatives of consumers. Now it is, I suppose, something that there are representatives of consumers on these boards at all, having regard to the political strength, as we know it, which representatives of agricultural interests have. But as these Boards are at present constituted they, as I have said time and again in this House, amount to statutory monopolies of particular interests. It is a matter of wonder to reflect to what extent the idea of a monopoly has gained popularity in this country—it has gained popularity to such an extent that it is almost a matter of course that the State should aid certain interests to constitute themselves as monopolies. We have been told that there was some agreement reached in 1937. I don’t know what the terms of that agreement were, but I do know this, that I and others with me on these benches represent in this House the majority of the poorest class of consumers, and I am sure that they have never been party to any agreement and that they have been the chief sufferers from the monopoly powers granted by these Boards. As I have indicated before, I am utterly opposed to the subsidisation of the primary producer through the manipulation of prices. If it is desired to subsidise him it should be done from the proceeds of general revenue. That, I know, I cannot enter into in detail now, but, failing that principle, I do contend that if prices are to be manipulated, the consumer has as much right to have a say in the manipulation, in the fixing, of these prices as the producer has. To some extent that principle is recognised in the principal Act itself. Under the terms of the principal Act, in the sections dealing with the constitution of advisory committees, there is set up a producer’s advisory committee and a consumer’s advisory committee in order that the advice of the consumer and the producer should be at the disposal of the Minister in the administration of the Act. But when one comes to the constitution of the bodies that really count under this Act, the bodies that fix the prices at which primary products are sold, then one finds that the provisions regarding the representation of consumers are not only merely permissive, but it is actually stipulated that producers must be in the majority. Although, as I have said, I do not approve of this method of subsidisation at all, I still say that a lesser evil is to have prices fixed by a body upon which the producer and the consumer have equal voices. I therefore propose to move the following amendment to give effect to what I contend—

The effect of that is to make the appointment of consumers’ representatives compulsory instead of permissive, and to introduce the principle of collective bargaining as between producers and consumers. There was a time when it was contended that the employer had the right to say what wages he should pay his employees, but the day is long past when that sort of thing could happen, and I do not think that even the hon. member for Potgietersrust (Rev. S. W. Naudé) would support that now, yet in fixing the price of primary necessities of life— which is just as vital a matter to the masses of the people as wages, because what is the use of wages if they cannot buy the necessities of life at a reasonable price—and yet, I say, in fixing the price of primary products the consumer is at a disadvantage. My amendment, if accepted, would introduce into this type of legislation the principle of collective bargaining in fixing the price of the necessities of life. The right of the consumer to have a voice in fixing the price of products is already in the principal Act, and my contention is that that should be equal with the voice of the producer. If hon. members like the member for Potgietersrust want to contend that consumers should have no voice, let them get up and say so, but I doubt very much whether even that hon. member would go so far, I doubt whether he will get up and contend that the consumer has no right to a voice in fixing the price of the necessities of life. If it is at once admitted that the consumer has that right, what possible justification is there for saying that he has a lesser right than the producer?

I will first deal with the hon. member who spoke last. He belongs to a profession which has the biggest monopoly in the world. He says what his clients must pay, and I would now like to ask him whether he will be prepared to put farmers on to his council? I cannot understand the hon. member for Kimberley (District) (Mr. Steytler). He says that he is opposed to this amendment, but that he is in favour of compulsory co-operation. I want to make it clear that any scheme which is accepted under Section 21 is compulsory co-operation.

No, it is not.

If the hon. member reads 21 and 22, he will see that it is so. They make provision that a product may not be sold at a certain place, and it is now even provided that the removal of it will be a contravention.

They can fix the price, but if the Minister says no, then what is the position, and where is the compulsion?

Compulsory co-operation does not exactly mean that the price must be paid, but that everyone must sell through one channel. If you think that the Minister has too much power under the Marketing Act, then I agree with you. I think that in connection with agriculture, the control boards ought to be put completely outside of politics. But as long as the Minister is concerned in the matter, so long will you be involved in politics. The position is simply this. I had not finished speaking when my time expired. I was just explaining what took place on these control boards. There were merchants on the control boards, and they saw to it that they were registered, and the farmers later on were unable to sell their produce. I do not want to suggest by this amendment that the farmers will fix a price which is too high for the consumer, or which will make it difficult for the factories and other people. I only want them to be entitled to control their own produce. I would like to ask the Minister of Agriculture whether he thinks that the medical men, for instance, would allow a farmer to sit on the Medical Council.

That has nothing to do with the case.

The position is clear that not one of the professions or of the chamber of commerce, or not one of the rings which have been established by the businessmen, would take a farmer on their boards, even if they are dealing with the produce of the farmer. I want to ask whether the whisky ring would take a brandy producer on its board; would the beer ring do it? No, they would not. They look after themselves. We fight them as much as we can. But when we come to the produce of the farmer, which he has produced by his own sweat and blood, then he is not allowed to control that produce by himself, then he has to take consumers, manufacturers, and all that class of people on to his boards. I want again to point out that a control board, in connection with a definite product, has to deal with many matters which only affect the farmers, but now we are giving the merchants also a right to decide about them along with the farmers. Is that fair and right? We do not take away the rights which the Minister has. I agree with the hon. member for Kimberley (District) that we ought to give the right to the control boards to regulate their own affairs. I think that it is wrong to refer to the Minister all the things that they have already decided. In the first place, it puts the Minister in a difficult position. He is sometimes obliged, for political reasons, to allow himself to be persuaded to do things which are not right, with a view to their political consequences. I therefore feel that the Minister ought to be in favour of his being kept out of these difficulties. But apart from that, I can see no argument against my proposal. The control is left to the industry. The Minister referred here to friction that was being caused. If the control board consists of producers, it will not cause any more friction than what would otherwise be the case. The brokers and dealers and manufacturers are in any case always met. We do not want to oppress them, and they, as well as the consumers, are represented on the Marketing Board. The Marketing Board consists not only of farmers. What right has a merchant or a miller to have a say on a control board which is controlling a particular product? I therefore think that I have every right to ask that a control board shall consist of the producers of the product which is being controlled. The other people have their own bodies to regulate their affairs, and we do not ask for any say in their business. I wonder what the merchants would think if they had to have a seat on the K.W.V. I think that they prefer to settle their own affairs separately. If we have only farmers on the control boards, then we can properly control the produce. If we are prepared to take the advice of a previous Minister of Finance, Mr. Havenga, then we should pass this amendment. He said the same thing, that we would never get satisfaction unless we had farmers only on the control boards. The Minister of Agriculture says that there was an agreement about this clause. If that is so then I want to consider myself bound by an agreement.

There was no such agreement.

Then the Minister was not correct. If an agreement was made, then I should not like to deviate from it, because I want to remain within the parliamentary practice.

There was no such thing.

I understood subsequently from the Minister that there was in fact a different proposal, and that there was not exactly an agreement in connection with this clause, but that it was an agreement in connection with the whole Bill. If that is the position, then his argument falls away. I want to appeal to the Minister again. I think that he is doing wrong if he does not accept my amendment. If he accepts it then he will satisfy the farmers more. Why bring the other people on to the control boards? Let us have a definite scheme, so that the farmers can look after their interests, and the other interests can look after their own in their own way.

I just want to say this. If the hon. member understood that I said that there was an agreement about this clause, then I did not express myself correctly. I was at that time Chief Whip of the Government Party and I know how I nearly sweat blood to get the Marketing Bill through the House, and how I had to plead with my friends.

Then they must have been very poor friends to give you such a hard time.

I think the hon. member is only saying that casually and I will not take any notice of it. It was a fact, it was a question of give and take. Hon. members who were in the House at that time know it. Possibly I may still use this argument, which will soften the heart of the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren). We are not only dealing here with the produce but with the industry. I would like to ask the hon. member this question: Would he like us to have two bodies which would deal with wheat from the day it is harvested by the farmer to the time the consumer eats it?

No, but why must the other interests be introduced?

But how otherwise can we make a success of it?

Do you want to tell us that the bakers and the millers do not have their own organisations now?

The hon. member knows that what he is now saying there is camouflage. The body which fixes the price is the Wheat Board, and we cannot have two or three other bodies to fix prices.

It is actually the Minister who fixes the price.

If the hon. member thinks that then he is welcome to do so. The Minister cannot fix a price if the Control Board does not agree.

I have had experience with mealies.

That is the difference between the K.W.V. which deals with a product and here where we have to deal with an industry. Take the Dairy Board. Does the hon. member want two boards?

The Dairy Board has almost killed the dairy farmers.

Many people on the other hand think that after the Dairy Board was established the article improved considerably; we got stable prices, and there was a general improvement in the price.

And I had to sell my milk for a year at 3d. a gallon.

It may be that the hon. member was unfortunate. I think, however, that it is generally admitted throughout the country that since the Dairy Board was established we have had, on the whole, a better article. But be that as it may, we cannot over-persuade each other by arguments in this House. As I have said, I think it will be a great mistake for us to pass this amendment. It will kill the control boards in the country. We shall not be able to keep them going against the opinion which we shall have in the country on the part of the consumers and the other interests. Success comes if they can cooperate. I cannot accept the amendment.

†Neither can I accept the amendment of the hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno). I think it is right that the farmer should have a majority there. After all it is his product that is being dealt with. I think if consumers have representation, that is as far as we can go at present. That is what the principal law decided, and I think that was correct. What I am trying to do here is to maintain the principle of the law as it was laid down by the House in the first instance.

Question put: That the word “and” in line 53, proposed to be omitted, stand part of the clause.

Upon which the Committee divided.

Ayes—46:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Baines, A. C. V.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Bowie, J. A.

Clark, C. W.

Collins, W. R.

Davis, A.

De Kock, A. S.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, H. C.

Dolley, G.

Egeland, L.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman, H.

Hare, W. D.

Henderson, R. H.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Long, B. K.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Pocock, P. V.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Steenkamp, W. P.

Steytler, L. J.

Sturrock, F. C.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Merwe, H.

Wares, A. P. J.

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

Noes—24:

Bosman, P. J.

Bremer, K.

Brits, G. P.

De Bruyn, D. A. S.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Loubser, S. M.

Naudé, S. W.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Schoeman, B. J.

Schoeman, N. J.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. P.

Van den Berg, C. J. V. d.

Merwe, R. A. T

Venter, J. A. P.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Viljoen, J. H.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

Tellers: F. C. Erasmus and J. F. T. Naudé.

Question accordingly affirmed and the first part of the amendment proposed by Mr. Warren negatived.

The remaining amendment proposed by Mr. Warren and the amendments proposed by Mr. Molteno were put and negatived.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On clause 4,

I move the following amendment to this clause—

This provision as it stands in the Bill takes away existing rights from the control boards. We on this side feel that if the control boards are not constituted well, then improve the composition of them, but do not go and reduce the power which is given to the boards. I am prepared to agree that the hon. member for Kimberley (District) (Mr. Steytler) will support this amendment, because he is strongly in favour of more powers being given to the control boards, and that the Minister should not have so much say. I trust that as I am especially fighting for the principle, the powers of the control boards will not be curtailed, that the hon. member will support me, because we feel that, even if we do not have full confidence in the control boards, we nevertheless have more confidence in them than in the Minister. We have found, so far as the wheat industry is concerned, that we would rather be in the hands of a control board than in the hands of the Minister, because the Minister undoubtedly did a crying injustice to the wheat farmers in connection with the fixing of the price of wheat. The Minister knows, and I feel he is convinced of it, just as I am, that he does not allow justice to be done to the wheat farmers. He has rejected the recommendation of the Wheat Control Board. The recommendation, that there was at least a rise in the cost of the production of 5s. a bag, and that the farmers were therefore entitled to an increase of 5s. in the price of wheat, was rejected by him, and he granted a miserable 2s. What is more, he did not even give the 2s. to the farmers, because 1s. of it he took out of the pockets of the wheat farmers themselves, out of funds raised by them. That fund was collected by the wheat farmers themselves in order not to undermine the price of wheat in a surplus year, and to get rid of the surplus. He used the fund now to compensate the wheat farmers for the increase in the costs of production. I trust that the hon. member for Kimberley (District) (Mr. Steytler), who is a member of the Wheat Control Board, will agree on this point. I assume that he is just as disappointed as the wheat farmers at the attitude of the Minister. The Minister has not got the confidence of the wheat farmers in regard to the fixing of prices, and they feel that they would rather be in the hands of the Wheat Control Board than in the hands of the Minister.

As the mover said, the Act was passed in 1938, and the powers were given to the Marketing Board to buy, hire, etc., properties. Now I cannot see why, if that is the position, the Minister should come and ask that the powers which they have enjoyed for all these years should be curtailed. In other words, the control boards will only be entitled to buy properties with the Minister’s consent. The Minister said, a day or two ago, it was the control boards who made all the difficulties, and not himself.

Do not distort a man’s words in that way.

That is how I understood it.

Then you should listen better.

I say again, that is how I understood it. He clearly said it in this way, that he could not be blamed for the difficulties, but the control boards. If the boards are not there to control, and if the Minister thinks that he must control them, what then do the control boards exist for? A control board, like the Dried Fruits Control Board, did not amount to anything either, because it had practically no powers. It cannot fix the price, and it cannot even ration the markets. There are two ways to exercise control over prices, namely, by fixing prices and by rationing markets. But they cannot even do that. If the Minister is ultimately the man who decides and who has to do everything, why then have the boards? Now the Minister wants to take away the right of the boards to buy property.

He wants to stop them from buying mills again.

It seems to me unfair to take away those powers. I know that in the Irrigation Act there is a similar provision that the Minister must give his consent before they can buy properties, and every time an irrigation board wants to buy a little house for a foreman, or something of that kind, then the consent of the Minister has first to be obtained. I feel that that is unnecessary. They can only buy if they have the money to pay with. The Government is not asked to provide the money. They have to pay themselves out of the grant, out of the amount that they get for the control of a product. They can impose a levy, and even the levy is subject to the Minister’s approval. It seems to me that the boards mean nothing, they have no powers, the Minister has all the powers. They can only make certain proposals and hold meetings, and then they get certain statistics—in other words, they can only do the work which the Department ought to do. I therefore feel justified in asking for the deletion of this paragraph.

Amendment proposed by Mr. Loubser, put and negatived.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 5,

I want to object very strongly to this sub-clause 5 (e) (bis.) In this memorandum which the Minister has given us, it says—

I must honestly say that when one reads the clause in that way you would never think that that point was contained in it, but if the main object of the provision is to give powers to prevent the sale of fresh milk belonging to people who are not registered in a certain area, then I want to draw the Minister’s attention to what might occur. An area, for instance, like Pretoria or Johannesburg, is proclaimed, and then only dairy farmers who come within the area will be allowed to sell milk in Johannesburg. The others who fall outside of the area are prohibited.

The object is just the opposite.

How can it be the opposite if it reads as it does now?

The position is this. We cannot apply a milk scheme to-day under the old Act of 1937, because what the hon. member does not want is just what might happen. Under the Act of 1937 the control board which was then appointed, does not have the power to demarcate certain areas, and only to deal with milk which is being sold in those areas. This clause is specially intended to give the control board the right to introduce a scheme in connection with milk in parts of the country.

I do not know what the Minister’s intentions are here but I know what appears in the clause. The clause says this—

That is even worse than what is stated in the memorandum. The memorandum gives us to understand that one can now be prevented from selling in certain areas milk which has not yet been produced in that area. For instance, an area may be laid down of say ten or twenty miles round about Johannesburg. Outside that area there are numerous dairy farmers who have refrigerating schemes on their farms to keep the milk cool and to deliver it in Johannesburg as fresh milk. Those people can be excluded and may be ruined. On account of the fact that there is a shortage of milk on the Witwatersrand people have set up refrigerating schemes so as to supplement the shortage of fresh milk. They have done so practically speaking, on the advice, and on the instruction of the Government, and the consumers in Johannesburg have made it necessary for them to do so. Now the Minister goes along and lays down a provision as a result of which those people may be completely ruined. As has been stated there are quite a number of farmers who have specially equipped themselves with a view being able to supply milk. This clause means that the people who are in control can determine a certain area and they can indicate certain people who will be allowed to supply milk. Not only is it possible for areas to be laid down but it even goes so far that arbitrary powers may be given to the board to say “Piet or Klass are indicated and they can deliver or supply within that area, but Pole shall not do so.” It says here: “Such persons as may be specified.” This clause is framed in a very vague manner and one can drive all the horses and carriages in South Africa through it. The memorandum also states that the object of the clause is to exclude certain people who so far have supplied milk. It would appear that this clause is intended to create a monopoly for certain people living in the urban areas, for large dairies close to Johannesburg or Pretoria. One finds barristers there running a dairy, one even gets officials in the Minister’s departement or in other departments supplying milk. As far as they are concerned it is entirely a side issue, it is not their business, but it is a good investment for them under existing conditions. The object of this clause appears to be to protect those people and to cut out bona fide farmers living outside the particular circle. If, for example, a circle like that were laid down for the Witwatersrand a place like Heidelberg, for instance, can be cut out. Surely the Minister knows what the position on the High Veld is. Farms close to the railway lines have the necessary machinery to keep the milk cool and they send their milk by train to Johannesburg where it is supplied as fresh milk. There is no over-production to-day but it may arise and then the people who are not bona fide farmers, but who live in Johannesburg, will cut out the bona fide farmers because the bona fide farmers perhaps have the necssary food for their animals and because the other producers who only produce milk as a side issue are unable to compete with them. It is a very dangerous and unfair clause. I do not say that it will be applied in an unfair way but it may be applied unfairly, and it may lead to discrimination as between certain groups of people.

I wish to associate myself with the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom), and I want to protest against this part of the clause. In the Western Transvaal, even in my area, where the train facilities are good, milk is taken to Johannesburg. But that is not all this clause has in view. If we read further, we see that the memorandum says that it may be applied to any other commodity, for instance, to mealies. Certain areas may be cut’ off for mealies or any other products, and farmers falling outside those areas can be excluded. This is what the memorandum states—

If that is the position, one may get all kinds of farmers for whom the production of mealies is a side issue, and they may be cut out. On the High Veld one gets farmers who produce mealies, but other products as well. Even in the Cape one gets farmers who produce mealies, even here in the Western Province. They will probably fall outside. But take the farmer who does not fall inside the area and who produces a quantity of mealies for his cattle. He has a good year and produces more mealies than he requires. He may perhaps not be allowed then to put those mealies on the market. When the original Act was being considered, we discussed that point very thoroughly, and we came to the conclusion that it would cause a very unequal pressure on certain members of the farming community. I am surprised that the Minister now brings in a similar provision in this Bill. Discrimination may be indulged in now, and certain farmers may be cut out. Where is it going to end? Certain people may get a preference over others, although they may not need it at all, and others may be cut out. One may have a crowd of advocates in Johannesburg, or on the platteland, who produce mealies. They want to have the right to sell their mealies on the market, but the farmer who falls just outside the area will not be allowed to send in his milk, or he may not even be allowed to send his mealies to the market. He is a bona fide farmer, but because he does not come within a certain area he will not be able to sell. Where are we going to end if we discriminate in this way? It seems to me that even the wheat farmers of the Western Province may insist on a ring being formed as a result of which the major portion of the country will be cut out so far as wheat production is concerned. One may get agitation from one section against the other, and it may lead to endless trouble.

It would certainly be a terrible thing if hon. members were right, but I feel they do not understand the position. The position is that if I were to withdraw or abandon the clause, it would mean, for instance, that one could bring a man in Standerton under the scheme, because the Act as it exists to-day can deal only with milk produced in a specified area.

Then you could proclaim the whole Transvaal as an area.

But I can do that already, and that is the very reason why we cannot get a definite milk scheme. What the clause says is this: That a man in Johannesburg, a man who deals in milk, cannot buy milk from anyone who is not registered as a producer.

In a certain area.

But that is not what the clause says.

But it is stated in the memorandum that that is what they want to be able to do. The clause is very vague.

But this is an enabling Bill. You get a scheme, and it will lay down what must be done. If we do not have this clause we are unable to discriminate, and a dealer can buy from whomsoever he wants to buy. The very thing we want to do is to give the man who is far away and who supplies milk in Johannesburg the chance to continue to do so. He has registered, and if his application for registration is turned down he can appeal to the Minister and he can say that he has been unfairly excluded.

Must the dealer also be registered?

Of course. So far as mealies are concerned, this will have the effect that the dealer will only be able to deal with people who are producers, or with other registered dealers. The intention is to be able to exercise control so that he will not be able to deal with just anyone, for instance with a person who is illegally in possession of mealies. There is nothing in the Bill intended to define certain areas in which he has to work. The hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Wentzel) is wrong; there is nothing here laying it down that he can only buy from a producer at Christiana, Klerksdorp, Ermelo, etc., etc.

He cannot do business with a person in the Christiana area if that person is not registered in that area.

If he is a producer he cannot be refused registration. The dealer has to buy from the registered producer, but the details have to be laid down by the scheme. The board is given the power here to draft a scheme. The hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) will know that it is in connection with the fresh milk scheme that difficulties have arisen. Those difficulties have arisen under the old law, that only in such area which is a milk producing area can such a scheme like that apply. For instance, one cannot sell milk to Durban. This Bill will make it possible for milk to be sent to Durban, for instance. I am afraid that otherwise the man who lives in a town or in the immediate neighbourhood of a town will benefit to a greater extent than the man whom the hon. member and I, too, want to protect. That is the object of this Bill, and my legal advisers tell me that that is the object and nothing more. If I were to accept the amendment to delete these things, it would be impossible for us to put the fresh milk scheme into force. For that reason, I am afraid I cannot accept the amendment.

If we take the provisions of this clause as the Bill reads now the position is that every producer in an area has to be registered, and the Control Board can refuse to register him, and if he is registered the Control Board can again delete his name, is that so?

Yes, that is so.

And if his name is deleted he is not allowed to sell the commodity which he produces. The man who deals in that article is prevented from buying from him. In other words if the Government were to pack these Control Boards with Government supporters they would be able to turn down any member of the Ossewa-Brandwag or of any other organisation. They could refuse to register such an individual and the only appeal that man would have would be to the Minister, and the Minister might take up the same attitude. I am not saying that the Minister would do a thing like that but we may get a Minister who would, and the producer would then be faced with the position that he would be unable to sell his product. He would have to get out of his business or take up another branch of farming. The Minister is the only person he can appeal to. He cannot go to court if he feels he has been unjustly treated. In that way a producer may be treated very unjustly. I know that control has to be exercised over producers if one wants to control a product under a scheme of this kind, but I fail to see why it should be necessary for an individual to be registered as a producer. I can conceive of the registration of the buyers, but not of the registration of the producers. Whatever a man produces should be bought. Let it go through one channel as we lay down now, but the clause as it appears here seems to be very dangerous.

I must say that I am astounded at the Minister’s reply. He gives us an explanation of the object of this clause which is in direct conflict with his own memorandum. The memorandum he has given us is not only intended to clear up the various clauses but also to tell us what the object of those clauses is. I want to ask the Minister to study clause 7 of the memorandum when he will see that it is made clear there that the people who drafted this Bill had in mind to lay it down that certain areas were to be specified and any individual outside those areas would not be able to sell his products in that area. The official who drafted this should surely know what the intentions are. I say again that what they say here is the very opposite of what the Minister says. Now I come to the Minister’s argument that all the producers of fresh milk, for instance, have to be registered. There is something to be said for that, but why does the Minister put in a clause like this which is open to a thousand and one different interpretations? So far as registration is concerned I want to take milk as an example. I want to point out to the Minister that any farmer who wants to sell his milk in a large town has to have his stables and his milking shed approved of by the Municipal Council of the area concerned in which he wants to sell. Consequently, there is a certain degree of registration. The man who is not registered cannot sell his milk. So there already is a system of registration which provides for proper control. My objection to this clause is this, that in the way it is drafted by the legal advisers, and in the way it is interpreted according to the memorandum, it gives the Board of Control the right to define certain areas in order to prevent other people from selling their products in those areas. If the Minister has any doubt on that let me read what appears in the memorandum. This is what I find on page 6 of the memorandum—

Assuming an area is specified 20 miles around the Witwatersrand; it is a particular area and any producer not living in that area may be prevented from selling milk there.

The area is the selling place and not the place of production.

But the memorandum clearly says this—“New paragraph E bis. will be necessary for fresh milk control in particular, e.g., to prohibit the sale by any person of milk not produced by a producer registered in respect of a particular area.”

The words “in respect of” are used, and not “in.”

That is how the Minister may explain it, but it is also susceptible to a different explanation. It shows how this thing has been drafted. That is not the only interpretation to which it is susceptible. All the provision need say is that in order to be allowed to sell milk in a particular area the producer shall be registered. If that is the object, let the Minister put it clearly. As the clause now reads it is open to abuse.

The position is that a person will not be able to sell milk in Johannesburg, to give an example, if he is not registered to sell there. If we do not do that, then how are we going to know how much milk we can get in such an area?

And only the people in that area are allowed to supply.

No, the man in Christiana can also supply milk if he is registered to sell in the Johannesburg area. This refers to the area where the sale takes place and not to the area where the production takes place. I am advised by my legal advisers that that is what this clause provides. I do not know how we can put it more clearly. The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren) says that he objects to the registration of producers. I do not know in what other way we can control the milk. A certain quantity of milk is required for such an area. One has to see to it that one gets enough, and one has to make the necessary provision for the surplus. The only provision we can make is that which we are making here, namely, that if a person is refused registration he has the right to appeal. I do not know how we can put it differently.

I have no objection to the registration but to the area.

I can say that the legal advisers have advised me that the wording of the clause is correct. If the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) can put it clearer, I am prepared to reconsider the matter. I do not believe, however, that this provision is open to misunderstanding. I shall go into the question again, and if it can be made clear I shall do so during the report stage.

The Minister told us just now that this clause was intended to control milk and that the producers could be registered in respect of a particular area such as Johannesburg. If the Board of Control is given the power to exercise control and milk should become plentiful at a particular time, the Board has the right to tell the farmers that henceforth their quota will be 20 or 30 gallons and no more.

That is so.

What is a man to do with the rest of his milk then? It is going very far to interfere with the rights of the farmers in that way. I should say that the people in an area like Johannesburg would have to make provisions to take the surplus milk.

That is what happens.

But don’t tell the farmers that they can bring 20 gallons of milk this week and only 10 gallons next week— if one does that the farmers will not know what to do and where to dispose of their milk. A farmer is not registered for another area. Could not some scheme be devised to cope with that difficulty?

That is the very thing this scheme contemplates, and that was contained in the scheme which the court declared to be illegal. It makes provision for the surplus milk by creating a pool. The producer is told that he can sell so much fresh milk at the top price and the balance has to be used for the manufacture of butter and cheese at the price paid for that class of milk.

I only want to ask the Minister whether he can give us an assurance that under this clause there will be no possibility of discrimination against farmers living a long way off in favour of farmers round about Pretoria and Johannesburg. I have great fear that the main object of this clause is to protect those people at the expense of the bona fide farmers outside.

I wish to move the following amendments. My first amendment is this—

It will be remembered that I said we must also punish the buyer. But the man who buys a pound of butter from the dealer who is not entitled to sell butter is not the guilty person. Our object is to catch the dealer who buys from the producer, and he must be punished. As the clause now reads, the innocent person who buys some article of food from a dealer may also be punished, and my amendment is intended to put that position right. Now I come to my next amendment, “to omit paragraph (c) on page 10”. I said that I would withdraw this clause in connection with the agents, and that is the object of my amendment. I also have moved certain amendments to the text.

Amendments put and agreed to.

Before you put the clause as amended, I want to give the Committee the assurance that this clause gives power so that if, for instance, scoundrels contain a majority on a control board and they want to differentiate, it will be possible to prevent them from doing so.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On clause 11,

I want to ask the Minister to explain one point in this clause. Under this Bill the Governor-General confers extensive powers on the board. In this section it will be noticed the Governor-General may by proclamation prohibit the importation into or the exportation from the Union of any regulated product, and then it goes on to say that the Governor-General may, subject to such conditions as may be specified in the proclamation, confer on the regulatory board concerned, or the secretary, power to do such and such a thing. Why is this the only clause in the Bill where the secretary of a board has these tremendous powers conferred on him? Apparently he can use these powers at his own discretion without ever consulting his board.

There must be somebody who can sign any orders that are contemplated here. It must be either the secretary or the chairman, and in most cases the secretary is also manager.

But the signing of something on behalf of the board is hot the same thing as power to exercise the functions of a board.

I am advised that it is the Secretary of the department who is referred to. I will look into the matter and put it right at the report stage if necessary.

Then I am quite satisfied if you will make it clear.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 13,

There is just one point about which I am wondering. I believe the Minister gave an explanation at the second reading, but unfortunately I did not hear it. Does the Minister really realise what the punishment is that is provided for here? If a man is convicted of an offence, not paying his levies or certain other similar offences, the clause says that in addition to any other punishment the court convicting him shall enquire into and assess the monetary equivalent of any advantage which that person may have gained and impose on him a fine equal to the amount so assessed, and in addition give judgment against that person and in favour of the board for the amount which the court finds is due to such board. I see by the explanatory note in the memorandum it is mentioned that actually in one case a person was convicted for non-payment of approximately £1,600, and this clause says that in addition to fining him £1,600 he may have judgment given against him for a second amount in favour of the board. Is that not rather drastic? If a man gets away with £1,600, I agree that he should be fined that amount, but as the clause stands judgment is given against him for another £1,600 in favour of the board. Isn’t that rather more severe than anything we have ever had in the common law?

Yes, I explained that on the second reading. So far as I am concerned, that is just what was intended, because if a man gets away with it once he probably makes enough to pay all his fines. Hon. members know how difficult it is to trap these people. We had a case the season before last where I was informed that thousands and thousands of pounds were lost to the board. I am hoping that this will scare them off. I would like to have made it gaol as well as a fine.

I think the Minister must have got out of bed on the wrong side when he drafted this clause. Wouldn’t it meet the case if the clause said “may” instead of “shall”?

No, that won’t do, because the magistrates don’t inflict it then.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

Remaining Clauses and Title of the Bill put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

The Chairman reported the Bill with amendments; amendments to be considered on 3rd March.