I move as an unopposed motion:

I should like to say that this Bill which is of a very important nature dealing with an important part of our financial structure must be regarded as of a tentative character. I want to have the fullest possible assistance of the House and of all who are interested in the country in framing the Bill in its final form. I am therefore moving for its reference to a Select Committee before the second reading. I do not intend this Bill to be dealt with and passed during this session. I want it to be carefully examined. And then during the recess I shall be prepared to receive all the assistance I can on the subject matter and I hope to be able to introduce the Bill in its final form next session and I hope we shall then be able to pass it into law during that session.

I second.

Motion put and agreed to.

Before giving the House a review of the financial position of the South African Railways and Harbours, I would like to comment briefly on some outstanding features which may be of interest to members.

For the first time yesterday I think the House came face to face with all the consequences and implications of the Government’s war policy. We had before us yesterday the war account for two full years of war, for the year coming to an end and for the year before us. We know that that account has caused consternation, not only on this side of the House but also among hon. members opposite. It is not possible to expect that the shock administered to them yesterday will cure them of the war fever they are suffering from, but we hope that it will have this salutory effect, that when we behold the tremendous blood letting which the country is undergoing, they will, together with us, see to it that not an unnecessary drop of blood is wantonly wasted, and that an end is put to this condition, in view of the fact that the Minister of Finance has made an anneal asking that everyone shall contribute his bit, and that everybody shall give until it hurts, there are yet people in this House and outside whose ambitions are no higher than to be as close to the trough as possible and derive the greatest possible benefits. I move—

Mr. HAYWOOD seconded.

Agreed to.

Debate adjourned; to be resumed on 17th March.

I move the following amendment to this clause—

Fortunately there is an amendment to this clause which makes it possible for me to introduce a change in the clause in the original Act. If hon. members will study the original Act they will see that a sentence in the English text does not appear in the Afrikaans text. The sentence in English is “Or any product to which the provisions of Clause 36 apply”. The object of this amendment is to correct this error and I therefore move that the words mentioned be inserted in the Afrikaans text.

Mr. HUMPHREYS seconded.

Agreed to.

Bill, as amended, adopted.

I move as an unopposed motion—

I second.

In view of the fact that there is so much dissatisfaction with the way in which the Marketing Law is being carried out, and with the composition of the Control Boards, I feel that I wonlid be neglecting my duty if I did not say a few words on this subject. Although we expressed ourselves strongly on the occasion of the second reading of this Bill I want to assure the Minister that we are not opposed to the amendment to the Marketing Act as proposed by him, nor are we opposed to the Control Boards; we only want to watch against the Minister killing the Marketing Act, or against irregularities being committed by the Boards of Control. I feel that we did our duty in passing the Marketing Act and I also feel that we did our duty in regard to the amending Bill. We did not oppose it. On the contrary we have been looking forward to this Bill coming on to the Statute Book in order to assist the farmer to market his products. There is one thing which the Minister of Agriculture should realise, and that is that he can only succeed in making a success of the Marketing Act if he has the co-operation of the farmers. Unfortunately as a result of the treatment meted out to the farmers the Minister is not getting the necessary co-operation. We find in certain parts of the country that there is very grave dissatisfaction in connection with the Minister’s attitude, in connection with that of his department, and also in connection with the Boards of Control as I am going to show just now. Two commodities are mentioned in this Bill as falling under the law which will now fall under the Control Boards. First of all we have meat. I do not know whether the Minister is satisfied with the way cattle and stock are put on the market to-day, and whether he is satisfied with the control of these conditions. We should like to hear something from him in that respect. We know in any case that in regard to the sending of stock and cattle to Johannesburg—there are only two markets which are controlled, namely, Cape Town and Johannesburg—there is grave dissatisfaction. I do not know whether the Minister is satisfied. Anyhow, there have been a great many complaints about speculators being able to send cattle to Johannesburg and the feeling has arisen that it is easier for them to get permits. I know anyhow that so far as Cape Town is concerned there has been a great deal of dissatisfaction. Cattle are sent to just outside the area and there the animals are sold and then smuggled into this area. I want to express the hope that the Boards of Control will place this matter under proper control, and that those irregularities will not be allowed to continue; but what we want to emphasise further is the question of the marketing of our milk, especially in the Eastern Province. The Dairy Control Board has taken unto itself the power of fixing the prices of cheese milk They fixed the price at 5d. per gallon, and for some considerable time the milk was sold at that price in spite of the fact that private factories were prepared to pay as much as 7d. per gallon. None the less the price remained at 5½d. until eventually, after a long period of time, the Dairy Control Board agreed to raise it to 6d. I believe it is still 6d. per gallon. I want to express the hope that there might be a prospect, in view of the fact that there is a shortage of cheese in this country, and in view of the fact also that export has been stopped, of the Dairy Control Board considerably increasing the price of cheese milk, which to a certain extent will compensate the farmers for the low price which they have been getting for a long time. The manufacture of dried milk will now come under the Act in accordance with the proposed amendments and it will come under the Dairy Control Board. They can fix the price for the milk which is supplied. In that connection I wish to say a few words here this afternoon, because when I last raised this subject it appeared to me that the Minister knew very little about it. He admitted that the matter had never been brought to his notice. What is the position now? In our area, Bedford, there was a man who was prepared to put up a dried milk factory and he was willing to invest his own capital in it. He did not ask the farmers for anything, nor did he ask anything from the Government. He was prepared to give a price considerably higher than that which had been fixed by the Dairy Control Board. But the unfortunate part was this, that although dried milk in those days did not fall under the Control Board—that I believe was the finding of the court—there was every probability of the law being amended and of dried milk also being brought under it, as is now happening in this Bill. We wanted an assurance from the Minister and his department that if this dried milk factory was proceeded with it would not be stopped if eventually dried milk should come under the Control Board. I sent a telegram to that effect to the secretary for Agriculture. It took some time but eventually I got this reply—

I subsequently got the following letter—

But then we have this—

A letter was subsequently sent to the Dairy Control Board. The attorneys appointed by the farmers in connection with this matter sent the following letter to the Dairy Control Board—

In reply to that we received the following answer from the Dairy Control Board:

This man is prepared to invest his capital in that business. It will take him a long time before he will be able to import the machinery, and he should at least have an assurance that, once he has started, or incurred certain expense, he will be able to carry on with his factory. The Dairy Control Board says that it cannot give him that authority. The Minister could not give him the authority, nor could the Department of Agriculture do so, and the result is that he lost his opportunity— an opportunity which he will not get again very easily, and which would have been of great importance to the Bedford farmers without in any way harming any other factory. We again emphatically wish to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that he can only make a success of the Marketing Act if he has the co-operation of the farmers. But the Minister will realise that those farmers who have had this opportunity and who have lost it are now annoyed, and that anything coming from the Dairy Control Board will now appear to them as not being in the interest of the farmers, and I also want to say this in regard to the Dairy Control Board, that it is very difficult to get any reply from them. One writes sometimes to the Dairy Control Board and it takes weeks before one gets a reply. As I have said the Minister can only make a success of the Marketing Act and of the Control Board if he appoints them in such a way that they enjoy the confidence of the public and the confidence of the farmers. I believe that a new Dairy Control Board has now been appointed which will probably come into being shortly. We hope that the Minister will pay attention to the new Dairy Control Board—we know the Secretary for Agriculture will do so—and that he will see to it that that board keeps in touch with the farmers, and not only keeps in touch with them but that it will also act in the interest of the farmers. In regard to the constitution of those boards a certain procedure is being followed. The Minister will perhaps in his reply tell us on what basis he acts in appointing those control boards. It has been brought to my notice that a vacancy recently occurred on the Control Board for perishable products. The Chamber of Commerce is also represented on that board, but the representative put on by them was a man who knew absolutely nothing of farming products. He has a bottle store and a garage. The export of meat comes under this Control Board, and I want to say honestly that I am interested in it because I myself have exported meat. When we feel that on a control board like that there are representatives who know nothing whatever about a commodity concerned, a commodity falling under their control, then we feel things are going wrong. I do not want to go into it any further, but as this is a matter of vital importance to the farmers we thought it was our duty at least to bring these few points to the Minister’s notice, and we want to express the hope that he will pay attention to them, and that where friction has arisen between the Control Board and the farmers he will take steps to have such friction removed.

During the course of the debate on this Bill, it was stated that the fresh milk industry of the country was in a state of chaos, and that the distributors did not support a voluntary scheme, and as a result producers were receiving a lower price for their milk. I wish to say that that statement does not apply to Durban. In Durban the fresh milk industry is in a very happy position. As long ago as November the distributors reduced the price to consumers from 3½d. to 3d. a pint, and as a result the turnover increased so much that they were able to reduce the unit cost of distribution, and thus were able to pay a larger price to the producer. The quota system is no longer required as producers are able to dispose of all their supplies. I wish to mention this because it appears that as far as Durban is concerned, the much-maligned middleman has achieved a very fine result, and has been able to give a reduced price to consumers and an increased price to the producers.

Members on this side of the House have done nothing to obstruct the passage of this Bill because of the fact that we are all in favour of the Marketing Act. When the Bill was originally introduced we hoped that it would be the farmers’ Magna Charta, because for a long time there had been a need for a reorganised marketing system of the products of the farmer in South Africa. People thought that when this Bill was introduced we would be taking an important forward step, but even when the Bill was introduced certain doubts arose in our minds. First of all we felt that concessions were being asked for which were not in the interest of the farmer. For instance it was laid down that the boards which were to control the farmers’ products, and which were to regulate the sales were not going to be constituted exclusively of producers, but that other interests were also to be represented on those boards. This is in contrast with what is happening in connection with other interests. There is no other concern in this country where, in regard to the organisation of such concern or industry, representation is given on the controlling or organising body to interests clashing with the interests of the other concern or industry. In regard to farmers’ interests the mistake has been made that control has been given on the boards to a large number of people whose interests are in conflict with, and clash with the interests of the farmers. The result is that this Bill is even now being looked upon in many respects by the farmers as an undesirable Bill, although farmers did look forward to it as a measure which, even if it did not create a panacea, would tend to reduce the difficulties with which they have had to cope in the past. A further doubt which arose in our minds was that in connection with the administration of the law tremendous powers are being given to the Government, and it is perhaps in regard to this doubt that we have most reason to criticise the Bill to-day. The carrying out of the Act is under the Minister of Agriculture. That being so I want to ask the Minister that where he has to give guidance, and where he has to administer the law he should remember that he is there as the Minister who looks after agriculture and he must not go against agriculture. It often appears to me that when decisions have to be come to in regard to particular agriculture interests, and particularly if the Minister is called upon to decide in regard to the administration of the law, he forgets that he is Minister of Agriculture. Every time this happened he has by the attitude he has adopted, and by the lead he has given in regard to the administration of the law, failed to look after the best interests of the farmers. Under the law the Minister has three bodies to advise him. The first body is the Control Board of a particular product; the second is the Marketing Board, and in some cases the Board of Trade and Industries also comes in. Now we do realise that the Minister is in an awkward position. He has too many advisers. We recall the words of the late Senator Langenhoven who said that every man was his own best adviser, because if one does ask anyone else’s advice one still has to judge and decide whether one is going to accept that advice. Seeing that the Minister has so many advisers in connection with this law he should bear in mind that in the final instance he has to be his own adviser, and if he is not sympathetically disposed towards the farmers—be that the position consciously or unconsciously, and if he uses his own discretion wrongly—the interests of the farmer will suffer. I am sorry to have to say that the Minister in the past has often been his own worst adviser. So far as I am concerned I must say that he has often advised himself badly, and that he has often not even advised himself, but has simply chosen the middle course, the course of least resistance. If conflicting recommendations were made to him he chose the middle course which was the easiest course. If recommendations were made by boards of control and different recommendations were put in by the Marketing Board, and different recommendations again by the Board of Trade and Industries, the Minister has been in the habit of choosing the middle course and of accepting the advice of the Marketing Board. By taking up that attitude the Minister shows that he himself has no judgment in regard to those matters. Now I do not want to say that he has no judgment but he has perhaps simply chosen the middle course because it is the easiest course. I want to ask the Minister no longer to choose the easiest course, but to choose the best course. When the administration of the law is at issue, he should act in accordance with his own judgment and in the interest of the agricultural industry. If one were to ask the farmers in the country to-day to express their opinion of the attitude adopted by the Minister under the law, a great many of them would say that the Minister has not acted in their best interests. Just let me refer to the outstanding case of the wheat farmers. In that instance the Control Board for that industry approached him and made certain recommendations. There, instead of giving adequate consideration to the recommendations of the Board of Control, he referred the matter to the Marketing Board, and he accepted the recommendations of the Marketing Board. I want to say to the Minister that in connection with these matters he should show sound judgment, and he should take into account the real conditions of the farmers in South Africa. We were told yesterday, and we are told so every day, that the farmer should avail himself of the present opportunity to rehabilitate himself, that the farmer should strengthen his position in view of the years of depression which are to be expected after the war. The farming industry, as a result of the years of depression, is still in an unsound position, and it was hoped that an opportunity would present itself, in view of the higher prices which usually result from a war, for farmers to be able to rehabilitate themselves. In view of the fact that prices have to be fixed under the Marketing Act, we had hoped that the Minister, as Minister of Agriculture, would look after the best interests of the farmers, and that he would see to it that farmers got prices which in the circumstances could not be regarded as unfair, and which would enable them to rehabilitate themselves and to get over the years of depression they experienced just before the war. Now I want to contend that the Minister of Agriculture, by fixing the price for farming products, did not enable the farmers to rehabilitate themselves and to make up the leeway, and consequently the farmers will not be able to comply with the request made by the Minister of Finance, namely, to prepare themselves and to ensure their position against the years of depression which are ahead when the war is over. I want to ask the Minister, when fixing the price level, to bear in mind that it should not be his object to keep the price of the farmers’ products as low as possible, but to remember that the Marketing Act should be applied in such a manner that the farmers are treated fairly and equitably, and that they get a price which in the circumstances can be fully justified. It is by no means our wish to exploit the public with the aid of the Board of Control. We do not want to get impossibly high prices for the products of the farmers. That sort of thing would lead to speculation, and we know that the danger connected with speculation is just as great as the danger connected with low prices; in consequence of abnormal prices, one gets speculation, and at times like that more farmers often go under than in bad years. But, seeing that the farmer to-day is in a very poor economic position, and seeing that such a lot of leeway has to be made up, and bearing in mind that costs of production have gone up considerably, a very strong case can be made out for ensuring an increased price for the farmers. The prices whic h are fixed to-day are not sufficient. Now I further want to ask the Minister, when the price level has to be fixed, not to take the price level which prevailed during the years of depression just before the war. That is where I think the Minister makes a mistake. He is thinking of the depression level as the basis on which prices have to be fixed to-day, instead of taking the average price over a long period of years, and to regard that as the normal basis to which a percentage of increase has to be added, which is justified by the special circumstances. If he does that he will get a fair basis. Let the Minister do for the farmers what he is doing for himself, otherwise the farmer will have reason to complain. The Minister is a producer, too. He is Minister not only of Agriculture, but also of Forestry, and as Minister of Forestry he sells timber. What has he done in connection with timber? He is selling timber to-day at a price 100 per cent. higher than it was before the war, but if the farmer asks for a small increase in prices his request is turned down, and the Minister puts down his foot and prevents prices from going up. If a Board of Control recommendes a price which in the circumstances cannot be regarded as an unfair price, then the Minister refuses to accept that recommendation, as he did in the case of wheat. Seeing that the Minister found it necessary in regard to his production as Minister of Forestry to allow a considerable rise in prices to take place, I ask him also to give the farmers generally the opportunity of getting a reasonable price for their products under existing conditions. The wheat farmers have cause to be dissatisfied, and I want to ask the Minister, in view of the dissatisfaction which is prevailing, not merely among the wheat farmers, but also among other classes of farmers, to promise the House that henceforth, if Boards of Control have to fix a price, he will, in considering the price level to be fixed, not take account of the depression years immediately before the war, but take the average over a long series of years, and arrive at a normal basis in that way, so that a reasonable increase may be provided for in view of prevailing conditions. If he does that he will allow a considerable increase in prices to take place. I hope the Minister will act in that direction, and I hope that by doing so he will remove the dissatisfaction which prevails to-day in connection with this Bill. I am afraid that if the old course is pursued any longer, the farmers will in due course be up against a law which was expected to be the farmers’ Magna Charta, and I am afraid that they will look upon the law as a law which has ruined them. It would be a pity if we should have to take a retrogressive step and if a law should have to disappear when the intention of that law was to help the farmers and to protect the interests of the farmers.

This Marketing Act has already been in operation for a few years and we have learned from experience that certain amendments are necessary, amendments which are now brought before us by the Minister, and which we approve of. Things which we have found to be wrong have to be put right. What attitude do the farmers adopt to-day towards the Marketing Act? Do they think it has really been to the benefit of the farmers as it was intended to be? I certainly think that we have made progress in many respects; the producers have to a certain extent obtained control over their products, but what has experience taught us? We have the Wheat Board for instance and the Daily Control Board, and they make recommendations and those recommendations are then sent to the Marketing Board which in turn goes carefully into everything and a report is finally submitted to the Minister, and the Minister then sends back his approval to the proposed amendments, or whatever it may be. Now we have advisers from the Department of Agriculture on those Boards and also from other Departments concerned, who act in an advisory capacity. I am afraid that those advisory elements have too great a say there. I can speak from experience and I know of instances where the Minister has taken practically no ontice of the Boards. Whatever the Marketing Board says goes. There is nothing more to be said. But it was never the intention that the Marketing Act should be applied in that way. The object of the Marketing Act should be applied in that way. The object of the Marketing Act is that the producers in South Africa may be able to make a reasonable profit on the products they grow so as to enable them to make a decent living. In addition there must be the possibility of making up in good years for times of depression. In time of war there is one section of the population which above all should make up for lost ground, and that is the farmers. Are the farmers making up any leeway to-day? I notice that the Minister said the other day that the farmers had nothing ot complain about, that they were quite satisfied, as they were getting a good price for their products. I want to assure the Minister that as things are to-day the farmers are a very patient element who have to be satisfied with the crumbs that fall from the table. They have deteriorated to such an extent that they have to take what they can get. The farmers are not satisfied. They are not making any leeway; they are not being given the opportunity of preparing for the setback which will come after the war. The farmer is in this position to-day, that he is hardly able to pay his interest to say nothing of the redemption of the capital burden resting upon him. The Minister of Finance said that the farmers were to-day getting this, that and the other, and he said that those of us who talked about farming interests were not serious in what they said— that they came and asked for things for political purposes and then they spoke to the farmers in a jocular war, but those were all minor things. I want to assure the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Finance that that is not so. In any case, when I come here and plead the interests of the farmers I feel that I am dealing with a serious matter, and I do not raise these matters for political purposes. Let the Minister find out what is the real position of the farmers. The Marketing Act, as it stands today, is all very well and good; we can do all sorts of wonderful things under that Act, but I want to tell the Minister that he should not always accept the advice of the Marketing Board. What is the use, otherwise, of having all those other boards, if their advice and their proposals are turned down by the Marketing Board, while in some cases even the recommendations of the Marketing Board in turn are rejected by the Minister of Agriculture? It is in that way that the boards lose standing and do not answer their purpose. I have mentioned on previous occasions what happened to us at Burghersdorp. Last year there was a scheme afoot to erect a butter factory. The nearest factory is 40 miles away. The people who wanted to undertake this enterprise had a good case and applied for a licence, but it was flatly turned down by the Dairy Control Board. I again approached the Secretary for Agriculture and he promised that he would find out what the position was and why the licence had been refused. We must expand agriculturally— we cannot afford to stand still, but I am afraid the farming industry is not having the attention and the consideration it is entitled to. The farming industry to-day is on the verge of bankruptcy. It may be said that there is a lot of money in circulation and that the farmers are not doing too badly. The Minister of Finance said among other things that the farmers were meeting their obligations and that they were paying off their debts. Yes, they are to-day meeting their obligations to the extent that they are paying their interest, but thousands of pounds are still outstanding on suspense account. Large sums of money have been put to suspense account for one or two years and those amounts have not yet been paid, and all the time more money is being put to suspense account. If the farmers were called upon to-day to pay all their obligations and to pay their debts, half of them would be hopelessly bankrupt, and that is a fact which the Minister knows just as well as I do. As we are now dealing with a Bill providing for the marketing of the farmers’ products the Minister should set to work very carefully, and his department should do everything in its power to assist the farmers wherever they can do so. For instance, we have a Department of Commerce and Industries. It is practically impossible to get anything from that department. They may possibly supply the Minister with information but we have been trying for years to get figures from them to show why there is such a big difference between the price of wheat and the price of flour. For years we have been asking for an enquiry, but we cannot get the information we ask for. Even to this day we have not got the figures. The Minister of Agriculture himself has stated in this House that he feels the difference is too great, but in all these years we have been unable to get information. I hope the Minister has the data and will give us the information to-day. The farmers are under the impression that they have to take for their wheat what they can get because they are told that the millers are unable to make a living. It is felt generally, however, by the farmers, that there is a tremendous gap between the price of wheat and the price of flour, and they want some explanation as to why there should be such a gap. If we can get this information it will help us considerably to judge the position and to remove the difficulties. It is highly essential that we should get the information. I do not want to do anyone an injustice but the Board of Trade and Industries has been dealing with this question for years, but they have not yet got to the stage of being able to tell us the causes for the present position. I feel that the Bill now before us is a measure which should benefit the farmers, and if it is at all possible the farmers should be assisted. I notice that there is a vacancy at the moment on the Marketing Board; Mr. Olivier has resigned as a member. I do not know whether his place has already been filled, but I feel that the whole of the farming population owes a debt of gratitude to Mr. Olivier. He has for years been doing all in his power to promote the interests of the farmers, and I understand that he has been forced to resign on account of health reasons. I think it is our duty to express our appreciation of the valuable services he has rendered to the farmers. If a néw man is to be appointed I hope we shall at long last get representation for the Cape on the Marketing Board. The Cape has consistently been ignored, and it is a well known fact that he who is nearest the pot gets most of the stew—if one is not near Pretoria, or if one is not a friend of the Minister, or is not on particularly intimate terms with the head of a department, one cannot get anything. The Cape Province has been treated in a most stepmotherly fashion in every respect. The Minister of Finance originally came from the Cape and I hope that even though he lives in Pretoria now he will bear the claims of the Cape Province in mind. Surely a great many of our commodities are grown in the Cape? In spite of this the Cape has no representative on the Marketing Board. I hope the Minister will see his way now to appoint a working farmer from the Cape Province on the Marketing Board, a man who has the necessary knowledge of farming products and also of the marketing of our products.

I feel it my duty also to say a few words on the Marketing Act which we are now amending in the Bill before the House. When the Bill was originally introduced an impression was created that the farmers were going to get heaven on earth. I was one of those who opposed it from the very start, and I was unable to see eye to eye with my party, that it would have such a good effect. Today I find that I have been correct in my i attitude. You will not find my name anywhere as having voted in favour of the Marketing Act. I never had the idea that it was going to create heaven on earth.

Some people thought that things would improve considerably and that the farmers would get the chance of fixing the prices for their products, but what has been the effect of the law? What has been happening in the few years that the law has been in force? I do not want to go into all the details but let hon. members go and ask the wheat farmers in my constituency what their opinion of the Marketing Act is. The one man writes a letter to the Minister and the next one writes to the Wheat Control Board, and all of them are dissatisfied. And so serious is that dissatisfaction to-day that one simply cannot talk to the farmers. They are sick of the Marketing Act. It has fed them up. We have had experience in regard to wheat, and people are thoroughly dissatisfied. Let hon. members come to the small fruit farmers we have at Van Wyk’s Dorp and places like that, and let them ask people there what they think of the Marketing Act, and they will be told this: “My poor wife has 15 or 20 cases of dried figs; we always used to get 7d. per lb. for our figs, but we cannot sell our figs to-day, we have to sell them to the Control Board. That is the body which fixes all these things, and what are we getting now? We get 3d. per lb.” They used to be able to sell their dried fruit for 4d. and 5d. per lb. To-day they get 2½d. One is not allowed to sell to the farmers who need those goods—the farmers who want to sell things have to go to the shop and pay 7d. per lb. And who is the middle-man who gets all the profit? The farmers thought that they would benefit from the Marketing Act, but things have turned out quite differently. Now let us look at raisins. The people who used to grow raisins were able to sell them to others for 3d. per lb. To-day they get 2½d. per lb. If I have any raisins I am not allowed to sell them to another farmer, nor am I allowed to buy another man’s raisins—that is what the Marketing Act has done for us. And how has it helped the farmers? What good has it done to them? Give me one item, give me one farming product in connection with which the Marketing Act has done the farmers any good. I want the Minister to get up here and say to us: “Well, take this product, the price is much higher now as a result of the control which we exercise to-day.” He cannot mention one branch of farming which has benefited from the Act. The people who really have control are doing everything in their power to keep the prices of the farmers’ products as low as possible. They do not want the prices of farm products to go up — the interests behind everything want to keep the prices of products as low as possible. I remember when the Marketing Act was first introduced I said that it reminded me of fencing off a camp with jackal-proof fencing, and leaving a crowd of jackals inside the camp with one’s sheep. The jackal kills and eats the sheep, and that is the very thing which this Act is doing—it is destroying the farmers, and the Minister is the chief jackal. I do not want to insult the Minister, but I do want to ask him to see to it that the Marketing Act is no longer applied in a way which will destroy the farmers. I do not want to go into the details mentioned by other hon. members because it would take me an hour to enumerate the harm caused by the Marketing Act and the evil done by it. It is stated that in other countries the control is having certain results, but I must say that in South Africa the Marketing Act so far has been to the detriment of the farmers. It may have been well intended but it has had a bad effect. We shall have a chance of discussing this matter again at a later stage, but I am very anxious that the Minister should see to it that the farmers are not ruined by the effects of the Marketing Act.

I also want to say a few words on this Bill. Two years ago the Minister of Agriculture promised us that a Commission of Enquiry would be appointed in connection with inland marketing. To-day we have a Marketing Bill before us—that is to say, a Bill which aims at introducing certain improvements to the existing Marketing Act; we are not opposed to the principle of the law, but two years ago, when criticism was levelled against the internal marketing position, the Minister said that a Commission would be appointed. Last year we came and asked him whether that Commission had been appointed, and he then told ut that the Transvaal had appointed a Commission to investigate, and that that Commission, among other things, would make its investigation in Johannesburg, which is our principal market, and that the Government first of all wanted to await that Commission’s report, and would then decide whether it was necessary to make any further investigation. We do not yet know whether the Minister has received a report.

The hon. member over there says I am the chief jackal.

If I may be allowed, with all due deference, to add something, I would say that we should knock off the head of the jackal so that we may get rid of it.

And sell the tail.

The hon. member says we should sell the jackal’s tail—but I do not propose going into that any further. Last year the Minister said that the Transvaal was making an investigation, and after that investigation had been made he would go into the question to see whether it was still necessary to appoint a Commission of Enquiry for the whole Union. I shall be pleased if the hon. the Minister will tell us, while we are considering the important Bill before us, what is the result of the Transvaal Commission of Enquiry, and whether it is still his intention to appoint that Commission, and also whether he is quite satisfied with what the Transvaal Commission of Enquiry has done. We are not satisfied with our internal marketing position. We are not satisfied with the distribution. If one talks to the fruit farmers they complain that they have not got a market for their fruit. Members of Parliament who send grapes to people up-country are told that they get the grapes at 1s. per box. I want to point to a few advantages in connection with internal marketing. When I go to De Aar and I ask for grapes in the Railway cafe, I have to pay 7d. per lb. If we get on a train here we cannot get grapes when we get to Worcester, neither in the morning nor in the evening. This is a suitable time to discuss that aspect of the matter, and I am only mentioning it as an example. I should like the Minister to go into it, so that he may find out what provision the Railways are making to supply fruit to the public. I do not propose going into this question any further at this stage, because Mr. Speaker will call me to order if I do so. I said that the Minister should appoint a Commission of Enquiry, and I want to say that in spite of the improvements contained in this Bill I still want him to do so. The Secretary for Agriculture is sitting over there. If one gets into touch with the Cape Town market, one really fails to understand why a Commission of Enquiry cannot be appointed. I do not intend going into that any further, but there is one matter which I have discussed several times with the Minister—I am referring to the permit system. Speaking from my own experience, I can tell the House that last year I had to make 500 sheep travel 120 miles on two occasions, because I was unable to get a permit; but if I just go to Calvinia, I find an agent there who is able to send the sheep away so long as I pay him 6d. per sheep, and if he sends the sheep away I cannot send them to the Meat Cooperative Society, I have to send them to the open market, which means that I have to pay 5 per cent. commission and 6d. per sheep to the agent. On a previous occasion I told the House that that sort of thing irritates the farmers. It makes them see red. I had to trek twice with those sheep because I was not prepared to send them to the agent. How long is the Minister going to carry on with that sort of thing? Let me tell him that he is killing compulsory co-operation with his permit system. In my own constituency farmers come and complain to me, and I have ‘to plead with them. They are up against the permit system, and this sale through one channel, and I have to plead with them and ask them to give the Minister and the system a chance, but it is becoming almost impossible to induce the people to support that scheme. As the hon. member for Riversdale (Mr. A. L. Badenhorst) has said, the people are realising that they are worse off to-day under that system than they used to be. I want the Minister to understand that I am in favour of sales through one channel, but the way in which that principle is being applied to-day is the cause of the farmers becoming irritated, and beginning to dislike the principle of permits and of sales through one channel. I should like the Minister to go into this matter, but if he does not do so this important principle will be destroyed. Now, I want to say a few words more about the Cape Town Market, and in this connection I want to remark that I was pleased to note that the Minister had extended the National Mark Scheme to Cape Town. About a month ago the Minister sent some of the staff from Johannesburg to Cape Town. I am not conversant with the details of the scheme, and I shall be pleased if the Minister will tell us all about it, and if he will tell us what he intends doing in regard to the National Mark Scheme which he is now applying to Cape Town. So far as I was able to judge, it is intended to apply it to eggs, vegetables, beef and bacon, and I do not know whether the Minister also wants to extend it to fruit. I hope he will do so, and that he will also include mutton in the scheme. Cape Town is not a town where we get very much beef, the principal thing here is mutton, and I hope the Minister will extend the scheme so as also to include mutton. I welcome that scheme, because it is in the interest of the farmer and of the consumer, but the Minister is very stingy in that respect. He needs the money so badly for the war. If he would only advertise the scheme a bit so that the consumers could get to know about it, things would be very much better. The farmers are regarding the scheme with a certain degree of suspicion, and that also applies to the consumers. I welcome it, and the consumers would also learn to appreciate it. The consumers will find out that if they buy twelve fresh eggs, all the twelve will be fresh, even if they have to pay a higher price. In Cape Town we find trading concerns advertising new-laid eggs. If one enquires, one finds that those eggs have come from Calvinia or Bedford. They are as much as eight days old. I would therefore welcome an extension of the National Mark Scheme, and I should be pleased if the Minister would advertise it. He should spend a little more money in order to bring it to the notice of the consumers. Once that scheme has taken hold, people will object to it being done away with again. The Minister of Finance is also in his seat just now, so I want to point out to him that those officials who have started this scheme are being paid a very miserable salary. They do not share in the benefits and privileges which other civil servants have. Here in the Cape Peninsula they have to do their work at Claremont, Maitland and on the station, and they find it very difficult to get a car to go to the places where they have to do their work. I want the Secretary for Agriculture to hear this, too. I am not criticising the scheme, but I feel that this is a matter in respect of which the Minister should put his hand a little deeper into his pocket. It is an important scheme, and I shall be pleased if the Minister will give us some information on these points while we are dealing with this Bill. I want to know from him what he intends doing in regard to the appointment of a Commission of Enquiry into internal marketing conditions, and I further want him to tell us what he proposes doing in regard to the National Mark Scheme here in Cape Town. He has made a start with it, and we are anxious to know how far he intends extending it.

I think the experience which a number of members have had of the control boards differs in various cases. I have heard a fair amount of criticism of the various control boards, and possibly there may be ground for such criticism. My experience, however, is this—and I have had the opportunity of following the work of the control boards fairly closely—my experience is that the Wheat Board, for instance, and the Mealie Board, not only deserve words of tribute but also encouragement and even gratitude to a large extent. I had the opportunity of noticing after the Wheat Control Board had been established, how that control board, by means of hard work and sound business principles, succeeded in carrying out its difficult task in an admirable manner. But so far as the Mealie Control Board is concerned, that board worked tremendously hard in order to carry out the difficult task entrusted to it, and nobody dare deny what I have said in regard to these two boards. Let us admit that mistakes have been made, but let us also admit that these people do their best and have been successful to a considerable extent. If I may be allowed to say, with all due modesty— and this is a matter which has never yet been touched upon so far as I know— the real fault lies in this, that we have created a body with only one object in view. May I be allowed to explain what I mean—it is this: to a certain extent we have succeeded in controlling our internal trade. But that is only one side. For years I have been pleading that we should do these things as they should be done, to their full extent, and that we should not only have control over our local trade, but we should also have control over our foreign trade. The one without the other can never be a success. But that is what we will have to come to. I am not speaking about the German system of barter—I do not want to have anything to do with that. But this is the point I wish to emphasise, namely, that if the Government were to bring into being a strong and large body able to control the whole of our trade inside this country, as well as outside, a great many of our difficulties would be solved. At the moment we are struggling to sell our mealies in this country. We are making our people pay more for the mealies than they are worth. We send those mealies out of the country and on the overseas markets we have to sell at the price that is offered. This matter will never right itself unless we have an effective organisation which can enter into satisfactory contracts to sell our products and to regulate our prices. South Africa buys tremendous quantities of machinery and other materials in foreign countries. And the fact of our doing so gives us a strong weapon in our hand. So far we have neglected to use that weapon for our own purposes. My view is that so far as our control boards are concerned they have done exceptionally good work in difficult circumstances, but so far as the country’s position is concerned we shall never get the marketing of our products right unless we also attend to the other aspect of the matter, and that is to establish effective control also over our foreign trade.

There are one or two points I want to say a word on, and I also want to reply to a few complaints which my hon. friend the member for Somerset East, (Mr. Vosloo) voiced. I agree with him about the price of milk supplied to cheese factories. One complaint he had was that when a request was put up for the establishment of a dried milk factory in Bedford, the board would not give him any reply. Now may I say that the board cannot indicate its intentions with regard to any licence until an actual application for a specific licence has been made; that is the trouble in this case. The board cannot reply to a nebulous request to establish a factory for dried milk or other dairy product when all that is said is that a certain party or parties propose to put up a factory, and ask the question “if they apply for a licence will it be granted?” That is impossible. A person must make a definite application before it can be dealt with, and I can assure the hon. member that if such an application is made by an individual or individuals who propose to erect such a factory, that application will receive the earnest and prompt attention of the board. It may not always be granted, but there is generally no delay in dealing with it. Another matter I want to deal with is the unsuitability of certain individuals to represent a particular branch of the industry on control boards. I understand that a bottle store proprietor in Pretoria is a representative on the Meat Control Board, and that same individual is also a representative on the Perishable Products Export Board, nominated by the Meat Control Board. The trouble there is that the individual is nominated by the particular interests concerned. It is just the same on the Dairy Control Board; there you have at least two if not three members of that board who are nominated by producers, but who are themselves manufacturers, and you find that when matters of importance both to the manufacturer and the producer are under discussion, it is rather natural that the manufacturer himself who represents the producer, is first of all determined to see that the price which he pays for his product is one at which his factory can make a profit. It is difficult to get away from this position, because the Act provides that certain interests shall be entrusted with the nomination of members on that board, and if the particular interest concerned considers that a bottle store proprietor, who perhaps has certain farming interests, is a suitable person to represent them, they are entitled to make the nomination. The Minister does not himself select the man, he is nominated by the producers themselves, and although the Minister has a veto, it is difficult for the Minister to use it when a responsible body of producers has said “There is the individual we want to represent us.” I do hope, as far as possible, the Minister will follow the policy of having definite producers’ representatives who have no larger interest in some other direction. The hon. member for Berea (Mr. Hooper) told the House, in reply to a speech by, I think, the hon. member for Weenen (Mr. Abrahamson) on the second reading, how satisfied the Durban consumers and distributors were with the milk position in Durban. Well, I have no doubt they are, since the milk price, he tells us, has been brought down to 3½d. a pint. 3½d. a pint is 2s. 4d. a gallon. I have no doubt the distributors are fully satisfied with 2s. 4d. a gallon, but the unfortunate producer in the outlying districts is only getting 8½d. per gallon for the milk which is distributed in Durban at 2s. 4d. Now that position is altogether unsound, and it has been brought about by a definite ring, a definite agreement between the bigger concerns, who are sending milk into Durban, and who are paying that price of 8½d. to the producers. That is what is happening, lacking any agreement or controlled price. Not only are these producers only getting 8½d., but they are on a quota, and only a certain proportion of their milk is taken even at that price, and the balance has to be sold at the best price available to the producer, which may be much lower. I do not doubt that the consumers and the distributors are satisfied. The Marketing Act is designed to protect the producers, and something must be done to fix the price at a higher level to the producer. In Cape Town the price is 1s. 1d. to 1s. 2d., and also a similar price obtains in Johannesburg, but in Durban the producer is only getting 8½d., that is the outside producer. Now may I say a word as to price fixing and distribution in respect of deciduous fruit. Deciduous fruit of export quality (grapes) is being distributed here at 5s. a box, which is 6d. a lb. If you go into any store you cannot buy any grapes under 5s. a box. I went round several stores this morning, and I was told that only export quality fruit was now being sold. Other qualities of grapes were no good, so I was told, as they would not keep, but the export grapes were being sold at 5s. per case, or 6d. a lb. Now I ask, is that sound business? It is not the producer who is getting that price, he is getting nothing like that, it is the middleman who is getting the profit, and the sooner the Marketing Council gets to work on this and investigates the prices which are being paid to the producer, the better for all parties, certainly the better for the consumer, and the better for the producer. One point with regard to price fixation which I want especially to draw the Minister’s attention to, is one which I brought to the notice of his department six months ago. It is a case where the Minister can help as regards the prices which are being paid to the producer. About a year ago the biggest company which manufactures condensed milk approached the National Supplies Board, and through them the Board of Trade, in regard to the increase in the wholesale price of their product. They explained to the Board of Trade, and I have this from the chairman of the board himself, that owing to the price of tin plate having risen the cost of tins had gone up by a farthing per tin, and they asked the Supply Board to allow them to charge an extra ½d. per tin of condensed milk. That amounts to 1s. per case. Very well, that was granted. Now here I have before me a published list of various commodities in respect of which price fixation has been undertaken. You find here that in August, 1939, the price of condensed milk was 6d. to 6½d. per 14 oz. tin. The price was increased by the National Supplies Board from 6d. to 7d. a 14 oz. tin. What is now the position? An extra farthing a tin was allowed on the wholesale price of condensed milk, which then went out to the retailer at a farthing a tin more than he had previously paid. As farthings are not used in the retail trade, the storekeeper charges to the nearest halfpenny. So here you have the manufacturer covering his increased cost of production by the extra farthing, while the retailer, in view of the fact that farthings are not in general use, appropriates another farthing for himself. The unfortunate producer gets nothing. Now is that a correct policy? When an opportunity presents itself to assist the producer, the retailer is allowed to take advantage of the extra farthing, and the producer is left out of it. I submit that all parties are entitled to share. The manufacturer is entitled to 1s. a case to cover the extra cost of the tin, if he can show that the increased cost of production warrants it, but I do submit that the extra farthing which the retailer is allowed to charge, should go at least to the consumer, and not to the retailer, as is being done at the present. I prepared a long memorandum for the benefit of the Minister, setting out all the facts of the case, but unfortunately the Minister had been ill and was not in his office, and I don’t know how much he saw of it. We got heaps of sympathy, indeed tears of sympathy for the producer, while the manufacturer and the retailer get the money. I submit that is not right. I am going to ask the Minister to allow me to put the facts in front of him, to exp lain the whole position, and at a later date I hope to bring the subject up and induce the Minister to do something in the way of fixing the price, so that the extra farthing per tin will be returned to the producer, who I think is entitled to it. One other matter which I want to say a word on before I sit down was referred to by the hon. member for Somerset East (Mr. Vosloo). He complained that the Control Board had fixed the price of cheese milk at 5½d., which was later raised to 6d., while the factory owners in his district have told him that they are well able to pay 7d., but are not allowed to do so because the price has been fixed at 6d. He is absolutely right about that; I mentioned it in my second reading speech, when I am afraid I was rather severe in my criticisms on the board, and my hon. friend the member for Kingwilliamstown (Mr. Baines) got up to reply. The hon. member, unfortunately, is not present to-day, although I told him I was speaking on the subject. The hon. member said two things: first, when the new Control Board came in being armed with the powers given under this Bill, it would take steps to recover some of the “unearned increment”—he would not call it “ill-earned increment”. He therefore admits that there is unearned increment which has accrued to the factories. Now it is very interesting. In order to show the House how little I know of what I am talking about, he said this—and I am quoting from Hansard, from a corrected copy of his speech—

I think members of the board should know a little of what they are talking about; they should know what the board’s powers are, and not make statements like this. Let me put the position clearly. Last year the Control Board was declared ultra vires in that it was held that the dried milk representatives should not have been on the board, as dried milk is not a product which could have been dealt with under the Marketing Act. I think that decision of the court could have been challenged, but I feel that the Minister was right in accepting the position and in immediately constituting a new board under the Dairy Control Act of 1931. That board came into being. The urgency of the appointment was due to the fact that there was somewhere near £150,000 of producers’ money in the cheese and milk pools. The pools could not pay out, as the then board was ultra vires, and the position was one which had to be dealt with at once. That board constituted under the 1931 Act was instructed to put up a scheme, which it did. It put up practically the same scheme as before, but it left out any reference to condensed milk and dried milk and fresh milk. Immediately the Minister accepted that scheme, the board became a properly constituted regulatory board as defined by the Marketing Act, and for the hon. member for Kingwilliamstown (Mr. Baines) to say that the Dairy Control Board would have continued to function had it not been declared ultra vires is misleading the House. I do not say that he did so deliberately—I am sure he is quite ignorant of the real position—but that is the position. Now the board which was then properly constituted fixed the price of cheese milk at 6d. per gallon. I took the trouble to write to a very responsible member of the board, and I drew his attention to what they had done. It was obvious to anyone that there would be no export, and in view of there being no export 6d. was a lesser price than the producer was entitled to—it put 2d. in the pockets of the factories over and above what they were entitled to; and the letter I got in reply said this—

That was an official letter. The board which fixed the price naturally had the power to review the price, in spite of what the hon. member for Kingwilliamstown said about it being ultra vires. I drew the attention of the board to the fact that 6d. was too low. I was assured that the board would keep in close touch with the position, and yet up to date the board has never even met to review the price or consider the position, although its attention has been drawn to it, and my hon. friend over there is right—the producer has lost at least 1½d. per gallon over this period, and that money can never be recovered. I am going to make a prophecy—I say that the board will meet now and it will probably fix the price at 7d., possibly at 7½d. That is more or less a reasonable price, but it will not give back to the producer what he has lost during these past months. If he has to get back the 1½d. per gallon which has been lost to him due to the gross negligence of the board, then the board would have to fix the price at 9d. for the next few months, which price would really be warranted. I prophesy that they will not do that. They will say: “No, if we pay as much as that we shall make it very difficult to get prices down again”. So the wise thing to do in order not to create trouble for the board will be to make the producers submit to the loss they have suffered during these months and which he will not get back. I say that the hon. member for Kingwilliamstown, in saying that the board would have been ultra vires, was quite wrong, and I say that he did not know his own job, and if these reasons are given out by board members, then I can only say: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”. I know the Minister wants to be fair, but I do hope that he is going to move in this matter, and that he will see to it that the producers of cheese milk are going to get what they are entitled to and are going to get back what they have lost owing to the board neglecting its duties in never even meeting since fixing the price. Imagine a board which deals with a product which fluctuates in value never meeting from November op to March. The executive have known the position and they have known that the price is too low, and yet they have never met, although their attention was drawn to it. They were told what the position was, and that the milk producers were suffering a loss, and yet they never met. I say the position is unsound, and if these are the benefits which the board brings to the producers, then let me say: “Timeo Danaos et Dona Ferentes”, I fear the Danids even though they bring gifts. When a gross mistake such as this has been made, one should lay such emphasis on it that it can never be repeated, and that it shall be remedied if in any way possible. A position such as has been created would have been greatly obviated if the Minister would take the advice which I gave the House on the second reading, and that is that the board should be instructed to issue full accounts of its activities, of its actions, every month, and of the reasons for these actions. And then the producers will be in a position to judge for themselves whether their interests are properly looked after or not.

Something happened in this House this afternoon which seemed almost impossible to me. The hon. member for Griqualand East (Mr. Gilson) has been converted. When I got up here last year and pleaded for the very same thing which he is pleading for to-day, namely, a higher price for cheese milk, that selfsame hon. member who got up here to-day took me to task most dreadfully. But what has happened to upset the friendly relations that used to prevail in Government circles? Is there any trouble? The jackal is catching the pigeons in the loft. The hon. member for Griqualand East has now been defending our attitude—thé attitude which we have always stood for. I entirely agree with the principle put forth by him, but I am afraid that the hon. member is not really speaking from his heart. He has a personal bone to pick—as appeared from a letter from the Marketing Council which he quoted. On that point I certainly cannot congratulate him, nor can I congratulate him in regard to the assistance which he has given the Minister. He has attacked the Minister and the board from beginning to end. We are grateful to him for the fact that he has interpreted our point of view in connection with the one point. It has never been put better here.

Ha, ha!

Yes, I know they are tired. I only want to say that we on this side of the House are not opposed to the principle of the Marketing Act, but there are certain gaps, certain anomalies, which have to be put right. The first point is that the marketing boards should come under one system. Put an end to the powers of the Provincial Councils, put them all under one control, under the control of the Union Parliament. If one were to do that one would get uniformity and it would be possible for the Marketing Act to be properly carried out. Failing that there will always be trouble. The agricultural unions have for a long time been urging that that should be done, and I hope the Minister will now inform the House that the Government is going to pay certain compensation to the Provincial Councils and that the Government is going to take the power to properly carry out the marketing system. I hope the Minister will proceed to take that step. Our next objection is in connection with the faulty composition of the boards. Why should people who so far have always exploited the public, why should the middlemen who have always exploited the farmers be given representation on the boards which are concerned with the sale of the farmers’ products? Will the mining magnates of the Chamber of Mines allow the farmers to advise them and to use their influence in connection with prices? Have the farmers any say in the Chamber of Commerce? No, they do not require the advice of the farmers in any way. Yet when we come to the boards which are concerned with the products of the farmers we find that all kinds of interest are represented there. It is for that reason that we feel that those boards should be composed of farmers. When I say “farmers” I do not want to say that the farmers should have a monopoly, I want to have other business men on the boards who will protect the consumers. I want the consumers to be protected, but I do not want people to be on those boards who are interested in the sale of the farmers’ products—I say that only the people who buy the products should be protected. In Australia there is a different system in force. There the boards are composed of three representatives of the producers with a Government nominee as chairman, and in addition there are three consumers on the board. The three consumers are there merely for the protection of the interests of the consumers. For the rest they have nothing to do with the sale of the commodity. The result is that the consumers and the producers are brought into direct conflict with each other and the middleman is paid only for his services. But so long as we have boards such as we have in this country there will never be a chance of creating direct contact between the producers and the consumers. The middleman will always be in between, and he will take the profits. They are the people who cause all the mischief in the Press. They say that the farmers should not be paid high prices for their products. They say that the prices which the farmers get are too high. It is untrue that the farmers are getting high prices. All the farmers ask for is to be paid prices which will make it possible for them to live, and if we are able to supply our products to the consumers cheaply, we have sufficient common sense to realise that the consumers will be able to buy more. The consumers cannot pay high prices. If their prices are low they are placed in a position of being able to consume more. We want to put an end to the great gap there is between the price which the producer gets and the amount which the consumer has to pay. Why has the housewife in Cape Town to pay 1s. or 1s. 1d. for mutton? Why this great gap between the price which the farmer gets and the price which the housewife has to pay for her meat? I think it is high time for the consumers to organise, and if the consumers and the farmers are brought closely together we shall be able to cut out the middle position and an arrangement can be come to between the consumer and the producer which will be to the benefit of both. But so long as one has a crowd of people on those boards who are not well disposed to the producers and the consumers and who try to exploit both, a healthy position will never be obtained. So long as the position is as it is to-day there will be trouble. The hon. member for Griqualand East has just given us a good example. The Dairy Control Board has a number of large dealers among its members. They say what they want done and every time it is the farmer and the consumer who suffers. The hon. member showed us where the fault lay, and I agree with him. I feel that those boards should consist of farmers and consumers, but the consumers should not have any further interest in the product. They should not be the middleman so far as the products are concerned. If we bring about such a state of affairs as I have outlined there will be a better relationship between the people of the towns and the people of the farms. I feel that so far as we are concerned we should meet the position of the consumers as much as we can, and if the Minister were to work in that direction he would have every possible assistance from this side of the House. I have two letters here which show how annoyed the farmers are about the constitution of those boards. The first letter is from Kroomie Rail, Cape Province, and this man writes:

Here we have a man who knows nothing about meat, but he is put on a farmers’ organisation to represent meat. The letter goes on—

That is what the farmers feel….

I feel that if the Minister does not make a change in the constitution of those boards the farmers will afterwards have no confidence whatsoever left in the Marketing Act. If the Minister wants them to have confidence in the Act he should see to it that the constitution of the board is changed. I have another letter here to show what the middelmen are doing to make things impossible for the producers, and in this connection I associate myself with what the hon. member for Somerset (Mr. Vosloo) said. I quote from a letter—

And then he goes on. Now, who caused the trouble? Who stopped it? He had to get a licence from the Dairy Control Board but his application was not granted. Who stopped it? The Imperial Cold Storage and the other big people who have influence stopped it. They would have to put up their prices in accordance with the price which Mr. Marais was prepared to pay if he could start his factory, and consequently the whole thing was killed at the very start. If we had boards which were differently constituted that sort of trouble would not arise. Fair prices could be laid down in accordance with the rise in the cost of production. But to-day we have boards which are out to keep down the price of farmers’ products so that the big interests concerned in farming products are able to get those products at a low price. It is impossible for the farmers to come out on prewar prices if the cost of living and the cost of production go up in the way they are doing to-day. The cost of living has gone up not by 5 per cent. or 10 per cent. but by 15 per cent. or 20 per cent. We are asking the Minister to consider changing the way in which the boards are constituted, and to see to it that the farmers get prices for their products in accordance with the higher cost of production as a result of the war. If the Minister fails to do that I am afraid he is going to have a very hard time on the platteland.

I hope hon. members will not take it amiss if I say a few words about the practice which is now developing of having a longer debate on the third reading than on the second reading of the Bill, and if I draw attention to the fact that hon. members are making use—I almost said abusing the position—in order to discuss matters which do not appear in the Bill. The question of internal marketing for instance was discussed here to-day which is a matter in respect of which there is not a word in the Bill. Hon. members have spoken about National Marks and many other subjects. I cannot appeal to Mr. Speaker for a ruling, because it is perfectly correct that the principal Act contains certain provisions in regard to these matters. But the result is that one does not have the chance of giving proper attention to the point of real importance, to new points which are raised. The issue is clouded. It does not make for better legislation. I hope hon. members will not take it amiss from me as an old member when I draw attention to these points. The hon. member for Somerset East (Mr. Vosloo) started off by saying that he hoped the Minister did not get sufficient power to kill off the control boards.

No, I did not say that.

And he said that he hoped I would not assist in killing the control boards.

On a point of personal explanation I said that we were afraid that the Minister would kill the Marketing Act, and that he would not bring about co-operation among the farmers.

And immediately after that the hon. member proceeded to ask me in regard to at least two points to interfere with the discretion of the control boards. You see that is the position. I think the hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. Le Roux) also said that the Minister had too much power, but as soon as anything goes wrong with control boards the Minister is told that it is no use his saying that it is the control boards’ right and control boards’ task to deal with these matters. One cannot possibly take responsibility for anything if one has no authority, and I think it was the intention of the Act to allow the Control Boards, as far as possible, to control the business of the farmers and to allow them as far as possible to make independent arrangements in respect of products entrusted to their control, and that is done so far as I am concerned. But if I am held responsible by the House, as the responsible Minister I must be permitted to have a certain degree of authority. That, I think, is a fair position. I do not think hon. members will deny that. The hon. member for Somerset East may rest assured that I have no intention whatsoever of killing the Control Boards, and I feel that if he were to consult the Chairman of Control Boards, with whom I am in close contact, he would find out that they are co-operating very well on the whole. The hon. member drew attention to this question of a factory being established at Bedford. I can only give the same answer as that given by the hon. member for Griqualand, East (Mr. Gilson). We cannot possibly give a decision if a man comes and asks: “If I establish a factory at some future date, am I going to get a permit?” How can a board do a thing like that? The board which dealt with this question knew that ere long a new Dairy Control Board would be appointed, and if they had done a thing like that they would have been guilty of an irresponsible action.

No, you are putting it wrong.

Go to the Land Board to-day. They will say: “You can make application, but we cannot tell you what we are going to do when your application actually comes before us”. The hon. member is asking too much. I only want to say this to him, that if a company or an individual applies for registration, and registration is refused, he has the right of appeal to the Minister, and I can assure him that I shall give my best attention to the matter. The hon. member apparently wants to accuse me of knowing nothing about the matter. Of course not. This matter did not come before me at all. It only comes before me if the Dairy Control Board turns down an application—and that did not happen here; and it also comes before me if it is reported to me. It is now stated that this person was prepared to pay 7d. or 8d. for milk. This is not the first time that I have heard that story. I heard it last year in connection with citrus fruits. People come along and say they are prepared to pay any price. It is an old story. It is usually people who want to break the Control Boards who say these things; they come and say that they are prepared to pay any price so long as the Control Board is broken, and then they have you in their pocket. It is an old story which is not going to deceive anyone. The hon. member also asked what was the basis of appointment of members to the Dairy Control Board. The scheme lays down how the representation is to take place, what the basis of representation is, and how people are to be appointed. Each scheme, however, has to lay down that the producers shall have the majority on the board. The Minister has not got the right to refuse the appointment of certain members. If cooperative societies nominate certain members, the Minister has to accept those nominations, and that is done. In certain instances two or three people are nominated, and the Minister has the right to make his selection from those nominated. During the debate a certain Mr. Smythe was referred to on two or three occasions. He represents the meat interests on the Meat Control Board. His name appeared on a list of three people which was sent to the Minister, and Mr. Smythe was the man selected. Consequently, his appointment was not just an appointment made out of the air. Perhaps it was a wrong appointment. I do not know Mr. Smythe, but the list of three people was submitted to me by the Meat Control Board, and certain information and data were placed before me. I gave my best attention to the matter, and I appointed him. I want to thank the hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. Le Roux) for the manner in which he discussed this question of Control Boards, and I shall take note of the advice he gave. I do not agree with everything he said, particularly in regard to the prices of wheat, but that is a matter we shall be able to discuss when the motion of the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) comes before the House, or otherwise on the Budget debate. I can only say this to him, that. I stand second to none in my sympathy for the farmers. The farmer can depend upon his having my full sympathy—100 per cent., and if possible he will get it to the extent of 200 per cent. I am anxious to see the farmer getting the best possible price he is able to get.

The farmer cannot live on sympathy.

As regards the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. Loubser), if we were to discuss the question of last year’s wheat prices at length, I think the hon. member would get the worst of it. I am sorry that I am unable to make any further promises to the wheat farmers, except this, that I shall give my attention to any fixing of prices just the same as I did last year. There is nothing I have to apologise for. I am still convinced that the right course was pursued, and that they are not entitled to a higher price than they got. I do not think there is any need for me to reply to what the hon. member for Riversdale (Mr. A. L. Badenhorst) said. As a matter of fact, he is not even here. I do not take exception to the epithet he applied to me. He meant it as a compliment. I take it as a joke, although it is a somewhat doubtful joke. The hon. member for Albert-Colesberg (Mr. Boltman) put a few questions to me which have not got anything to do with this Bill either. I suggest that those questions would come in better on the Budget debate. I only want to say this in regard to the Internal Marketing Commission, that after careful consideration we have decided not to appoint it now. We would not be able to get all the witnesses now, and there are a number of people who would be most useful in connection with an enquiry of this kind, whom we cannot get hold of now. I do not think the Transvaal Commission, whose report has been published—and the hon. member can get it from the printer—has covered the whole field. I am not satisfied with it, and I think that further investigation is necessary. When I made that promise, the war had not broken out. I do not think, and my colleagues agree with me, that we shall be able to get better results to-day than if we wait until the country has been restored to peace and quiet. Great interests are involved, and I feel that the Commission should be as strong a Commission as we can possibly get, so that we may be able to get a report as the result of which we may have to deal with very great interests. I think that hon. members will realise that the Government is anxious to secure the best advice possible. I hope to have an opportunity at some later stage to speak on the question of National Marks. I do not intend to go into the question raised by the hon. member for East Griqualand (Mr. Gilson). I doubt whether it is the right time, on the third reading, to reopen the feud between the hon. member and the member for Kingwilliamstown (Mr. Baines). I am certainly not going to get mixed up in it. I don’t like joining in a public fight, and I certainly don’t want to join in a private fight. The hon. member knows that there is a certain excuse for the new board not having met. They were, after all, entirely a temporary board, a transitory board, and now that the new board has been appointed they have lost no time in meeting. They will have an opportunity next year to propose some recompense for people who have lost through not getting a sufficient price. In any case, I don’t intend to interfere in the matter just now. I hope the House will now pass the third reading.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

I move—

This Bill is brief in the matter of length, and simple in construction, but it deals with an important matter. I think, sir, its introduction will be welcomed generally, and I think also that after consideration the form in which it has been introduced will also prove to be acceptable. The Bill is important. It introduces a system of State insurance in regard to what is potentially, at least, a very wide field of possible damage and loss. But despite its importance, it is brief and simple, as I have also said, for two reasons. The first is that it is difficult to lay down precisely in the terms appropriate to a law all the conditions of such a scheme of insurance such as we wish to introduce, and on that account it is proposed rather to lay down the nature of that scheme of insurance in general terms, and then to give power by regulation to the Government, to apply that scheme. The second reason is that we are dealing here with a temporary and not a permanent set of circumstances. On that account also it seems to me to be appropriate that in our legislation we should give the Government the power to prescribe by regulation the details of the scheme necessary to deal with these circumstances. We propose to deal with the matter, therefore, in what may be regarded as a temporary way. We are not setting up a permanent system, we are not creating a permanent insurance fund, we are dealing with a condition of affairs which will not in any case be permanent, and which we hope will not last long. This Bill, therefore, will in fact, only be operative in regard to the state of war that now prevails. Now, sir, it has not been easy to decide on the course of action to follow in respect of this matter of insurance against war damage. It has also not been easy to decide as to the details of the action to be taken in dealing with this matter. The question of a scheme of insurance against war damage in respect of fixed property was first raised with me shortly after the main session of Parliament last year. It was then suggested that we should institute a scheme of State insurance against war damage in respect of fixed property. Now, of course it was impossible to do anything of that kind without the authority of Parliament. We have no legal power to institute such a scheme of insurance, and it was also very difficult to take such action in the absence of more information than was in our possession. We had not the data to work on for the fixing of rates and the determining of conditions. As a result, I then tentatively decided on a line of policy which broadly came to this, that the Government would deal with the question of compensation in respect of war damage when that question arose. What I had in mind then was that it was possible, if there should be considerable war damage, that provision might be made for the payment of compensation in respect of such damage out of State funds, that that might be accepted as a charge against the public funds, and that the costs should be met by the imposition of a tax or rate on all urban fixed property and all rural industrial property as well. I felt then that in view of the unknown instances of the risk of war damage, a scheme like that based on the principle of compensation might be preferable to a scheme of insurance framed with incomplete data. That was what was in my mind when the matter was first raised, I think about nine months ago. I did not make any public statement at the time, and did not commit the Government to this principle of compensation. When I came to that tentative conclusion as to the way in which this matter might then best be dealt with, I did not then have before me a scheme which at that time was in operation in Great Britain. I subsequently found out that in Great Britain, as far as fixed property was concerned, the matter was being dealt with at that time on the same basis as I thought it would be appropriate to deal with it here. The policy in Great Britain, in the first instance, for dealing with war damage compensation and insurance, was laid down by Sir John Simon some months before war started. That policy discriminated between commodities, chiefly the stocks of merchants, and buildings; that is to say fixed property. In regard to buildings, the basis on which the policy was framed was the same as that which I contemplated, namely, it was to be dealt with by compensation after the war out of funds provided probably by means of some sort of general rate. In regard, however, to commodities, an insurance scheme was instituted and came into operation when the war started. That provided for compulsory insurance of all stocks over and above a certain amount in value, the limit of value, I think, generally—there were exceptions— was £1,000, and those who had stocks of commodities of a value greater than £1,000 were compelled to insure. I repeat that in regard to fixed property, which was the only point raised here in the first instance, the scheme was one not of insurance but of compensation. Well, now, sir, that was the preliminary tentative conclusion at which we arrived, but on further consideration we found that we had to depart from it. The matter was again raised with me in August of last year by the Federated Chamber of Industries and the Association of Chambers of Commerce. They based their representations mainly on the scheme which was then in operation in Great Britain, and they urged us to institute a scheme of insurance at least for commodities. They asked also that if possible we should consider having a scheme of insurance for fixed property as well, but they said that if we found that to be impracticable, they would like us to adopt a scheme of compensation in regard to war damage to fixed property, and to make a definite announcement in regard to such a scheme, and to undertake to provide compensation on as liberal a basis as possible. As the result of those representations, the matter received further study, and in our exploration of this matter we have been considerably assisted, in the first place by representatives of commerce and industries, who were primarily interested, and in the second place we have been assisted by insurance companies, who have helped us in the general exploration of this subject. The insurance companies made it quite clear from the outset that they would not undertake this particular type of business, but they indicated that they would be prepared to co-operate with the Government, just as insurance companies are co-operating with the Government in the United Kingdom. They would do so not on a profit basis, but on such terms as would merely provide for the repayment to them of out-of-pocket expenses incurred in assisting the Government in the administration of the scheme. As a result of that exploration, we decided that a scheme of insurance was necessary. We decided that we could not leave the matter to be dealt with by means of compensation, as I had originally thought would be possible. But, sir, we also decided that such a scheme of insurance could not be limited to commodities, that there was no real reason for discriminating between commodities and fixed property, and therefore we proceeded on the basis that a scheme of insurance should be introduced, but that this should cover both commodities and fixed property. Let me give the reasons for this decision. I think there are three points I should mention in that connection. The one was that if the matter was left to be dealt with on the basis of compensation, it would not be practicable at this stage to give any clear indication as to the extent to which such compensation would be paid after the war. That would have to be left vague, to a considerable extent, and it would have this effect, that almost certainly the sufferers would expect to be compensated on a more liberal basis than the Government would be prepared to apply. Of course, in a scheme of insurance the extent of the payment due to sufferers is determined by the conditions of the policy. The second point was this. Under the scheme in England the payment was left to be made after the war, and it was largely on that point that the scheme in the United Kingdom broke down, and the Government had to go over to an insurance scheme in regard to fixed property as well. I think the reason for that is pretty clear. It is essential that if heavy losses are sustained during the war, something must be done, despite these losses, to keep the economic machinery in motion. That is important, not only from the point of view of the sufferers, but also from the point of view of the community as a whole. For that purpose the sufferers need, and need immediately, fresh capital to replace the stocks and buildings that have been lost. In many cases it might be difficult to cope with the early need for assistance by the State by way of a compensation scheme, or through some insurance system. The sufferers might not be able to carry on their business if they have to wait until after the war before a problematical amount in compensation is paid out. As I said, it was on that point that the scheme in England broke down, and for that reason mainly that they went over to an insurance scheme. The third point is this. It became clear to us that if the Government did not act in regard to this matter, private enterprise would step in, and private enterprise would step in on what would not have been a very desirable basis. Let me explain what I mean. I come now again to that point as to why the insurance companies said that they would not touch business of this kind. I have already referred to the fact that the risks in regard to this type of business must be described as indeterminate, it is very difficult to know what the extent of the risk is. The experience as to the incidence of such risks is obviously very small, and therefore it is almost impossible on any sort of scientific basis to fix premium rates. That meant, sir, that if the established companies enter this type of business on this problematical basis, they stand either to be ruined or possibly to make large profits, and the established companies were not prepared to take the chance of being ruined, because there was a chance of making big profits in this business. While that was true in regard to the established companies, it was not a consideration likely to be so effective in the minds of those who wanted to start speculative concerns to deal with this particular matter. They have nothing like as much to lose as the established companies would have, and what we found towards the end of last year was that in various parts of the country proposals were made for the establishment of new companies to undertake this particular type of war insurance. The same kind of thing happened in the United Kingdom and led to abuses there which had to be stopped, the State had to step in. It was quite clear that it would be very undesirable for that to happen in South Africa, if two or three or more small companies grew up and set out to deal with this type of business. We would have such companies coming into being with relatively small capital, and with no reserves. They would have premium income, of course, and quite possibly a large part of that would have been absorbed, as was the case in the United Kingdom, by administrative costs, and then if loss was sustained on any large scale, there would not have been very much left to pay out to the insured. In other words, sir, that type of business might have been profitable to the people who undertook it, but it would have given relatively little security to those who sought the protection of insurance in that way. We therefore felt that if this matter was to be dealt with, it could only be dealt with by the Government. If we had not decided to deal with it, and had left it to these small concerns, the effect would have been the exploitation rather than the protection of the public. And so, sir, it was clear that the state had to act, and without delay. On that account, sir, it was announced some months ago that the Government had decided, in principle, to launch such a war damage insurance scheme. The next question was, what was to be the form of the scheme, should it be on a voluntary or compulsory basis. Now, sir, a compulsory basis would have been open to a good deal of opposition. Over large parts of South Africa the risks of war damage are almost negligible, and I think there would have been the strongest objection to everybody in South Africa being compelled to insure under a scheme of that nature. A voluntary scheme, of course, would be free from that objection, but on the other hand a voluntary scheme would have a smaller premium income and a higher ratio of expenses to income. There was also this danger about a voluntary scheme, that a large number of people might hold off and not insure until the risks became more acute, and they would then rush to insure. A certain number of people then would have borne the heat and burden of the day, built up a fund, of which the people who came in later, would get the full advantage. We felt, however, that in the circumstances of South Africa, a compulsory scheme of insurance was not really practicable, and probably not even necessary. We felt also that one of the difficulties I have mentioned, the latter difficulty, could to a large extent be surmounted; I refer to the difficulty of certain possible insurers holding back to the last minute, and only then taking out a policy. That can be got over at least to some extent by penalising such people through making them pay a higher premium, or conversely, making the man who has insured from an early stage, pay a less premium as the scheme develops. That, to a large extent, would get over that particular objection. We therefore decided on a voluntary scheme. Then a new difficulty arose, and that was this, a voluntary scheme would really be a compulsory scheme for a large number of smaller property owners. There might be a considerable number of smaller property owners who would be quite prepared, as far as they themselves were concerned, to carry their own risk, but who would be compelled by their bondholders, building societies or whoever it might be, to take out an insurance. The scheme would become a compulsory insurance scheme for them. Moreover, there is also the other aspect of this, and that is that it is not socially desirable that these small property owners should be left uncovered in the event of there being serious risk of damage. They are people of the very type that should be protected. At the same time the cost of insurance may mean for them a heavy additional burden at a time when we want to spare people of that type any unnecessary additional burden. It would also, of course, have the effect of increasing rents payable by tenants on such property, and to that extent it would run counter to one of the items of policy which the Government is pursuing. The Government, therefore, came to an important decision. We decided that we would bear in full part of the risk, we would in fact bear the cost of insurance for the first £1,000, and so relieve, especially the small man, of that burden. We have therefore in part reverted to the original scheme of compensation. The general basis of the scheme in this Bill is therefore this, that the Government bears the risk for the first £1,000 of damage sustained by any one individual. That means that if an individual has a property valued at £1,000 or less, the question of insurance does not arise. If anybody wants to have a larger cover than that …

Does that include commodities?

Yes, then he must pay for it by taking out an insurance policy. If he does not want to take out such a policy then, of course, he is only protected to the extent of the first £1,000. That is the general basis of the Bill, and I think it only remains for me to refer to one or two features in the clauses to the Bill. In Section 2 we deal with the establishment of a war damage insurance fund. That will be established out of moneys appropriated by Parliament, and out of premiums paid under contracts of insurance. May I make it perfectly clear that in any case there can be no question of using moneys paid out of premiums in order to meet demands for compensation up to the first £1,000. The two items will be kept separate to that extent, and the premium income will only be used in order to meet the demands under contracts of insurance. If the premium income is sufficient to meet those demands, then Parliament will have to be asked to appropriate further sums. If, on the other hand, there is at the end a surplus in respect of that, then it is provided in Section 7 that that surplus will be used for the redemption of State debt. In Section 3 provision is made for the Government’s liability up to an amount of £1,000. The first £1,000 will therefore be met in that way with the exception that in the case of fire compensation it is not to exceed nine-tenths of the actual damage.

Why?

That will give the party concerned an interest in limiting the amount of damage caused by that fire, otherwise he might not have that interest. Then, sir, Section 4 provides for the entering into contracts of insurance on a volnntary basis, and in regard to those who want cover above the amount of £1,000, in that section we are given power to fix the rates of premium. I have already indicated that we have not sufficient data to work on in order to lay down rates of premium which would apply throughout the operation of this scheme, and the scheme is to be instittued on an experimental basis. In Great Britain, for instance, the scheme of insurance in regard to commodities was so devised that the rates of premium are subject to reconsideration quarterly. In the first instance they were as high as 10s. per cent. per month. Then a big amount was accumulated in the fund, and the rate was brought down to 5s. per cent. per month. I have said that with no idea of suggesting that our rate should be as high, because our risks are considerably less than in England at the present moment. But I mention these figures merely to indicate that the rates of premium will have to be adjusted from time to time in the light of the experience which we gain in the light of changing circumstances. In that clause we also take power to differentiate rates of premium in various cases. In the first place we take the right of differentialing in the rates between different localities. In some localities the risk will be greater than in others. We want the right to dirrerentiate on the basis of length of time for which insurance has already been carried. That means that the man who comes in late can in effect be penalised by having to pay more than the man who has been in from the beginning. And thirdly, we take power to make it possible for the insured to carry a portion of the insurance himself over and above the amount we carry, and as a result pay a smaller amount in premium. That is the principle which has for a long time existed in connection with motor car insurance. In section 6 we take power to enter into agreements with insurance companies in regard to the administration of the Act. The insurance companies are willing to assist us in the administration of the Act on a basis which will merely give them back the amount of the expenditure which they would incur in doing so.

I do not believe it.

It will not be on a profit earning basis. It is obviously the most convenient way of administering this type of insurance. It would fit in in the case of most insurance companies which offer fire insurance, and policies can be taken out and premiums collected in most convenient manner. Along these lines it will be possible to administer the scheme simply and economically. What I have said will give the House an indication of what we have in mind in regard to this proposal. I feel it is not possible at this stage—and I think the House will agree—to put the scheme on a more definite basis than is outlined in this Bill. I think the House will agree that it has to be done in accordance with the principles laid down in the general outlines of the scheme, and give the Government the power to fill in the details in the light of circumstances.

I want to ask the Minister’s permission to say a few words. On to-day’s Order Paper the fourth order of the day was the War Damages Insurance Bill, and the tenth order was the Insurance Bill. At the beginning of to-day’s proceedings the Minister moved that the Insurance Bill be taken off the Order Paper.

The tenth order, as I said.

I am not blaming the Minister, but we on this side of the House were under a misapprehension, and we thought that he meant the fourth order of the day. As a result, we are not ready for this debate, and the members who want to speak on this subject are not available. It is a mistake made by us, but we are not able now to discuss this matter, and I want to ask the Minister whether he will be kind enough to accept the adjournment of the debate. There is a lot of other work which could be dealt with, and I therefore move—

I second.

I understand the misapprehension, which is quite explicable. On the other hand, this is urgent legislation, and hon. members will admit that it is essential that this Bill should be disposed of as speedily as possible. Hon. members also know that we have to spend the whole of next week on the Budget debate. Consequently, if I now accept the adjournment of the debate, this Bill cannot come up again for a full week. I am prepared to accept it, but I should like to have the assurance from hon. members opposite that they will thereafter help me as much as possible in expediting the consideration of this measure, so that it may go to the Senate, which will still be here then, but which will probably go home at the end of this month.

We shall help the Minister as much as possible.

Then I am prepared to accept the adjournment of the debate.

Motion put and agreed to.

Debate adjourned; to be resumed on 17th March.

I do not intend taking up much of the time of the House, but, unfortunately, when we were discussing this matter yesterday on the motion to go into Committee, we were interrupted by the adjournment; but I want to move—

I want to say at once that I am not greatly emphasising the second part of my amendment, and if necessary I shall be prepared to withdraw it. All that is needed is for certain officials to be present to be able to advise the Select Committee. If the Minister is prepared to agree to the Bill being referred to a Select Committee, I do not intend insisting on the second part of my proposal.

How long will it take? We have not got too much time.

If the hon. the Minister would like me to do so, I am prepared to add to my motion that the Select Committee be instructed to report not later than the 31st March.

Make it the 28th March.

Very well. The position is that this is a complicated business, and if a few members meet round a table they can go thoroughly into the matter with the assistance of a few officials. We may otherwise have a lengthy debate about this involved matter. I shall amend my proposal as follows—

I move—

I do not propose during this debate to refer to the discourtesy, lack of good taste, evasive statements, distortions and display of ignorance indulged in by the Minister in reply to the debate on the second reading of this Bill. We shall have the opportunity of saying something about that on the third reading.

I only want to deal with that part of the Minister’s answer which refers to my motion in regard to the insertion of a provision for a minimum wage in the Factories Act. The Minister’s reply was this: “You cannot provide for a minimum wage or for sick leave in the Factories Act.” We sat and waited with considerable interest for a further explanation by the Minister why it could not be done, but the Minister in his reply never reverted to it again. His whole reply in connection with this extremely important matter was just that one could not insert such a provision in this Bill, a provision for a minimum wage, or for sick leave. The Minister therefore owes us that reply. I should like to ask the Minister why one cannot put in such a provision. What are the reasons? And at the same time I should like to know this from the Minister: Is he still in favour of the institution of a general minimum wage, or has he perhaps in that respect, too, turned round and renounced his past? I also want to ask the Minister whether he is satisfied with the wages paid to factory workers to-day, wages laid down for industries under wage determinations and industrial agreements between employers and employees, often on the recommendation of the Wage Board. Is he satisfied with those wages? Does he regard them as adequate, as sufficient to enable the workers to make a decent living? I want to ask him whether he admits that there are thousands and tens of thousands of factory workers to-day who are in receipt of starvation wages and who are unable to make a decent living on the wages they receive. I want to ask my hon. friend whether he is still anxious to improve those conditions. What can be his possible objection, and what objections can hon. members opposite have to the proposal of a minimum wage being laid down under the provisions of this Bill? It is stated that this Bill does not deal with wages. It is stated that we have industrial legislation which is specifically intended to deal with the fixing of wages, namely, the Wage Act and the Industrial Conciliation Act. Yes, I admit that those laws were specifically put on the Statute Book with the object of providing for the payment of wages, but these are not the only functions of those Acts. The Wage Act and the Industrial Conciliation Act also deal with working hours, they also deal with the payment of overtime, with Sunday pay, with holidays; they also deal with ordinary annual leave; all these matters fall within the scope of the Industrial Conciliation Act and the Wages Act. But this Bill which we now have before us deals with the very same things. In this Factories Bill provision is also made for working hours, and for the payment of overtime, and it contains provisions in regard to holidays and leave and Sunday pay. In other words, this Factories Bill deals with exactly the same things as those for which provision is made in the Wage Act as well as in the Industrial Conciliation Act. It can therefore not be said that it would be entirely foreign to this Bill for a provision to be inserted in it to deal direct with wages. Just as little as this Bill sets out to undertake the functions of the Wage Act and the Industrial Conciliation Act, because those Acts deal with wages, just as little does it take away any of the functions of those Acts because it contains provisions in regard to Sunday time, leave and the other matters I have mentioned. In actual fact, therefore, there is no reason why such provisions should not be inserted in this Bill. Now this will be asked: “Why don’t you leave it to the Wage Board which has been appointed under the Wage Act, and why don’t you leave it to the provisions of the Industrial Conciliation Act to obtain decent wages? In the Wage Act there is a provision laying it down that the Wage Board is to enquire and make recommendations to the Minister in regard to the fixing of minimum wages. I have no objection to that provision as such. I have no objection to the powers which the Wage Board has, but I do object to the way in which those powers are carried out. In a previous debate I already referred to this and I mentioned numerous instances of inadequate wages recommended by the Wage Board such as wages for unskilled and semiskilled workers. It is laid down in the Wage Act that the Wage Board must make recommendations so as to provide for wages which will enable the employees to maintain themselves in accordance with a civilised standard of living. That is a provision which has to be maintained as the basis on which the Wage Board has to act. They have to lay down wages which will enable the employees to maintain themselves in accordance with a civilised standard of living. But there is a further provision in the Wage Act which says this: “A wage which will also enable the employers to carry on their business with good results.” I have no objection to that provision, but as the Minister knows it has never yet been stated what the Wage Board regards as “the ability of the industry to pay.” This is an obscure question. The industries lay it down for themselves and in consequence the Wage Board finds itself in an awkward position in regard to the recommendations it has to make about wages, and as a result the wages which are recommended are quite inadequate. Before going any further I want to say that we find that the ordinary wage laid down by the Wage Board for unskilled workers is a starting wage of £1 5s. per week or £6 per month. That as a rule is the starting wage for unskilled white workers in any undertaking in respect of which the Wage Board makes the recommendation. The Minister surely does not want to say that the wage of £1 5s. per week accords with the provision in the law which says that the employee must be put in a position of maintaining himself on a civilised standard. That surely is not the case there. But I do not blame the Wage Board so much, because it is bound by the other provision which says that it must see to it that the particular industry or business must be able to pay the increased wage, and then there is another very important provision in the Wage Act, which handicaps the members of the Wage Board even further, and that is that they are not allowed to discriminate on the ground of race or colour. The Wage Board must not make a wage determination for white unskilled labourers, and a different one for coloured or native labourers. It has to fix a wage which is to apply to whites and nonwhites. The original intention of the Act was a good one, namely, to do away with competition between Europeans and nonEuropeans, but how does it work out in practice? It has worked out in this way, that the Wage Board as a rule has in mind how much is an adequate wage for a nonEuropean unskilled labourer, and it is on that basis that the wage for the white unskilled labourer is also fixed. If the Minister is willing to insert a clause in this Bill which will provide for the fixing of a minimum wage, he will be rendering the Wage Board a very great favour. It will facilitate the functioning of the Wage Board. The Wage Board will then have a sound basis to build and work upon. It will not substitute the function of the Wage Board on the contrary. A minimum wage, as suggested by me, will be the minimum wage for a specific industry, and they will be able to build on that. The Wage Board will still be able to investigate and to make recommendations, but they will then be working on the basis of the fixed minimum wage. It will help them more than it will handicap them, and it will certainly not substitute the functions of the Wage Board.

What kind of minimum wage has to be fixed?

The hon. member will notice a provisional amendment of mine on the Order Paper explaining the position. I place the onus on the Minister who on receiving a recommendation may, after investigation, fix a minimum wage and when the minimum wage has been fixed the Wage Board can on that basis proceed with its enquiry. That is what it amounts to. I shall revert to that point later. I admit that in our Industrial Legislation in South Africa we have not yet got any Act containing such a provision, that is to say, an Act applicable to a particular or specific industry, or business, or undertaking. We have got a Wage Act and an Industrial Conciliation Act which deals with minimum wages, but in no other industrial law, for instance, the Shops and Offices Act, the Apprenticeship Act, which relate to specific industries or businesses, do we find such provision. That, however, does not mean that a provision of this kind would be foreign to industrial legislation. In other countries in the world there are often provisions of that kind to be found in industrial legislation applicable to particular businesses or industries. During my speech on the second reading I referred the Minister to the New Zealand legislation. I want to refer to it again and I want to quote the relative provision in the Factories Act of New Zealand, Act No. 7 of 1936 of New Zealand, which in clause 12 says this:

Here we have a provision which was put into the Factories Act. They have not got a general minimum wage Act there. There is provision there for what is called a basic wage. Here we find that in the Factories Act a minimum wage is laid down. The Minister of Labour might perhaps be creating a precedent in our industrial legislation, but it would not be a precedent in respect of other countries so far as industrial legislation is concerned. Similar provisions are found in other New Zealand legislation, for instance in the Shop Hours Act. I contend, therefore, that there is no reason why such a provision should not be inserted in our Factories Act. Now, the Minister will perhaps reply that he is in favour of a national minimum wage, and that this Bill is only concerned with a certain number of workers, and that it would be better to bring in a general measure to make provision for all the workers, unskilled as well as semi-skilled. He will, perhaps, say that that is the policy of the Labour Party when it comes into power—it may perhaps sound ridiculous, but in spite of that they think that there is the prospect of their coming into power one day—and that they will fix a minimum wage by means of legislation. We must assume, however, that the fixing of a national minimum wage will involve a great many complications. If it were possible to provide in this Bill for a national minimum wage for all European unskilled and semi-skilled workers in South Africa the Minister could rest assured of our whole-hearted and enthusiastic support. We must remember that we certainly are not going to get anything of that kind while the present Government is in power. Efforts have already been made by previous Governments to introduce a minimum wage, but that effort had hardly been made before they dropped it like a hot brick. I remember that the Industrial Commission of 1934 went into that question and stated that they were unable to recommend a national minimum wage. Not that it was not desirable but they could not recommed it simply because there were so many difficulties linked up with it, and they therefore considered that it could not possibly be carried out. We must therefore assume that we are not going to get a Bill from this Government to provide for a national minimum wage. We must also assume that there are a great many difficulties in connection with the introduction of a national minimum wage. Consequently we have to do the best we can in the circumstances, and that is to make a start in the Bill which is now before the House. In our country we have particularly great difficulties and complications as a result of the racial relationship and the economic problems associated with the racial relationship. We can, however, make a start to-day. Let it be a gradual process. Let us start first of all with the factory workers and then gradually extend it to all other unskilled and semi-skilled white workers in South Africa. More than 120,000 white workers will come under the provisions of this Bill. The number is large for South Africa. Let the Minister make a start here and introduce a minimum wage for the factory workers, and if it works satisfactorily and if it is found that the minimum wage is satisfactory, the Minister would be able to extend it to other industries, businesses and other undertakings. It will also be argued that the proposal which is being made now only provides for whites, for adult employees. Yes, we have deliberately only provided for white employees. I first of all want to state most deliberately that the House must not conclude from that that hon. members on this side of the House want to drive the non-Europeans out of our industries, and that they begrudge the natives and the coloured people a livelihood. That by no means is our intention, but let me add this, that our first and supreme duty is to attend to the maintenance of the white civilisation of South Africa. Next, that we must see to it that white domination is maintained in South Africa, and thirdly, that the white man’s standard of living is maintained. We are therefore in the very first place concerned with the white unskilled labourers. We have to uplift them from the level where they are to-day—in many cases they are on the same level as the natives and the coloured people. The Labour Party stands for a minimum wage of 10s. per day for all employees, irrespective of race or colour. I am speaking subject to correction—the Minister will be able to say whether it is so or not—but the Labour Party stands irrespective of race or colour for a minimum wage, in other words, they say that the nature of the work will determine the wage.

When business was suspended I had stated that we on this side of the House were of opinion that our first duty was to see to it that white civilisation was maintained in South Africa and that white domination was maintained in South Africa, and to see to it that the livelihood of the white man was maintained in South Africa. I have already stated that the Labour Party take up the attitude that they want a national minimum wage for all the workers. Let me analyse what that will mean. They are not going to differentiate between Europeans and non-Europeans. It is a national minimum wage for all workers, and it is essential for me to analyse that statement somewhat in view of the accusations which will be made against my proposal, namely, that it is only providing for adult white employees. The policy of the Labour Party is for a national minimum wage of 10s. for all unskilled workers, irrespective of their colour. What is that going to mean? It will simply mean not that the non-European will be uplifted to a standard of living of the white man, but by the institution of a minimum wage for all workers. It will simply mean that the standard of living of the white man will be brought down to the level of the native and of the non-European in general. There will not be any uplifting of the non-European, but there will be a degradation, a bringing down of the standard of living of the white man. That is unavoidable. I have already said that the introduction of a minimum wage has to be a gradual process. Let us start with the white worker. But I also want to add that if this instruction to the Committee of the whole House is agreed to, and if such a provision is put into the Bill it will also be necessary, it will be urgently necessary, for another provision to be put in, namely, a provision to prevent the exploitation of non-Europeans. In other words, we shall have to protect the white employees against those kinds of employers who will exploit cheap, non-European labour at the expense of white labour. If a minimum wage is fixed for whites then those white workers have to be protected against the lowly-paid non-European labour. It will be essential then, by means of a quota system, to prevent white workers from being driven out of industry.

Why don’t you put that in your motion?

It is not in the motion for this reason: the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. Van Nierop) is also going to move an instruction, and if it is agreed to it will mean that the principle of a quota system will not be foreign to the subjectmatter of the Bill, and we shall then be able, by way of amendment, to move for the quota system to be inserted. In the amendment to be proposed in the Bill, if the instruction is agreed to, it will also be noticed that no mention is made of unskilled and semiskilled labour. That is being deliberately left out. There is no mention in this amendment of the fact that it must be a minimum wage for unskilled or semi-skilled workers. The instruction has been drafted in as broad terms as possible, and the reason for my doing so is this. We have in our factories more than 27,000 female employees, out of a total of 120,000 white employees. Those female employees cannot be classified as unskilled workers; they are often to a certain extent semi-skilled workers, and in order to provide for a minimum wage for those female workers, it is essential not to lay down in such an amendment that it shall be restricted to unskilled workers. The object is to enable the Minister to fix a minimum wage for these female workers as well, and also for other semi-skilled workers—it is for that reason that I have drafted my amendment in such wide terms. I want to say again in passing, and it will interest my friends on my left, that it is incorrect, as the Minister stated in his reply to the debate on the second reading, that we on this side of the House want to drive the non-Europeans out of industries. That has never been our policy, and it is not our policy to-day. I cannot go into that at this stage, but all we intend is to prevent undesirable and improper contact between the races, and what we are out for is that the wages and the standard of living of the whites shall be higher than those of the non-whites, that their wages will be such as to enable them to live a decent life.

How are you going to protect the non-Europeans?

By means of a quota provision. The Minister will be able to fix the number to be used in every industry.

In every grade of an industry?

No, but in certain of its branches. It is essential to introduce such a quota system on account of the fact that there is serious competition between white and non-white which we have to prevent. The more the natives, and especially the non-whites who are called coloured people, come into industry, the more serious competitors they become to the white in industrial spheres, and the matter is one which has to be tackled. It is necessary for both the coloured and white employees. It is also laid down in this proposed amendment that the minimum wage is to apply to white adults. The word adults will have to be defined in the definition. So far as male persons are concerned, I regard an adult as a person over the age of 21. But that cannot be applied to a female person. The bulk of the 27,000 women in our factories are between 16 and 24 or 25 years of age. In other words, it will have to be laid down in the definition that an adult white female worker is someone over 16 years of age. The House will also notice that in the proposed amendment no amount is fixed. It is not said that the minimum wage must be 10s. per day, nor is there any reference to a £1 per day. I have carefully avoided mentioning a definite amount in the amendment. There are very good reasons for that which I wish to refer to. First of all, I wish to place the onus on the Minister of Labour. He has so often stated in the past that there must be a minimum wage “to provide an adequate standard of living for all workers, whether by hand or brain”. I now wish to give him the opportunity of showing us what that adequate minimum wage is, to provide an adequate standard of living for all workers, whether by hand or brain. I want him to have that privilege. Let him lay down what he considers this adequate wage to provide the worker with an adequate standard of living. Besides, I am unable to fix a definite amount in this amendment on account of the fact that we are passing through extremely critical times. We do not know what may happen to-morrow, and in spite of the assurance given us by the Minister of Finance, inflation may come about, and if we mention a minimum wage of 10s. it is quite possible that that may mean very little. In the third place, when the Minister of Labour is attacked in connection with recommendations of the Wage Board, he always puts up his hands in innocence, and he says he cannot do anything because he has no say in regard to anything the Wage Board does. All he can do is to turn down or to accept the recommendation. If he turns it down he can only give an instruction for them to make fresh recommendations. I now want to give the Minister the chance of having a little more say. As I have already said, that minimum wage to be laid down by the Minister will then be a basis on which the Wage Board can work when making recommendations. The Minister lays down a minimum wage for the different branches of the industry, and when the Wage Board makes an investigation that minimum wage can serve as a basis for the Wage Board to act on. Finally, I want to sum up what I have already said. I first of all said that we cannot expect any general legislation in connection with a national minimum wage from this Government. That is perfectly clear, and we all accept that. The second point is that we cannot expect any amendment of the Wage Act from the Minister, although he did admit on a previous occasion that the Wage Act was not effective, and that there were many mistakes in it, and that the Wage Board was tied down too much in regard to the investigation it could make—but although the Minister has admitted this, we can assume, speaking from our experience of the Minister in the past, that he will unquestionably not introduce a Bill to amend the Wage Act. It is highly necessary that active steps should be taken as soon as possible in regard to the scandalous wages which are paid to unskilled and semi-skilled employees. Furthermore, no precedent is being created by the insertion of such a provision in this Bill. I have shown that it has been done in similar legislation in other countries. If such a provision is put in, it will not substitute the functions of the Wage Board. The Wage Board can continue to function as it has done in the past, and much more effectively. Finally, I contend that a beginning had to be made. We cannot go on in the way we are doing any longer and allow starvation wages to be paid in our factories. The Government over there has been in power for more than 18 months; so far they have done nothing for the workers. On the occasion of the first Bill introduced by the Minister which has a chance of being passed, and while he is busy with this matter, he does not avail himself of the opportunity to justify his existence as a man who pretends to stand for the interests of the workers. I say that we cannot go on as we are doing. Improvements have to be made, and a start must now be made. For those reasons, I move the motion standing in my name.

I second.

I think it is a matter of congratulation that this evening the hon. member (Mr. B. J. Schoeman) did not need an extension of time to display his complete and abysmal ignorance of general economics. I am rising immediately, Mr. Speaker, because I realise that the hon. member for Fordsburg is not so much interested in the future welfare of the working classes of this country, as he is in an endeavour to embarrass the Labour Party, but I can assure him that when the Labour Party becomes embarrassed, it will become embarrassed by a great deal sounder exposition of economics than that displayed by him this evening.

That is impossible.

Well, I am going to show the hon. member, by the two amendments which he has had the audacity to get printed in this House, how abysmal is his ignorance of economics, or rather I am going to show that by the printed words which are the responsibility of the hon. member. I want to show that his economics have suffered a radical change within two days. I know that economists do differ, and from time to time they change their minds. We remember a celebrated instance when the gold standard controversy was on that some economists changed their minds overnight. But that is allowable, because that was a very abstruse problem. But here we have the new economic expert of the Nationalist Party, the new saviour of the working classes of South Africa, and he cannot make up his mind on his own party’s policy within the 24 hours, because he sticks on the Order Paper one particular amendment, and then overrides it with another. I am inclined to think the first amendment was the product of his own confused brain, and the second came from some first calss expert advice as to what he actually ought to put on the Order Paper. Let me suggest to the hon. member, when he twits the Minister of Labour for having replied to him that a Factories Bill is not the correct place for a minimum wage, let me suggest to the hon. member that the mere fact that he has found it necessary to move this particular motion, shows that a Factories Bill is not the place for a minimum wage, because if it were his original amendment it would have been perfectly in order, and there would have been no necessity for this contingent motion. I presume the hon. member has found it necessary to move this because he found that his orginal amendment was out of order, out of keeping and not in consonance with the preamble of the Factories Bill which we have before us. I do not know whether that was an official ruling, but one assumes that the hon. member was sufficiently doubtful to have this motion placed on the Order Paper. The other explanation is that he insisted on imposing his voice upon us for 40 minutes instead of ten. I am not sufficiently vindictive to suggest that the hon. member chose his method of introducing his ideas in order that he could speak for forty minutes rather than ten, but let us consider it. Let me make it clear, first of all, that we of the Labour Party, are in favour of a minimum wage in South Africa. We have propagated this through the mouth of the hon. Minister of Labour, through myself and various other Labour members in this House, the idea of a minimum wage, ever since the Labour Party entered this House, but our idea of a minimum wage is based upon some economic knowledge, some considerations as to the economic structure of the country. Our idea of a minimum wage is a very carefully thought-out thing, and our idea of a minimum wage is something which is concerned with a minimum wage, and not concerned with the colour of a man’s skin, or the creed or religion that he follows.

More particularly his vote.

Yes, particularly his vote. Now, let us examine the economic frame of mind of the hon. member for Fordsburg, it is a very interesting thing to analyse. As a matter of fact, I am becoming quite a political psychologist in my knowledge of the hon. member for Fordsburg, and I find him something very strange any very interesting, something I am inclined to say almost ab¬normal in the realm of political psychology.

Sub-normal.

No, I would not say sub¬normal, for that would be complimenting the hon. member, who is rather abnormal in that respect. First of all he had this idea of the minimum wage, and he suggested to the House, by means of an amendment which he placed on the Order Paper, which says the employer shall pay to every employee em¬ployed by him, other than a female, or a male under the age of eighteen years, or a pupil, or inmate of an institution, remunera¬tion at the rate of at least 10s. per day. You will notice that in the first instance, when the hon. member was in labour and dropped an economic wage idea, his brain was not clouded by any idea of colour.

Will you allow me to explain.

No, I will not allow you to explain. I don’t think you can. I have a pretty good knowledge of the economic mental state of the hon. member, and perhaps to analyse it …

[inaudible.]

That is a very gracious and Christian statement from the hon. reverend member. I say to the hon. member that if he suggested that his colleague was suffering from a swollen head he would be nearer the truth, because I think that is really the explanation of these amendments. I am almost persuaded, Mr. Speaker, to make the statement that the first amendment is the creation of the brain of the hon. member for Fordsburg, and the second is the creation of somebody with a great deal more economic knowledge, who came along to him and said: “Look here, old chap, you can’t put a darn silly thing like that on the Order Paper”. The hon. gentleman had told us that he speaks not only for himself—I should have thought that speaking for himself was quite enough, quite enough for us at any rate— not only for himself but for his party. So I presume we are entitled to assume, parti-cularly as we feel that these motions are more prompted by an endeavour to embarrass the Labour Party than by any really keen feeling for the welfare of the working classes, we are entitled to say openly that this first amendment was the original, the sort of protoplasmic economic thought of the new order. Their economics are in a very protoplasmic state, and if they develop much more they will develop into monstrosities, the direct result of these protoplasmic ideas, monstrosities sixty feet long with legs like geraniums. In the first instance, the hon. member proposes to eliminate European females from the benefit of his idea of the minimum wage, but he includes the non-European population. Then he had a brain wave, and the subsequent clause is rather interesting. Let me examine his first clause before I carry on with the second; the hon. member cannot come to this House and say that this amendment was put on the Order Paper on the spur of the moment. The other evening he occupied his full forty minutes, and his party were very wrathful that he was not given an extension to develop precisely the same idea. He gave the House the impression that he had made a thorough study of the New Zealand system, so much so that he then challenged the Minister of Labour, I understand, as to whether a minimum wage provision was a thing which could be included in a Factories Act. He made the statement that it was done in New Zealand, a statement with which I disagree. One assumes that he had made a study of these particular provisions, and yet knowing South Africa as he does, and not knowing, as it now appears, his Herenigde Party as he ought to do, he has the audacity to come along and put on the Order Paper an amendment purporting to come from a man who speaks not only for himself, but for his party, and which eliminates the European females from a minimum wage and includes non-Europeans.

May I, on a point of explanation …

Order. Does the hon. member give way?

No, Mr. Speaker. I have quite a lot to say.

The hon. member can make his explanation when the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) sits down.

Well, I don’t propose to sit down, Mr. Speaker. I propose to deal with the hon. member’s views as explicitly expressed in the amendment on the Order Paper. I know full well that the hon. member and his colleagues have drafted this with very little intellect. As a matter of fact, if they had come along and asked me I could have given them much better amendments. These amendments are designed for the specific purpose of having on record in Hansard that the Labour Party voted against them. Those are very old political tactics in this country, and this contingent motion in particular has been designed for the purpose of getting recorded in Hansard the vote of the Minister of Labour, of myself and other of my colleagues, against it. I can assure the hon. member that he will be quite successful in his design, because we shall vote against this contingent motion.

You cannot do anything else.

It is no use my hon. friend talking like that. When the K.W.V. tells him to do certain things he does them. We are not in that position; we are going to vote against it, but we are going to take the opportunity which membership of this House presents to say why, and I want to say so here and now. I have here the Bill with the amendments moved by the hon. member, and if ever you saw an indefatigable attempt to kill and wreck a Bill it is here.

The hon. member must confine himself to the instruction.

Yes, but I am dealing with the instruction from the mental point of view with which the instruction was put on the Order Paper, which is more important than the actual meaning of the instruction itself. However, if the hon. member wants to play at politics in that particular way I want to accuse him now as a good Nationalist of being prepared to sacrifice Afrikaner girlhood in this country for the sake of the coloured man.

You are talking nonsense.

That is what the amendment means. The Afrikaner girl who is mainly employed according to his amendment is prevented from gaining the benefits of a minimum wage provision which the hon. member is prepared to extend to the non-European.

Rot.

I don’t say it is wrong to extend it to the non-European, but I am trying to show up the position of this party who rushed in where angels feared to tread—probably because they would not know an angel if they saw one—they rush into an economic sphere in which they have never been concerned, but they see and they feel that the political power is at last passing from the platteland to the urban areas, and so it is necessary for them to find a new economic sphere, and may God forgive them—they have found the hon. member for Fordsburg. He is even a greater tragedy to the party than the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow). And here we have the position. First of all he wants a minimum wage of 10s. The hon. member for Fordsburg can try and explain it away as much as he likes—I am dealing with his sincerity from an economic point of view—all his protestations will get him no further. He can say as much as he likes, but he stands here committed in this amendment to 10s. per day for men in South African industry, whether they be European, native, coloured, or Indian. And I should like to hear from his leader—

Which leader?

Oh, from any of their leaders on the front benches.

The front benchers are not the leaders.

The Ossewa-brandwag are.

Well, I should like to hear from anyone on that side whether this is or was 24 hours ago the accepted policy of the Nationalist Party.

You are talking about an amendment which we never handed in.

The hon. member has had a change of heart or change of mind, I do not know which, and now after having attacked the Minister of Labour, after having told the House that of all the vile political things in South Africa the Minister of Labour was the vilest, after having shown to the great glee of his own party that he had the real solution for the benefit of the working classes, after having told his own people, and after having told the House that the Minister of Labour had now definitely come under the heel of Hoggenheimer, and was allied to the Chamber of Mines—after having said all these things—his only solution for that question of a minimum wage was to leave that question in the hands of the same Minister of Labour. Because that is what the amendment says. After having fulminated against the powers which the Bill gives the Minister, he suggested by innuendo—and the hon. member is a great hand at innuendo—after having said that the Minister of Labour was not a responsible person, that he was a man who had fallen under the heel of Hoggenheimer, that he was a man who had allied himself with John Martin, that he was not an individual who should be given the powers which the Act gives him, he is now prepared to hand holus bolus to the Minister of Labour the power to allocate the minimum wage. I think it was the hon. member himself who wanted to know why it was that in the Factories Act the existing agreements under the Industrial Conciliation Act were exempt. He wanted to know why the Bill said that, despite the provisions of this Act until such agreements expired, the agreements themselves held water. That was the criticism which came from the hon. member himself. But now, apart from criticising the Minister and then handing the Minister the powers which he says the Minister is not capable of handling, he says: “Not only can you do that, but the other evening I objected to the Industrial Council Agreements being excluded from the Act, but I now give you the right to do these very things”—“But you must let these industrial agreements continue.” The hon. member well knew that particularly as far as the Wage Act was concerned there are very many wage awards which do not measure up to the standard which has been laid down. He says no scale shall be lower than that fixed under the agreement. It is a remarkable display of what the Americans call Blah. He fixes a minimum scale of wages which shall be paid to adult European employees in order to enable them to support themselves in accordance with the civiised standard of life.

I would call it boloney.

Of course it is boloney. He was a great deal more of a hero 24 hours ago when he was holding forth against the provisions of this Bill than he is now when he wants to leave everything in the hands of the Minister. Twenty-four hours ago at least he did not say 10s. per day, but when he came under the conscripted advice of his political advisers he was only an object of abject economic sympathy.

What is that?

What is going to be the effect of confining this minimum wage of, say, 10s. per day, to Europeans? Has the hon. member for Fordsburg ever studied the economic development of South Africa? Does he realise that one of the great economic problems of South Africa is this disparity between European and non-European wages? Does he know that his colleague, the National Socialist deputy for Mossel Bay (Dr. Van Nierop) is likely to follow him with a plea based upon the economics of this great disparity between European and non-European wages? That, in order to protect the European not only from the social point of view, but from the economic point of view, he wants the Minister to embark upon a policy of industrial segregation? Does the hon. member for Fordsburg realise that by dealing with the minimum wage in this completely uneconomic manner by enforcing it for Europeans only—does he realise it that the primary effect would be unemployment in the ranks of the Europeans? Surely if the hon. member pretends to any economic knowledge whatever, surely if he pretends to an economic knowledge on the lines of the policy he has embarked upon, surely if he wants to do something in the interest of the working man as he tells us, he must have studied the reactions of the average employer. And what is the reaction of the average employer? It is this, that if there is a certain class whom he is employing whose wages are being forced up while at the same time there is a larger, a more numerous class whom he can employ whose wages are being forced down, and there is no restriction on him as to whom he shall employ, he will employ the larger and more numerous and lower-paid workers. And the first effect of this uneconomic provision that the Minister should lay down a minimum rate of wage for Europeans without any consideration for the wages of non-Europeans, the first effect would be the sacking of thousands of European workers and their replacement by non-European workers. Does the hon. member for Fordsburg know what is the relation as far as figures are concerned between Europeans and non-Europeans? Does he realise that these figures bear a strict relationship to the amount of labour offered and does he realise what is more particularly the case when considering the question of a minimum wage—the ghastly disparity which exists at the moment between the average wage paid to the European in industry and the average wage paid to the non-European? Does he know that in the last year for which the year book figures are available—that is 1937-’38—there were 140,000 odd Europeans employed and 204,000 non-Europeans? And that is an industry including Government, and local undertakings in the Railway workshops. But when we go to private undertakings we find that there were 117,000 Europeans employed and 188,000 non-Europeans. And the wages paid are instructive too. We find that in 1937-’38 the average wage for employees European was £243 per annum, and the average wage for non-European employees was £54 per annum. That is the disparity. And the hon. member wants to increase as his contribution to the solution of our economic problem in South Africa—he wants to increase that disparity. He wants to raise apparently the European wage at the expense of the non-European wage. He wants to lay down a minimum for the European—no, he does not, he has changed his mind during the last 24 hours. He wants to lay the responsibility on the reviled Minister of Labour. But it cannot be done. If we are going to have a minimum wage provision in the Union of South Africa it will have to be a very carefully thought out minimum wage provision which will apply to the job, to the work, irrespective of whether that work is performed by European, Native, Coloured or Indian. It is the only possible way in which the future economic future progress of South Africa can be procured, not by this hotchpotch business—and what right has the hon. member for Fordsburg to suggest that the Minister of Labour should solve this for him? We have been told by this new economic genius that we of the Labour Party have sold the labouring classes, that we are the mermidons of British Imperialism, that we are in the pockets of the Chamber of Mines, that we are drawing two salaries and all the rest of it, and in every possible way we have given up any right to be considered as the representatives of the working classes— and that we have forfeited the right of being regarded as the representatives of the people who have sent us here. That being so why does the hon. member throw at the Minister of Labour the obligation to fix this minimum wage. Why, I ask? He told us that in due course the Labour policy of this wonderful new party would be placed before this House. I am quite serious about this. We understand that the Opposition Party are prepared to forego to a considerable extent their story about the war, and their racial propaganda. They have obviously sunk the whole idea of a Republic, and now they are attempting to concentrate on economics, well knowing that the working people want to know something about wages, hours and conditions. And they are beginning to suspect that they have to know something about those things, so they are telling us a lot about their economic policy by which the conditions of this country can be ameliorated. Where is that policy? They have no policy. It is not policy to say in an amendment that the Minister of Labour who is a reviled man must bring into effect these things. It is not a policy on their part to say that the Minister of Labour must use his brain and his honesty and his enthusiasm, and his principles which he has kept through all his political life to solve that problem for them. They have told us on more than one occasion that they are the only possible alternative to this Government. If they are, then they must have some kind of economic policy. If they have an economic policy we want to see it clearly stated. We do not want any of this tommy rot that the Minister of Labour must do it for them. If they want a minimum wage then we want to know whom it must apply to. Is it going to apply to the Europeans only, or to the coloureds and natives and Indians, and if so, how much? I asked the hon. member the other evening several times how much. In his original amendment he said 10s., but that was only for male European employees in the various factories. How much does he consider is a reasonable minimum wage? And what does he mean by a civilised standard of life? That is the kind of language he uses—that is the kind of thing which has been talked about by demogogues ever since the world was a world, but it does not cut any ice in a practical discussion on a practical Bill. How much does a man with a family need per day in order to maintain a civilised standard of life? Does the hon. member contend that the coloured man must have a different standard of life from the European, and is he prepared to tell us that the agricultural worker must have a different standard of civilisation from anyone else? And why does this not apply to the agricultural worker? What is the use of having a minimum wage only applying to the factory worker because the root of South Africa’s trouble lies in agriculture. The root of nearly every trouble lies in agriculture. The hon. member also has to tell us which of these two amendments represent the policy of his party, and whether any of these two amendments represents the policy of his party. Is it the new technique of the Nationalist Party that back benchers with little experience of parliament should expound these things? Taking all these things into consideration, much though I regret the fact that we have not got a minimum wage bill in South Africa—and I am perfectly frank about it— and I have always been perfectly frank— much though I regret that the Factories Bill is not a great deal stronger than it is, I say it is an improvement. It shows that the Government are prepared to consider our Labour point of view insofar as we are supporters of the Go vernment, and I am not going to be frightened by the economic vapourings of the hon. member for Fordsburg, or anyone there into voting for this Bill merely because of what may be said in my constituency. I know that the recommendation to refer this Bill to a Select Committee before the second reading was a deliberate attempt to kill it. I know that there are dozens and dozens of amendments constituting a concentrated and well organised attempt to kill this Bill, and I know above all that this contingency motion which has been brought forward so badly designed, so obviously unthought of, so obviously a matter of political expediency, is also part of the programme and of the attempt to kill this Bill. I as a member of the Labour Party want this Bill with all its deficiencies passed—it marks a considerable advance on what we have at present. I am not prepared at any time to let down the people I represent, and so I am taking this half loaf because I cannot get a whole one. I am going to take what I can get now and I am going to make certain of the half loaf, knowing that we can look forward to the day when we may get the whole loaf.

I believe the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman) wishes to make a personal explanation.

I merely wish to say that this amendment which the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) devoted 35 minutes of his time to, was not drafted by me, and was not placed on the Order Paper by me. The first knowledge I had of this amendment was when I saw it on the Order Paper.

It was perfectly obvious when the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) spoke that he only turned his face to the left and to the right, and that he was obviously addressing an audience. He was addressing an audience which was hardly impressed but considerably amused. He never spoke to this side of the House at all. There were good reasons for the hon. member speaking to the left and to the right. There is a reason for the ex-Labour Party to sit right in the middle so that it was a flank on either side, so that it can smile or smirk when necessary, to either side.

You cannot blame them when there is nothing in front of them.

Well, they tried their best to-night. I was reminded by the hon. member’s speech of a celebrated surgeon who, when speaking to his students of whom I was one, said one day: What would you say is the Duchess said “Why is my dear little girl so ill”? The answer he gave was this—if the Duchess asks that you should reply: “Well, my dear Duchess, to a lady of your intelligence it will at once be evident that …” and after that you can say all you want because she will believe anything that you say. After the hon. member for Umbilo had told those on the left and the right of him what intelligent people they were, and how intelligent the Minister was, they were willing to swallow anything. As a matter of fact I do not know whether they were concerned about swallowing anything at all. They were hardly amused after he had continued for a little while. The hon. member for Umbilo was trying to blot out the past, what they had stood for in the past.

He blotted out Fordsburg.

He was trying to throw a smokescreen over the past. He tried his very best to cover up the deeds of what was once a so-called Labour Party. However, he did not make a very serious attempt and whatever he said was not very serious, because whatever happens the Labour Party has not got a long life; they have not got much to look forward to in that respect. They have no past either, they are like an old mule. This amendment may have been applauded and supported by the Labour Party in the past—and this instruction would have been applauded by the Minister himself.

Which amendment are you referring to?

I am referring to the instruction on the Order Paper. Why all this objection with regard to this being left in the hands of the Minister?

No objection.

There is a very good reason, and the reason is not of our making. My hon. friend over there was talking about economic laws and about his vast knowledge of economics. I say that there is a very good reason, because we know perfectly well that if you fix a minimum wage to-day you may have to alter it in the future. We know perfectly well that a minimum wage must have a definite relation to what the minimum wage can buy, and that has been the entire failing of the Labour Party in the past, that they were never concerned with what wages could buy, they were only concerned with the fixing of a minimum wage. They were only concerned with the soap-box effect of pleading for a large minimum wage.

Now the Nationalist Party is doing that.

We know perfectly well that with their much boasted of knowledge of economics they have never yet pleaded for a wage which would buy the basic necessities of life for everyone in the country. They have always pleaded for increased wages irrespective of what those wages would buy, irrespective of the amount of unemployment it would cause. I say the hon. member over there was talking to the right and to the left, but they could not understand what he really was talking about.

Then why waste all this time replying?

For the simple reason that the hon. member is sitting very close behind the Minister and is hoping to throw up a smokescreen. The hon. member was trying to create an atmosphere which would make it impossible for this instruction to be adopted. He has done a grave disservice to the memory of the Labour Party and to the memory of some of the fighters of the past.

R.I.P.

He could not help himself, and he reminded me somewhat of the two men who had been spending a very cheerful evening together, and at the end were too cheerful and got into an argument. The one put his hand on the table and the other took a bottle and smashed across his hand and said: “There is a snake on the table,” and the other one said: “Hit him again, he is biting me.” Mr. Speaker, the Labour Party saw snakes, the ex-Labour Party saw snakes. They were not drunk with their own conceit, though they are of course somewhat conceited to-day, and they cannot help themselves; they have something to be conceited about, they have either got commissions and various other things of that kind, and I personally am very pleased about it indeed, because I know that they have suffered in the past and to-day they have got their earthly reward; their reward in heaven they will never get. I am only speaking figuratively, of course. I know the hon. Minister will certainly get there, but I cannot be so kind to the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside). I say this, however, that the heaven for the workers will never be achieved by them. Heaven for the workers will never be got by them, because when they had the opportunity they refused to take it, and had refused to help in getting the very necessary things for the workers in this country. The hon. member for Umbilo has tried to protect the hon. Minister, and has tried to keep things straight in the country for them, but it is an entirely hopeless task. I say again that it is of the utmost importance that this instruction should be adopted, and that we should be given the opportunity to really get down to tin-tacks. If the hon. Minister wants to know what the minimum wage should be, it is not so difficult to discover. Let us put our experts to work and find out what, from time to time, is a wage that will provide for the basic necessities of life necessary for a standard of living for these particular people, and then we will be in the position where we can solve the larger part of our economic problems.

Do you limit it to Europeans, because your instruction says so?

For a very good reason; you cannot tackle the whole thing at once. When we have settled the proportion of the people and really got down to what the basic necessities are, then we can get on with this matter. The Minister knows perfectly well that we cannot continue to allow this flow of natives to the cities, irrespective of whether they are working or not. The Minister knows that with our sub-economic housing schemes we have adopted the principle that workers must live in suitable dwellings, and now we have our opportunity of limiting the numbers of natives and coloured, we must see to it that we do not allow any more into the cities unless there are homes for them. We have the opportunity now of a comprehensive scheme, and I ask the Minister to adopt this instruction.

I am very much afraid that the hon. member who has just spoken, though he unquestionably added to the gaiety of nations, added very little information, and I doubt very much whether the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman) feels very much supported by the intervention of the hon. member. Let me take the amusing statement he made in regard to myself and my party. He made great play with the alleged decadence of the Labour Party, and he went so far as to say, though not in so many words, that it had failed and that it had never done anything else but fail. He advocated increased wages without any regard to whether those increased wages were able to buy the necessities of life for a civilised standard of living. Unfortunately for the hon. gentleman who barged into this debate without having listened to anything which had gone before, his colleague, the hon. member for Fordsburg, did me the honour of reading out to the House an amendment we moved on an occasion when we had asked for increased wages, wages upon which the people of South Africa could build up a civilised standard of living, and so my hon. friend’s intervention does not cut very much ice. If he had studied his brief a little more closely, I think he would never have been betrayed into making that stupid remark. He will forgive me for saying that; I don’t mean stupid intellectually, but stupid in its effect. He is a gentleman whom I have always regarded favourably, I have the utmost regard for him, and he has been watching the career of the Labour Party; I rather think at one time he was almost constrained to join the Labour Party.

You flatter yourself.

He knows what he said to-night, and when he sits down and calmly thinks about what he said, he will realise that he has completely misrepresented what has been the Labour Party’s attitude all thtrough the years of our association in this House. Just for the purpose of refreshing my hon. friend’s memory and those who have sat in the House before, I will say we have been consistent when we have demanded a minimum wage, and we have been consistent in demanding it for everybody. It may not meet with their approval, it never has. We have always been in a very small minority on that point.

You mean the same minimum wage for everybody?

Let me here interpose for the benefit of the hon. member that I was once in an administration composed of that side of the House plus the Labour Party. I introduced a minimum wage of 8s. a day for unskilled labour without any regard for colour, and I got the sack in consequence, and I don’t think, Mr. Speaker, the leopard has changed its spots.

You will have to be sacked again.

That is also possible.

That is why you are so careful now.

I don’t mind criticism from hon. members like the hon. member for Winburg (Mr. C. R. Swart) and one or two other members over there, but interjections from the back based on ignorance and actuated by malice

What do you insinuate?

I did not know it was my hon. friend over there who interjected. I gave him dispensation. “Now,” says my hon. friend in his frantic efforts to explain the attitude of hon. gentlemen over there, “consult experts, get them to put their heads together, discuss and consider the whole question, and then decide what is a reasonable or proper minimum wage.” That is what he said. Let me tell him that at the very moment and for some time past I have had a sub-committee of the Labour Advisory Council going into this very question.

Why didn’t you tells us before?

He didn’t ask for it. My hon. friend if he gives play to his own sense of fair play, would realise that I am not sitting still in my office. It is a fact that we have this sub-committee going into this very question and they are to report to the Advisory Council immediately after this session ends.

Not much applause from the other side.

No, I am not looking for applause. I am answering the point made by my hon. friend. When he was girding at the fact that there is no applause from this side why is there no applause from his side?

Because we know nothing will be done.

If one judges from acts and not words, deeds and not asseverations, one is forced to the conclusion that hon. members over there do not want a minimum wage. I am telling the House what is being done, and I say, sir, that we of the Labour Party believe this, that you cannot uplift one section of the community without bringing the other along too.

Are you including the agricultural labourer?

Yes, of course we are. I want to know if the hon. gentleman and his friends have any objection to that. So much for their sincerity, so much for their much-vaunted humanity, which the other side of the House has unsuccessfully attempted to display. All these factors and all sections of the community in South Africa are being passed under review in this effort to find a standard on which we shall build the nation of South Africa, and not one section alone. Before I go any further I want to indicate why I am going to ask the House to reject this contingent motion of instruction to the Committee. I am going to reject it because I am a Labour man, because in the first place I am convinced that this is only part and parcel, and here I entirely agree with my hon. friend behind me, it is only part and parcel of a fixed determination of hon. gentlemen opposite to do everything they can to destroy this effort we are making.

Nonsense.

Let me pass in review a very short history of this measure. Right in the beginning of things a most unnecessary motion for the reference of this Bill to a Select Committee before the second reading was made. It was most unnecessary, because as I indicated, they had all the opportunities at their disposal in the ordinary procedure of this House, to amend this Bill just as they require to do if they can get a majority. The very plethora of the amendments they have placed on the Order Paper is indicative of their realisation of that conception, that they have got the right and the power to amend it provided they get a sufficient number of members to agree with them. So I have every right to deduce from that line of action that right in the beginning they had a determination to wreck this Bill. They don’t want this Government to have the credit of bringing in this decidedly improved Factories Act. They don’t want to see us have that credit. It irks them, and I am quite prepared to go on any platform on the Reef, including Fordsburg, and defend my action and that of the Labour Party, and I undertake to get a vote of execration of hon. members on that side for their conduct in regard to this Bill.

[inaudible].

My hon. friend goes to the Guardian for his inspiration and Solly Sachs for his information, and he glories in the association. What a combination—the hon. member for Potgietersrust (Rev. S. W. Naudé) and Solly Sachs, with the Guardian hovering over them, too! The hon. member for Fordsburg had an amendment on the Order Paper, and I have yet to learn that had this instruction been moved in the form of that amendment, you would have ruled it out of order. I don’t think you would, sir. Therefore if he was serious he could have moved it in amendment form without wasting our time in a second reading discussion.

I could not have moved it without an instruction. It was ruled out of order.

My hon. friend is in a state of blissful ignorance as to the authorship of the other motion.

I think the hon. Minister must accept the explanation of the hon. member for Fordsburg. I want to explain that apparently there was some mistake with regard to the matter, and I don’t think the hon. member for Fordsburg can be blamed in connection with it.

I am not blaming him, I am accepting the fact that he knew nothing about it. But his name appears on the Order Paper. May I ask who put it on the Order Paper?

The position is this: The hon. member for Fordsburg consulted the Table with regard to the amendment, and the first amendment as referred to by the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) was drawn up by the parliamentary draughtsman. In the meantime, the hon. member for Fordsburg, I understand, left for up-country, and on his return he saw the amendment as placed on the Paper, and asked that it be amended in the form as it is now before the House.

I accept your account of the history of it, sir, but it does not exonerate the hon. gentleman from blame, because the parliamentary draughtsman would never put the language in if the hon. member for Fordsburg did not want it.

On a point of explanation, sir, I never even saw the parliamentary draughtsman personally, and I gave him no instructions with regard to the drawing of that. May I explain what actually happened? I saw the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. van Nierop) and said that I was leaving, and I asked the hon. member to request the parliamentary draughtsman to draft the instruction. The parliamentary draughtsman, in addition to drafting the instruction, drafted the amendment. Without my even seeing the instruction or the amendment, it was handed to the clerk by the parliamentary draughtsman so that Mr. Speaker could be consulted. Afterwards it was placed on the Order Paper without my seeing it and without my knowledge. The minute I saw it I went and had the other amendment substituted for it.

That is absolutely correct.

I am informed that the statement which has been made is perfectly correct.

I was going to ask why this was drafted in these particular terms, but it is not worth while. Now, then, that is the first reason why I am going to ask the House to vote against this instruction, namely, that I saw in it evidence of the determined policy on that side to wreck this measure. That is item No. 1. Item No. 2 is that the hon. member either from ignorance of economics, or lack of investigation as to the result of the intrusion of anything of this description, has introduced an amendment which will have as its direct result the throwing out of industry of a very large number of Europeans. My hon. friend for Umbilo is perfectly correct, employers being what they are, they are going to have the cheapest labour, the cheap natives. Then there is another reason, sir, and I think this enters very largely into the calculations of hon. members on that side. They know very well that this Bill, in its original form, was sent out to all interested parties, it was sent to employers and to the trade union organisations. We make no secret of it, we wanted to know what was going to be the best adjustment as between the two conflicting interests.

When was it sent out?

I would not be too sure, but I think it was nearly a year ago. It shows how we made every effort to get the best expression from all parties concerned, and this Bill is the net result of it. In fact, there is an implied guarantee that we shall not materially alter this Bill, and that being so I am going to stand by it. If I were to accept any material alterations, such as are suggested by hon. members over there, then the contracting parties, if I may use that expression, would have ground of accusing me of a breach of faith.

Who are they?

Employers’ and employees’ organisations, those whom I was pleased to call just now the contesting parties. I submitted the proposals to them both, and their observations, as far as possible, were given effect to in the present draft of the Bill. I don’t propose to depart from the virtual undertaking by me that the Bill shall stand substantially as it is.

Did they agree to the segregation clause?

I will come to that in the Committee stage. The segregation clause was not in.

Would they object to a minimum wage, I mean the interested parties?

My hon. friend wants in his instruction to exempt Wage Board determinations and all Industrial Council agreements. That is in the instruction. Or rather it is in the hon. member’s amendment. Does the hon. member want to withdraw from that position?

You have evidently misunderstood me.

No, the amendment says that.

The amendment says that it must not be less

With a great many workers in this country it will be: “Thank you for nothing.” I confess straight away that a tremendous number of the Wage Board awards are not what they should be. Now he wants to know what the Labour Party is doing, and what I particularly am doing in the direction of gradually uplifting all the workers of the country. I will tell you what I have told the Wage Board—what their aim should be. I have no right to instruct them—their aim should be as rapidly as possible, but gradually, so that industry can adjust itself, to raise the basic wage to 10s. per day. There is my advice, there is my request, and I honestly believe that they are working to that end.

Will you not consider amending the Wage Act?

I am coming to that.

Ten shillings for agriculture as well?

Does not my hon. friend want that? He does not want it where he has to pay it. They are quite content to impose wage conditions on other people.

Is that for natives, too?

They are in industry as a low-waged set of people. They are dragging down the whole standard of white and black alike, and in consequence we want to uplift them—white and black alike. And any farmer should recognise this as a powerful argument so that the spending capacity of this country will be such as to help along the farming industry. The Wage Act calls to be amended. It is too slow, too cumbersome, and too small. And I again admit that I personally have never been in favour of the Wage Board system of fixing wages. I have been in favour of what they have in Australia. My hon. friend over there is often quoting New Zealand. Australia has a system of industrial courts—judges sitting in equity, not law. What is the result? It has uplifted the people of Australia. That is what we want. My hon. friend must be reasonable. We are at war. That is the reason for my presence on these benches, that is the reason for my continuance and that of my friends on these benches. And I never dreamt, when we decided to support the Government’s war effort, that we would have got the consideration from an economic point of view that we have been getting from the Government and its supporters. And I accepted that with gratitude, and I echo, re-echo and reiterate the pregnant words of the hon. member for Umbilo—we are getting a distinct advance. Call it half a loaf or three-quarters of a loaf. We accept that in preference to having nothing at all, and when I inform this House that this Bill is to be followed by another far-reaching measure which will be carried through this year, the House will realise the advance made. In all the circumstances of the war and all the tremendous considerations involved, and the confusion of mind resulting therefrom, the fact that this Government has turned its attention to the social conditions of the people in two short years is something for them to be congratulated on. All the opposition from that side of the House, all the reflections on our past, all the comparisons of what we have done in the past with what we are doing now—all these things leave us cold, when we know that we are playing our part in the uplifting of the workers of South Africa. We are contributing something substantial to their economic conditions. I ask the House to turn down incontinently the instruction to the Committee moved by the hon. member for Fordsburg.

The hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) has been behaving today like a political clown, and he has made his side over there laugh. He has anyhow progressed since the days when he was leader of the one-man socialist party. Now he is surrounded over there by a large number of former opponents who are applauding him.

He has betrayed the principles which he used to preach in connection with the wages of white labourers. I would just like to remind the Labour Party which is to-day moving a resolution in favour of a minimum wage to white labourers, a little about a motion which I introduced in 1939. In that case I moved “that the scale of wages for unskilled labourers should be increased to a level which would enable them to provide properly for the necessities of life for their families”. The hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) moved an amendment on behalf of the Labour Party. He then considered the matter very important, but to-day he no longer worries himself about the wages of white labourers—he is not even in his place when the matter is being debated. But at that time he moved to add on behalf of the Labour Party at the end of my motion: “That such wage shall not be less than 10s. a day”. He laid stress on the fact that he and his party felt very strongly in favour of a scale of wages of not less than 10s. a day. The motion was seconded by the hon. member for Durban, North ((Rev. Miles-Cadman), and this is what he said two years ago

Two years ago he was in favour of immediate steps being taken. Steps for what purpose?—

Two years ago the hon. member would not tolerate any delay, and immediate steps had to be taken to fix scales of wages which would enable the people to live properly. Today apparently he no longer shares the point of view which was expressed by the Minister of Labour and the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside). He has no time now for a scale of wages, for a minimum scale of wages for white labourers. It is interesting that the hon. member in his speech at that time practically used prophetic words. He said—

The hon. member then said that money could not be better spent than in paying a wage to the lowest paid workmen on which they could exist, and that money which was paid to militarists, at a scale of £40 and £50 a month, was not well spent. They really were prophetic words. To-day the Labour Party are sitting over there, the Minister and three other hon. members who are captains in the Defence Force. Even the hon. member for Durban (North) sits there, and draws £51 a month extra for military service. Now he takes the money which according to him would be best paid to the low paid labourers. To-day he has his parliamentary allowance, and in addition a further £51 a month as military allowance, and the white labourers can manage as best they can to come out on a starvation wage of 5s. 6d. a day. Is that the political conscience of the Labour Party? If they had been sitting on this side to-night, then they would have been fighting the hardest for a proposal such as the one we are moving here. But now they are sitting on the Government benches and are as silent as the grave when we bring forward the subject of the white labourers in South Africa. Why do we introduce a motion for a minimum wage for white labourers in connection with the Factories Bill? Because the Department of Labour, in its report, says that when the Wage Board has to make a wage determination in connection with factories, then representatives of the natives come and ask the Wage Board not to fix the minimum wage too high, because otherwise Europeans will be employed and not natives. What does that mean? Our country has adopted an industrial policy. We are taking steps to protect factories in the country. We have customs duties which enable the factories to sell their products in competition with the factories overseas. But it was the policy of the old Nationalist Party, and it is the policy of our party to-day, that while the factories are protected, provision should also be made for the payment of a decent wage to the white labourers in the factories. Here we have the evidence of the Department of Labour that representations are being made to the Wage Board not to pay too high wages, and when wage determinations are made you find that they are fixed on the basis of £1 5s. a week for white unskilled labourers, about £5 a month. That is what is being paid to the white labourer. Are there hon. members on the other side of the House who will rise tonight and say that a wage of £1 5s. per week is adequate to provide for the necessities of life of a European family? They cannot defend the proposition. As far back as 1935 the Department of Public Health declared that there were thousands of children in South Africa who were underfed. Why? Because the parents get poor, starvation wages and cannot provide for the needs of the children. It is a charge against the white civilisation in South Africa that conditions of that kind should prevail, and it is a charge against hon. members opposite who, in addition to their parliamentary pay, also receive a military allowance, and who violate their political conscience and no longer concern themselves about the workers.

The Nationalist Party was in office for nine years.

I do not expect that hon. member to rise and plead on behalf of the white workers. As was indicated a few days ago, he has turned a complete somersault and he is no longer concerned about the position of the white Afrikaner. We are engaged in building up the white civilisation, but on the other hand we are, by the wages which are being paid, forcing the Europeans down to the standard of living of the natives. I want here to quote what the Minister of Native Affairs said in the Senate—

It is an official statement of the Minister of Native Affairs that the natives get from £10 to £20 a month. Do you expect the white labourers to live in a civilised manner at 5s. 6d. a day if this class of person gets that pay? I want to go further, and refer to a wage determination by the Wage Board in respect of non-Europeans in Johannesburg. The dairymen made a protest against it at a meeting, and said—

Here come the dairymen and declare that they protest against the action of the Government in fixing the wages of European girls and boys lower than those of natives. If the hon. members opposite have a white civilisation at heart, is it possible for them to tolerate such a state of affairs? If not, they should honestly say that they are not in favour of the maintenance of the white civilisation. Then that would be consistent with their action in the House. I want to say a few words about the statement of the Minister of Labour in connection with this matter. It was very noteworthy, and I hope that it will be reported in Hansard and that the people will realise what the position is. He was applauded by his companions over there belonging to the United Party when he said that he was in favour of a wage of 10s. a day, Europeans, coloureds and natives. At that time I asked the question—

His answer was “Yes”. In other words, his policy is—and he was applauded by the other side—that farm natives should be paid 10s. a day or £15 a month. That was applauded by hon. members over there. Where is the hon. member for Krugersdorp, and where is the hon. member for Kimberley, District (Mr. Steytler) ? He also at one time represented a farmer’s constituency. Did he make any protest against it? No, he is perfectly silent. The hon. members on the other side who represent farmers’ constituencies do not say one word of protest against the statement of the Minister of Labour. Why not? Because the hon. member for Kimberley, District, and other members over there have to support the Government through thick and thin. The hon. member dare not venture to vote against the Government. We on this side have stood consistently in favour of a minimum wage for white labourers. The Minister said that if we fix a wage of 10s. for Europeans then the natives and coloured people would get the work. He knows very well that we have repeatedly explained our policy, namely, that we want to reserve certain work for the Europeans and certain other work for the natives and the coloured people. Now it is said that you cannot draw the dividing line.

How is he going to do it?

You have it in the police. There you have white policemen who get a different wage from the non-Europeans, and the non-Europeans do certain work which is allotted to them. You have the example of the railways, who have thousands of natives in their service, who work at a lower wage and do definite work, and you have Europeans who are paid on a higher scale and do their work. The dividing line between the two races is drawn there.

Under this Government?

But now hon. members over there say that you cannot do that in the factories. On the Railways, that great undertaking with more than 100,000 workers, certain work is set aside for natives and different work for Europeans. If you can do that in that great undertaking, why cannot you do it in the factories and other large industries as well? It can be done. The reason why it is not being done is the fear of the vote of the coloured people in the Cape, because if they do not have the vote then quite a few of the hon. members on the other side will not come back here. We have a clear standpoint, and a true standpoint, and I tell you that that standpoint will win through in South Africa, viz. that we want to give the Europeans protection against the competition of natives and coloured people. There is definitely a big distinction between the standard of living of the Europeans and that of the coloured people and natives. They cannot get away from that, and the hon. members who want to put everybody on the same footing, and who want to give the same wages to all, are the last persons who would agree to an educated native who had taken his B.A. or M.A. degree doing office work alongside of their boys. They are opposed to that, but so far as the European labourers are concerned, who do manual labour, and struggle to make a living, they want to do nothing to protect the poor people amongst us against the competition of the natives. We have shown that the discrimination which is now being made in some cases is unfair and that the natives are in a better position than the Europeans, and hon. members on the other side do not object to the white labourers being prevented from earning a proper living in South Africa. It is no use shedding crocodile tears on the platform about thousands of white Afrikaners who are living in poverty if you are not prepared to pay them a wage which will enable them to lead a decent life, and to educate their children to be useful citizens of the country. Let the hon. members who are now in the enjoyment of additional military revenue no longer soothe their consciences, but let them rise and make their protests against such action. The Minister of Labour told us that he was astonished when he became a member of this Government to see how conciliatory the Government was. He has never, during the 30 years that he has been in Parliament, experienced that the heart of the capitalistic Government was so tender. It was an awakening. But here he introduces a Factories Bill which really amounts to very little. And the Bill which he is now introducing does not prove that the capitalistic party on the other side has a sympathetic soul for the workers. It only just proves that the Minister is satisfied to pick up the crumbs which fall from the table of the capitalists. Two years ago he would have made the strongest protest, and not have been satisfied with the crumbs. But to-day, now that he sits on the Ministerial benches, while his fellow-labourers occupy military positions, he is prepared to take the crumbs which fall from the table of Hoggenheimer.

I feel that the subjectmatter of the motion which the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman) has brought forward is of such vital importance to the people I represent, that it is incumbent upon me to say something in regard to it. I was sorry I did not hear the beginning of his speech, but I think I was in time to pick up the main thread of his argument. I understood it to be that he regarded a national minimum wage as the ideal thing for a State, and he quoted the precedent of New Zealand as showing that a minimum wage might be established under a Factories Act. He admitted, further, that there were a great many difficulties in the way of establishing a national minimum wage in this country. I do not know whether he had in his mind as the major difficulty that of inducing the farming community to face the question of a national minimum wage, or whether he had in his mind the other very real difficulties which arise from the type of population which we have in this country. I refer to the composite nature of our population and its distribution. But having admitted that there were too many difficulties in this country to make a national minimum wage a matter of immediate politics, he said: “Let us make a start. Let us have a beginning. Let us make a beginning somewhere now”; and he suggested that the beginning should be made in the factories. But, having made that suggestion, he almost immediately went on to qualify it, and he said: “Let us make a beginning in the factories with European workers.” He promptly justified this selectiveness on three grounds. He said it was our obligation here to defend white superiority in South Africa: secondly, it was our obligation to protect white civilisation: and, thirdly, to maintain a white standard of living. It was on the basis of these obligations as he conceived them that he considered we were justified in tackling this problem of a national minimum wage first of all from the side of the European worker. On that line of approach I naturally want to have something to say, but I should like also to have been able to discuss the actual proposals made by the hon. member, the means by which the hon. member seeks to achieve his ends. Does the hon. member expect to realise these ambitions on this basis which he has himself accepted? If so, what steps does he propose to take? I am not going to follow the line of argument raised in the House to-night. I am just going to say that the very limited terms of the hon. member’s instruction themselves place us in a difficult position in this regard. He has said, so far as I can interpret the amendment, simply that the level established by the Wage Board shall more or less be the level which the Minister will maintain in the country.

I said it should not be less.

Yes. That the minimum wage should not be less than that established by the Wage Board. As a matter of fact, I think the hon. member has perhaps overlooked the fact that the Wage Board by law may not make any provision in regard to wages or conditions of employment along racial lines.

I said that.

That means, as I interpret it, that the hon. member realises that the foundations laid to-day by the Wage Board more or less cover the field. At the same time I cannot think that he means that. I do not think he means to give support to the present level of wages as laid down by the Wage Board. But I feel that this failure to be explicit in the matter does not give us any ground to build upon. Actually, of course, what the hon. member wants, although he does not say so, is higher wages for European workers. Now he has been told, and he must know, that the simple provision of higher wages for European workers must mean the replacement of Europeans by nonEuropeans. But to that he replies that he will safeguard the position of the European worker by establishing a quota system. All this would, of course, mean a departure from the policy of the Wage Board, and thereby, the departure from a very fundamental principle, that of not making recommendations on racial lines, and making recommendations on racial lines is what the hon. member wants. But the position must be considered on its merits. It would have made a great difference to me, and possibly to my attitude on this point, if I could have got from the hon. member a statement that, in effecting a quota system as a basis of his wage scale, he was prepared to establish a quota of nonEuropean workers to European workers in every group of employment; that is, if he was prepared to give the non-European a quota of unskilled labour, a quota of semiskilled labour and a quota of skilled labour. Is he prepared to agree that in every grade of employment there should be a quota of Europeans to non-Europeans?

We are confining this proposition to factories, so that the question of skilled work does not arise.

There we have another point which complicates the argument, although I do not think that the hon. member’s assumption is correct that factories do not cover skilled work. With the wide definition of factory in this Bill, all grades of employment are, in fact, involved. Now, if the hon. member had been prepared to agree to a quota system in factories which would open the door in all grades to non-Europeans, I should have said there was some possibility along that line, because if we can give the non-Europeans what they now do not get, a circumstance which my hon. friend from Bloemfontein, District (Mr. Haywood), has entirely overlooked, that is a share of the semi-skilled and the skilled fields, we should then be in a position to use our native labour force in a way that we are not able to do to-day, and we should get a contribution to the national wealth which we cannot get at present. But that is a condition that the hon. member apparently rules out, and to justify himself he has at the back of his mind a reservation to segregate the natives and non-Europeans off into other industries. We have not yet been told that they will be allowed to exercise skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled trades alike. But our friends here must at some time be explicite on these matters if we are going to discuss this problem at all. It has been said that they are not serious in this matter, but I prefer to take them perfectly serious, because I know that even if they are talking about this now for a special purpose, this is their policy. From my point of view the whole matter is extremely important. It affects the whole future of the people whom I represent; and more serious still, it affects the whole future of South Africa. But is is impossible yet to discuss this question with any degree of certainty, because one does not know what hon. members on this side will accept. All I can say is that if they had agreed that a quota in all grades of employment should be open to non-Europeans as the price of higher wage rates for some Europeans in the lower fileds, there might have been something to be said for their policy, because the native population would then be in a position to make a greater contribution to the wealth of the country than they do at the present time, and it is on the wealth of the country that we pay wages. But is is clear that they have not agreed to this. Then my first criticism of the scheme as the hon. member has put it forward is that if I were dealing with the problem of social advance and was prepared to take a step forward, I think I should suggest that a beginning should be made at the bottoom of the ladder. The hon. gentleman has proposed making a beginning with the European worker. I should have said that a beginning should be made at the bottom and that we should build on that foundation.

Isn’t blood thicker than water?

I am not going to be sidetracked on an argument like that. I am engaged in a serious argument, and I am going to justify my argument, although it should not need justification, by taking the hon. member’s own criterion. He said our business in South Africa is to protect white superiority, to defend white civilisation, and to maintain white standards of living. I am not going to talk about white superiority, because I really do not know what it means.

I said white supremacy.

Perhaps the hon. gentleman means political supremacy. Well, I am not going to discuss that either. White political supremacy is not in jeopardy. The questions of white civiliasation and white standards of living are two quite different matters. White civilisation, as I understand it, is a thing which we should make every effort in our power to maintain, and to secure on the soundest foundations possible, but then, sir, my conception of white civilisation is somewhat rather different from that of hon. members here. I understand white civilisation to be not only a standard of culture, but an attitude of mind on the part of people towards their neighbours, all their neighbours. I regard it as a development of the spirit which enables one to see ones neighbours as human beings, and to accept the principles of freedom for them as well as for ourselves. This is the only thing that makes civilisation worth while. I believe that that is worth defending. But my difficulty arises from this fact, that hon. members in this House and a great many people outside this House do not seem to be able to differentiate in their minds between white civilisation and a white standard of living. They think the are aboslutely the same. They are related. One’s standard of living is a considerable factor in one’s spiritual development and outlook, but they are not identical. I admit that they are very closely linked in this country, and that anything that will undermine the white standard of living will be a very grave danger to white civilisation. It is because I think these two things are worth maintaining and making great sacrifices for that I deprecate strongly the sort of policy that the hon. member has come forward with to-night. What hon. members seem to forget is that South Africa has a very high standard of living based simply and solely on the fact that it has had a large supply of non-European labour. That is a fact that none of us can dispute. It was fairly easy to maintain that position until our European people began to come into the labour market without training or opportunity to become skilled workers. From a variety of causes we have had a large drift into the towns of people who were neither skilled nor semi-skilled, and who have to compete on the bottom levels with non-European workers, whose wages are below the European standard. The tendency now is to displace the coloured workers by Europeans, which is what the hon. member wants to do, at a wage which will maintain the European standard of living. But how can you establish a European standard of living from industry if you displace the people on whom that standard as maintained by some has been based. If you try that way, you are going to do one of two things, you are either going to narrow the market for that white labour very considerably, or you are going to lower the standard of living. Those are simple economic facts. I gather the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren) who is not here at the moment, does not like all these economic arguments. He says, I believe, that they are not important—that the people are more important than economic laws. I agree with him, if he means that economic laws should be modified to meet social needs and purposes. But I say, knowing what your economic law is so that you know the price you are likely to pay for your social purpose. There is not much advantage in pursuing a social purpose at the expense of the economic law if the economic law defeats you in the end. Now I am not putting this argument forward on my own authority. I recommend hon. members to read what they have obviously not read—the report of the Industrial Legislation Commission on this question of racial discrimination which was one special field of their investigation, and in it they will find what I am pointing out.

I have read it.

I know the hon. member has read it and I believe the hon. member can understand these things and can give a better lead to his party than he is doing. I know some of his colleagues simply are not interested, they do not care, but the hon. member can understand, and one day he will care enough to give the lead he knows is right and sound. Here it is all set out in this report that you cannot discriminate on a racial basis. I know that hon. members say “Oh, we are going to put the non-Europeans out, but we are going to use them elsewhere, we are going to put them into separate industries.” Again may I ask what industries they are going to put them into? We have asked that continually, and we have never been given an answer. It is a very important question and deserving of an answer, and because we do not get an answer, we are entitled to say that there is nothing genuine behind this proposal. Hon. members have put forward a segregation policy which they support by saying that the natives should be allowed to serve themselves in their own areas.

I would remind the hon. member that there is another motion on the Order Paper dealing with that matter.

The argument has travelled so far over the field of nonEuropean labour that it is difficult to know what may be applicable to this motion.

On a point of order, sir, I raised this particular matter in my speech, and surely the hon. member …

That is not a point of order. There is another motion in regard to that matter.

Well, sir, I accept your ruling and will reserve what I have to say on this head until the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. van Nierop) brings forward his motion. Now, I was very glad indeed to hear the hon. Minister announce to the House to-night that he has a committee of enquiry investigating the whole question of the cost of living with a view to establishing a minimum wage in this country that will maintain a basic minimum standard. He puts that minimum wage at 10s. per day and has said he has told the Wage Board to get that minimum established as soon as possible.

I said gradually.

Yes, but I rather gathered the gradualness was to be hastened as much as possible. Well, in that regard, I have just this to say, that by the time that wage is established, I hope there will also have been established some protection for the non-European worker. The Wage Board can give no protection to any racial group in the labour field, but if a wage is established at which the employer would rather employ Europeans than nonEuropeans, the latter are pushed out. I know from sad experience that in such circumstances, the trades union movement do not give any protection to the nonEuropean workers, and that is a matter of vital importance to me. I would like hon. members to realise that I appreciate fully as much as they do and possibly more fully than some of them, the position of the European workers who are brought into a labour field in which they cannot earn a wage on which they can maintain a proper standard of life. I entirely sympathise with them, and would welcome any means by which that can be rectified without injustice to any other group. I suggest, however, that it is the business of the Department of Labour to see whether the gap cannot be bridged between the level at which these people are forced to work, and the needs of their position, by means other than those suggested by the hon. member for Fordsburg. I hope the Minister will seriously consider some method for bridging the gap by family allowances or some other reasonable means, and that we shall cease to hear these proposals for assisting one class at the expense of another, which can only lead to the destruction of all.

I am not rising to submit arguments about the necessity for a minimum wage. I understand from the Minister of Labour that he and the members of his party opposite are all in favour of it. That is so, is it not? I say again that I do not want to argue about the necessity for a minimum wage, because the Minister of Labour admits that he and his party are in favour of it. It is therefore not necessary for me to discuss that side of the matter in connection with this instruction. What is necessary is just to debate the statement of the Minister that this Bill which he has moved is a compromise which he has come to, and accordingly he is going to stand by that compromise. Well, what was so striking, to my mind, was that he and all his friends used the argument ad nauseam that half a loaf is better than no bread. They want to take what they can get in the circumstances, and they are willing to satisfy themselves, because that is all that they can get. Now I would like to ask the Minister to throw his memory back over a few years—not very long. In the year 1940 a Bill was introduced into this House which passed into law, and which the Minister intends to amend this session, namely, the Workmen’s Compensation Act. When that Bill was passed by this House, the Minister and his followers sat on this side of the House as a Labour Party. I want to point out that this Bill gave them almost everything that they wanted. The Bill was considered by a Select Committee, and it gave practically everything to them which the workmen considered it necessary, at that time, to have in connection with the matter. It gave increased compensation and all kinds of other facilities. But what did they do? The Minister and his followers made the strongest objection to that Bill, because the assurance scheme, which was contained in the Bill, was not a State scheme. At that time they could not only get half a loaf, but they could get seven-eighths of it, but what did they do? Although at that time the attitude which they were taking up was thrown in their faces time after time, inasmuch as it was so late in the session—it was already after the 30th May—that they would be the cause of the Bill being wrecked, what did they do? They did what was right. They said: We do not want a half-baked measure. We want all or nothing. They even went so far that the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Bumside)—I am sorry he is not now in his place—introduced the following motion—

They got increased compensation, and every facility in that Bill, but they said that they would not vote for the second reading of the Bill because it did not contain the principle of a State fund, which they wanted. They wanted to have the original Bill, and if a State fund could not be given to them, then they would not have the Bill.

The original proposal made provision for a State fund, and the Government at that time abandoned that principle.

The position was just the same as it is now. The only difference is that we now still have time to bring this matter before a Select Committee. At that time the 30th May had already passed, and they knew that by moving for the matter to be referred to the Government, it would mean that it would not pass that session. Now we are still in the middle of the session, and there is still time now to refer this Bill to a Select Committee. They took up the attitude that if they could not get the State scheme through, then they did not want the other benefits either, although those benefits would have meant a great deal to the workers. That is precisely what we are doing here. I say again that they admit that it is not necessary for us to debate the principle of a minimum wage. They say that they are in favour of it, and the Minister has also said that he has already referred the question of a minimum wage to a committee. Now I ask whether, if this provision is not included in this Bill, and the Minister’s committee decides on a minimum wage, how will he then be able to introduce it if there is no such stipulation in this Bill? Then he will have to introduce a brand new Bill to try to establish a minimum wage. We say: “No, we do not fix a minimum wage, but we want the possibility of its being fixed and that the Minister shall be able to take the necessary steps.” We tell the Minister that he has done the right thing to appoint a committee to institute enquiry, but we must also have powers to go further, otherwise it would mean nothing. We have precisely the same position here that there was in 1934, and hon. members belonging to the Labour Party ought to support us to the full to-day. If that is the position, and we act just as they did at that time, were they wrong at that time, or are they wrong now? Were they right then, or are they right now? That is an argument which the Minister cannot get out of the way. He has no answer to make to it. I am not rising to make a speech, but I do want us to be reasonable, and if I want to do a reasonable thing, what objection can the Minister have to it? We are not fixing a minimum wage, but we want to make it possible. Now the Labour Party refuse to co-operate in the matter. Do they think that they will be able to keep their party together in that way? They admit their impotence, the other people on the other side have told them: “You can go so far and no further.” The Minister had to make a compromise. He is fast bound, and he is no longer fighting for the things for which he has fought all his life. What objection can the Minister have to the principle, if it is right, if he himself says that it is a good principle? Why should he now come and object when we propose it? Hon. members on the opposite side are now whining, and they say that they want to explain the matter to the workers on the platform, and that they will nevertheless still get the support of the workers. We did not speak on the subject. If the Minister’s conscience is pricking him, then I am sorry for him, but the Labour Party now reminds me of a tiger which has been caught in a trap, and wants to fight with everybody, and to break everything to pieces. I feel wholeheartedly sorry for the Minister, because he has all his life tried to fight for the workers, but he is now in the trap. He cannot get out of it. Now he does not want it to come from this side; no, because he is afraid that, if it comes from this side, they will lose their position with the workers, and that we will get the support of the latter. But if he agrees with the principle, what objection can he then have to our proposing it? I am sorry for him. He is impotent, and the workers will settle with him. We cannot settle With him. He has entered into an agreement, but the workers will settle accounts with him. I have a copy of a letter in my hand from a labour union which is not at all satisfied with the Bill. The Minister received a similar letter himself, he knows that they are dissatisfied. They just had, so the Minister said, to take what they could get, what their capitalistic masters on the other side wanted to give. It is an admission of impotence by the Minister. But we want the Minister to understand that we on this side of the House cannot remain quiet owing to the difficulties which the Minister is in. We must do our duty. All that vilification is not argument. We never said that we were endowed with all the wisdom in the world. They keep on saying that. It makes me think of the English proverb: “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.” They are talking from all points of view, but I feel that all the arguments which they are trying to use merely prove that they are wrong, and not we. They are trying to prove that we are wrong and they talk a great deal about it, but their protests are so weak that it does not make the slightest difference. They started making jokes, the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) acted like a clown. They are in such an inconvenient position that they are having recourse to poor jokes, such as you do not expect from a clown. We are introducing this motion just as the Labour Party at that time introduced a similar motion, but this time we are in a very favourable position. We want to do what we can for the workers in this Bill. Hon. members over there belonging to the Labour Party say that they are in favour of a minimum wage. That is one of the principles of their party. It is a clause in their programme of action. Now, however, they have to vote against it. I am sorry for them. They have been caught in the trap, and have to carry out the agreement. They have to make the excuse every time now that they must see the war through, and on that account they are swallowing everything. If they only support the war policy of the Government, why then did they, the other day, vote for a motion to approve the inland policy of the Government party? Then, in any case, they are co-operating with the party. They cannot argue any other way.

I rise to reply to the hon. member. He has explained his point of view in connection with the matter, and he wanted to make out that the attitude which they are now adopting is the same as that which we took up when the Workmen’s Compensation Bill was before this House. The hon. member over there made it clearly understood that he thought that the Minister would have to come back to the House in order to ask for legislation for the fixing of a minimum wage. The hon. member knows that at the time the Wage Act was passed a provision was inserted in connection with the determination of wages such as he wants. He ought to know that wages in factories are fixed by the Wage Board under the Wage Act. Just as little as we can lay down a scale of wages for miners in the mining industry under the Mines and Industries Act, just so little can we fix a wage for factories under a Factories Act such as the Bill which is now before the House. Hon. members know that you cannot have legislation which is duplicate legislation, which overlaps.

We are not fixing a wage but are giving the Minister of Labour powers to fix a wage after enquiry.

But the powers already exist under the Wage Act.

If I make it £1 what will you say then?

The point on which the hon. member was hammering can easily be answered by referring to the Wage Act. The Minister can at any time have the scales of wages in any factory or place enquired into, and if he finds that it is necessary he can immediately instruct the Wage Board to go into the question of wages and to make a determination.

The Minister has no say in connection with the determination of wages.

The hon. member knows that the scales of wages in factories are determined by the Wage Board under the Wage Act.

The Minister has no say.

The Minister has a say by way of instructing the Wage Board to enquire into certain industries.

We are now giving him greater powers under this Bill.

Surely hon. members were complaining that the Minister in many respects had too many powers. If it is the policy of the government of the day to fix a certain wage in an industry at 10s. or £1, then steps can be taken in that direction under the existing Wage Act. I can with the best will in the world not see why they want to introduce it here. You cannot include it under such a Bill.

You were not present when it was explained.

What is asked for here can be obtained under the existing Wage Act.

Nonsense!

I do not want to go further into the position which exists in connection with the Workmen’s Compensation Act. The Bill was directly in conflict with the recommendations of the technical committee.

That is not the point. You were prepared to abandon the Bill if you could not get all you wanted.

Yes, and the hon. member then said that the workers got seven-eighths of the loaf. I, however say that under that Act there are less advantages than there are under the 1914 Act.

The motion of the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) was to refer the matter back in order to get a State scheme.

We cannot debate the matter now. But the position is that you already have the provision in the Wage Act, and in this Bill the advantages to the workers are considerably increased.

Can you remember what you said last time about this matter?

Yes, I remember quite well what my attitude was in connection with workmen’s compensation. But let us confine ourselves to this matter.

Hon. members speak of a minimum wage, and they keep on pressing for it. I am surprised that the rules of the House admit of an amendment of this kind being introduced, because it means overlapping the existing Acts.

The hon. member must not criticise the standing rules and orders.

That is not my intention, but I say that I am surprised at such a motion being introduced, because you already have the provision in existing legislation. They are now moving something which is already in existence in another Act. I can quite understand if they were to ask for an amendment in the Wage Act, but that is not relevant to this Factories Bill. There is no industrial law in our country or in any country where a scale of wages is laid down.

I have mentioned two such laws to-night.

Here you have a Bill which in the first place deals with safety measures, which deals with hours of work and different benefits to the miners, and because this Bill deals with those things, and scales of wages belong to a different Bill, I cannot see how hon. members can try to drag them in here. If it is such a burning question with hon. members, then I ask them why they have repeatedly voted against the principles of a minimum wage of 10s. Now they are trying to drag it in, and unnecessarily to hinder the passing of the Bill.

We only want to improve the Bill.

No one is more anxious than I am to improve the position. If I can get what I want to have, our industrial laws will be quite different.

But now you have to remain silent, because you have got into bad company.

My answer is that they are advocating a thing which already exists. As the notice which they have moved reads, it is superfluous, because it is already provided for in our legislation.

I do not want to detain the House long, but just want to remind the hon. member who has just sat down, a little of what he said quite recently in connection with the same question which is now under discussion. On the 26th May, 1939, he not only moved an amendment to a motion of the hon. member for Bloemfontein, South (Mr. Haywood), in connection with the matter of a minimum wage, but at that time he also spoke about the Wage Act. Listening to what he says to-day, we can hardly believe that two years ago he said—

We are now pleading for a national minimum wage, but the hon. member said there that the Wage Act was of no avail, because it did not make provision for a minimum wage. He said further—

And now the hon. member comes here and tells us that everything was obtained under the Wage Act. He is saying just the opposite to what he said in May, 1939. That shows the capitalistic influence under which he is. He is denying everything which he stood for in the past. He said further—

Here the hon. member frankly admits that not the least protection is being given to the poor people who need the protection. And yet the hon. member now gets up here and says that the Wage Act is such a good thing, and contains everything that is required.

May I on a point of explanation, say that I stated that a minimum wage which is being asked for here is implicit in the Wage Act which is in force to-day. But the people who were excluded there and about whom I complained will still be excluded if we pass this motion of the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman).

I do not want to take up the time of the House, and therefore I will not reply again to that argument.

The issue which is raised by the motion for an instruction by the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman) is of the very first importance particularly to those of us who represent non-European workers. The terms of the motion are limited to Europeans. I shall have something to say about that limitation in a moment, but I wish before doing so to remark on the difficulty of applying—generally speaking—any minimum wage principle in the industrial conditions of South Africa as they exist at the present time. If the principle of a minimum wage is applied generally and is fixed too low, it is open to the objection that it sets a standard upon which the majority of the low paid European workers cannot live and therefore it excludes them from industry. On the other hand if the level is pitched too high it must have the effect of excluding the people who at present compose the vast majority of the lower paid workers in industry, the nonEuropean peoples.

At 10.55 p.m. the business under consideration was interrupted by Mr. Speaker in accordance with Standing Order No. 26 (1), and the debate was adjourned; to be resumed on 14th March.