I move—

I second.

I have not got up to object to the motion but only to try and prevent what happened yesterday happening again in the future, namely that we should be asked suddenly, without proper notice, to discuss proposals imposing a burden of £9,250,000 on the people of this country. The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell), made a good suggestion yesterday when he asked the Minister whether it was not possible in view of the importance of taxation proposals to inform the House in good time, a week or so before the time, that on a particular day the taxation proposals would be discussed here. Everybody on this side of the House and on the other side of the House would then have an opportunity to prepare himself properly and we could have a thorough discussion. I would like to know whether the Minister will consider that suggestion and whether he can give us some assurance in that respect.

The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) suggested yesterday that we should give notice in advance that a motion was to be proposed on a particular date for the House to go into Committee of Ways and Means. Under the Rules of the House it is impossible to do so. All I can do is to inform hon. members informally in advance that I intend proceeding with the matter more or less on a certain date. I cannot tie myself down to do so a week in advance. It very often depends on circumstances. We have to take into account the drafting of the Bills. We always keep this motion back until the Bills are almost ready to be introduced and we often do not know until a few days before time when the Bills will be ready. But I shall be pleased to promise that I shall do my best to give members notice privately when we intend coming to the House with the proposals although I shall not always perhaps be able to give a definite date.

I first of all want to say a few words about the taxes on profit on the sale of immovable property. I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that not only is the amount he proposes taking, namely 13s. 4d. in the £ an impossible tax but to all intents and purposes it is a capital levy and it takes part of people’s capital away from them. If I bought a property before October and I sold it the day before the Minister made his Budget speech, and I made a profit on that transaction, I have to pay 6d. 8d. in the £, but if I sold it the day after, I have to surrender 13s. 4d. in the £. The Minister must not blame me for not believing that the tax has been introduced merely with the object of preventing an uneconomic rise in land values. No, it has been introduced for the purpose of getting revenue. I have always felt that a man who makes a profit on shares or on the sale of land should be taxed on that profit, that he should pay ordinary income tax on it, but here we are asked to agree to a levy amounting to one third of the profit. The war is not the principal cause of the rise in land values. There is a scarcity of land and the Government is not allotting land for settlement purposes, and we have been told clearly that it is the Government’s intention after the war to allot land only to soldiers. The result is that people are now trying to buy land. It is impossible for them to secure land in any other way. The Government is not prepared to help them. What is the Minister going to achieve now? What right has he to take 6s. 8d. or 13s. 4d. off the profit which one makes on land when he is not doing the same thing in regard to the gold mines? Why does he not take 13s. 4d. in the £ off the increased price of gold? The increase in the price of gold was brought about by our leaving the gold standard as a result of legislation passed by this House. The gold mines had nothing to do with it, but they made tremendous profits out of it. Why does not the Minister tax the gold mines in that way? If I buy property because I can look further ahead than my neighbour, and I make a profit on it, I have to surrender two thirds of my profit by way of taxation. If a poor man needs land and wants to buy it he simply cannot get it, and the only result will be that people will try to evade the provisions of the law in some way or another. The poor man will suffer from it. If somebody really needs a house in town, if he needs an erf, and he has to buy because he cannot rent a place, he will find himself in an impossible position. The man who has money will no longer invest it in houses or in land, but he will invest it in hotels, or in boarding houses. And if I have a property worth £1,000 and somebody approaches me and badly needs my house, and if he wants to give me £1,500, then if I have to give up two thirds of my profit to the State by way of taxation, I am going to sell that house for £1,500 plus the two thirds tax which I have to pay the State. The Minister knows that that happened in the past and that that is what is going to happen again. The only result will be that the value of land will go higher in consequence of this form of taxation. I fail to understand where the Minister gets the idea of imposing a tax of this kind. If the Minister had said that income tax must be paid on a profit of that kind I would have understood it, but now it is not income tax, it is a capital levy. If I use capital to buy land and I make a profit on it, I have to give up 6s. 8d. or 13s. 4d. And now I want to ask what equity there is in a proposal of that kind. If I had sold on the 26th February I have to surrender 6s. 8d. But if I sold on the 27th February I have to surrender 13s. 4d. of my profit. What fairness is there in that? Parents have to buy land for their sons. They won’t be able to get land. It is becoming very difficult to get any land at all in consequence of the Government’s declaration that the land which is available, Crown land which is available, will be kept for returned soldiers. Other citizens of the State cannot get land for settlement purposes. A father will have to see to it that he gets a farm for his son but as a result of this taxation proposal the price of land will actually go up further and it will make it impossible for people to secure any land at all. It is an unfair tax and a bad tax. I want to ask the Minister why I must pay this tremendous tax on any property I sell, while I do not have to pay it if I buy cattle, and if I speculate in cattle. If the Minister taxes people who speculate in food, vegetables and other farm products, and if he imposes a capital levy on these people if they make tremendous profits, he may perhaps be doing the right thing. One sometimes finds that fruit is sold on the market at 1/per box. The fruit is carried across the road to the Parade where it is sold for 5/-, so those people are making a 400% profit. If the Minister took 75% of the profit made by those people it would be a different thing. If the Minister imposed an income tax on the profits which people make when selling land, I could understand it, but what the Minister is imposing now is not an income tax, it is a capital levy. Whether one makes £100 or £500 or £5,000 profit, one has to give up 13s. 4d. in the £. It is an unfair tax and the Minister cannot justify it. In regard to the estate duty I want to emphasise that in imposing an estate duty one should always remember that the wife and children of a man leaving the estate should not be exposed to the danger of being thrown on the streets afterwards. A sufficient sum of money should be left over for them. I a man is old and gets to the end of his days and he has no one dependent on him and he leaves an estate, an estate duty is quite fair. But my experience is that where there are a number of small children and the man dies, often not enough is left to provide for the education of the children. The dependants who are left behind should not be taxed unduly. There should be no estate duty at all on small estates, unless there are no dependants who have to live on what they have left. Where there are dependants, where the are children who have to be educated, sufficient should be left in an estate tot provide for such purposes. Otherwise it is a very serious thing to increase the estate duty. If the Minister prevents dependants from being unfairly affected I have no objection to the estate duty at all, but provision must be made for the dependants. Then may I say a few words about the tax in regard to the use of stills? We are trying our best by means of the Excise Act to see whether we cannot curtail the illicit liquor trade in some way or another, and the idea is that the people who distil small quantities for their own consumption are to be allowed to get brandy at cost price. They cannot sell what they distil themselves, unless they sell it illegally. The proposal has now been made that the people who distil small quantities of brandy themselves will be supplied with brandy at cost price or at the same price as what the wine farmers get it. I believe that in that way the use of stills which exist in the Transvaal and Free State today will be reduced. If they distil fruit they cannot sell the product, they can only keep it for their own use. The grape farmers, the Board of the K.W.V. now propose to supply brandy at cost price to those people who have their own stills. In that way you will get a healthy article and furthermore the illict liquor trade will be restricted. We are as much opposed to the illicit liquor trade as anybody. The illicit liquor trade is not in the interest of the wine farmers; we are anxious to see it stopped, and we are prepared to assist by supplying brandy at cost price to the people who have the right today to do private distilling. If that effort succeeds there will be no need to impose this 2s. 6d. licence. I do not know whether I should raise this matter now.

No, the hon. member can raise that when the Bill is before the House.

I should like the Minister to think this matter over. We want to help him to combat the illicit liquor trade and if he will accept the suggestion and the proposal which we are making it may be necessary to impose this tax. Provision is also made in the Excise Act for a rebate of 5% on methylated spirits distilled in Natal. I don’t think that can be justified. It was allowed under special circumstances, when the wine farmers were allowed to distil all kinds of poor brandy. I think the Minister will agree that that was the position, but I think that the drinking of methylated spirits should be stopped and the rebate is no longer justified. I hope the Minister will go into that question too. There is just one further remark I want to make and that is about the way we are asked to do our work here. We sit in Select Committee when the bells start ringing for the sitting of the House to start, and we have to come in at once and deal with legislation that is before this House. We only stopped at 11 o’clock last night when I had my first opportunity of studying these taxation proposals. I do not think that that is the correct way of dealing with matters of this kind.

In the first place I want to controvert the argument used by the Minister as well as by the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) in justifying the tax on fixed property. It seems to me that their argument is devoid of any foundation. The hon. member for Kensington is altogether too keen on drawing our attention to the taxes in existence in Australia. Well, I have before me the taxes that are in force in England. There an unmarried man with an income of £1,250 has to pay an amount of £506 in taxation. If people jump into the fire there, that is no argument why we should follow suit here. The example of other countries is of very little use to us. I want to oppose the Minister’s taxation proposals as strongly as I possibly can. The Minister during the recess went out of his way to try and prevent inflation. Wherever possible the Minister tried to stop inflation, and on every occasion, as an excuse for whatever he did, he said that if he did not do this, that or the other there would be inflation. That argument is also being used now in regard to the tax on the profit made on fixed property. I do not know whether the Minister does not realise that when he imposed a tax of 6s. 8d. and 13s. 4d. on the profit on the sale of land he immediately caused the value of farm property and erven to go up. [Quorum.] I am sorry the Right Hon. the Prime Minister is not here for the simple reason that I would have liked to have drawn his attention to the fact that we are dealing here with the most important legislation of the whole session; we are busy imposing taxes amounting to millions and millions of money, but there is no quorum in the House. That is due in the first place to the fact that while we are sitting here Select Committees are sitting upstairs carrying on their duties; we should not be sitting here under those conditions. I cannot think that the absence of a quorum can possibly be attributed to a lack of interest, The Minister, as I have said, is continually telling us that he wants to prevent inflation, while in actual fact he is causing inflation; by the levy of 6s. 8d. and 13s. 4d. on the profits made on the sale of land he causes the price of land to go up. I have already been told by some people that as a result of the tax their property has gone up in value by one-third or by two-thirds. The reason is very palpable. If a man has a property worth £1,000 in a town and he has bought it before the 1st October, 1939, and he wants to make a profit of £100 on it he has to ask a higher price to make it possible for him to make that profit. The untaxable value of property has gone up to just under £1,300. I say that the Minister is causing inflation, although he has been trying to stop it. The value of property has gone up tremendously and that is the very thing the Minister wants to avoid. Now let me say a few words about the actual conditions we come across among the farmers on the platteland. The Minister knows that there are bonds to a value of £100,000,000 or £120,000,000 on the farms in this country. I want to deal with some instances that have come to my own personal notice to show the Minister what he is doing at the moment. A farmer buys a farm for £10,000; he puts down £2,000 so that he takes a bond for £8,000. Now, what is the Minister doing at the moment? If that farmer sells the farm for £13,000 the Minister of Finance takes £2,000 in the one case and £1,000 in the other case. Let us take the worst case, where the Minister takes £2,000 out of the £3,000. That farmer has a bond of £8,000 so he has only £1,000 left towards reducing his Bond. In other words the Minister comes along and takes £2,000 from the farmer which could have been used to reduce his debt. Consequently the farmer only retains £1,000 so that there is still a debt of £7,000 which he still has to pay off. I really feel that it is unfair, and that it will be most detrimental to the country. When we go into Committe I feel we should get an amendment passed so that the Minister, if this tax has to be imposed, will only have the right to take part of the profits if the farmer’s capital is not invested in bonds, because in this case which I mentioned we find that the farmer has incurred debts to buy the farm, in spite of which the Minister takes the major portion of the profit. I shall also be glad if the Minister will be able to tell us as soon as possible how he is going to calculate the profits. It is one of the most difficult things in the world to determine how much the farmer has actually spent and if the Minister has any practical experience of farming he will know what a tremendous proportion of his revenue the farmer puts into his farm again. Very often he does not only spend the amount he gets in, but a great deal more. He is compelled to invest more than his income in his farm. He cannot do anything else. If a farmer has bought a farm for £5,000 and he sells it again for £7,000 how is the Minister going to determine, or whom is he going to appoint to ascertain and decide what the farmer has invested in his farm, or how much his actual profit is? I hope the Minister will not go so far as to say that the man has bought the farm for £5,000, that he has sold it for £7,000 and that he has therefore made a profit of £2,000. If the Minister does a thing like that, the farmers in South Africa will rebel, no matter if they are party men or not. I am talking from a point of view of farming. Now, let us take another case. The Minister has not given us any indication yet of what he is going to do in that regard. We have this position here in South Africa, that the farmer as a general rule leaves his land to his son. The son inherits the farm, but as the farm is all the farmer has and he perhaps has four or five children the other children have to be provided for. The result is that the son gets the farm at a certain fixed price and he has to pay out the others. For that reason the farmer puts the value of the farm as low as possible to enable the son to stay on the farm. In other words, a farm with a market value of £8,000 is perhaps put down for the son at an amount of £5,000. Now, the son may, after a few years be compelled to sell the farm. What is the Minister going to do in that event? Is he going to calculate the purchase price of that farm at £8,000 which was the market value, or is he going to put it at £5,000 which the son has had to pay for it, and is he going to regard everything above the £5,000 as profit? That would be an unheard of state of affairs. I hope the Minister will take into account the fact that there are a thousand and one cases of that kind, all of which should be regarded as exceptions, and I hope he will make arrangements so that all circumstances and all conditions will be taken into account before special cases are finally decided upon, and that he will have the right to grant exemptions, yes or no. I feel that there are going to be some very hard cases and if the Minister is going to apply this Act as a law of the Medes and Persians then many people will be ruined. Now let me say a few words about the estate duty. The value of property is fairly high today in South Africa, perhaps higher than in ordinary circumstances. We have had instances before the Select Committee on Public Accounts of farms which were bought eight or ten years ago during the druoght and the depression at values at least 50% lower than what they are today. Now we have this position in regard to the estate duty that land will be valued fairly high. The farmer on the platteland has practically no cash, because he has his mortgage bond interest to meet. The farmer invests his money in land and when he dies the land is valued. Now, on what scale, on what basis, is that land going to be valued? Assuming there is a reasonable valuation, and under the circumstances prevailing today the market value is put at £2 per morgen. Now the Minister comes along and values the land at £1 16s. per morgen. In two, three or four years’ time we have another drought and another depression, and the value of the land drops to £1 per morgen—and that sort of thing does happen here in South Africa— then the position is that money will be out of that estate to which the Government is not entitled. I don’t know whether the Minister realises the danger of an estate duty. Take the case of an estate where the land is valued at £20,000. Perhaps there is not a penyy cash in that estate. On such an estate of £20,000, estate duty to an amount of £2,000 has to be paid. What is the Minister going to do in that case? It is an estate of £20,000. There is not a penny cash, and the Minister wants £2,000 out of it. Where is that £2,000 to come from unless it is to come from a bond?

Do you say that an estate of £20,000 has to pay £2,000?

Yes, because I interpret the estate duty to mean that estates of from £15,000 to £20,000 have to pay 10%.

Where do you get that? It is ½% on the first £2,000.

I find that under the Estate Duty. That it is 10% on estates of from £15,000 to £20,000.

The first £15,000 are free.

Anyhow, even if it is only above £15,000, my argument still holds. It means that on such an estate, estate duty will have to be paid on £5,000, and calculated at 10% it amounts to a duty of £500. There is no cash in the estate. So where is the £500 to come from? That is on a small estate, but take estates of £40,000 and £50,000. The difficulty is much greater there. There is no alternative in such cases but to take up a bond, and we know that bonds in South Africa are like millstones acting as obstacles against progress of any kind. The bonds on farms in South Africa are the millstones round the farmers’ necks, and if the Minister can give us an assurance that this estate duty is not going to mean the passing of additional bonds I shall be satisfied, but I know that the Minister can just as little give us that assurance as I can give it. Those bonds will have to be passed when the estate duty has to be paid, and I want the Minister to give the matter his serious attention, because I feel we cannot go on in this way. Now let me say a few words about taxation proposal No. 4, the tax on people who get a little more than £250. The Minister himself used to be a student at the university, and he knows what it costs to keep a young fellow at the university. I can assure him that I can speak of concrete cases which come to my notice every day. We do not even have to talk of people earning £250. Take people who earn £500 and £600 per year either in salaries or in wages; let them have three or four children, as often happens, whom they have to send to the university; we find that they cannot come out on their salaries if they want to do the right thing by their children. It is impossible for them, and I hope the Minister will admit that higher education at our universities is a necessity so far as our people are concerned. Our experience in South Africa proves it. A man has been farming ten or fifteen years in South Africa. He has had experience but he has had no book learning. Put another man next to him who has been educated but who has had no experience of farming, and I can assure the Minister that the man whose brain has been developed will in most cases make a greater success of farming than the man who has only had experience. I can mention any number of cases which we cannot get past. I am mentioning this to show how important it is that these people should not be taxed in this way and should not be prevented from giving their children a proper education. Those people cannot bear those taxes. We should give them the opportunity of giving their children a good education. They should be able not merely to send them to our high schools but also to the universities. That is the only way in which we can ever hope to solve our problem of poverty in this country. We must have our people taught, and I want to tell the Minister that these taxes which he is now imposing will contribute considerably to making it impossible for those people to do their duty by their children. The Minister goes still further and he is going to make the man who has an income of £250 per year pay a tax of £5 per year. I want to suggest to the Minister that he should grant exemption to people who have children. If an individual has no children and the tax is necessary, then let him be taxed. We are going to fight these, taxes because we are opposed to them, but if taxes have to be imposed as a result of the Government’s war policy, then we ask the Government as far as possible to exempt those people who have children who have to be educated. I don’t know whether the Minister realises how hard these taxes are hitting the country; I don’t know how he can realise it when he tells us that the country is perfectly satisfied, particularly if he compares the position here with the position in other countries, such as Canada and England. I want to tell him that we cannot possibly draw those comparisons, for the simple reason that ours is a country with many fluctuations, ours is a poor agricultural country. That is why we cannot draw any comparisons. The only way to keep the people on the platteland is to tax them as little as possible. If the Minister is going to impose such heavy taxes on that section of the population they will find it impossible to carry on in days to come. I also want to emphasise what has already been said about the land tax which the Minister is now proposing. No matter how much the Minister has pondered over this matter, and has set his brain to work, he cannot get away from the fact, as one of his own papers told him, that many ways will be found to evade payment of the tax. The Minister has been specially asked to apply his great intellect to seeing whether the Bill cannot be designed in such a manner that those weaknesses, those openings for people to evade it, may be removed. We know that with the best will in the world the Minister cannot stop people from evading these taxes. So what is he going to do now? He is going to introduce this land tax which is only going to have the effect of making people dishonest. That is all it will do, one cannot avoid it. There are so many instances of people having to pass bonds, and they will press so heavily on people that I say that the Minister is simply making people dishonest. That being the case, I hope the Minister will realise that this is not the right type of taxation to impose. He is going to make crooks because any number of dodges to evade payment of the tax will be tried. I again wish to raise my voice most emphatically in protest against those taxation proposals which the Minister is now asking us to pass.

I think one of the most surprised members in this House yesterday afternoon must have been the hon. member for. George (Mr. Werth) when the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell), who, on certain occasions, has said that the hon. member for George knows very little about finance, and that all his financial ideas are wrong, started to tell a story about Procrustes, which he had obviously dug out just before he came to the House, and in the course of his speech he found that he had to get into the same bed with the hon. member for George, which was, of course, a little embarrassing. But I must confess that listening to the hon. member for Kensington’s speech, I am not too sure whether he was supporting the financial proposals as a whole, or whether he was making a special plea for a section of the community. Now, the hon. member for George did give some cases, which, on the face of it, are very unsatisfactory. But the hon. member for Kensington made a very strong plea that in all questions of taxation there should be an equality of sacrifice, and as far as possible taxation should bear equally and fairly on all sections of the population. Now, of course, a theory —I may perhaps say an abstract theory —that is alright, but are you going to carry that right through to its logical conclusion, and tax every income of the individual in this country with exactly the same amount of taxation, irrespective of where the income comes from; if, for example, you have an income of £3,000 a year, you should pay exactly the same tax on that income as another individual who has an income of £3,000 a year from another source? That is strictly equality of sacrifice. But this House has from the beginning recognised that today war and other conditions have rendered it impossible to adhere to rules which may be right in theory, and which will be hopelessly out of place when put into practice. The hon. member for Kensington made a very strong plea on behalf of professional men, and if I did not misunderstand him, particularly on behalf of the legal profession. I do not know how far the hon. member for George would support that, but what I would ask the hon. member is this, did he want the Minister definitely to exclude all professional men in whatever class they fall, from this new proposed form of taxation? Is he prepared to go further and say that, apart from the question of the legal men he spoke of—and he mentioned in passing certain medical men—is he prepared definitely to advocate that the Minister should exclude from this taxation all professional men, no matter in what category they fall?

Why should they be excluded?

I do not think the House realises what this really involves, because obviously if the plea is going to be accepted, and there may be a certain amount of sympathy for certain of the views put forward, but if that plea is to be accepted, well, then let us ask the first question I find here. In dealing with professional licences under tile Consolidating Ordinance of 1925, there were 14 professional licences. Those licences were granted to accountants, architects, attorneys, consulting engineers, conveyancers, dentists, translators, land surveyors law agents, medical practitioners, notaries, and quantity surveyors. Since that date, too, we know that many laws have been tightened up in regard to other persons who consider that they have professional qualifications, and who call themselves professional men. Take the position of chemists, for example. Every chemist has to pass a very stiff examination, and they do, in fact, consider themselves professional men. Now, if that is the case, I do not quite see on what basis you are going to differentiate; are you going to ask that all the chemists in this country are to be excluded from this form of taxation? They deal not only with medicine and other items which fall within their qualifications, but they go right outside that.

What do you consider a test for the definition of a professional man?

That is the difficulty. Would any member in this House be able to give the Minister a clear-cut definition of a test for a professional man which is going to be fair to all men?

Anyone precluded from advertising.

The hon. member says anyone precluded from advertising. I would like to suggest to the hon. member who suggested that, that there are many ways of advertising, beyond advertising as a merchant does. There are many other forms of advertising.

Even a uniform.

It does seem to me that whilst admitting that there may be many hard cases with regard to this tax, the difficulty is always to know how to differentiate. The hon. member pointed out the difference between what he considered a man who goes into trade and a professional man, and one rather gets the impression from listening to debates in this House, that all a business man has to do is to sit in his store or in his shop and to sell the goods; you don’t want any brains; you don’t want any capacity, and you simply make profits. Well, my experience has been that you find that there are not so very many really successful business men. If you take the proportion of business men who are successful and you compare it with the professional men who are equally successful, you find that the proportion is just about the same in the two of the really successful men who get to the top. But in making this plea on behalf of the professional man, have hon. members thought that the bulk of the business people in this country are men who are not earning £3,000 a year? Their businesses may be earning a few hundred to keep themselves going. In the majority of cases these men who, when they get to the point laid down in this Act for excess profits duty, have already been called upon to pay excess profits duty at the source. A very large number of business firms are going to be called upon to pay excess profits duties on comparatively small sums, small compared with the minimum laid down for professional men. It does seem to me that if the Minister is going to consider a plea for exemption of professional men, and he has to go right through the whole category, an equally strong claim can be made out to have a similar exemption for the smaller business man. And can you do it? Is it fair?

Why exclude the big salaried man?

I am going to refer to that. I admit there is a difference. But rentier incomes of the bulk of individuals have already been taxed at the source. It is only those men who may be investing in gilt edged securities—and the number of big men who do it is not so great. The bulk of these investments are in the trust companies. But let me take a man who gets a big income from dividends. In every single case that dividend has been taxed at the source by excess profits and company taxes, and the balance he gets is the balance remaining after the Government has taken its tax, he may still have an income of £10,000 left of which the hon. member spoke, but then his income originally would have been some £15,000 or £16,000. It is not fair to put that person’s gross income down as £10,000. His gross income is probably £16,000. There is another point which I do not understand— there is another matter which is just as unfair—this distribution of the profit of a private company. Under the new law the profits are distributed. In theory the provision is sound, but in practice there will be hard cases. But then, how can you distinguish between hard cases. I know of a case where people owned shares in a private company. For many years the company did not pay dividends at all—for ten or twelve years. During the last two years they started paying dividends—they made big profits. In spite of the losses of the last ten or twelve years they are making a distribution now. Full profits were not distributed and under the re-allocation of profits shareholders are being called upon to pay income tax which is more than the dividend distributed. It is difficult to see how you can meet that position. We know that various means have been employed to evade taxation. There are today many hard cases, but I venture to say that on the whole it will work very fairly. Having dealt with the professional taxes there is the question of the salaried man, and that, one frankly admits, is causing a certain amount of heartburning.

Very much.

But on the other hand you have this fact, that the salary is fixed and it is only in certain cases that the salary rises in accordance with additional profits made, and there the income tax collector steps in. But unless you are going to alter the whole basis of your taxation, unless you do away with the whole basis of the excess profits tax, and give a definite basis, a flat level, and tax everyone above that level, I do not see how you are going to avoid that position. And then strong complaints would be made if it were found that as a result of this change persons who had made big profits as a result of the war were retaining the whole of these profits in the same way as the man who has the same salary as before the war. I do not think that trade on the whole feels that these taxes are unfair. There has been a certain amount of feeling about this new trade tax. Many people in trade feel that it is unfair to have introduced that tax, but one must also understand this, that in regard to the excess profits tax which was imposed on all business over their pre-war standard rate, or 8 per cent., that a number of businesses have been very badly hit, and I take it that it is with a view to removing some of these inequalities that this new form of taxation has been introduced. Everyone will admit that it is going to cause a certain amount of hardship but there is one thing which this tax will definitely do—it is going to reduce the dividends which people have been getting from these various industrial concerns. It is all very well talking about the rantier who is sitting pretty, but as a result of this tax, that £10,000 per year will not be £10,000, it will be considerably reduced, and that individual will feel that he has been contributing largely towards this new tax. Much as one regrets the method of collecting this new tax it is difficult to devise some other means which will be equally fair, or some other means which will give complete satisfaction, because whatever tax you introduce the individual will always look at it and ask “How will it affect me?” And if he is not badly hit he will not worry. But you find this, that taking these taxes as a whole they are falling on that section of the population which can afford to pay. I think that is rather overlooked. The Minister has fixed an amount of £3,000 in regard to professional men. I don’t think one can say that that is an unreasonable minimum, and on the whole I think the Minister has been fair and I regret that in a way the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) was forced to say that in certain respects he shared the views of the hon. member for George.

I just want to say a few words about one of the taxation proposals and I do so at this stage because it is perhaps still possible to soften the Minister’s hard heart and to induce him before the introduction of the Bills to make some small amendments here and there. The Minister has been fairly considerate occasionally, and I do trust that especially after the speeches made by members on his own side, to wit the speeches by the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) he will make one or two amendments. The proposal to which I wish briefly, to confine myself is that in regard to the profit on the sale of fixed property. We do not know the details of that tax yet; we shall of course see the details when the Bills come before us. Therefore we mostly have to guess what the exemptions are going to be, and what the conditions of the tax are going to be, but the Minister said that in the main he was anxious to avoid speculation. Apart from the money he is going to collect by this tax he wants to prevent speculation. That is the reason he has given for this tax, but as has already been said there are many other forms of speculation which the Minister does not touch. One of the main avenues of speculation is speculation in shares. We have had a lot of experience in this country of the serious consequences which speculation in shares may lead to. That is not going to be in any way curtailed. It is going to continue as before, and now the Minister comes here and tells us that speculation in land must be stopped at once. I remarked in an interrumption that so far as property was concerned there was not a great deal of speculation going on. I want to repeat it. I admit that there has been a considerable amount of speculation in land. Since the announcement of this Budget the property market has dropped considerably. There is no doubt about that, but there has been a pretty considerable amount of speculation in land. I know of land which before the war stood at 5s. per morgen and which last year was sold at prices from 15s. to 20s. per morgen. I admit an end must be put to unhealthy speculation. To a very much smaller extent there has been speculation in properties in towns, speculation in houses, and flats. But cheaper types of houses. One cannot, for instance, speculate very successfully in houses from £1,000 to £1,500. One may perhaps have to sell from thirty to forty houses of that kind in a month to make a fairly decent profit. There is practically no speculation in the cheaper classes of property. There may be speculation to a certain extent in blocks of flats, from £30,000 to £40,000, where a profit of £3,000 or £4,600 can be made, but I do not believe that there has been any real increase in the property market as a result of speculation. There naturally is a considerable demand for property but that has been caused by two things. First of all, it has been caused by a serious shortage in houses, a shortage which has existed, and still exists today. In the second place, the demand for houses has been caused by the fact that people who have money lying idle in the banks have tried to find an investment for their money. In this instance I can speak from a certain amount of experience, and I am not just speaking from a theoretical knowledge of the subject. I have gone very carefully into this question, and I find that the rise in the property market is, firstly, due to a serious shortage of houses; and, secondly, to the fact that people want a safe investment for their money, and I find that as a rule when people look for an investment they look for an investment which will give them a decent return on their money. In other words, the class of houses which they want has to give them a decent interest on their money, and one cannot speculate in that type of houses. But I further want to contend that this tax to a large extent is very unjust. It is not only the rich man who will come under it, but to a large extent the wage earner, the man who is interested in a house which has cost him from £1,000 to £1,500. Perhaps he is compelled for some reason or other to sell it, or he may want to sell it to make a small profit. That is the man who is hit. He can never make more than £100 or £200 profit on a house like that. I ask the Minister what profit can be made on a £1,000 house? If it is £100 it is a lot. And on a £2,000 house the profit may perhaps be £200. That £100 or £200 profit does not cause unhealthy speculation, but now we find that the man who makes £100 profit will have to surrender 13s. 4d. in the £ to the State. The man who makes larger profits, the rich man, can still claim certain rebates which do not apply to the small householder, and the result is going to be that while there already is a shortage of houses, that shortage is going to be accentuated. People who can sell houses will not sell, and people who want to buy houses will not be able to get any. But there is another very serious aspect of this matter. It is generally known that there are a large number of building contractors who build houses for the purpose of selling them. They build to sell, and it is usually the type of house which is worth £1,500 or £2,000 which they put up. While the contractor builds such a house he can draw a salary for himself, but when he has finished building, he tries to make a profit of £100 or £200. That is an encouragement to them to build houses, and there is a lot of it going on today.

We take that into account in the Bill. You will see that when the Bill is before us.

The result will be that the house shortage will be accentuated to a degree, because those people will not want to sell. There will be no encouragement for people to build houses. The private individual will not be encouraged to have a house built for the purpose of letting it. If a man has a little money he is looking for a safe investment. If in ordinary circumstances I have, say, £1,500 or £2,000, I may perhaps take the money out of the bank and put up a semidetached house with the object of letting it. I would regard that as a safe investment, but now I have to take into account the fact that I may be compelled to sell that house in a year or so, and if I do sell it I cannot make any profit on it, because the State will take the major portion of the profit which I can possibly make. In addition to that, we have the provisions of the Rent Act, and also the provisions of other Acts, so that there will be no encouragement for anyone to build houses. The number of houses in South Africa will remain unchanged, but we know that the population in the large towns is continually increasing, and the shortage of houses which is already there will get worse and worse. There is another aspect of the matter, too. There are thousands of people today making a living out of the sale of houses. There are thousands of property agents in the country today. There are some big ones, and there are large numbers of small house and estate agents, and the effect of this Bill is going to be that the property market will collapse, and it will deprive particularly the small house agents of their livelihood. What I want to suggest, and what I should like the Minister to consider is the granting of a small rebate, or otherwise I would ask him to confine the provisions of this tax to properties of, say, above £3,000. It will be more just then. It will not encourage speculation, because, as I have said, it does not lead speculation if a person can make a profit of £100 on a house costing £1,000 or £2,000. I don’t think it is fair in a case of that kind to expect a man to give up two-thirds of his profit to the Government; I seriously want to ask the Minister to consider fixing the value of the properties to which the tax will apply at least £3,000. Otherwise the Minister could allow a rebate before taxing the profit made on the sale of properties. The Minister can make it fairly low, say, a profit of £200 or £300. The measure as now proposed will cause i the property market to collapse entirely, and it will deprive large numbers of people of their existence, apart from the fact that; the house shortage will increase, and the fact that no houses will be built also prevents money from coming into circulation in the proper way, a matter which is of the greatest importance to the country. I hope the Minister will consider this matter, and that he will see whether it is not possible to introduce a few amendments.

The Minister, as the driver of the train of State in time of war, no doubt has difficult problems to contend with, and for that reason it is necessary to look leniently at taxation measures, which in normal times would be deeply resented. Since the outbreak of war I think he has driven the train of State very well indeed. He certainly caused one jar, and that was the excess profits tax, but that was, I consider, not due to bad driving, but to mechanical defects. At the present time he has given this train of State a serious jolt again, but I think on this occasion it is not due to mechanical defect but to bad driving. I was rather alarmed yesterday at the Minister’s explanation in justification of the imposition of his new taxation, namely, the trades profits levy; and what I am concerned about is this: The Minister has sought to establish that this House has sanctioned a policy of discriminatory taxation. He gives as an instance the case of the excess profits duty tax. Now, the excess profits duty tax is definitely a discriminatory form of taxation, but it is a tax on particular profits, on the further or increased profits which accrue as a result of the war, profits which the Minister has described as accruing fortuitously to trade in time of war. I think it reasonable to discriminate between profits which are termed excess profits and those which are the normal profits, the normal incomes of individuals and companies earned before the war started. This new tax, however, is not a tax on war profits at all. The new trade levy is imposed upon the ordinary normal profits, which individuals and companies were making before the war, upon the ordinary normal pre-war profits, I repeat. And I find it very difficult to subscribe to the Minister’s dictum that a differential rate of taxation is justified in such a case even in time of war. I do not think it is admissible, and I do not think it is generally acceptable. I have here as an instance of the opinion outside this House on this subject a very interesting memorandum, which has been subscribed to by 16 well-known and prominent accountants in Johannesburg. These 16 men, of whom I know personally a large number, are men who are all very conversant with income tax and its involved implications, and it is interesting to note their opinions of this tax. I shall not quote the whole of it but only a few portions to indicate their opinion in regard to taxation of a discriminatory nature, They say—

They go on—

They never are.

No, they are not. If the Minister will just let me finish. They say—

They also point out that this new tax will affect certain of the subscribers to the memorandum and not others, but they, one and all, heartily subscribe to it. I think the Minister’s policy is dangerous, because if the House passes this taxation this year, the Minister can come next year and use this as a precedent for the House passing other discriminatory taxation. The Minister’s. task of driving the train of State is difficult enough in time of war, but I think it is being greatly accentuated by introducing a multiplicity of taxes and that it will be very much easier if in time of war when everyone is so short-handed and when we should not have more work imposed on us than necessary, taxation were to be simplified and equitable instead of being made more complicated and discriminatory. I have been told by an accountant in Johannesburg that he would defy two accountants to assess independently the income of a company and arrive at exactly the same figures. Each year we have a further tax or two put on to the section which the Minister says can bear it most easily,—that is trade. Last year he put on the undistributed profits tax, and the foreign residents’ tax. This year we get his new trade levy, and I feel sure that at the present time the Department itself must be finding it most difficult to make all the new assessments, which are involved because of the various taxes. And I can tell the Minister that from the point of view of those, who are conducting business the position is becoming very difficult indeed. I believe the country generally would favour a policy of simplification and a trend in that direction and not in the direction of further complications. So I make a special plea that during the recess the Minister considers this whole question of taxation, gives it his earnest consideration, and comes forward with some simpler method next year. I think that would be welcomed in the interest of the country and of the people as a whole. In other countries we see such a trend. The excess profits tax—it is a very unsound tax inequitable and full of anomolies—has been abolished in Australia. I was interested to read recently that in England they are having considerable difficulty with this same tax and are considering reducing the rate of tax.

Don’t forget that it was 100 per cent. there.

Yes, but incidentally it was not 100 per cent. The tax was only 16s. in the £ plus 4s. which was compulsory saving, which is not by any manner of means the same as 100 per cent. tax. In Australia they have seen the effects of that tax, and in South Africa we have seen the effects of the excess profits tax with a vengeance. It has completely stultified new business. I don’t think there has been much extension in new business, largely as a result of this tax. If one refers to the annual report of the Industrial Development Corporation and to the remarks which are made about the adverse effects of excess profits tax, one can see the position. The Corporation considered 150 applications. Those 150 applications involved £1,500,000 and they earmarked £400,000 as contingent liabilities for propositions, which they accepted, and actually lent £1,500 on one scheme. Numbers of applications were withdrawn when the effect of the tax became known. To give an indication of what that tax means I have a couple of illustrations of propositions, which have been under consideration, and I do not think hon. members realise how serious that tax is so far as new business propositions are concerned. Here is a case where it was proposed to establish an industry required in connection with the war. It was to be a private limited liability company with a capitalisation of £24,000 and ten shareholders, and the capital had to be recovered in three years because it was a war industry. In order to recover £24,000 out of profits over three years, it was necessary to earn a profit of £19,692 per year. That profit had to be made in order to recover £24,000 over three years. That means that the total profit had to be in the vicinity of £60,000 in order to repay £24,000 without allowing for any interest on money. I have the other example where it was proposed to establish a company with a capital of £45,000, and the same provisions as to time applied. Now the result of the excess profits duty is this: This man was prepared to put up £45,000 so long as he could recover his money over three years, and in order to enable him to do so he had to earn over £61,000 a year, or £183,000 of profit over that particular period. When you come to figures like that no one can be surprised at the disastrous results of this tax. Such figures entirely kill the possibility of the establishment of new industry. After all is said and done South Africa is a very young country, and I say our heritage is our right to develop our industries. And under conditions such as I have enumerated no matter how loyal a person is, no matter how willing he is to help the war effort, this tax makes it utterly impossible in its present form for anyone to consider establishing a new industry or a new business. A description of the excess profits tax was aptly made by Mr. Carter Glass, Secretary of the United States Treasury, in 1919 when he summed it up in these words—

That, I think, aptly describes the position. The excess profits tax has had disastrous effects and was never intended to operate with such discriminating severity against the progress and establishment of new industry, but it has done so in South Africa. Now the Minister brings in the trade levy, which is based upon exactly the same fundamental defect inherent in the excess profits tax, namely, the statutory percentage. I feel sure the trade levy is going to create a great deal of dissatisfaction, when the country begins to realise just what that tax is going to mean, and what its implications really are. I am surprised that the Minister has introduced such a tax in the form in which he has, because apart from its differential character, his policy, so far, has been one of ca’ canny. When war broke out the tax on companies was 1s. 9d. The Minister increased it to 2s. 6d. by abolishing the rebate. He next increased it to 3s., and then last year he increased it to 3s. 6d. There is a consistent policy, but all of a sudden we find a complete change. I have as an example a company which paid less than £60,000 in excess profit and other taxes last year, and which, due to this trades profits special levy, will be taxed an additional £88,000. We find that this new tax is suddenly going to increase this company’s taxation from less than £60,000 last year to almost £150,000 this year. I have another case where this tax is going to increase a company’s tax by over 300 per cent. in one year.

Because they make a very large profit.

They do not make such a large profit. It is a very efficient business. An unreasonable increase of taxation of this nature is going to have a very dislocating effect on business, because people had come to accept the policy of ca’ canny. They are prepared for increased taxation, but I do not think that anyone is prepared for increases to this extent. My hon. friend said a moment ago that they made large profits. I agree that they make good profits, but what he has overlooked is the fact that for many years one may make no profit in business at all, and when the tide turns, because of industry, ingenuity of management and careful handling, one is entitled to reap the reward of large profits. The point that he also overlooks is that a company contains a number of shareholders, and when the profit is spread over the number, you get quite a different result. The globular figures disappear and become a small profit in the hands of the recipients. That is one of the points I am also very concerned about in this special trade levy. The Minister has made it applicable to every person in trade on the profit over 8 per cent. with £3,000 as the minimum. But this tax takes no cognisance of the fact that a private company, which it treats as an individual, is an aggregation of a number of individuals. We know it is quite impossible for a shareholder to be paid 100 per cent. of the profits made. It is a very common thing to distribute, say, about two-thirds. The shareholder in a private company therefore finds himself paying normal and super tax upon the whole of his share of the profit, although he himself may only have received two-thirds in cash, because in the private company the whole of the profits of the company are subject to normal and super tax. I would ask the hon. Minister to consider this point carefully, as to whether it is not possible to impose the trade profits special levy on private companies in the same way that other taxes—normal and super—are levied, and to treat them as partnerships. We have this anomalous situation. Let us assume a company has five individual shareholders and it makes a profit of £6,000 a year, £3,000 in excess of the minimum abatement. There will be trade levy tax of £1,000, that is, at 6s. 8d. in the £. The nett result is that these five people each earn £1,200, and have to pay tax of £200. These people are not the millionaires or the rich people of the country. They are the ordinary working people of the country. They each earn £1,200, and are liable to pay £200 each by way of this trades profits special levy, and on the balance of income they still have to pay normal tax. Five persons have to share the abatement of £3,000 between them. On the other hand, take the professional man, the doctor, the dentist, the lawyer, the accountant. He can earn £3,000 on his own; he gets the full abatement of £3,000, and he pays no levy. I put these examples forward in order to focus the attention of hon. members on this tax in the case of a private company, when the private company is merely an aggregation of individuals. I hope that the special plea I am making to the Minister will be considered seriously, and that he will consider ways and means of meeting the situation. Other hon. members have said a fair amount about differential taxation, but no one has given any figures to illustrate what this tax means. I want to give the House some figures, and I want to ask how anyone can justify them? Take the professional man earning £5,000 per annum, and the salaried man earning £5,000 per annum. The professional man will pay £400 more in taxation than the salaried man. On an income of £5,000 the professional man will pay £400 more. I do not know how anyone can justify a difference of 4d., let alone £400. I cannot for the life of me see how such discrimination can be justified. Here you have two people with identical incomes, and yet one has to pay £400 more than the other. That is the differential effect of the new levy in its proposed form. There is a tendency in this House to say, “Tax the rich man”, but in the private company I am not dealing of necessity with the rich man; I am dealing with a lot of small people who are also in these companies.

Are you talking of the salaried or the professional man with an income of £5,000 a year? Do you call a person paying an income tax of £400 a small man?

I did not say that he paid income tax of £400. The one man pays £400 more than the other man. That is what I want to make clear. That £400 is not the income tax he pays; it represents the difference between what he pays and the other man pays. Someone came to me the other day, who for years has been receiving £900 a year from a company. It is not a fortune. But this trades profit levy will in this case reduce his £900 to £350. Can you explain to that person why he should pay a tax of £350 on £900 when a person earning much more money than that will not pay £350 altogether? When the £350 has been paid by way of the special levy, that shareholder is further liable to pay normal tax. Then there is another aspect of the case I want to bring to the Minister’s notice. It is the case of mining companies where we get a special state of affairs arising. The mining company, unlike another industry, owns a wasting asset, but is not allowed to recover the cost of that wasting asset, except from its profits. There is no allowance for the cost of property in the amortisation calculation, which covers expenditure on shaft sinking, plant, development, and that sort of thing. The expenditure on a property or the mineral assets, which are wasting assets, is not allowed. This trade levy is likely therefore to hit mining properties very hard, indeed. It is going to make it very difficult for them to recover the cost of the wasting asset, and I feel that this is a case to which the hon. Minister should give his attention. The excess profits tax constitutes a deduction from the profits of the company before the calculation of other taxes is brought to bear, so that the rate of 13s. 4d. leaves a balance of 6s. 8d., and that 6s. 8d. is itself subject to the various remaining taxes in force. Now, we find the same principle being applied in the case of the trades profits special levy. The trade levy will constitute a deduction, but the remaining amount will be subject to further taxation. It does not mean that 6s. 8d. will be the only tax that will be levied on the portion of the profit. You have to pay the other taxes on the balance. It is therefore a decidedly heavy item. When one considers that the tax on public companies is only 3s. 6d., one cannot help feeling that the trade levy is an undue hardship and unduly harsh. Now I want to deal with the gold mines’ special contribution. Yesterday the hon. member for George had something to say about the gold mines and the fact that they were not taxed sufficiently. He made a statement yesterday that of the gold premium the State had received an amount of £126,000, and the gold mines had received £148,000. But he entirely overlooks the fact that in order to earn that money the mines have expended in capital expenditure alone a sum in excess of £80,000,000. So that the distribution is not quite as lopsided as the figures which he gave would tend to show. With regard to the gold mine special contribution—and this is a point not sufficiently appreciated—the tax is levied on the whole of the profit; the tax is not levied on the taxable profit. For purpose of the other gold mining taxes referred to in the first resolution, they are calculated on the taxable profits of the mines. If this tax was levied on the same taxable amount as the other two taxes on gold mines, I should imagine the rate would be not 20 per cent. but 30 per cent., and that gives one a fairer conception of the severity of this tax. The gold mines pay a 15 per cent. flat tax, and coupled with this tax, which is nearer 30 per cent., the flat taxation reaches 45 per cent., over and above which they pay the formula tax. I believe the total tax now works out at an average of nearly 14s. in the £. I think it is a pity, when the special contribution was originally introduced, that it was not based on the same taxable profit as is the case of the other two taxes. This was a point that was particularly stressed in the report issued by the Departmental Taxation Committee in 1935. That Committee stated that, although various opinions had been given to them in the different matters, all witnesses were unanimous that all taxes should be based upon the same taxable profit; and I am sorry that in this particular tax this was not done. With regard to the new tax on the sale of fixed property, I think the Minister would be well advised to leave some percentage free from this tax. The tax is very severe, and one has to bear in mind that the profit arising from the sale of land has only in a few cases been regarded as profit for the purposes of income tax. It has usually been regarded as capital appreciation. I think that the effect of this tax may miscarry. I think that the Minister’s object is laudable, namely, that he should endeavour to prevent inflation of land values. But in the application I feel that we must be very careful not to stifle ordinary normal business, and I think that perhaps an abatement on a percentage basis would be a very reasonable provision to bring in. I prefer a percentage basis to a fixed amount, because a fixed amount might be a large amount relatively in a small transaction and an infinitesimal sum in a large transaction. I am afraid that this tax may miscarry yet, and may have the effect of unduly increasing prices of land rather than reducing them. Whereas normally a seller would have charged a certain price for land, he might now ask very much more because he is compelled to hand over a large portion to the Government. On the other hand I know of the case of a small transaction where the seller has said he will sell the property if the buyer will pay him £50 profit. The purchaser has replied that the seller will have to hand over 13s. 4d. in the £ of the profit to the Government and suggested that he should rather forego the profit altogether. With regard to the estate duty, I have unfortunately not had a chance of going into the figures, but I notice that the Minister has graduated it evenly from ½ per cent. up to 25 per cent. In the initial stages of the calculation there is an abatement, which is diminished £ for £. Just looking at the figures I get the impression that in this case the Minister’s object may be defeated, and the result may in certain cases be very inequitable. I think the Minister should look into this, because from a mathematical point of view the graduated scale may create an anomaly, the same as existed in income tax and was rectified last year. It may create double rates over the range of the abatement as against the rates in the higher categories. I hope the Minister will give very serious consideration to the trades profit special levy in the light of the examples I have given here. I hope he will realise the severity of that tax, and particularly in its application to individual members of private companies. The Minister said in introducing this motion—I just want to refresh my memory to see what the Minister actually said …

The hon. member may not read from a newspaper.

He said that the incidence of this tax is thrown on the shoulders of those who can best bear it—those falling within the definition of trade. I think the Minister’s argument that he has excluded the rentier because of a decrease of income due to a fall in interest rates, is fallacious. He says that those who enjoy fortuitous profits can best pay this trade levy, but surely such profits are already taxed as excess profits at 13s. 4d. Furthermore, there are individuals in trade whose pre-war profits have declined, just in the same way that the interest rates of the rentier have declined. Those people are earning less money, but they are nevertheless called upon to pay this tax, graduated downwards from 6s. 8d. I cannot see how anyone can justify saying that you can exclude the rentier and salaried classes when you proceed to tax the declining income of individuals whose incomes from trade have decreased since war broke out. I agree that the fortuitous profits which arise from war can be justifiably taxed, but I cannot see when dealing with the normal pre-war profits how it is reasonable to tax one person whose income has fallen, and yet not to tax another person whose income has also fallen, at the rate of tax which is levied at 6s. 8d. on a part of the normal profit. The companies tax is only 3s. 6d. I do not see how it is possible to justify discrimination of such a nature.

The hon. the Minister of Finance pointed out yesterday with a certain amount of self-satisfaction, that the war expenditure was only 12.1 per cent. of the national income. That in itself I do not want to dispute. The calculation on which that is based, I notice, was taken according to the expenditure of £55,000,000 for war purposes in respect of the year 1941—’42. I think that the amount of war expenses was £60,000,000.

No, it was £56,000,000.

Whatever the position is, that is only half the picture. What we should like to have before us, in discussing the taxation proposals, is not what the percentage of war expenditure is in relation to national income, but what the percentage of the total expenditure of the country is in relation to national income. It is the total expenditure which must be covered by the national income. If we regard the matter from that point of view, then in so far as this year is concerned, if we take the loan Budget and the Budget on income together, and we add to that the £10,000,000 in respect of Provincial expenditure, it amounts to £150,000,000 altogether, and that means nearly 30 per cent. of our national income. If we compare those figures with the percentage which existed before the war, namely, in the year 1937—’38, we find that the percentage of expenditure in relation to national income was 20 per cent. In other words, there is a disturbing rise in the percentage of expenditure in relation to national income. We must take that into consideration in dealing with taxation proposals. But there is another factor which is disturbing, and it is this, that while there is a tremendous rise in national income as a result of the war, the rate of increase in expenditure is so high that that rise in national income has been caught up and even passed. In the calculation which was made by Professor Frankel, we notice that the portion of national income which is available for consumption, assessed on the basis of a retail price of the year 1938, in respect of the year 1938—’39, was £329,000,000. The following year it was £366,000,000, but for the year 1940—’41 it fell to £361,500,000: that is to say, the rise in national income has already been caught up and passed by the rise in war costs. It is a disturbing phenomenon which we must bear in mind fully in dealing with taxation, and we must not be consoled by the fact that the percentage is higher in other countries; in other words, that their position is even more critical than ours. It is a red light to warn us against this type of rise in the rate of war costs in relation to the rise in national income. In these proposals there are only two in regard to which I want to say something. The first is the tax on mines. The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) calculated that of the total increase in taxation of £9,288,000 which the Minister is now imposing, the increase in taxes on the mines amount to only £1,640,000. That means 17.6 per cent. of the total increase is borne by the mines. But if we refer to the figures in connection with national income, then we notice, according to the last year in respect of which we have the final figures, that in 1939—’40 the percentage which the mines contributed to national income was 23 per cent. If we accept that ratio for this year, and if we accept the basis that the total new taxes must be the same as the relation of the mines to national income, then we should not have had £1,640,000 from the mines, but £1,135,000. In other words the mines should have paid £500,000 more than they are now being asked to contribute in these taxation proposals if we bear in mind the relation to the national income. But one can approach the matter from another point of view, and then one arrives at more or less the same result. If we take the position of the ordinary man who has an income of £500 per annum, then we provide that he should pay 10 per cent. extra in income tax, apart from the compulsory saving and apart from personal tax. He must pay an additional 10 per cent. on his income tax. If we take the same percentage increase which the mines paid in taxation last year, then they should have paid £610,000 more this year on that basis than they paid under the proposals of the Minister. If we increase what they paid last year by 10 per cent. then you will see that they should pay £610,000 more than they will pay now. And if we see what the Minister expects the personal tax on people who earn more than £250 a year to yield, then we find that the Minister contemplates that £640,000 will be obtained from this personal tax. That is a tax which has to be paid by the poor man, and instead of letting the mines pay £600,000, the poor people must now pay that. You will certainly agree with me that there are few taxes which create such an uneven burden as the personal tax which, is not graded. In his budget speech the Minister proposed that people who earned £250 to £300 will have to pay £1 personal tax, and those earning more than £300 will have to pay £2 10s. If you take the man with a salary of £299, then he pays £1, but the man who earns £301 pays £2 10s. under this personal tax, and the man earning £3,000 or more per annum also pays only £2 10s. personal tax. The personal tax creates a very uneven burden on the community, and it is out of all proportion to the ability of the taxpayers to pay. The Minister yesterday referred to the fact that commerce and industries were two industries which were very sensitive to any war conditions which existed. They react almost immediately, and make higher profits. But if we go into the figures of the mining industry, then we find that they react equally favourably, as a result of the war position, as commerce and industries. In studying the figures of the increase in our national income, I find that with regard to the mining industry the income rose from £81,500,000 in 1938—’39 to £100,000,000 in 1940—’41, an increase of 22 per cent. If we take commerce and industries we find that the income rose from £69,700,000 to £85,000,000, an increase of 22 per cent.; in other words, if the figures are correct, then the mining industry is not less sensitive to improvement as a result of the war position than commerce and industries. For that reason especially we on this side are of opinion that since we are faced by the fact that the normal 10 per cent. increase was not applied in the case of the mines, and in view of the fact that the mining industry reacts very favourably to the war position, we say that the Minister should take away the £640,000 from the poor people and impose this amount on the mines in order to equalise the taxation burden. Then there is an increase of 10 per cent. in all cases. And then I do not take into account the fact that apart from the 10 per cent. imposed on the poor man, he is also compelled to save under the compulsory savings scheme of the Minister. I think that if the Minister splits up the total amount in this manner, he would be more entitled to claim that his budget divides the taxation burden evenly, and spreads it over the various classes of the community, in accordance with the national revenue figures. Then just a few words in regard to the taxation on trades profits. All that one can say in favour of the tax which the Minister is now imposing is that it reduces the relative injustice to new businesses, or people who have no pre-war standard. That was our main criticism last year of excess profits tax, that it imposed the heaviest burden on new industries, and that instead of encouraging new industries it would certainly not serve as an incentive to develop new industries. Now the Minister does not propose to effect any relief in the position of new industries this year. They have been paying excess profits tax for the past two years, and the Minister does not propose to afford them any relief. The Minister says: “You complain that you have been wronged in comparison with more established businesses; I shall now treat you more equally and will tax the established businesses to a greater extent.” But he does not even place them on an equal footing. Not at all. There is no equalisation. Even now new businesses will pay twice as much excess profits tax as established industries and persons. The new industries will still have to pay 13s. 4d., whilst under the tax on trades profits which the Minister now proposes, the established businesses will only pay 6s. 8d.; therefore, there is not yet any equality. The injustice still continues, but to a lesser degree. In the second place, the newer businesses have borne the high tax for two years already, while the established businesses have escaped for two years. No effort is made to afford some measure of relief to new businesses in respect of the two years during which they bore the burden. Nor is any effort made to let the older businesses which now fall under the trades profits tax, pay a little extra on account of the fact that they have escaped the tax for two years. The Minister simply forgets that. The established businesses will in the future only pay half of the excess profits tax which the new businesses have to pay. The grievance which the newer businesses have, still exist today in respect of the excess profits tax. It remains under the trades profits tax. The new tax on trades profits simply repeats the evils of the excess profits tax. In fact, as the Minister said, the trades profits tax is but an extension of the previous tax. One of the most important evils of the tax is the fact that professions are included in trades. I think it was mentioned here yesterday that in other countries professions are not included under commerce and industries for the purposes of excess profits tax. In the second place, it is a fact that during the last Great War the professions were not included in commerce and industry for excess profit purposes. In the third place, there is the inconsistency that salaried persons are again excluded, although people who earn their money in a profession are included. It has already been mentioned by various speakers, but I think that we should emphasise it. In many cases salaried persons still have this advantage, that when they retire they receive a pension, but the person practising a profession has not that advantage. We say that the whole tax is one which is founded on no logical grounds. If it is the Minister’s object only to tax extra profits which are brought about by the war, then he must say that he will tax every person who earns anything extra as a result of the war, and then he ought not to discriminate between income derived from salary and income earned in a profession. Take, for example, the case of the hon. member for Frankfort (Brig.-Gen. Botha). He is a person who received an additional income of £1,200 as a direct consequence of the war, but he does not pay a penny under this tax, because this is regarded as salary and is not added. And what is the position of owners of businesses? They now put in a salary for themselves which does not fall under the excess profits tax either. The Minister will say that they cannot show any salary, that it is subject to the approval of the Treasury, but in so far as the trades profits tax is concerned, if in the past a person put in an excessively high salary of, say, £5,000, then he can still show that at present, and he will not pay trades profits tax on that. And if he drew a small salary, he can increase it, and then the onus rests upon the Minister’s department as to whether the increase can be allowed. The whole principle is illogical; it does not rest on actual principles. If the Minister wants to tax income, he must tax every form of income and not discriminate in this manner. He must evolve a method which will create an even burden. With regard to the professions, it was stated yesterday that the income of the professions had also increased as a result of the war. That is not the position. If you look at the figures you will see that the income of the professions fell from £12,400 000 in 1938 to £12,200 000 in 1939 and to £12,000,000 in 1940. The professions are obviously not sensitive to war conditions therefore. The income of the professions did not rise, as did the income of commerce and industry, but there is even a decline. Nevertheless, the Minister wants to treat them alike. It is unfair. I do not want to go into the other matters, because other speakers have already dealt with them, but I want to say again that the taxation proposals of the Minister do not comply with the first requisite of taxes, namely, that there should be an even burden on all sections of the community, according to the carrying capacity of the various sections of the community.

In dealing with the resolutions before the House one has to bear in mind the background against which these proposals are made. There are probably few countries in the world where the democratic principle that the burden of public expenditure should be laid on the shoulders of those best able to bear it has been so consistently disregarded as in this country. But I admit at once that the financial proposals before us now do not promise to aggravate the position in the sense of increasing the burdens on the poorer sections of the community. Those sections have in the past borne an undue burden of taxation, both direct and indirect, in this country. As I say, I am glad to be able to acknowledge as a representative of some of the poorest people in this country that the bruden has not been increased by these proposals. On the other hand, the proposals do not appear to me to go very far in exacting that contribution from those with higher incomes that is justified by the exigencies of the war situation, and the crying need for social reform among the poorer sections of the community. We on these Benches contend that it is possible to proceed with measures of social reform and also to finance the war effort provided the resources of the country are fully mobilised by proper means of taxation. When we have asked the Minister for concessions, as we have often done, he has told us to bear in mind the “financial realities”. He has used that expression to me this session when I asked for certain concessions, and these resolutions give us the opportunity to discuss the “financial realities”. With regard to the actual proposals, I have already said that they do not appear to me to go far enough. To begin with, I think the income taxpayers can congratulate themselves on getting away with no higher rate of income tax than they paid last year, a rate which is very low indeed as compared with the rate in most other countries that are involved in the present war, and I have no doubt that the super taxpayers too consider themselves fortunate that the maximum of super tax is still 7s. 6d. in the £. I personally would like to see a ceiling imposed on incomes beyond which no man should be allowed to go, and the balance utilised for the financial purposes of the State. The proposal which interests me most is this proposal for a personal savings fund levy. It appears to me to embody the principle of block savings which Dr. J. M. Keynes put forward for the consideration of the British people a year or two ago, and which was accepted in principle by the British Government, and I want to say that I would like to see a considerable extension of the principle embodied in this particular proposal in order to finance the requirements of the country at the present time. I want to ask the Minister why it would not be possible instead of indulging in further public borrowing to get all the money which the Government wants on loan by this means; he can pay interest if he likes to. There is no provision for interest here under this particular proposal. But rather than that there should be further wholesale borrowings, I should like to see this principle extended so that the Government could take all it requires to borrow in this way, because it seems to me that it has this merit: It is a genuinely anti-inflation measure. The money raised by this means must come out of genuine savings. It cannot come out of the proceeds of an extension of credit which the productive capacity of the country does not justify, which is the great objection to uncontrolled borrowing. I would like to see this principle extended and to be applied for the purpose of obtaining any money the Government may want to borrow. Some of us last year criticised the fact that the Minister did not increase the estate duty. Also, there is the question of succession duties. Previously, the estate duties amounted to one-half per cent. up to a maximum of 17 per cent. on a maximum income of £75 000. Now the Minister has raised his maximum percentage to 20 and the £75,000 to £95,000. That still seems to me a very modest slice to take out of large estates. A person who is an heir to £95,000 can still at this time keep three-quarters of that for himself, and I do feel that the Minister can come down very much harder on those who get these unearned amounts.

Have a heart.

Well, I think it is a very fair proposition. In regard to succession duties, these are not touched at all. They still remain at the same rates ranging from 2 per cent. to 10 per cent. according to the relationship of the legatee to the deceased. That, also, seems a case where the Minister might look for more revenue. The only indirect tax which seems to me to call for some criticism, and I am sorry the Minister should have found it necessary to impose this tax, is the tax on pipe tobacco. Pipe tobacco to many people is a necessity.

It won’t affect your people.

With regard to the excess profits duty, there some of us in the past have asked the Minister to take 100 per cent. of any excess profits, and he told us when introducing his Budget that he was virtually doing so by taking away the advantage which those who had a higher pre-war standard than the statutory percentage, had gained. I never liked the method by which this duty has been levied. It seems to me an unfair discrimination in favour of a person who before the war, perhaps in an industry which was not particularly essential to the war effort, was making high profits, as against the man or the concern who may have started an industry essential for war purposes after the war began, and who has to accept a statutory percentage of profit. Personally I think the best measure would have been to fix the percentage which should be lower than the present percentage, irrespective of when the person started business, and take everything above that for national purposes. The Nazis were doing that long before the war started. Six per cent. was the maximum they allowed, and they took the balance for national purposes. Three years after we have become engaged in the war we are not going to that extent yet — and I think it is not asking too much to say that profit makers should get say 6 per cent. and give the rest to the Government, especially when thousands are making greater sacrifices than giving up profits. The Minister in introducing his resolutions, quoted the percentage of the estimated national income that was being devoted to the war effort, and also the percentage of the estimated national income that was available for consumption after taxes had been paid. Those figures show that the wealthier part of our community are not being called upon to make such very great sacrifices when their position is compared with their prototypes the position in other allied countries to which the Minister referred. I want to give certain figures, putting the position in a slightly different way. In the three years that this country has been at war, according to Professor Frankel’s estimate which was quoted yesterday in a newspaper by Professor Hutt, the national income of this country has risen from £394,000,000 to £472,000,000 making an increase all over of £78,000,000. In the last year of peace this country spent both from revenue and loan account a sum of something under £70,000,000. This year, the total expenditure both from revenue and loan account, is estimated to amount to £140,000,000. In other words, there has been an increase in the national income of £78,000,000 and in expenditure of approximately £70,000,000, and that £70,000,000 includes money borrowed. The total increase in taxation is something only a little over £50,000,000. So very much more could be done to mobilise by way of taxation the resources of this country. Now, compare that position with the position of our most important Ally. The Minister compared the percentages of what we were spending with those of Great Britain. He said that we were spending about 16 per cent. of our national income on the war, whereas Great Britain was spending 40 per cent. of their national income on the war. Again taking the criterion of actual expenditure, last year Mr. Colin Clarke estimated Great Britain’s national income at about £600,000,000, while she was committed to war expenditure of £4,200,000,000 making 60 per cent. of her national income. A similar calculation in this country would give a figure of about 30 per cent. The Minister spoke of financial realities make possible a very much higher revenue contributed by the wealthy classes than is the case at present. If Professor Frankel’s estimate of our increased national income is correct, actually this country is making a profit on the war. The added expenditure has so stimulated the national income that it has far outstripped the increase of taxation which the Minister has in the past levied, and certainly the taxes proposed in these resolutions, having regard to what the Minister estimated that they would bring in, will certainly not overhaul the increase in the national income. I place these considerations before the Minister to indicate that financial realities render possible the raising of very much more revenue for both national and social purposes than is being done at the present time.

We have just listened to the one speech in the debate which has advocated increased taxation and in so doing brought balm to my wounded spirit. In this debate I have had to submit to the position of being wounded even in the house of my friends, but the hon. member by shewing his willingness at least to see the burden of taxation increased has helped to heal these wounds. Of course, the hon. member has taken the line that we should set a ceiling to incomes. That sounds good but, of course, these things are so highly subjective. You see our idea of what constitutes age varies as we ourselves get older and our idea of what constitutes reasonable income also, I am afraid tends to vary as our incomes increase. I do not know whether the ceiling proposed to be set to incomes would be the allowance normally payable to a member of this House.

†*I am of course, not expected to deal with all the points raised in this debate. We are dealing here with the question of principle contained in these taxation proposals. I am not going to deal with all the points of detail which have been raised, and which to my mind can be better dealt with when the House is in Committee, or still better, when the proposed legislation is before us. I am therefore going to confine myself to the principal points which have been touched upon. The main speech in this debate was that delivered by the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth). He dealt with three points. First of all, he discussed the question of differential taxation. Secondly, the question of the taxation of the gold mines; and, thirdly, the question of the tax on fixed property. In regard to the question of differential taxation, I feel that I answered that point in advance. The hon. member spoke of the fact that we are treating income from trade, including the professions, in a way different from that in which we are treating the incomes of rantiers and the wage earners. He is quite right. I said so at the beginning. But this is not the first time we are doing so. That principle was adopted by this House two years ago in connection with the excess profits tax. On that occasion this House adopted the principle of a differentiated tax. We imposed a special tax on trade, including the professions, and we are therefore not creating any new principle under the proposals which are now before the House. Under that Act, and I wish to emphasise that point, because of what other hon. members have said, it is quite possible for two people to have the same income and yet to pay different amounts of income tax. That principle was approved of two years ago for very good reasons, because we thought that in a time of war, trade generally was particularly sensitive to war conditions. That naturally does not apply to everybody participating in trade, but it does apply generally, and we have to deal here with a class. Generally speaking, we can say that trade flourishes at a time of war. There is more money in circulation, and trade in particular has the use of that money. That is the defence which we have put forward for the differential taxation which we have imposed. The hon. member in that connection raised a special point of a personal character, and I am sorry having to refer to it. He made a comparison between the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Mr. Fagan) and myself. I think the House as a whole will feel that it would be better if things of that kind were not said here. I do not think this is the place to discuss the taxation which is paid by individuals, especially by individual members of Parliament. There is such a thing as an oath of secrecy, and I think it was the intention of the Legislature in that regard that such matters should not be discussed here, but, apart from that, my hon. friend created the impression—I am sure he did not mean to do so—but he did create the impression that I am influenced in my taxation policy by the question of how that policy is going to affect me personally.

No, that is not so.

I say at once that that was not his intention, but it cannot but create that impression among the unthinking section of the public.

That was not my intention.

I know the hon. member did not intend doing so. And I am saying this by way of suggesting to him that it is undesirable to say these things, because that impression must necessarily be created among certain sections of the public. What my hon. friend by his inference to the hon. member for Stellenbosch and myself apparently wanted to show was that so far as I am concerned, if salaries were assessable for the purposes of excess profits tax, I would have had to pay an excess profits tax which I do not have to pay now. In the second place, that the hon. member for Stellenbosch has to pay excess profits tax on his income above £1,500, derived from his profession. That is the impression the hon. member created. Well, both these things are wrong, and I am availing myself of this opportunity to say that they are wrong. In regard to the hon. member for Stellenbosch he does not pay excess profits tax on all his income from his profession over and above £1,500, nor does he pay excess profits tax over and above £2,500, or even on a higher level. That is not because of any special exemption granted to the hon. member, but it is in accordance with the terms of the general legislation which we passed last year. So far as I am personally concerned, I want to say that even if I were taxable for excess profits duty on the basis of my salary I would not have been liable for that tax today, and I would not have had to pay one penny excess profits tax. The hon. member put forward two things, and both were quite wrong.

The law has not been strictly applied to the hon. member for Stellenbosch.

No, it has been. As my hon. friend created certain impressions by his contentions of a personal character and as those contentions have received considerable publicity, I want to express the hope, and I particularly make my request to the Press, that the same publicity will be given to my reply. Now, I come to the question of the tax on the gold mines. That I also already dealt with in my introductory speech. I pointed out that the price of gold is a fixed price now. It went up immediately after the beginning of the war. But all the additional amounts which have come to the gold mines as a result of the increase in the price of gold, already come to us today. The price of gold is now a fixed price. Consequently, there is no question of the same degree of elasticity in the gold mining industry as there is in regard to trade. If there is an increase in working costs in the gold mining industry and if additional taxes are imposed, those increases in taxation cannot be covered by the increase in the price of gold, or even by an expansion in the scope of the industry, or the working of the mines. All these increases have to be covered out of dividends payable to shareholders. My hon. friend spoke about £3,000,000 for an increase in working costs. That is quite correct. At the beginning, to give effect to the intentions of my predecessor, in calculating the taxes, we took into account a 5 per cent. increase in the working costs of the mines. But that increase of working costs is very much more than 5 per cent. today. It is more than 10 per cent. In other words, that £3,000,000 has been more than caught up. If we had followed my predecessor’s policy we would, with the further increase in working costs, have had to make further concessions, but in consequence of the changed policy which we are now pursuing we are not taking any account of the increased working costs, and those increased working costs are put to the account of the shareholders and not to debit of the revenue of the State. As a result of this changed policy we have promoted the benefit of the taxpayer in general, and not the other way round. The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) asked why we did not take two-thirds of the increase in the price of gold. We do not do so because we are already taking more than 100 per cent. I want to repeat again what I said on a previous occasion, in order to clear up this point which I have just mentioned. Last year by way of additional taxation we imposed £2,200,000 on the gold mines. The dividends from the mines, apart from new mines, such as Marievale and Venterspost, in that year decreased by £2,160,000. Practically the whole amount of the additional taxation last year came out of the dividends, and that will be even more the case in the year before us. My hon. friend further raised the argument that by way of special war taxation we were only getting from the gold mines a little more than £8,000,000.

£8,300,000.

When the hon. member says that, he, of course, does not take into account the increased yield of the mining taxation as a result of the increased price of gold. Then he says that the public in general, I suppose including the mines, had to pay an amount of £35,750,000 by way of war taxation. He did not tell us how he arrived at that figure. I think that if he scrutinised the additional amount of taxation imposed on the public, as I indicated in my Budget, he will find that, including the gold mines, the amount comes to the sum of £29,000,000.

I have taken every tax that has been imposed since the 4th September, 1939.

If the hon. member will look at the Estimates he will see that the total amount of taxations imposed is £29,000,000. Apart from that, the £8,300,000 does not constitute the only war burden imposed on the mines. Of course it does not. What about the tax on foreign shareholders, which is paid principally by the shareholders in the mines? What about the additional super tax on mine dividends, and what about the gold realisation account? If we take all those items together we get an amount of between £12,000,000 and £13,000,000 and not £8,300,000 out of the total of £29,000,000. Is that a reasonable comparison. The hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) pointed out this morning that the total national income as calculated by Professor Frankel amounted to £470,000,000. He said that the income from the mining industry amounted to £100,000,000. I admit that my hon. friend overlooked the fact that we should add to that £100,000,000 the payments that are made overseas. That supports my hon. friend’s argument, and it brings us to an amount of £120,000,000 as the income of the gold mining industry. That is onequarter of our national income. But according to the figures which I have just given, we take a good deal more than one-quarter by way of special war tax in realtion to the total amount paid. As usual, my hon. friend’s statistics go against him. If one analyses his statistics one finds that they prove the very opposite of what my hon. friend tried to prove. The hon. member for Fauresmith further said that the income of the gold mines is 23 per cent. of the national income, and therefore the additional amount of taxation from the gold mines this year should have been 23 per cent. of the total additional taxation. According to him it is half a million pounds less than 23 per cent. Then the hon. member should be consistent and apply the same measure to that proportion of the taxation which the gold mines bore in past years when they had to find a good deal more than 23 per cent. If we take our war taxes altogether, the gold mines do not have to find 23 per cent. of our war taxes but close on 40 per cent., and that is what the statistics of my hon. friend opposite lead us to. Then my hon. friend spoke about the question of the profits tax on immovable property. He has asked me for some information. The hon. member will find that all those questions are satisfactorily answered in the Bill which we are going to introduce. All these matters are provided for there.

But the public is very anxious to know all about these matters.

As soon as the House has passed these resolutions a Bill will be introduced in this House, and it is very much better for the public to see what the terms of that Bill are, than that I should perhaps create some misunderstanding now by making a general statement. I know the public are very anxious to get that information, and that is why I want to expedite the introduction of the Bill. The hon. member further said that that particular tax would not achieve its object, and in that connection he particularly raised two points. First of all, he said that as a result of this tax the value of fixed property would rise. Apparently there is a certain amount of difference between the hon. member for George and the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman), because the hon. member for Fordsburg told us that as a result of this tax there had been a drop in the property market. He told us that the property market had practically collapsed, and that prices had not gone up. Hon. members will realise that if a tax is imposed on the sale of a particular thing it is not going to encourage such sales.

Surely it depends on the supply?

My hon. friend, the member for George, argued as though the property which comes on to the market, is liable to the payment of this tax. If that were the position I could have understood his point, but the point is only applicable to part of such property coming on to the market.

And the property which is not liable to this tax is now going up in price so as to include the tax and to become equal to the price of the immovable property which is taxable.

Most of the property which comes on the market does not fall under this tax, and will therefore serve to stabilise the price, and as we want to impose this tax on the sale of immovable property, it can have no other effect but to prevent any further rise in the price. The hon. member for Fordsburg went further, and said that there already was a drop in the property market. It would therefore appear that the facts are on my side, and not on the side of the hon. member for George. The hon. member also said that amounts of between £30,000,000 and £40,000,000 were lying idle in the banks, and would eventually be invested in land. Well, the hon. member bases that argument on the idea that the value of our currency is going to drop. What reason has he for making this assumption? I have repeatedly expressed the view that we in South Africa are strong enough to maintain the value of our money, and we are prepared to take the necessary steps to keep up the value of our money in the interest of South Africa. Why should we get scared now and become nervous about the possibility of the value of our money dropping? The hon. member further spoke about possible evasions of the law. Is that a reason why we should not pass the law? I want to remind him of the fact that he has been speaking year after year about evasions of the Income Tax Act by private companies, and he used that very fact as an argument for a revision of the Act. He did not use it as an argument for the repeal of the Act. No, he used it as an argument in favour of closing up those gaps where the law was being evaded. Here we have a good tax. Let the hon. member assist us to make the tax as watertight as possible. The reason he has given is not a reason for abandoning a new tax. Anyhow, I want to thank him for the ingenuous instance he has given us about possible evasions of these taxation proposals. We shall do our best to close those gaps. The hon. member for Fordsburg in this connection put up a plea on behalf of small properties. He wants us to be considerate to small properties so far as this tax is concerned. No, I don’t think that that would be advisable, because we also want to prevent the rise of prices of small properties in the interest of the public as a whole. The hon. member quite rightly said that there already had been an increase in the price of properties, and for two reasons. There was a shortage of houses; and, secondly, money was lying idle, money which people wanted to invest in property. Very well, we want to cut out the second factor, and we want to make it less attractive for people to go and invest idle money in such properties. The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren), and the hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen) discussed the question of the estate duty. The hon. member for Swellendam does not want us to tax small estates. I don’t really think that a £15,000 estate is a small one. In regard to the abatement, that remains at £15,000. Estates below £15,000 are not taxed. Several hon. members have urged that we should reduce the amount of £15,000, but we have not done so; we have adhered to that figure. In regard to an estate of £20,000, I want to point out that the duty on that is not £2,000, but £370. Surely that is not too large an amount. So far as I am concerned, I must say that I feel that we have been very considerate and very lenient in the way we have dealt with estate duties. The hon. member for Hoopstad (Mr. J. H. Viljoen) spoke about the position of people who had sold cattle on a large scale. This is not actually a point affecting the special levy on trade profits. It does not touch the question of the excess profits tax, and I do not think it is applicable so far as this tax is concerned; I cannot conceive of any instances where this tax will be applicable to such cases.

†Then I come to my hon. friend the member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell). He has dealt mainly with the question of the trades profit special levy, and more especially with the position of the professional man. He was not here, of course, when the hon. member for Pretoria Central (Mr. Pocock) dissented with some of the remarks he made.

I was in committee upstairs.

Of course, I am not blaming the hon. member for not having been here. I know my hon. friend was usefully engaged. My hon. friend laid down the principle that if A. is taxed more than B. or C. where A., B. and C. have the same taxable capacity, you are sinning against the canons of taxation. I can only say that then my hon. friend has sinned with the rest of us, because he voted for the excess profits duty. If my hon. friend wants to apply that principle of equality of taxation, then the excess profit duty must go. I admit that this is differential taxation. I have admitted it before, just as the excess profit duty is differential taxation, but it is justifiable. The figures which my hon. friend, the member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) quoted this morning showed that. Take your three classes of income—trade, the salaried man, and the rentier, in other words, the man who derives his income from investments. The rentier does not benefit from war conditions. Indeed, his investments in companies engaged in trade and in industries are taxed at the source. In so far as his income comes from gold mining, he is also hit there. In so far as his income is derived from mortgages, he is hit there to, because the general rate of interest is down. The salaried man, certainly in the higher reaches, is also not profiting from the war. On the whole his salary remains the same, whereas the value of money has been reduced. But trade does profit from war conditions, and therefore it is justifiable to impose a differential tax on trade, but of course my hon. friend has spoken more especially about the position of the professional man who he thinks is treated unjustly in comparison with the salaried man and the rentier. I do not agree with him, but in any case I would like to ask my hon. friend what he suggests doing.

Take everything over £1,000.

That, of course, is subjective.

You would like to know what I would suggest. I would like you to abolish the excess profits duties and to impose a war time tax.

The hon. member would like to impose a war time companies tax as in Australia. But I want to ask him whether that is practicable. Have we not given a pledge under the excess profits duty to deal with post war losses? How can you abolish that duty now? The hon. member would like something like the Australian war time companies tax. Well, we always think that the burdens of others are lighter than our own. May I repeat to my hon. friend the maxim I have already given “It is better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.” Moreover the Australian tax is open to the same criticism as our excess profits duty. You tax according to profits without regard to the amount of the capital; in other words, the higher capitalised companies benefit as compared with lower capitalised companies. That applies also to the Australian tax. My hon. friend has now told me what he suggests as an alternative. I am afraid that I can only say that I do not regard that alternative as practicable. It would, to my mind, be equally impracticable either to include income from salaries or income from investments within the scope of the excess profits duty. It would also be impracticable to exclude the professions from the scope of the taxes. All along hitherto we have included professions within the definition of trade, and how you are going to separate them now passes my apprehension.

The 1917 Act.

Yes, but the 1917 Act was not satisfactory. I would like my hon. friend to tell me, for instance, whether a chemist or a pharmacist is a professional man.

If you ask me in the ordinary course …

Yes, you would give me your advice and charge a fee for it. I admit there is a serious difficulty here, but the principle of including professions in trade is a sound one. When trade flourishes the professions flourish, and vice versa. Now the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. Bell) has raised the question of private companies which consist of a relatively small number of individuals. He would like them to be treated as individuals for the sake of this tax. I must say that I cannot see how one can do so logically. We have, and in general it has been to the benefit of the private companies, treated them as entities, and not as partnerships for the purposes of the excess profit duty. That being so, I do not see how one can treat them differently here. I know there will be hardships, as pointed out by the hon. member, but may I say this—I think the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) will agree with me—these private companies have not done very badly in the past. They had quite a long run until we made the change in the taxation system last year, and one’s sympathy with the cases such as those my hon. friend referred to must necessarily be tempered by the fact that up to last year these private companies did very well indeed insofar as taxes are concerned. Now I want to say just one word in general before I sit down. I want to say a word about the criticisms of the Government’s proposals by supporters of the Government. I am not now referring specifically to any member who has spoken here. I am speaking generally, and having regard more particularly to some of the representations made to me outside the House. When I get criticism of the Government’s taxation proposals, it is nearly always prefaced by the statement, “Of course, we do not mind increased taxation. We will give you all you want for the war. We will give you more than you ask if you need it for the war: but do it in another way. What you are doing it not equitable; it is too complicated. Do it in a simple way.” In other words, “Don’t tax us; tax the other fellow:”

We say tax us, but do tax the other fellow also.

But my difficulty is this, that when you tell these people to indicate to you what the other way is, you don’t get very much help. Indeed, the assistance I have usually had in regard to my present taxation proposals by way of offering an alternative, has rarely gone far beyond suggesting that instead of using last year’s surplus for the payment of debt, I should transfer that surplus and so avoid the imposition of taxes. It is no use talking about taxation having a dislocating effect, as hon. members have done here. Of course it has. There is a war on. War has a dislocating effect, and we cannot have it all ways. If we are engaged in war, and if we want to pay for the war, we must be prepared to face some of the consequences of that; we must be prepared to face some of the consequences in the way of dislocation of trades and industries; we must be prepared to face the fact that industrial development will not proceed as fast as it might have done otherwise, having regard to shortage of material, to mention only one factor. In conclusion, I want to say that I do not mind people criticising our taxation proposals, but I would ask that in future it should not be regarded as necessary before you criticise the Government’s taxation proposals, always to preface your criticism with the pious remark that you do not object to taxation, and that you will give the Government more than it wants if only it takes it in another way.

Motion put and the House divided:

Ayes—52:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Blackwell, L.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Deane, W. A.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, H. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman, H.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Lawrence, H. G.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Moll, A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Pocock, P. V.

Quinlan, S. C.

Shearer, V. L.

Smuts, J. C.

Sonnenberg, M.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van der Byl, P. V. G

Van Zvl, G. B.

Wallach, I.

Warren, C. M.

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

Noes—33:

Bekker, G.

Bekker, S.

Boltman, F. H.

Bosman, P. J.

Brits, G. P.

Conroy, E. A.

De Bruyn, D. A, S.

Dönges, T. E.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Du Toit, C. W. M.

Fouche, J. J.

Fullard, G. J.

Haywood, J. J.

Hugo, P. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Olivier, P. J.

Schoeman, B. J.

Serfontein, J. J.

Strauss, E. R.

Swart, C. R.

Van der Merwe, R. A. T.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Viljoen, J. H.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Werth, A. J.

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

The Committee has to consider the taxation proposals on income tax and super tax, gold mines special contribution, trade profits special levy, personal and savings fund levy, fixed property profits tax, estate duty and customs and excise duties; and the Committee has leave to bring up a report forthwith instead of on a future day.

Income Tax and Super Tax.

The Committe proceeded to consider the proposed income tax and super tax.

I move—

1. (1) That, subject to an Act to be passed during the present session of Parliament, and to such amendments of Act No. 31 of 1941, as may be provided therein, there shall be paid as from the first day of July, 1942, on all incomes received by or accrued to or in favour of or deemed to have been received by or accrued to or in favour of all persons from any source within, or deemed to be within, the Union—
   1. (a) a tax (to be called the Normal Tax), the rates of which for the year of assessment ending the thirtieth day of June, 1942, shall be—
      1. (i) in the case of companies the sole or principal business of which in the Union is mining for gold, for each pound of taxable income, three shillings;
      2. (ii) in the case of companies the sole or principal business of which in the Union is mining for diamonds, for each pound of taxable income, four shillings;
      3. (iii) in the case of all other public companies, for each pound of taxable income, three shillings and sixpence;
      4. (iv) in the case of persons other than those referred to in subparagraphs (i), (ii) and (iii), for each pound of taxable income eighteen pence, increased by one one-thousandth of a penny for each pound of the taxable income in excess of one pound, subject to a maximum rate of three shillings and threepence in every pound: Provided that for a married person the rate for each pound of taxable income shall be fifteen pence, increased by one one-thousandth of a penny for each pound of the taxable income in excess of one pound, subject to a maximum rate of three shillings in every pound;
      5. (v) in the case of any company or person other than a company who derives any portion of his income from mining in the Union for gold, in respect of each pound of the taxable amount so derived, a percentage determined in accordance with the following formula—
         y=40-500/x
         in which y represents such percentage, and x the ratio, expressed as a percentage, which the taxable income derived from mining for gold bears to the income derived therefrom:
         Provided that the tax determined in accordance with subparagraph (v) shall be payable in addition to any tax determined in accordance with sub-paragraphs (i), (ii), (iii) and (iv); and
   2. (b) a tax (to be called the Super Tax), the rates of which for the year of assessment ending the thirtieth day of June, 1942, shall be—
      For each pound of the income subject to Super Tax, two shillings, increased by one four-hundredth of a penny for each pound of such income in excess of one pound, subject to a maximum rate of seven shillings and sixpence in every pound.

I want to avail myself of this opportunity to put a certain point very clearly. We are asked here to approve of normal income tax on persons, companies, gold mines and diamond mines. I believe that the Minister altogether, under the one heading, expects to get an amount of £27,680,000. That is normal tax on persons, companies, gold mines and diamond mines, with the super tax included. We are continually told about the “terrible” increase in the contributions made by the mines to our Exchequer in the last few years. For that reason I think it is as well to compare the normal tax on inviduals, companies and gold mines, and to take the year 1937, a year before the war, for the purposes of that comparison. Let us take the normal tax on gold mines. In the case of companies whose only or principal business is the exploitation of gold, the tax is 3s. in every £ of taxable income. If we compare that with the tax on the gold mines in 1937 we find that it was exactly the same. Consequently, in the normal tax on the gold mining industry not the slightest change has been made. Now take the diamond mines. We find that so far as the diamond mines are concerned, the normal tax has been increased from 3s. to 4s.; it was 3s. in 1937 and it is 4s. now. The normal tax on the diamond mines has therefore been increased from 3s. to 4d. And what about private companies? In 1937 the Companies Tax was 2s. in the £ and today it is 3s. 6d. So far as persons are concerned the tax in 1937 was 1s. rising to 2s. in the £ as a maximum. And now it is 1s. 6d. with a maximum of 3s. 6d.

For unmarried persons.

Oh yes, for married persons it is from 1s. 3d. to 3s. The gold mining tax has not been altered and it is still the same as it was in 1937. So far as super tax is concerned, there we do find a change, but the point I wish to emphasise is that the normal tax on persons has been increased, that the normal tax on companies has been increased, that the normal tax on diamond companies has been increased, but that the normal tax on the gold mines has not been raised by one farthing. If the mines contribute more, it is not because their normal tax has been increased, but it is due to other factors—the operations of the mines have been extended; new mines have come in, the price of gold has gone up, and there are other additional circumstances as well, but the normal tax has not been raised. I want to say this, that with the exception of the gold mines the normal tax has been increased everywhere, and the only amount which the gold mines have to contribute in the form of extra war taxation is the special contribution under the Minister’s second proposal. I should like the Minister to admit the fact that from 1937 to 1942 the normal tax on the gold mines has not been increased at all. I particularly want to emphasise that, after what the Minister said here this afternoon.

The hon. member is quite correct if he takes resolution No. 1 separately. In the matter of normal taxation there has been no change so far as the gold mining industry is concerned, but, of course, one cannot take the one resolution entirely by itself.

Then resolution No. 2 (the special contribution) is the only additional contribution made by the gold mines.

So far as new taxation is concerned, yes. The yield of the tax on the gold mines under 1 has been considerably increased but the only additional tax under this heading is the special contribution. Of course there are other factors such as the tax on foreign shareholders, the gold realisation account and the super tax which is applicable to gold mining shares. All these have to be taken into account if one wants to draw a general comparison between the taxation which the gold mines have to bear and that which other sections of the community have to bear. It is perfectly correct, however, that so far as normal income tax is concerned there has been no change in regard to the gold mines, and for that reason, that it was decided for the purposes of war taxation to take a different basis of calculation than the basis of calculation for the normal income tax. The basis of calculation of the special contribution is different from that for normal taxation, and that is why the special contribution comes under another heading. If one wants to make a real comparison one has to take 1 and 2 together.

I move—

Agreed to.

I move—

Agreed to.

I move—

1. (1) That, subject to an Act to be passed during the present session of Parliament, there shall be paid for the benefit of the Consolidated Revenue Fund, subject to such definitions, conditions, exceptions and exemptions as may be provided in the said Act, a levy (to be called the Trade Profits Special Levy), at the rate specified in paragraph (2) hereunder, by all persons deriving income from trade and having as a pre-war standard for purposes of the levy of excess profits duty under the provisions of the Income Tax Act, 1940 (Act No. 25 of 1940), an amount which is greater than the statutory percentage and exceeds three thousand pounds, in respect of—
   1. (a) the additional amount on which any such person would have been liable for excess profits duty, and
   2. (b) so much of the amount in respect of which any such person is entitled to a refund of excess profits duty in terms of paragraph
   3. (c) or (d) of sub-Section (1) of Section 11 of the said Act, as exceeds the amount in respect of which he would have been entitled to such a refund,

We want to lodge our strong protest here. We are opposed to this tax in the first place because it is a war tax and nothing else, and we say that it is not our war but England’s war, and we are not prepared to have ourselves stripped for England. But in the second place we are opposed to the tax because we feel that a tax is imposed on commerce and industry which commerce and industry cannot bear, and I want to tell the Minister that I am almost prepared to enter into a bet with him that he will be disappointed in his income. I predict that the Minister will receive less under the various sources of income this year than he expects to get.

We shall see.

Simply because the dealers refuse to work for the Government. Business places in Cape Town are closing on a pretext of giving people time off in order to play soldier for a few hours. The actual reason is that they do not want to make more profit. Professional men do not want to make a high profit, even dealers and speculators in the country refuse to work for the Government. And a third reason why we are against this tax is because we feel that there is unfair discrimination here. We have not yet heard a good reason from the Minister as to why there is discrimination. If anyone has an income exceeding £3,000 he has to hand over 6s. 8d. to the State, but the rentier gets off, and the big salaried person also escapes. I agree with the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) and other members, that if we have to make sacrifices then we should all be taxed evenly and should all be in the same boat. The Minister advanced no reason why the chairman of the Chamber of Mines, a man who, I think, earns much more than £10,000, should be exempted from this tax. Now I would like to ask the hon. Minister this. He said here that I was wrong in the comparison which I made between him and the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Mr. Fagan). If the position is to be that a salary will be subject to excess profits tax and the Minister’s income increases all of a sudden by £2,500 in one year, how then can it be that he is not subject to the excess profits tax?

I am prepared to give my hon. friend the figures.

This is a remarkable thing.

Surely I know more about my income than my hon. friend does.

If there is an addition of £2,500 in one year, or even £1,800, then he will have to pay.

My hon. friend is quite wrong. There are three years, and we can take into consideration what we lose. My hon. friend did not study the matter closely enough.

Then I take the case of the Minister of Labour. I just want to say that I did not make the comparison between the hon. member for Stellenbosch and the Minister in order to make the imputation that he acted in his own interests. I merely wanted to point out how unfair it is that a person who enjoys an increase in salary of £2,500 should not pay the excess profits tax, and the other person who gets this from a trade or profession has to pay it. But in the case of the hon. member for Stellenbosch, the Minister has amended the law somewhat in order to meet such cases. But under the law as it stood originally, the hon. member for Stellenbosch, if he had made the same additional income as the Minister, would have had to hand over 13s. 4d. in the £ on everything exceeding £1,500, while the Minister would not have had to do so. It is so blatantly unfair. I just want to say, in conclusion, that I regard this tax in its entirety as having been conceived and born in sin. We are going to vote against this tax, because it is a rotten thing.

Motion put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—53:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Blackwell, L.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W

Conradie, J. M.

De Wet, H. C.

Deane, W. A.

Derbyshire, J. G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander. A.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman. H.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys. W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Lawrence, H. G.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Moll, A. M.

Molteno. D. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Pocock, P. V.

Quinlan, S. C.

Shearer,. V. L.

Smuts, J. C.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Wallach, I.

Wares. A. P. J.

Warren, C. M.

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

Noes—31:

Bekker, G.

Bekker, S.

Boltman, F. H.

Bosman, P. J.

Bremer, K.

Brits, G. P.

De Bruyn, D. A S.

Dönges, T. E.

Du Plessis. P. J.

Du Toit, C. W. M.

Fouche, J. J.

Fullard, G. J.

Haywood, J. J.

Hugo, P. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Schoeman, B. J.

Serfontein, J. J.

Swart, C. R.

Van der Merwe, R. A. T.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Viljoen, J. H.

Vosloo, L. J

Warren, S. E.

Werth, A. J.

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

Motion accordingly agreed to.

I move—

1. (2) That
   1. (a) the levy on each pound of the amount subject to the levy shall be eight pence for each completed onetenth of the amount described in paragraph (b) which is contained in the amount subject to the levy: Provided that—
      1. (i) the levy in respect of the period of assessment ended upon the thirtieth day of June, 1942, shall not exceed six shillings and eight pence on each pound of the amount subject to the levy; and
      2. (ii) the rate at which such levy shall be payable in respect of any succeeding period of assessment shall not exceed a rate the imposition of which on the amount subject to the levy in respect of that period, would result in the payment of the levy on the aggragate of the amounts subject to the levy in respect of that period and of all previous periods of assessment at the rate of six shillings and eight pence on each pound of such aggregate;
   2. (b) the amount referred to in paragraph (a) shall be the amount by which the pre-war standard of the person concerned exceeds the statutory percentage or three thousand pounds, whichever is the greater.

Agreed to.

I move—

That, subject to an Act to be passed during the present session of Parliament, and subject to such definitions, conditions, exceptions, adjustments, and exemptions to be provided in such Act—

1. (a) there shall be charged, levied and collected annually for the benefit of the Consolidated Revenue Fund, as from the first day of July, 1942, a tax (to be called the Personal and Savings Fund Levy), on every person, other than a company, based on his taxable income for the purposes of normal tax, the normal tax payable by him, his income subject to super tax, and the super tax payable by him, as determined under the provisions of Act No. 31 of 1941, for the year of assessment ended on the thirtieth day of June, 1941, and each and every year of assessment ended on the thirtieth day of June thereafter, at the following rates—
   1. (i) a basic tax of five pounds if the taxable income for the purposes of normal tax plus the dividends of such person amounts to two hundred and fifty pounds or more for the relevant year of assessment: provided that if such person is married, and his taxable income for the purposes of normal tax, plus his dividends, does not exceed three hundred pounds, the basic tax payable by him shall be three pounds; and
   2. (ii) twenty per cent. of the normal tax payable by such person for the relevant year of assessment; and
   3. (iii) ten per cent. of the super tax payable by such person for the relevant year of assessment;
2. (b) there shall be paid from time to time to the credit of the Loan Account referred to in the General Loans Consolidation and Amendment Act, 1917 (Act No. 22 of 1917), out of the Consolated Revenue Fund, sums equivalent to fifty per cent. of the levy paid at the rates provided in sub-paragraphs (i) and (ii) of paragraph (a) (other than the proviso to sub-paragraph (i)), and sixty-six and two-thirds per cent. of the levy paid at the rate provided in the said proviso; and there shall be issued to each person in respect of whose tax payment any such sum is so payable to the credit of the said Loan Account, a special redeemable stamp or certificate for the sum so payable.

I can well understand that the Minister will find it difficult at this stage to withdraw this tax, but I want to ask the Minister, if he wants to continue with this tax, to impose it only for one year.

It is only for one year.

Then I want to ask him not to introduce it again next year. If he finds that he wants more money, let him get it by means of super tax. Let him say that a person can live decently and well in South Africa on an income of £1,500 per year. On everything exceeding £1,500 we impose a tax which rises rapidly until we practically take everything eventually. That would be something within reason. But the Minister must not impose the tax on this type of person who cannot give a penny to the State without wronging his family or himself. A single person who receives £250 must now start paying £5 in taxes. The married man also now starts paying £5 on £301. Fortunately, the Minister’s heart has become softened, and we are grateful for that. We do not reproach him in that he took into account what was brought to his notice here, and met the man with a large family. There is an abatement of £1 per child up to a maximum of £5. A person with an income of £301 and five children pays nothing.

Yes, that is so.

Now I want to say this to the Minister. I do not want to tell the House of all the misery of those poor people. The Minister ought to know of it. Those people cannot pay this tax. They find it difficult to maintain their families decently, and if the Minister wants money he must not take it from them but from people who can pay. If the Minister is going to impose a super tax from £1,500 onwards, as I have suggested, then it would be better. On that sum one can live decently. If a man’s income is higher than that we can take more and more from it, provided the State requires the money for a good object. The war is not a good object, and I am not prepared to pay for it. I am not going to publish my private affairs here, as the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) did, but if that tax were to affect me and if it were for a good purpose, I would have been prepared to pay it.

It will be devoted to the best possible object.

To be shot away through the mouth of a cannon, and to bring back maimed soldiers to our country.

To protect you.

To protect those people who want to shield behind others, and then they run away from Rommel. I just want to tell the Minister that if he does not bring about a change now—and we would very much like him to do so—then he must bring about a change next year. Do not impose a tax on the poor people which they cannot bear. If you want to impose a tax, impose it on the rich people. Take the person who pays the ordinary income tax. The Minister now adds £5, then still an additional 10 per cent. and then another 10 per cent. savings tax. I say that the Minister is adding at least 25 per cent. to the tax to be paid by a person receiving £400, and as a result of the increase in costs of living, these people cannot afford it. It is an injustice towards them. This is a tax which the poor man cannot afford to pay.

I should like to know from the hon. Minister to what extent this taxation proposal departs from what he said in his Budget speech, apart from the fact that provision is made for children. The first portion of the tax is the initial tax of £5. Now I should like to know what the Minister expects from this initial tax of £5. Then I should also like to know what the number of persons is who do not pay income tax at the moment and who will have to pay taxes for the first time as a result of this proposal. I do not know whether the Minister is in a position to reply to these three questions at the moment. I take it that the number of persons who receive more than £250 and less than the minimum for the payment of income tax, will be a considerable number, many more than the number of super tax payers. Then I want to submit that the administration costs involved in collecting this tax will be out of all proportion to the actual amount which will be collected. It is not as in the case of the existing taxpayers where we have already created the machinery in order to obtain particulars regarding their income. We are dealing here with a new class, people who were not income taxpayers, and I should like to know what the number of persons is who will now have to pay this tax, who earn between £250 and the amount which is fixed as the minimum for the payment of income tax.

The people to whom this tax will be applicable did not pay taxes in the past, and this tax will clash with the social welfare of South Africa. We are dealing here with people who receive a meagre income. They have to pay taxes and they have to buy savings certificates which they can sell at a later date at 18s., which means that they will again be paying taxes. I say that this runs counter to a very important section of our national welfare. I ask the Minister not to continue with this measure. The whole trouble arises from the fact that the Minister and the Government did not have the com-age to introduce a simple tax, a tax which clearly and frankly stated that if his income increases, the person concerned will pay more. If that had been done, the Minister would not have been faced with the difficulty of having to tax these lowly-paid people. We asked the Minister last year to give us a simple tax so that people will start paying super tax sooner, and under which the super tax would rise more rapidly. The Minister must, of course, fix the amount which he requires to carry on the government of the country, and according to the amount he requires he must impose taxes. At this time, of course, he must have money for the war which his Government declared. But he can find this by means of a fixed percentage on income and a sliding super tax, but for some reason or other, or perhaps for ten or twelve reasons, he is not prepared to do that. Let the Minister frankly admit that there are private interests on the other side which makes the Government reluctant to claim a fair share from certain sections in the country. Let the Government introduce a sliding super tax so that everyone who earns more than £1,500 will pay a fixed sliding tax. It is right that the country should know that the Government is not prepared to claim taxes from those who can pay, and who have even more than they know what to do with, and that it is taxing people who cannot afford to pay these taxes. Those people who cannot pay are taxed, and people who possess more than they require are protected. The Minister should have levied a simple tax as we suggested here, and he must do away with all these various taxes which he is levying, and which are so burdensome in the case of people earning a small salary. At this stage, even, I ask the Minister to abandon this tax and to introduce a simple tax so that the people who earn most will also pay most.

I also want to avail myself of this opportunity to make an appeal to the Minister of Finance, and the appeal which I want to make is that which I have already made on a previous occasion, and which has again been made to him by this side of the House, and that is that he should not impose a tax on the section of the community which suffers the greatest hardship at this time. In imposing taxation we have previously made a concession to people with families. We allowed £100 per child, and we tried to exempt the person with a meagre income so far as possible. But now the Minister is introducing a tax which will be a heavy burden to the man with a meagre income, and even with regard to those who formerly paid income tax, it will mean that they will have to pay 25 per cent. more. We are not properly looking after that section of the community. Those people who derive the best and the biggest advantage from the country should pay the biggest taxes. That is what we feel. At the moment there is an increase in the cost of living, and people who earn a few hundred pounds find it extremely difficult to maintain their standard of living. It is those very people who are going to suffer under these taxation proposals. I ask the Minister to take his tax into review so that it will affect to a greater extent those people who can pay the tax, and who derive the biggest advantage from the country. This tax which is levied is levied against the will of the people, and we ask the Minister to introduce an alleviating measure which will give greater consideration to that section of the people which can afford less to pay taxes.

I want to associate myself with hon. members who spoke before me, in making an appeal to the Minister to take this tax into review. He will pardon me if I tell him that he has not the moral right to impose this tax. On the 4th September, 1939, the Prime Minister gave this country the assurance that the point at issue was not active participation in the war; it was merely whether or not we would retain our friendly relations with Germany. Here the Government is now taxing the poor people to such an extent that in the present circumstances they are not in a position to pay that tax. We must not forget that this class of person suffers under the increased cost of living. Now the Minister is still further increasing their burdens. It is remarkable to me that members on the other side can get up and plead on behalf of persons with an income of £5,000 per annum. The hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. Bell) did so. But not a single member on the other side stood up and objected to this tax. I regard this as the most unfair of all the taxes before us, and I want to make an appeal to the Minister to take it into review. We cannot get away from the fact that this tax affects those people who, if they want to maintain any reasonable standard of living at all, will be affected more heavily by the war position at the moment. I want to ask the Minister to consider this matter.

I just want to reply to the questions put to me by the hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges). In the first place, he asked to what extent this proposal departed from the proposal originally introduced. The proposal is precisely the same as the proposal introduced on the day of the Budget. I have, of course, given notice of an abatement in respect of children, but that is not included in this, because the proposal which is made is subject to such adjustments as are allowed in the Act. Provision will therefore be made in the Act for an abatement of £1 per child.

Is that the only difference?

For the rest the resolution is precisely the same. With regard to the estimated revenue, I can tell him that the original estimate was £640,000, which comes principally from income taxpayers, of course, and also partially from people who did not originally pay income tax. I estimate a number of persons in the last-mentioned class at 60,000. Of course, as a result of the abatement, the income will be less than the estimate, apparently by an amount of approximately £200,000. I do not know whether that is the information which my hon. friend wants. Furthermore, I just want to say with regard to the tax in general, that I am of opinion that we were very fair in this matter. At the moment, our taxation notch where the lowest tax is paid, is fairly high. I do not think that it is unfair to cast the net a little wider. We have made a concession with regard to children, and since that has been done I hope the House will be prepared to accept this proposal.

I just want to put a question. An abatement of £1 per child is given. Is that only on the last portion?

It will be divided.

If a person has an income of £301, he has to pay £5 under the Act. Assuming he has five children.

Then he pays nothing.

And if he has two children?

Then he pays £3. That will be a tax of £1 10s., and £1 10s. for the savings fund.

I just want to know this from the Minister. These savings certificates are bought, and I take it that they will then be transferable.

No, the money in respect of it can be drawn.

When?

After six months.

And then the person gets 18s. in the £. That means that the poor man who actually needs the money will have to pay this tax, while the rich man who can pay will not pay it, but will draw interest. The person who draws his money after six months will not receive the full amount, but only 18s. in the £. He has to pay a tax of 2s. in the £ because he is poor. The rich man does not pay it.

It is an incentive to save.

If he has no food, if he cannot maintain himself, his wife and his children properly, then he will draw it, and he will then pay a tax of 2s. in the £, while the rich man will not do so. It is simply an additional tax on the poor man. If a person can save money, then he will save. But if he has not sufficient food and clothing, then we cannot expect him to save, and in order to get back his money after six months it will cost him 2s. in the £. That does not encourage thrift. It is simply a tax, and it is a tax on the poor man, because he will be compelled to draw his money, whether he likes it or not.

According to what the hon. the Minister has said, 60,000 people will now have to pay taxes who did not pay income tax before. They will now have to pay a personal tax which they did not pay before.

May I just explain that point? These additional people who will now pay tax are none the less all Provincial taxpayers at the moment. Consequently they are not entirely new taxpayers, and the machinery exists today for the recovery of taxes from them. The hon. member doubted whether the revenue would be worth the cost of recovery. We have the machinery, and it is easy to collect this tax.

I wonder if the Minister can tell us how many income taxpayers there are at the moment?

There are about 100,000 Union income taxpayers.

Then the Minister is now including nearly two-thirds of that number as new taxpayers, that is to say, as Union taxpayers? These are people on the lowest scale of incomes, people earning less than £400 per year. They have to be gathered in now and to start paying taxes, and they are not paying on a graded scale of, say, £250, rising to £400, but on an arbitrary point, namely at £300 they turn over on £1 to £2 10s. At £299 a man pays £1, at £301 he pays £2 10s. There is no equity in this tax, particularly if we take into account the fact that the people who are going to be effected by this are the poor who already suffer most as a result of the increase in the cost of living. The Minister has now selected 60,000 people of that class for the special tax. As the Minister said, they are already paying Provincial tax. That already is a heavy burden on them, but now they are to be further taxed, and the amount which the Minister is going to get by taxing them is £440,000. Is the game worth the candle? There is going to be a lot of administrative work in regard to the collection of the tax, even though the machinery is there; 60,000 forms will have to be made out and scrutinised. Cannot the Minister get this amount of £440,000 much more easily by making the highly paid people pay a little more, by adding something to the super tax or to the mining taxation? If the Minister, who is now putting up the special contribution from the mines from 18 per cent. to 20 per cent., were to put it up to 21 per cent., he would get more than the amount he is now going to collect from the poor. The country should realise that the Minister is selecting 60,000 of the lowest paid people in the country for this additional tax. I am sorry the Minister of Labour is not here. He should realise what the implications of this tax are going to be on social welfare. The Minister of Commerce and Industries should know what the effects are going to be when we bear in mind that we already have this ever-increasing tempo in the rise in the cost of living. We know that wages after a period of lag always follow the increase in the cost of living. First of all, there is an increase in the cost of living, and then afterwards one gradually gets an increase of wages. It is the people who find it very hard to make both ends meet who are going to be effected by this tax. I think the Minister is doing the wrong thing in putting on this tax.

I am glad that the hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) has dealt with this point because I want to emphasise that the people who are going to be affected most severely by this are those people who are taxpavers already. Those people who have to pay this extra tax are already paying £2 5s. 0d. in provincial taxation. I believe that is the amount. They are the people who pay on an income of £250, and now the Minister comes along and on top of it all puts on a further tax; in addition to that they have to pay their municipal taxes and in the Cape their divisional council rates. They have to pay their insurance premiums. The Minister is now taxing a section of the community which really cannot bear it. I wonder if the Minister can realise what the position is of those people who have an income of £250 per year. It is going to hit the salaried man particularly hard. He has no opportunity of putting by a few pounds, but he has to pay tax on his income of £250. Surely he has to try and put something away for a rainy day. He has to put something by in the event of his death, in the event of his leaving his wife and children behind. He has to insure his life. How can those people bear tins extra tax which the Minister is now going to impose on them? I want to plead with the Minister even at this late stage to raise the line from £250 to £350. If we go on like this, and there does not seem to be any other prospect, the Minister will have to come along again next year with fresh taxation proposals, and if at the very start he already taxes the poor man as heavily as he now proposes doing, what is going to be the end? I feel that the Minister is making a serious mistake. He is going to hit those poor families very hard. They are already suffering great hardships. The Minister prehaps does not realise it but those people are suffering severe hardships in their attempts to educate their children. I am making an appeal to the Minister in the name, and on behalf of all those who are going to be affected by this tax, and I ask him at any rate to increase the amount to £300 or to £350.

Motion put and the Committee divided.

Ayes—53:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Blackwell, L.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie. J. M.

Deane, W. A.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, H. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman. H.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Heyns. G. C. S.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper. E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Lawrence. H. G.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate. C.

Pocock, P. V.

Quinlan, S. C.

Shearer. V. L.

Smuts. J. C.

Sonnenberg, M.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

Warren, C. M.

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

Noes—32:

Bekker, G.

Boltman, F. H.

Bremer, K.

Brits, G. P.

Dönges, T. E.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Du Toit, C. W. M.

Fouche, J. J.

Fullard, G. J.

Geldenhuys, C. H.

Hugo, P. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Lindhorst, B. H.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Naudé, S. W.

Olivier, P. J.

Schoeman, B. J.

Serfontein. J. J.

Strauss, E. R.

Swart, C. R.

Van der Merwe, R. A. T.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T du P.

Viljoen, J. H.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Werth, A. J.

Tellers: J. J. Haywood and P. O. Sauer.

I move—

1. (1) the profit realised by any person on the alienation for any consideration of—
   1. (i) immovable property referred to in paragraphs (a) and (b), or
   2. (ii) any share referred to in the said paragraphs in any company which is a private company as defined in sub-section (3) of section 33 of the Income Tax Act, 1941 (Act No. 31 of 1941) and whose income, in the opinion of the Commissioner, is or will be mainly derived, either directly or indirectly, from immovable property or dealings in immovable property,
      which was acquired for any consideration; and
2. (2) so much of any amount which accrues to any intermediary in respect of any such alienation as exceeds five per cent. of the consideration for the immovable property or shares, as the case may be, alienated,

at the following rates:

In the case of any such alienation of immovable property or shares, as the case may be, acquired—

1. (a) on or after the first day of October, 1939, but before the twenty-sixth day of February, 1942, six shillings and eight pence; and
2. (b) on or after the twenty-sixth day of February, 1942, thirteen shillings and four pence,

We are naturally also opposed to this tax, and there are a few points on which I want to reply to the Minister. Particularly arising out of what the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman) said, the Minister remarked that there was a drop in the property market at the moment. I am prepared to admit that that is the case in certain parts of the country, but what is the reason for it? The reason is that the Prime Minister has done his best to create a feeling of panic in South Africa in regard to the possibility of a Japanese attack. In places like Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg, the large centres of this country, one gets people who are afraid of the yellow danger, and they are nervous of owning property here. The only reason for the present position is that the Prime Minister has done his best to create a feeling of panic, but the slacking off which has come about in the property market is not the result of this taxation proposal. What does happen is this: People want to sell their property at a profit of £100. For instance, I have a property and I want to make £100 profit. It means then that I have to make £200 or £300 profit so as to leave me this £100 clean, because the Government takes two-thirds of my profit. The position is that the property market at the moment has not yet quite fitted itself into the price level. But the result of the step taken by the Minister is going to be a rise in the price of property, houses and land. That I am convinced of. Every letter I receive goes to confirm that fact. At the moment there is a certain degree of hesitation in the property market, largely because the people have been scared by the Prime Minister, and also because those people who at one time would have been prepared to sell their property with £100 profit now want to make a bigger profit, so that they will retain £100 net profit, and the property market has not quite fallen into line yet, but there is one thing I am convinced of, and that is that there is going to be inflation in the price of property. And what is the amount which the Minister expects to get from this tax? I want the Minister to realise the position. It is not the speculators in land who are the great danger, but there is a danger that many people at a given moment will be looking for a safe investment for their money. The Minister knows that at the moment there are some £20,000,000 or £30,000,000 lying idle in our banks. The people are prepared for the time being to leave that money there without it earning interest, because they are unable to decide what is the best thing for them to do in present circumstances; whether it is better to have the money, or whether it is better to have property, but if the slightest danger arises of a further drop in sterling taking place, and if the Minister keeps us tied to sterling, so that our money will also drop, a panic will be created among the public and people will then invest that £20,000,000 of £30,000,000 in fixed property. They will all buy at the same time then, and whatever the Minister may do the prices of property will go up then. The only thing the Minister will achieve by this tax is that the honest man is going to be caught, but he is going to turn 90 per cent. of the people into crooks, and an Act which does a thing like that is a bad Act.

You are talking very much like a champion capitalist lately.

When the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) should have been here to plead the cause of the poor man he ran away. We are pleading here for the man who is unable to get a house today. One cannot rent a house at the moment. If the less well-to-do people want a roof over the heads of their families they have to buy. We object to the poor man, who wants to buy a house for his family, first of all having to put £200 in the Minister’s pocket, and that is what the effect of this proposal is going to be.

You are shifting your argument completely now.

Assuming you have a house in Cape Town; you want to make a reasonable profit on that house—say £50 or £100. Now the Minister comes along and says that if you sell that house he is going to take two-thirds of the profit. The man still wants to make his reasonable profit of £50 and he is entitled to it, but in order to make that £50 he actually has to make £150, and then he has to give the Minister £100 of that £150. So the poor man who wants to buy the house has to put £100 in the Minister’s pocket, and that is what the hon. member over there wants now.

But surely it is the seller who is the cause of that.

The poor man will have to pay. Some people are really too stupid to understand the most simple thing in the world—if they don’t want to understand it. If the poor man wants to buy a house today he has to make the Minister a present of £100. Does not the hon. member understand that?

You are now pleading for the speculators, the greatest enemies we have ever had.

I believe that there is a slight misunderstanding in regard to the instance which I mentioned here this morning, and perhaps the Minister also misunderstood the position. I know of the special case of a farmer who bought a farm for £10,000. He paid £2,000 in cash. Now he wants to sell this farm for £13,000. The Minister takes £2,000 of this £13,000 and the man keeps £1,000. The position is quite clear. The man had £2,000 cash to put down, now he makes a profit of £3,000, and the Minister takes £2,000. Does not the Minister realise how terribly unjust this is? It is true that man did indulge in a slight speculation, but he did not actually buy the farm for the purpose of speculating with it. I want the Minister to realise that this taxation proposal, so far as the farming population is concerned, is nothing but a land tax. If the Minister were to tax other speculators as well I could still understand it, but why must the man on the platteland be specially selected? Why must the farmer be selected, because it is the farmer who is going to suffer from this tax?

I really cannot understand the hon. member at all.

Now let’s hear what you have to say.

If a calf is hungry it roars every time it sees its mother. At one time I really used to think that the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) had some sympathy for the poor man. This new method of taxation proposed by the Minister is to my mind the most effective he has introduced throughout the whole of his career. Let us see how this tax is really going to work. It is going to affect the very type of man who is responsible for these high house rents, for the high prices of houses and of plots of land which the poor people need. If we cast our minds back to 1930 and 1932 we find that large numbers of plots on the Witwatersrand and elsewhere were issued for sale. Now what happened? Speculators bought up large areas of land, the prairie value of which was at the utmost £2 10s., and they cut the land up into plots. Do hon. members know what those plots were sold for? They were sold for £150, £200 and even £300 per morgen. Those are the people whom hon. members opposite are now pleading for. There are many people on the Witwatersrand who are employed on the mines and elsewhere, and as soon as they get a chance they buy a plot with the object of putting up a house when they have the opportunity. The prairie value of the land was £2 10s. and now the poor people, for a plot of five acres, have to pay as much as £100 or £200 per morgen. They have to pay through their noses and these big speculators are making unheard of profits, and those are the people the hon. member for George is pleading for.

What is prairie value?

Hon. members opposite come here now and tell us that the poor people who want to buy houses will have to pay these tremendous prices as a result of this taxation proposal of the Minister’s, but what is the cause of it all? Who is responsible for the poor man having to pay a higher price?

The Minister, of course.

Hon. members opposite are always trying to make us believe that they are pleading the cause of the poor man, but when it comes to political schemes they try to dip their hands very deeply into the pockets of the speculators. Even at the moment those people are engaged on buying up huge tracts of land which at the utmost are not worth more than £5 per morgen.

You had better get back to your circus.

I wish that poltroon on the other side would allow me to bring an argument to their notice. They don’t want me to have a reasonable opportunity to upset their arguments. I was saying that those people were buying up large tracts of land which are not worth more than £5 per morgen. That land is cut up into small lots and sold at £130, £140 and sometimes £150 per morgen. The people who buy the land are the poor, the railway workers and the poorly paid civil servants, who cannot manage to get hold of a house in any other way. And now the hon. member for George says: “Let these poor people pay £200 for their plots of land.” When I heard of the Minister’s taxation proposal I said at once that if ever he had done a good thing he was doing so now in getting at the people who had made these terrific profits. By doing this he is going to tax these land speculators, but I am surprised at the hon. member for George wanting to play into the hands of these big men, of these speculators. I hope that people who are interested in the matter will not be so stupid as to allow themselves to be misled by the distorted arguments of hon. members opposite, because let me tell them that this proposal will enable the less well-to-do people to buy a small house and a plot of land at a reasonable price, and the speculators will not be able to make their 2,000 per cent. or 3,000 per cent. profit. That apparently is what the hon. member for George and his friends want, but by imposing this tax the Minister is putting an end to it. They will no longer be able to make these huge profits. Why I say that this proposal comes at a good time is because large areas of this land have already been bought up, and if the Minister had not imposed this tax tremendously high prices would have been asked from people who need that land. If there is one type of tax I can recommend it is this one. If those people want to buy and sell let them make a reasonable profit, but hon. members opposite have nothing to go on— these are instances of land having been bought for £5 per morgen and sold for £100 or £120 per morgen. I hope that people who are interested in this are not going to allow themselves to be misled by hon. members opposite. Let hon. members there go on pleading on behalf of the speculators. We know that when they are dealing with the farmer they tell us that they hate the middleman, but where the speculator is concerned my hon. friends are quite satisfied to stand up and plead for the interests of the speculators.

I don’t want to reply at any length to what the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. Van den Berg) has said. I hope I shall be able to differ from him in this respect, that I shall only repeat my argument once. Nor do I want to talk about the poltroons he spoke about. As a man who has taken part in a circus he naturally knows more about poltroons than anybody else in this House, but his argument amounts to this: a man goes along and buys land in the neighbourhood of a town, land which has an agricultural value of £5., I believe the hon. member called it prairie value.

Don’t you know what prairie value is?

No, I don’t but of course I am not as thoroughly bilingual as the hon. member is. Then he buys the land for £5 per morgen and he cuts it up into erven— the hon. member spoke of plots, but I take it he meant erven. And then he sells the erven for £100 or £120 per morgen; and the hon. member objects to that. For once in his life he was quite right. We also object to that. And we particularly object to people charging too much for that land, but now the hon. member says that this tax which the Minister now proposes is going to improve the position. He says it will improve the position so far as the poor man who buys that land is concerned. Now, what is the position? The speculator sells an erf and he has to hand two thirds of the profit to the Government. Let us assume that he makes £100 on each Erf, but with the tax on these erven he can only make a little over £33. Is that not so? The hon. member does not answer, he does not know.

Tell me, will you still be so keen on buying such large tracts of land?

The speculator is no longer satisfied with £33 because he had expected to make £100 on his Erf, so he says now: “I am not going to sell the Erf at the old price; if I do I shall only make £33 profit where I expected to make £100 profit. I am now going to increase the price to that I can still make my £100 profit, and the man who buys it will have to pay the tax.” So we now have the position that the tax will have to be paid by the purchaser. If you put on a tax it is paid by the speculator there would be no objection to it, but what we do object to is that it will not be the speculator who will pay that tax but the man who buys the Erf, and what we want to do here is to protect the interests of the poor man. We still want him to be able to buy that Erf at the same price as he used to buy it at before. We want the tax to be put on the speculator.

Tell us how you are going to do it?

Is it our duty to do that? Call in a doctor and the doctor will give you a prescription; if you are dissatisfied with your own doctor call us in and we shall tell you how to do it, but no doctor gives a prescription until he is called in.

I am afraid that if you have to give the prescription all of us will die.

We are not only talking about the position in regard to erven, but we feel that right throughout the result of this tax is going to be that the purchaser will have to pay it, and the seller is going to safeguard himself against the tax by putting it on to the buyer.

I must really correct my hon. friend. He should realise that if this tax is imposed, this process of buying up land will not be able to continue. Why would those people continue to buy up land if they knew that they would not be able to make such a large profit on their sales?

[Inaudible.]

Hon. members must please give me a chance. When hon. members on this side of the House want to speak they make such a noise that one cannot possibly carry on. What speculators would still be keen on buying up that land and on getting money out of those people to whom they used to sell? This sort of thing has been one of the greatest evils, not only on the Witwatersrand, but also on the platteland. I think the hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth) will support me when I say that years ago the whole of the Zoutpansberg district was bought up for 1s. 6d. per morgen. Large companies bought up the land at that price. They then sold it to the farmers for 15s. per morgen. Those people bought the land at a price which was so high that they are hardly able to make a living on it today, as a result of the huge profits that were made. While we are imposing taxes on enterprises where they can be imposed, for heaven’s sake let us catch those people who make these huge profits. I am one of those who said that the mines and Barclays Bank were making huge profits, but the land speculators are making even greater profits, and have been doing so for a long time. To come and talk of this tax as a land tax is a distortion of the truth, because it is not a tax on land; it is a tax on the unheard of profits made by the speculators. I am surprised to notice that hon. members opposite, who in many constituencies represent small farmers, don’t get up and say that the Minister is not catching a type of man who has always got off scot free, and who has always made a profit out of all proportion. Hon. members will at once agree with me that this idea of buying up a whole district will now be stopped once and for ever, and the man who will now buy land is the man who wants to live on it, or to farm on it—not the man who buys it for the purpose of speculating. I wonder if hon. members know how many morgen of land are today in the hands of the Land Owners’ Association? Do they know what it is? Two years ago the Land Owners’ Association owned 10,000,000 morgen of land.

And they are not going to pay this tax.

Does not my hon. friend understand the position yet? They hold 10,000,000 moreen of land, two-thirds of the Orange Free State, and if a poor man wants to buy any of that land he has to pay terrific prices for it. Don’t hon. members understand that? I always imagined that hon. members over there knew all about the interests of the poor, and particularly of the poor farmer, but I am beginning to realise that they must study things very, very carefully before they can say anything about the interests of the poor.

The hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) has been posing here as a champion of the poor, but I want to ask the hon. member where he was fifteen minutes ago, when we were voting on a matter closely concerning the interests of the poor? The hon. member hid away then. He was here, but he did not have the courage to come and vote. There he proved that he really had no sympathy for the poor man. And then he wants us to believe that if this taxation proposal is passed less ground will be cut up into erven; in other words, there will be less ground available for erven, or the prices of the existing ground will be higher. If the hon. member is in earnest, let us test him. I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister, and I want to tell him that he is not going to stop inflation by the imposition of this tax. He is not going to prevent the price of fixed property going up by this proposal of his. For a few weeks after his statement on the 26th February nothing happened in regard to the sale of fixed property, but that is not the position today. What is the reason why people want to get hold of fixed property today? They are worried about the value of our currency. Now, I want to make this suggestion to the Minister. If he wants to prevent inflation let him make a statement in this House that if sterling drops any further he will release us from sterling. That is the only way to help the poor man. Now, I want to ask the hon. member for Krugersdorp if he will be prepared to support us if we appeal to the Minister to release us from sterling if sterling goes on dropping further?

I shall give you my answer by and by if I get the opportunity to do so.

He dare not answer.

I am going to answer you.

The hon. member dare not answer us, because he is compelled to vote as hon. members opposite do. I want to ask him whether he will vote with this side of the House if a motion to that effect is introduced? We do not ony expect him to make a statement, we want him to act, and not merely to speak. We know this so-called advocate of the interests of the poor man—we know him only too well.

They draw double salaries.

Yes, the hon. member for Krugersdorp also draws a double salary; they vote for this tax, but the hon. member is not in his seat when we discuss a matter and vote on a matter which affects the interests of the poor man. I want to ask the hon. member—I want to ask that great advocate of the interests of the poor man, to prove by his deeds that he really stands for the poor man’s interests. Now, I again want to tell the Minister that he is not going to achieve his object by means of this tax. What he is going to achieve is that the real crook will get past, and the man who is not cute enough will be caught. The crook who is up to all the tricks of the game is not going to be caught by this tax, and that is why I want to ask him to follow the right course if he wants to stop inflation, and let him tell us what policy he is going to pursue.

I want to tell the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) very clearly that if the Minister comes here today and proposes to restrict the profits which anyone is allowed to make on the sale of property—if the Minister makes such a proposal, I shall support him.

Will you please repeat that?

I say that if the Minister proposes to keep the profit which anyone is allowed to make on the sale of property within reasonable bounds, if he introduces legislation to do so, then I shall support him.

Will you explain what you mean by restriction of profit? If the State tells you …

You have made your speech; you cannot make another one now; give the hon. member a chance to finish.

This proposal does not impose any restriction on profit. On the contrary, it compels the man who would have been satisfied before with a reasonable profit, to make twice as much profit now, so that in the end he may keep a reasonable profit for himself and give the rest to the Minister. Unfortunately, we can do no more than bring this very simple fact to the notice of the hon. member for Krugersdorp. If the Minister steps in and at a time like the present imposes a restriction on the amount of profit an individual may make on the sale of property, especially on dwelling-houses, I shall support the Minister. But now the Minister is not only compelling the reasonable landlord to try and get a reasonable profit for himself; over and above that he has to try and make twice as much profit so that he may give the Minister the balance. I now tell the Minister that within twelve months he will see the value of property throughout the country going up to an unheard of level.

After what the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) has said, I should like to make this suggestion, and I hope he will reply to it, namely, that we should protect the poor man and only try to get hold of the profits made by the rich man. Now I want to test the Minister and see whether he is prepared to help the poor man and not only the rich man. Assuming a man has £2,000 and the income he derives from that is only £100. If the Minister fixes that man’s capital at £2,000 or £4,000 or £5,000, or whatever it may be, let him say then that only what the man makes over and above that will be taxed. I feel that if the Minister would consider that suggestion we would at once cut out the poor man, and he would be able to make a reasonable profit. If the Minister fixes the capital amount at £4,000 or £5,000 it will still allow the poor man to make a profit, and I do not think the Minister would begrudge the poor man that profit. You do not always have the chance of building up your capital, and if an opportunity presents itself the Minister should help the poor man to make a little profit. Let him only take the poor man’s profit over and above a certain figure. Now let me say this to the Minister: The hon. member for Krugersdorp is very much concerned about the land and the erven bought up round about towns and villages by land companies. I may be wrong, but I understand that those companies have already designed a scheme to evade the provisions of the Act. They are now selling their land on the instalment system.

The lawcan make special provision for that.

In terms of this proposal now before the House I do not believe that the Minister can put his Act into operation before transfer has been given, and I understand that these companies are now not giving transfer.

Yes, we know all about that, and we shall deal with that.

In the third place I want to make an appeal to the Minister, and I want to ask him whether he is going to take into account the improvements made to a property, and whether he is going to take into account costs of transfer and legal costs?

The hon. member will see all that in the Bill. I shall do that.

I am glad to hear it.

Motion put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—54:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Blackwell, L.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

Deane. W. A.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, H. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman, H.

Hare, W. D.

Fourie, J. P.

Hayward, G. N.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphrevs, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Lawrence, H. G.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Pocock, P. V.

Quinlan, S. C.

Shearer, V. L.

Smuts, J. C.

Sonnenberg, M.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

Warren, C. M.

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

Noes—31:

Boltman, F. H.

Bosman, P. J.

Bremer, K.

De Bruyn. D. A. S.

Dönges, T. E.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Du Toit, C. W. M.

Fullard, G. J.

Grobler, J. H.

Hugo, P. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Lindhorst, B. H.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Schoeman, B. J.

Serfontein, J. J.

Strauss, E. R.

Swart, C. R.

Van der Merwe, R. A. T.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Viljoen, J. H.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Werth, A. J.

Tellers: J. S. Labuschagne and P. O. Sauer.

I move—

Agreed to.

Customs and Excise Duties.

The Committee proceeded to consider the proposed customs and excise duties.

I move—

That, subject to the provisions of an Act to be passed during the present session of Parliament and to such rebates or remissions of duties as may be provided for therein—

Agreed to.

I move—

Agreed to.

I move—

1. (a) ready for smoking in tobacco pipes or in the form of cake, plug or stick; or
2. (b) in the form of cigars or cigarillos, at the rates set forth hereunder—

Agreed to.

I move—

I would like to say something in regard to the licence fees. You get a distillery which has more than one still. I want to move—

In other words we make it 5s. for the distillery which has more than one still.

I have no objection to that.

Amendment put and agreed to.

I want to object to this extra tax on petrol. I would like to point out to the Minister that every session we have come together there has been an extra tax on petrol, and on this occasion his excuse for imposing the additional tax was that we will now use less petrol. Is the Minister then of opinion that because petrol is being controlled the public is being rendered a service thereby? Does he think that because there is a reduction in petrol supplies the public is being rendered a service? He now wants to give us to understand that because we get less petrol we are better off and that we can pay more taxes. That is what it amounts to. If you have less petrol you have to suffer as a result of it in many cases. It seems to me that the Minister assumes that since there is a reduction in petrol the public is being rendered a service, and for that reason he can impose a higher tax on the petrol which is used. I again want to point out that the motor car is no longer an article of luxury. The poorest man is dependent on his motor car. I go further, and I want to add that it is the platteland especially which is being affected by this tax, because there we find the person who has no other alternative. In town people can use the bus, the train and other facilities, but the person in the platteland is the one who has to use his car. I want to point out to the Minister that if the person in the platteland to whom 400 miles per month is allowed—that is, 21 gallons of petrol—uses it every month, then he pays an annual petrol tax of no less than £12. Apart from that, we find that the motor fuel which is manufactured in the Union is also being taxed more severely. I merely want to say that I lodge the strongest protest against this additional tax on petrol.

I would like to know from the Minister what his object is in imposing this petrol tax. Is it his object that less petrol should be used, or is it his object to get less income?

To get more income.

I may be wrong, but I think that the Minister said in his Budget speech that in view of the fact that less petrol will be used, this additional tax can be paid. But whatever the Minister’s object is, I want to ask him whether he realises that he is imposing a tax on the farmer in this case, especially on the farmer and to a lesser degree on other persons. I do not know how the petrol position will develop in the ensuing months, but I know that the Prime Minister will induce the Minister of Finance, if petrol becomes less, to stop joy rides altogether, but will not allow the farmers’ petrol to be curtailed in any circumstances, unless it becomes absolutely necessary. I do not know whether the Minister of Finance knows it, but we cannot farm without petrol today without reducing the yield of the country tremendously for a few years at any rate. We no longer have trek animals. It is not only a question of ploughs but also of conveyance of our produce. If that is a fact, and the Minister dare not deny it, then it amounts to this, that the Minister is imposing a tax on the farmer alone in this case. I want to make an appeal to him not to impose this tax on the farmer, and to protect the production of the country. Since the Minister has got so far as to curtail the use of petrol for pleasure purposes, I want to point out to him that in the platteland farmers live miles and miles from the nearest town. It is not unusual for a farmer to live 50 or 80 miles away from a town. I was in the north-west and in areas the other side of Kuruman the price of petrol was as high as 3s. 4d. per gallon. That is absolutely too high for these people to be able to afford it, and I want to suggest that the Minister should have a fixed scale—that we should apply the principle of a flat rate. We already have that to a certain extent in the case of mealies. Mealies are conveyed at the same price over long and short distances, so that the townsman can get the benefit. I have nothing against it, but since that is the case, I want the Minister to realise that there are areas where an enormous price has to be paid for petrol. In imposing this additional tax the Minister will curtail production immensely, and he is doing an injustice towards people who reside far from towns. There are times when they have to go to town, perhaps to go and fetch the doctor, or even to make purchases, and those people are taxed very heavily in comparison with the townsmen, who can make use of the train, the bus or the tram. I can give the Minister the assurance that the reduction of petrol consumption in the towns is to the advantage of the townsmen. They are no longer using as much as they did in the past. He taxes the farmer heavily, however, because the farmer still has the full use of his lorry. The Minister is not satisfied, however, to allow the farmer to use this petrol for production. He applies the tax generally. I want to ask the Minister in all seriousness to consider whether he cannot repeal this tax, or at any rate not to apply it to the farmers.

I am sorry that I cannot comply with the request which my hon. friends on the other side made. The position is this. Petrol is rationed in the case of everyone, and that means that everyone should try to save in the use of petrol.

But that is done.

If that is so, then it means that everyone uses less petrol, and everyone ought to be in a position to pay more for it. There will, of course, be cases of hardship. We can never hope to eliminate all cases of hardship. If petrol is used for agricultural purposes, then I would be inclined to exempt it, but it is impossible to do so. We cannot make a difference between use for farming purposes and use for other purposes, or we shall have to have an official at every pump station and at every farm. In practice it is quite impracticable. I am sorry, but I cannot comply with that request.

I want to associate myself with the appeal which was made to the Minister to consider the question of applying this proposal more lightly to the platteland. Under the existing system of rationing, it is extremely unfair towards people who live in distant areas. I want to mention a case to the Minister in order to prove that. Under the existing system we find that a farmer may live 50 miles from town or from the nearest petrol station. He cannot fill a drum and take it away with him. Every time his tank is empty he has to drive to the same pump in order to fill it. The Minister will agree with me that that is in conflict with the words he used just now. He told us that it is a national matter to save petrol. Why then does he compel the farmer to use his petrol needlessly in this manner. He has to travel 50 miles to the petrol station, and in doing so he wastes a good portion of his petrol. I want to submit to the Minister that he should so alter this system that the farmer, for example, can buy a drum of petrol which can be delivered by bus.

It is not a question of tax, but of rationing.

I realise that it is a question of rationing, but that applies to the farmer whom the Minister proposes to tax, too. If the farmer has to travel 50 miles in order to fill his tank, then the tank is half empty when he reaches home. That is altogether wrong. I realise, however, that this does not really fall under this resolution, and I am prepared to leave the matter at that, in the hope that the Minister of Finance will find some method of meeting the farmers in that respect. But then I want to make an appeal to the Minister of Finance, since farming is largely dependent upon motor transport, to see what steps can be taken with a view to meeting the farmers in so far as petrol is concerned. It is necessary, in the national interests, that the farmers should have petrol at their disposal for transport and other farming purposes. I want to suggest that the Minister should go into this matter in order to see whether this unnecessary use of petrol, to which I have referred cannot be eliminated. It would be a great concession if he could help the farmers in connection with this matter, so that their petrol can come by bus. Even if the same quantity is given to them, they should be allowed to take that petrol with them to their farms and to use it there.

Since the Minister admits that this tax will bear heavily on distant areas, and that he would have discriminated if it were possible, I want to tell him that, although I realise that this is a difficult matter, he should nevertheless take it into further consideration. He should endeavour to fix a scale where there will be a maximum, so that the farmers in distant areas will not be prejudiced as they are now being prejudiced. Although this does not fall directly under this vote, I hope that the Minister will try to do something for those areas, and it will be greatly appreciated.

I move—

Agreed to.

When the House adjourned yesterday evening I was pointing out to the Minister of Posts how he could get hold of the secret broadcaster. We believe that the Minister can get hold of him, and also that he can get information from the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister in regard to it. We brought it to the notice of the Minister of Posts that a certain Haupt tries to place shares for the paper “Vryheid”, and he uses the name of Mr. Louis Esselen. We further told the Minister how the Union Unity Fund finances the paper “Vryheid”. We went further and told him that the people who were responsible for the collection of funds and who were the trustees of the Unity Fund, included none other than the Minister of Lands himself, and also other members on the other side. I went further and referred him to a gathering in Cape Town, where the hon. member for Springs (Mr. Sutter) made a speech to the insurance companies which have their headquarters in England, in order to collect funds from them for the Union Unity Fund, and when he said, inter alia, that the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister approved of the collection of those funds. We went further too, and pointed out that documents were sent overseas, in which were stated what they wanted to do with the Unity Fund. I further quoted in order to show how the funds of the Union Unity Fund were to be used, inter alia, to erect a broadcasting station outside the borders of the Union. They said that they wanted to go even further and get their own literature or magazines in order to oppose the policy of neutrality in South Africa. The peculiar thing about that document is that they say that they dare not vote money for it in Parliament. Listen what is said here—

Then the summary follows, and, inter alia, it is stated that they want to erect a radio station outside the borders of the Union and that they want to get a magazine. That is the paper “Vryheid”. Since the Minister is making a search, I want to tell him that he can go to Mr. Haupt, to Mr. Louis Esselen, whose name is being used, and then to the Minister of Lands. He can go even further as far as the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister, and then I think that he will be well on the track of the secret sender. The saddest feature in connection with this is that the most scandalous and filthy things one can conceive are broadcast. I wonder whether the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister has listened to the language which is used? He must remember that this is being supported by people who sit on the other side. [Time limit.]

I want to address a few words to the Minister of Posts in connection with the so-called secret sender who cannot be found. I want to refer the Minister to a notice which was put in the “Sunday Times” to the effect that after a fixed date the secret sender would again operate. I thought that when a newspaper inserts an advertisement it is compelled to have the address of the persons who insert the advertisement. I thought that if the Minister wanted to do his duty he could have got hold of the names, but he sits here and simply shrugs his shoulders and says that he is very sorry that he does not know where the secret sender comes from, and that it is impossible for him to find out. I just want to tell him that he must be very lax, and his department must be very lax, and not only must his department, but the secret service of the Government must be very lax if they cannot discover this. We complained about it a year ago already, and as the hon. member for Albert-Colesberg (Mr. Boltman) said just now, the Union Unity Fund was established. Its object was to make propaganda, and that propaganda is also made through the secret sender. I do not listen to such scoundrels as those used by the secret sender. The meanest and lowest language which can possibly be used is used by them towards the leaders of this side of the House. But the Minister sits there with folded arms and says that he knows nothing about it. It is one of those secret senders who are despised not only in South Africa but throughout the whole world. Anyone who broadcasts such things secretly can be nothing but a scoundrel. What is still worse, is that there is a member of this House who associates himself with that secret sender, and who practically acted as his agent here. I understand that the hon. member for Rosettenville (Mr. Howarth) asked here yesterday evening why I did not contradict the secret sender when he said that I had received a certain sum from a German Minister in order to make propaganda against the Government. Let me immediately tell that hon. member that I do not associate with scoundrels, and for that reason I do not reply to scoundrels such as those people of the secret sender. They are what the English call “guttersnipes.” What hurts me is that a member of Parliament can get up here and practically associate himself with this secret sender, because what other object could he have had in getting up here and repeating the accusation made by the secret sender? It is only in order to create suspicion in the minds of the people against me. I say that we expect that only from a cad and not from a respectable member of Parliament. I rise in order to deny this, and I challenge that hon. member to say outside the House that I received money from a German Minister, or any German, in order to make propaganda against the Government. If he does not do so, then in my opinion he is a coward.

Order!

He makes accusations on the floor of the House which agree with the accusations of the secret sender, accusations which the hon. member is not prepared to repeat outside, but which he makes here under the protection of the House. He says that here because he knows that nothing can be done to him here. I must take it that he is an agent or an associate of the secret sender. I must express my surprise that the Minister and his department have not yet put an end to this. Publicity was given to the matter in the “Sunday Times,” and the Minister could certainly have found out who were behind this thing. But it suits the Government and the party on the other side, and for that reason they shrug their shoulders and say “We cannot find the secret sender.” It is clear to me that the Government associates itself with this filthy propaganda, and for that reason a member of this Parliament comes here and says, “Why did you not deny this?” Must we deny what any filthy creature says in this country while we do not know who it is? They told me—I do not listen to such filthy things myself—that any member on this side who does not agree with the Government is defamed and blackened by the secret sender in the evening, that things are said against people on this side of the House which cannot be proved. I want to warn the Minister to take steps so as to put an end to the secret sender. I want to go further. The Government will not always be in office, and when the time arrives when we get into power, then we shall take the most drastic steps and the most extreme steps against those people. The sooner that secret sender makes himself scarce and crawls out of South Africa, the better for him. The Minister cannot shrug his shoulders and say that he does not know anything about the secret sender and that he cannot find out anything. The Minister, with his big department and with the detectives at his disposal, cannot tell me that he cannot find out where the secret sender is. And you find people on the side of the Government who agree with the besmirching and blackening of people in South Africa, and these are the people on the other side who still talk of co-operation, and who beg us to help them in their war effort. Will we help them if we are besmirched in this manner and they associate themselves with it? You are engaged also in making future co-operation in South Africa practically impossible. I again deny, with the greatest contempt, the accusation which was made against me, and I challenge the hon. member for Rosettenville to make this accusation against me outside the House. That will be the last accusation which he will ever make.

Mr. Chairman, I heard what the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) has said, as far as I am concerned, and as I am not the coward that he seems to think, I am on my feet immediately to reply. In the first place he accused me of being associated with the freedom station. I brought this matter up after three virulent attacks had been made by leading speakers on the Opposition side against the freedom station. Mr. Chairman, there is a little bit of the essence of sport in this matter, because the freedom station people are not here to defend themselves, so I thought I might get up and defend them myself.

Sportsmen don’t repeat scurrilous things like you did.

Mr. Chairman, may I now deal with the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) who is interjecting again? I would like to repeat to the House what that hon. member said yesterday. When he was speaking about the freedom station the hon. gentleman said it was the most filthy radio station in the world, and he went on—

Mr. Chairman, he was immediately called to order by the Chair. Then he went on—

He was again called to order by the Chairman, but he went on—

It is a filthy thing, and you associate yourself with it.

He also said yesterday that the freedom station was putting across deliberate lies and besmirching the character of members on the Opposition side of the House. Mr. Chairman, I want to read to the House what the freedom station broadcasted throughout South Africa. They sent over the air a speech made by the hon. member for Humansdorp and if the freedom station is prepared to broadcast a speech delivered by the hon. member for Humansdorp in this House in toto, I do not think the hon. member can complain. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad associates me with the freedom station, but I must associate the hon. member for Humansdorp with that station.

Talk sense.

The hon. member for Humansdorp will not be able to deny these allegations. This is a speech which was delivered in this House on the 15th March, 1938, against the hon. member for Wolmaransstad, who was then the Minister of Lands. The whole speech was broadcast by the freedom station. The hon. member said in March, 1938—

What has that got to do with the filthy propaganda of the freedom station?

These are the scurrilous lies that are said to be coming from the freedom station. The hon. gentleman, the member for Humansdorp, said …

Order. I would like to remind the hon. member that when he repeats anything which is unparliamentary or scurrilous towards another member, he must be taken as having said it himself. He must not cast reflections upon the conduct or character of a member of Parliament.

This is a speech which was delivered in this House, Mr. Chairman, when the Speaker was in the Chair.

Order, order! I have given my ruling.

But, Mr. Chairman, I want to quote from this, it is reported in Hansard here.

Order. The hon. member must not make imputations against another hon. member and by repeating or quoting what has been said he is making such an imputation.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, is the hon. member not entitled to read what another hon. member has said in this House against another hon. member?

Not if it reflects upon the character or conduct of an hon. member.

But, Mr. Chairman, the Speaker was in the Chair when this speech was delivered.

The hon. member must accept my ruling now.

[Inaudible].

I don’t want to deal with the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. van Nierop). Conceit is God’s gift to little men.

You should know.

Mr. Chairman, I am sorry I cannot carry on with this, because a very violent attack has been thrown across the floor at me, and I have been asked to go outside now and repeat certain statements which I made in this House. Actually all I said was that it had come out of the freedom station, and I wanted to know whether the hon. member would refute it. That was all I said. I certainly made no reflection at all.

Oh, yes, you associated yourself with it.

I am apparently erring in quite good company. This was an attack made by the hon. member for Humansdorp on the hon. member for Wolmaransstad, and if such an attack had been made against me I don’t think I should be able to live it down. But now we have the hon. member for Humansdorp appearing as Protector No. 1 for the hon. member for Wolmaransstad, after having delivered that extremely virulent attack on him in 1938. I am extremely surprised at that. [Time limit.]

I am not rising to reply to the hon. and very gallant member for Rosettenville (Mr. Howarth). I want to address a few remarks to the Minister. I think the Minister has had rather a bad time during the last day, and I would just like to sum up the position as it is at the present moment. The Minister has been attacked chiefly on two grounds, and the first was in regard to the appointment of people to the post office. I thought that he would have given a more full reply to that, but the few words that he has said have not in any way vindicated his action, and have not in any way minimised the import of the remarks he made in the Senate. In that Senate he very distinctly stated that he was not going to employ people who came from surroundings that were hostile to the Government. If he now comes and says that by “hostile to the Government” he only means people who are trying to blow up the Government with dynamite, that, Mr. Chairman, is a very far-fetched story indeed. “Hostile to the Government” has only one meaning in South Africa, and that is that people who have it have different political convictions from those of the hon. Minister. In other words, it is his policy and the policy of his department, and it is going to remain their policy, to appoint people as far as possible who are supporters of his Government. People who are opposed to the Government have very little chance indeed of being appointed to positions in the postal service. The other charge against the Minister was that he has failed completely in his duty to South Africa to stop the criminal offence which has been perpetrated by the existence of the freedom radio station. It is a criminal offence in South Africa for any unlicensed person or organisation to have a radio station inside the Union. This so-called freedom station has been operating for a considerable time. The Minister knows if he consults his technical staff that it is one of the easiest things in the world, and if you have the necessary apparatus which we have in South Africa, to detect the whereabouts of such a station. There is no difficulty whatever, so the position is that he has been able to locate that station at any time that his staff wanted to do so. If he had given them the order to locate the station they could have located it within two or three days, but not the Government of to-day. There have been people outside prepared to bring the necessary information to the Minister, so that he can lay hands on the people who have been operating this station, or who are very closely connected with it. He has refused co-operation from this side of the House, in other words he says he does not want anybody to help him to put an end to this station. Well, he has come here with a very weak story that people who could have given him the necessary information are associated with newspapers and the editors of those newspapers have refused to divulge the names of these people. That is a very weak story. There are thousands, or at least hundreds of people in South Africa who are put in prison because they refuse to give evidence under the Emergency Regulations. The Government has forced people to give evidence, and why has the Minister not used this power to detect this criminal offence in South Africa? I merely state these points to show not the inability of the Minister to detect this offence, because there is no inability, but the fact that he does not want it detected.

You are wrong there.

I shall tell you why. This freedom station is not a sporadic thing, it is part of a large organisation the funds for which have been collected under the patronage of the Prime Minister, and other hon. members on that side of the House. This freedom station is being financed by funds under the control of one of the colleagues of the Minister in the Cabinet. That is the position, and Mr. Chairman, his colleagues in the Cabinet and his colleagues in his party won’t let him put a stop to that. But, Mr. Chairman, the attacks on this freedom station have become so violent, and the class of stuff which is being spread by this station all over the country, has so disgusted the whole population that for tactical reasons the freedom station has closed down for a fortnight or a month to save the face of the hon. Minister and his colleagues who are controlling that station. I am perfectly willing to accept the Minister’s words that he hates the stuff that is being put over, and I am willing to accept that if he had a free hand he would put a stop to it in two or three days. But he dare not do it because his colleagues in his Cabinet, who control the funds, and who are supporting this freedom station, will not allow him to do it. This freedom station is not a sporadic station, something on its own that starts here one day and is somewhere else the next, but it is part of the organisation of the so-called Unity Fund, it is part of the propaganda of that organisation, and the Minister will not put a stop to it not because he does not want to, but because his colleagues will not allow him. I am glad that the hon. Minister hates it and is ashamed of it, I would be ashamed of it myself. But while he is ashamed of the freedom station he should also be ashamed of the friends in his own party.

I want to deal briefly with the remarks of the last speaker. He says that there are two points in connection with this discussion, and the first is appointments to the post office. He must know that I, as Minister, know nothing about the applicants until they are finally passed and come to be for formal signature. I tried to explain to the hon. member and to the House the procedure that is adopted. He quoted remarks that I made in the other place, and in reply to him I was quite frank and stated that, although the interpretation he placed upon what I said was perhaps a reasonable one, it is not the interpretation that I intended should be put upon those remarks. I also said that of the people who are joining the service, 80 per cent. are Afrikaans speaking. He accuses me of influencing the appointments that is absolutely absurd, absolutely ridiculous. These appointments are made in the usual way, and the postmasters are the ones who consider the suitability or otherwise, and fill up the necessary certificates. I want hon. members to accept that. Another hon. member wanted some assurance from me that people in the post office who hold different political views to my own, would not be prejudiced. Well, I say without hesitation nobody is being prejudiced in the post office; I don’t know the political views of anybody, but what I do demand, and what I insist on as Minister, and insist on the senior officers carrying out, is that we expect our officials to be loyal and carry out instructions given them faithfully. There have been a few instances where we have had difficulties, but only a few, and we have dealt with them departmentally. I don’t know the political position of anybody in the post office who comes forward for promotion. Now, let me say a word in connection with this freedom station. I have always been against this freedom station, and I have reports in connection with the matter with a view to its being stopped. The hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Olivier) made a statement in the House yesterday, and I want him tomorrow to go to the Postmaster-General and give him the information he gave to this House.

You have it on record.

I am not here to do your work.

You are here to tell us who told you.

Why don’t you ask the “Sunday Times”?

I informed the hon. member yesterday that as soon as that advertisement appeared in the “Sunday Times”, they denied all knowledge of it, and there is a letter from the “Sunday Times” saying that they know nothing about the person who put it in.

What about your regulations?

What about Senator Conroy?

I have no hesitation in saying that he has no time for this freedom radio station.

Tell that to the marines.

Tell us another.

I am telling you what is the fact. The hon. member over there referred to the Unity Fund as being mixed up with this. I know nothing about it, and they would repudiate it if I went to see them. I cannot go any further in connection with it. I have told the House, and I repeat it, that we are going to avail ourselves of the information already volunteered here, and I appeal to any other hon. member who may have some information to give it to us, and it will be used.

Why did you say you did not want help from this side?

I may have to come to you for help.

May I point out to the Minister that, in spite of his protestations today, his attitude from the beginning, from the time the matter was raised by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. Tothill), his attitude has been most unsatisfactory. It is no good his coming here to tell us today that he is as much against it as we are; the hon. Minister knows, his attention has been directed to this transmitter again and again. I asked last night, and I want to repeat what I said then. I asked whether at the time this matter was brought to his attention by the member for Bezuidenhout, he had instructed his department to take the necessary steps, and he replied that he was advised that this was done. One would have expected that the Minister would immediately have taken steps himself. We on this side of the House regard this as a most serious matter. Hon. members on the other side have been treating it with a certain amount of levity, and I can only say it is one of the most scandalous things that has happened in the public history of South Africa. We find members on that side treating it with a considerable amount of levity. Not only have we the fact that an unlicensed transmitter is operating, making political propaganda, and putting over the air vile and filthy stuff, in which the character of members on this side of the House are besmirched, but we have the hon. member for Rosettenville (Mr. Howarth) and other members on the Government side, associating themselves with it. If hon. members treat a matter like this with levity, they do not realise the seriousness of what is happening; they do not realise that this is a blot on the fair name of South Africa, and when the Minister is asked to act as he has been repeatedly, he has done nothing. If this radio station had been operated by the Nationalist Party, making propaganda against the Government. I am convinced that within a comparatively short time the Minister would have located it. But, as the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) said, the Minister dare not act, because this is being controlled by the Unity League, and this filthy stuff is being put over by them. The people who represent that organisation have filthy minds, and if our suspicion is correct as to the person who is directing it, we know that he has a filthy mind. The Minister is prepared to condone it.

I don’t condone it. I condemn it.

The character of the Leader of the Opposition has been besmirched by this radio station, and hon. members on the other side laugh when we raise this question here. I say it is one of the most serious things that has happened, and I hope in the interests of the fair name of South Africa the Minister will be able to stop it.

There is one thing I would like to say, I do not believe a syllable of the scurrilous attack made upon the hon. member.

I spoke about the radio news yesterday and I urged the Minister to do something with a view to improving the morning service. I maintain that the news which we set in the mornings is not worth anything. It is hopelessly onesided and incomplete.

I wanted to raise a few points in connection with the radio service. I want to ask the hon. Minister to use his influence with the Radio Board, if possible, to bring about a change so that we can get a better news service both in English and in Afrikaans. I am thinking especially of the platteland. In the towns we have our newspapers, but in the country there are no newspapers, and I want to point out that the English section of the community does get a fair summary of the news from London at a quarter past eight, which is relayed here, but the Afrikaans speaking section in the platteland frequently does not know English very well, and that news service is consequently of little value to them. For that reason I want to urge strongly that we should get an Afrikaans news service in the moning. I know that the programme will have to be changed, but I think that provision can be made for us to get a proper news service in Afrikaans. Then I again want to say something in connection with a complaint which I made here regarding the telephone service from the Rand to Pretoria. When I spoke on a previous occasion I pointed out that there is a tremendous delay in getting through from the Rand to Pretoria on the public telephone. Private telephones are not really installed now, with the result that many people have to make use of the public telephone. Now I want to ask the Minister this. If you telephone Pretoria from a private telephone in Johannesburg, you dial your number direct, insert the money in the slot, and then you talk. Cannot that be the position too when you telephone from Pretoria? The private telephones on the Rand connect right through to Pretoria. If all the numbers had had to be got through the medium of the girls who work at the Telephone Exchange, it would have been a different matter; but if you dial from a private number in Johannesburg you simply put the figure seven before the number and then you get the Pretoria number. I want to ask whether we cannot connect Johannesburg direct from Pretoria on the public telephone too, insert the money in the slot and then carry on with the conversation? I want to ask the Minister whether something cannot be done in that connection. Then there is another question which I want to put to the Minister. I know the Minister will tell me that this is war time, that there is a shortage of material and that it may involve extra costs, but I want to assure him that many people object to the fact that natives and Europeans have to use precisely the same telephone in many cases. There are many cases where that position does not obtain, but there are more cases where that is the position. It is everything but pleasant. The telephone boxes can also be improved very much. But you have to go into precisely the same box where very often a native has just come out. Well, I know that we have fairly civilised natives, but we also have other natives who are not altogether of a desirable type, and who have just recently had the receiver against the ear when you have to use the telephone. You are perhaps in a hurry and you have to use the same speaking-tube and the same receiver. I hope the hon. Minister will see to it, since the Department of Posts is not too badly off with regard to finance, that we get a separate box for natives and a separate box for Europeans.

The hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) told the Minister yesterday that he apparently expected that his vote would be accepted very soon because he could not give us any money for improvements under his vote. But the hon. member said that the Minister was mistaken because we were after his blood. I am afraid the hon. member for Humansdorp is wrong because we cannot even draw blood from the Minister. He sat here and listened to the speeches, to all the challenges, and there was absolutely no reaction on his part. He did not even consider it worth while to reply to all the representations which we made to him. If I have to judge by his external signs, he felt fairly anxious. Certain challenges were made to the Minister. I do not know whether his interpreter was perhaps not good enough and did not inform him of everything, but we sat here expecting that the Minister, as someone who occupies a responsible position, would indicate to us that he will accept those challenges and carry out his duty as Minister of the Crown. Not only challenges were made to him by this side of the House, but a challenge was also made to the Minister by this so-called freedom sender himself. I think the Minister knows that. I think he told us today that he and the Minister of Lands really did not like this thing; but after having listened to the hon. member for Rosettenville (Mr. Howarth) this afternoon, we think that he has certain members on that side of the House who swallow everything which that sender broadcasts. If the Minister did not listen to it carefully I just want to refresh his memory, and I want to remind him of the challenge which was made to him by the sender.

I think the committee had enough of that.

This is altogether a new point. I want to ask the Minister if he did not listen in, or one of his friends who has such a good knowledge of these matters, when the freedom sender said on a certain evening that he had ascertained that Minister Clarkson wanted to put a stop to the freedom sender. He asked all his listeners to take a piece of paper and to draw a “V” on it.

I received about 3,000 of them and committed them to the flames.

We are very glad to hear that the Minister, too, is now committing the “V” signs to the flames. I want to ask the Minister whether he received the signs which the freedom sender asked his listeners to send him. He asked his listeners to turn the “V” sign upside down and to draw a line in the middle and then to send it to the Minister. We understand that he received about 10,000.

3,000.

Assume that it is 3,000. The Minister says he committed them to the flames. The fact that 3,000 of these upside down “V’s” were sent to him shows the Minister, as a responsible person, how many people listened in to this freedom sender, and the question now arises why the Minister is constantly refusing to carry out his duty as Minister. He knows how many people are today behind internment camp wires merely on suspicion. Here it is not a case of suspicion. In this case criminal contraventions are being committed. Why cannot the Minister call these people to account? He has the power to do so. We can only come to one conclusion, if the Minister refuses to call these people to account, and that is that he does not do it because he dare not do it, because he is afraid of certain of his friends; and when we see how that side of the House reacts—no one stood up to defend him—we are not surprised. The Minister himself did not tell us what he was going to do. He tells us one story here and when we put questions to him he tells a different story. The first time I put the pertinent question, whether he was still busy with this matter. He replied that he was investigating the matter. Is that the truth, or is it the truth that he is now waiting until the sender comes on the air again? We feel that if the Minister wants to be worth his salt, he must not exclaim in despair that he will come to us for assistance. I am now expected to go to the Postmaster-General and do the Minister’s work. I am not the Minister.

You are not getting his salary.

I would rather have seen another in the place of the Minister.

Will you not give me this information?

I gave the information over the floor of this House. It is recorded in Hansard. I asked the Minister in the first place whether he would receive information, and his reply was “no.”

What must the Postmaster-General do if this person simply denies that he said anything of the kind? That is why I asked you to give me the names of the people who said this.

I said that you could go to all the advertising firms and all the big businesses in Cape Town. You need not seek very far; and I can tell you now that the Minister need not even use the powers which he has under the Emergency Regulations in order to get the information if only they are asked for it.

[Inaudible].

I wish that hon. member would rather keep his silence. He never says anything; he only sits here the whole evening and whines. We want to know why the Minister should shield behind other hon. members. Why should we personally give this information to the Postmaster-General? The Minister is the head of the department; he must do it; or who is the actual head?

The Postmaster-General.

My hon. friend says that the Postmaster-General is the actual head of the department. It seems to me, too, that that is the case. Here we have the Minister who has to apply a certain policy; we give him information and then he wants us to convey the information to the Postmaster-General. The Government is doing its best to get people in gaol who do not share their views, but in this case where a criminal contravention is committed, nothing is done. The Minister gets up in this House and devotes barely seven minutes in replying to the speeches on his vote. We have shown beyond doubt that the Union Unity Fund and the paper “Vryheid” and the freedom sender are all three linked up, and that people on that side of the House and even colleagues of the Minister of Posts are on the management. I want to know whether the Minister cannot clear himself of that charge. Or is he not going to call to account these people who committed this contravention? I know of people in Cape Town, for example, who did not pay the £1 licence fee for their wireless set. Those people came forward with it themselves. They were not caught out. [Time limit.]

I want to discuss for a moment the question of the opening of our letters by the Censor, and I want the Minister in this House to give an account of his system, or of his views.

But the Censor does not come under this vote; the Censor comes under “Defence.”

But surely it is the Post Office which opens the letters?

It comes under “Defence.”

The Post Office authorities also open the letters without the Censor.

The Post Office officials open the letters, and surely they are under the Minister’s control? May I be allowed to put that question to the Minister?

On a point of order, that is the very matter which I also want to discuss. I want to draw your attention to the fact that when we wanted to discuss this on the Defence Vote we were told that it was a matter falling under the PostmasterGeneral.

The hon. member was not present when I raised the preliminary objection. I have nothing to do with censors. It is not on the vote and I have no control over the censoring of letters.

I am bringing up a matter on which I think there has been a certain amount of misunderstanding—I raise this matter with a certain amount of reluctance also, but this afternoon you, Mr. Chairman, ruled me out of order, and I feel possibly there was some misunderstanding. I was reading from a speech by the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) delivered in this House on the 15th March, 1938, and I said that that speech had been broadcast by the freedom station. The freedom station has been attacked by the Opposition, and although I was accused …

Is the hon. member raising a point on the ruling I gave earlier today?

I feel there was a misunderstanding about it.

The hon. member cannot discuss the point now. He should have done it at the time if he wished to.

May I proceed? I should like to go on with the speech which was quoted in this House on the 15th March, 1938, by the hon. member for Humansdorp —it is a speech which was broadcast by the freedom station.

Does the hon. member suggest reading from the same speech on which I stopped him this afternoon?

Actually I am …

Order, order.

Am I allowed to reply to you or not?

Not to the ruling I gave.

Am I allowed to reply to your question?

The hon. member may put his case.

Unfortunately you are quite correct that I am going to continue giving extracts …

The hon. member must observe my ruling.

Then may I have Mr. Speaker’s ruling on this?

No, the Chairman maintains order in Committee of the Whole House and I have given my ruling.

May I have Mr. Speaker’s ruling, because I feel …

Order, order!

Try again.

On a point of order, the hon. member wishes to quote from a speech which was referred to on the freedom radio.

Order, order! I have ruled clearly that the hon. member could not repeat anything which would constitute an imputation or a reflection on an hon. member. The matter cannot be further discussed.

Very well; then I shall leave it out.

You have got to.

I don’t wish to re-open this question, nor is it necessary for me to defend the Unity League, but one thing I want to say, and that is that remarks have been made in the Press and elsewhere where prominent men on our side have had to stand a great deal—all I can say is that it is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. A great deal has been said against men on this side, and we have said nothing; we have let it go. Now, I just want to say this: Certain remarks have been passed about the personnel of the Post Office. In my constituency I have had a good deal of experience of the work of our Post Office, and very excellent work they have done, and I just want to express my mede of praise to these young ladies and these temporary men who are working in the Post Office, for the excellent work they are doing today. I can say this, that I have in my constituency both Afrikaans and English speaking people, more English speaking than otherwise.

Shame!

But I can say that the administration of the postal authorities is excellent. I am a man to whom everyone comes in this particular place, and let me tell this House that there is no trouble there; there is no racialism there. A mede of praise must be given to these people, to the Minister, the Postmaster-General, and the staff, for the excellent manner in which they are carrying out their duties. In regard to the other matter which hon. members over there have been discussing, it is no good stirring up mud. We know what we are up against, and the less said about it the better, because if we wanted to kick up a row and say to hon. members opposite what they have said about our Leaders and about our big men—let me tell them that we would have quite a lot to say.

We vainly waited this afternoon for an hon. member on the other side to get up to express his disapproval over the broadcasts of the secret radio. We expected hon. members on the other side of the House to get up—not to defend us, but to express their disapproval. The hon. member who has just spoken is under a wrong impression. We have no objection to hon. members on that side attacking us on political matters, even about the radio which is now being used for political purposes, but what we do object to and there I challange the hon. member to show us any instance where we have ever publicly attacked a single hon. member’s character on that side of the House. What we do object to is that our leaders are attacked in public, not on political matters, but that the characters of our leaders are publicly dragged through the mud. Why we feel this all the more, and why we think that hon. members over there do not want to reply—and the Minister can ask the Prime Minister about it—is because the knights of the truth have sent out a circular letter. The Prime Minister is the Chief of the Knights of the Truth. The Knights of the Truth have sent out a circular letter to their leaders in every area in which they have asked their people to collect money for a secret transmitter which would shortly start broadcasting. I should like the Minister to ask the Prime Minister whether this is so or not. I put that question to the Prime Minister and he did not deny that it was so. Now I want to ask the Minister what connection there is between that secret broadcast and the secret transmitter for which the Khaki Knights have been collecting funds? We on this side of the House are not in the least afraid of their political machinations; we are not afraid to be criticesed, but what we do take exception to, and there we have to express our strongest indignation, is that not one single hon. member on that side of the House has got up and said that he disapproved of the characters of members on this side of the House, members who sit in the highest Councils of the people of South Africa, being belittled. We feel this all the more when a person like the hon. member at the back there gives the impression that he approves of what has been said over the wireless. It is an honour to us if hon. members opposite try to belittle us politically. Our ancestors were accustomed to be belittled by people who wanted to treat the Boer Nation with contempt and who wanted to destroy the Boer Nation, but the character of the Boer is second to none, no matter which nation a person belongs to. We are not allowed in this debate to discuss the Censorship of our letters, because according to the ruling laid down by the Chairman the censorship does not come under the Department of the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, but there is a reason for it. If the Post Office did not have a military chief it would not have happened. But for that, what has now happened would never have happened. I want to ask the Minister whether he approves of the PostmasterGeneral also occupying a high military position, even if it is only on the home front. Does he approve of the head of the Post Office occupying a military position? He knows that in war time if a high military officer issues an order, his officers have to obey him, and this means that the Postmaster-General will go over the head of the Minister. Why has the Minister approved of the Postmaster-General also occupying a military post? We now have the results of that situation. Letters are being opened and letters disappear. The Minister tells us that he has no say in the matter because it comes under the Department of Defence, but none the less it is the Postmaster-General who is responsible for these things. No, we want the Minister to be the real head of his Department, however good or however bad he may be. Letters are now getting lost; we approach the head of the Department and we ask him what has become of those letters. He simply tells us that it does not come within the scope of the work of the Post Office and that we must approach the military Authorities. Whether those letters come under censorship or not I have a pretty clear suspicion of what happens to them. I want to tell the House that large parcels of pamphlets from the Junior Nationalist Party are lying in Johannesburg. They are kept in the head office there. It is not only pamphlets that are lost At Somerset West the Nationalist Party sent out pamphlets which have never yet been delivered. Where are we to go with our complaints? Are we to go to the Post Office, or must we go to the Military Authorities and complain there? I want to ask the Minister to see to it that the Postmaster-General sticks to his work. If he wants to occupy a military post, by all means let him do so, but then let the Minister appoint somebody else as Postmaster-General, otherwise he must stick to his work as the head of the Department of Posts. I also want to tell the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs that we expect a little more from him than simply to try and get his vote passed and play up to us in regard to the grievances of the people outside. Those grievances and those complaints are mainly caused by the way the head of the Postal Department has been carrying on. And the Minister should do a little more than simply try and smooth us down—he should do something more in regard to getting those complaints dealt with. If he wants to get rid of those complaints it is his duty to act as the head of his department, and to take steps instead of simply trying to smooth us down. Hon. members opposite are to a very large extent responsible for the way matters are conducted in the Post Office; they are largely the cause of the Minister being unable to carry out his ideas in the Postal Department in the way he has explained them to us. He is not allowed by them to do so. Let me tell hon. members over there that we do not mind their attacking us politically, but they, with their secret transmitter, are attacking our character. How would hon. members opposite like it if they were treated in that way, if they were attacked personally, and if we did not disapprove of such tactics? They should remember that the pendulum swings, and if we get into power and their characters are besmirched, what will they think of it if we do not express our disapproval and put a stop to it?

There is a pendulum which swings, and there is a cock which cannot crow.

I am talking to people of character, but hon. members opposite do not disapprove of these things. They approve of them. We want to appeal to the Minister; if he really wants to take steps he has the power to do so. What would the whole world think of the Government if the enemy had a broadcasting station in our midst, and the Government of the country could not even find out where that broadcasting station was? What would other countries think of a thing like that? Yet the Minister comes here and tells us that this particular broadcasting station is there, and it is besmirching his fellowAfrikaners—perhaps I should not say his fellow-Afrikaners—it is besmirching the character of Afrikaners, but he does not know where the station is, and he cannot find out where it is. The hon. member who has just sat down gave the Minister the necessary information. He also told the Minister where he could get more information. “Barlow’s Weekly” even published the names of people who were connected with it. I want to ask the Minister once and for all to put a stop to these scandals which the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) showed up so clearly in his own language. I want him to stop these things, so that the Afrikaner can be safe in his own country.

It is difficult for us to appreciate why the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. Van Nierop) should be so sensitive about this freedom station. I don’t know whether his name has ever been broadcast from there, but if so he might tell us what his complaint is. Has he perhaps heard any home truths from the freedom station? Hon. members opposite profess to know all about this radio station, and perhaps those hon. members will consult their intelligence department and likewise tell us how Zeesen gets its news. The hon. member for Mossel Bay may be unduly elated by the fact that Zeesen broadcasts his name. We have never heard any word of protest from him or any other member from his side of the House when the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister has been villified by Zeesen night after night. The hon. member for Mossel Bay should thank the freedom station, for on one occasion they broadcast news about the part played by the leader of the Ossewa Brandwag when he assisted in suppressing the rebellion. He was at Mushroom Valley when General De Wet’s son was killed. That information was denied at one time, but it has since been admitted, and members opposite are now making use of that information in their campaign against the Ossewa Brandwag. [Interruptions] I come now to the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer). I don’t wish to flatter the hon. member, but it is recognised that he commands biting sarcasm, his use of invective is powerful, and he excels in vituperative.

Vituperation.

I have not on more than or two occasions listened into this freedom station. When I did listen in there was nothing to which any sensitive member could take exception. There was on one occasion an appeal to the leader of the Afrikaner Party which could not in any way wound the tender susceptibilities of any hon. member. But, Mr. Chairman, we have now heard that the station has shown such bad taste as to broadcast speeches made by the hon. member for Humansdorp. If that station did broadcast the defamatory speech made by the hon. member on the 15th March, 1938, then I find myself in entire agreement with the hon. member for Humansdorp, because nothing could be more scurrilous and nothing could show worse taste. The hon. member for Humansdorp is therefore perfectly correct if he criticises programmes broadcast by the freedom station, and if he castigates those programmes as filthy, and for once in his life I think he has placed himself in his true perspective. Before I leave the hon. member, I remind the House that he has challenged the hon. member for Rosettenville (Mr. Howarth) to repeat outside the House what he said here this afternoon.

I did? I have never taken any notice of the hon. member for Rosettenville.

I want to ask him, is he prepared to repeat the speech he made on March 15th, 1938, about the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) outside this House? In conclusion, I would remind him of the fact that political expediency brings together very strange bedfellows.

I hope it doesn’t bring us together.

I want to ask him whether his defence of the member for Wolmaransstad tonight is justified in view of the attack he made on him in 1938? Either he was false to the hon. member then, or he is false to him tonight. He can have it whichever way he prefers. Mr. Chairman, a lot has been said by way of criticism of the work of the Postmaster-General’s department, but there is no doubt that the service of the postal department is one which the country can justly be proud of. They deliver millions of letters, they perform millions of acts for the pubilc, and it is a matter for congratulation that in spite of every effort made by members of the Opposition to dissuade postal officials from their loyalty, to induce them to cut wires or interrupt communications, the Post Office is functioning very efficiently. That is a matter for great congratulation. There are, however postal officials who are called upon to overwork themselves, and some of them are very poorly paid. I know of a case where a pay-clerk handles about £100,000 per month and only receives a mere pittance in salary. These employees are called upon to do responsible work out of all proportion to the remuneration they receive, and I think an effort should be made to raise the standard of the lower paid officials. If there is one department in the service which is giving of its best, it is the postal department. Before I conclude I feel that the case of the unestablished official again deserves mention. These are officials who were at one time employed by the service, but who resigned and were subsequently taken into service again. They are regarded as unestablished, and though they do technical and responsible work, they are not paid according to the scale of salaries applicable to other employees. I think the time has come when justice should be done to these employees and that they should receive remuneration according to the class of work that they perform.

I want to put up a plea in connection with the opening of letters. I want to do so because I want to put the position perfectly clearly before you. The Minister has told us that he has nothing to do with it, but may I be allowed to point out that the staff of the Board of Censors …

The hon. member cannot go into that now.

We are voting the salaries of the officials of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs here, and their’ salaries are also included.

The Minister has explained that that has nothing to do with this vote.

It is an important matter.

Order, order!

Very well, then I shall proceed. I wanted to appeal to you and ask you to change your ruling.

If the hon. member casts a reflection on my ruling, he has to withdraw that.

What did I say that I must withdraw?

I heard what the hon. member said.

I think you are under a misapprehension, Mr. Chairman. The hon. member was trying to adduce arguments for thinking that you should change your ruling.

I wanted to argue that we are asked to vote the salaries of these people here, and that that is why we should be given the opportunity of discussing their actions here.

Order! The hon. member cannot proceed to deal with that matter, and I hope it will not be necessary to call him to order again.

Very well, thank you. Then I want to deal with another matter. We have been told that it has been the Government’s policy to carry on with essential services. The Minister of Finance also told us that essential services would not be interfered with. The extension of the telephone service is something absolutely essential at the moment, and I want to know from the Minister why he has put a stop to that extension? I can quite understand that he cannot proceed with the extension on a large scale, but he has completely stopped the extension, and I want to know from the Minister why he has done so? I can tell him that there are certain parts of the country where promises have been made that there would be an extension of the telephone service, that telephones would be put in. Let me refer to the position in the North-Western parts of the Cape, where there was a plant to build a line from Calvinia and Sutherland to Cape Town. At the moment one cannot talk with neighbouring dorps, such as Fraserberg and Calvinia, which are 80 or 90 miles away. One cannot get into touch with them at all, because there is no line. When the officials of the department went round the country they did not definitely promise that that line would be built, but still they expressed the view that it was absolutely essential and urgent that it should be built. That was the understanding. Now the department has completely changed its policy in that regard. There are parts from Sutherland to Calvinia along the river, which are densely populated, and yet over a distance of fifty or sixty miles people cannot get into touch with each other. I have invited the Minister to visit those parts. He told us that he would be pleased to come, but he has not been yet; he only goes to the large towns, and that is why unfortunately he does not know anything about the conditions prevailing on the platteland. It would be very much better if the hon. member who is now interpreting for him were to take his place. He would arrange matters very much better, and we would not then require an interpreter. I don’t know whether he gets anything extra for the work he is doing …

The hon. member must refrain from making personal reflections.

I am in this position, that the Minister does not know my language, and that is why he needs an interpreter. If one has to do anything through the medium of an interpreter one cannot do things as well as otherwise. I have discussed this matter every session, and I come back to the same question every time, yet nothing is done. It really seems that we should reduce the Minister’s salary, or otherwise delete it entirely; and I am going to do so. Neither he nor his Postmaster-General know Afrikaans, and I want to make an appeal to this House, and I particularly want to draw the attention of the Government to the fact that the time has come when we can no longer allow both the Minister and his chief executive officer to be unilingual. It is because of that that we find conditions developing in the Post Office which are not in the interests of the country. The Minister and the Postmaster-General do not realise what the people of the platteland have to put up with, but now we have a Postmaster-General who is a military man. If I look at him I must say that I do not think he can be much of a military man. I should like to know whether the Postmaster-General gets anything extra for being a kind of a colonel with a crown and two stars? Does he get any extra salary? It is generally said that he does get something extra. I do not know what his military abilities are, but certainly, as far as postal matters are concerned, he has no ability. But it is a fact—he is fighting on the home front. I hope the Minister will realise that that condition of affairs in his department should be changed, and I do hope that the Government, even if they want to keep the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs in the Cabinet like a loose donkey which trots along by the side of the others, will realise that this is a serious matter, and that he cannot be allowed to retain that post. I have so often pleaded the cause of the people in the North West, and I have repeatedly received promises from the Minister and from the Postmaster-General. I have been told that all these matters will be dealt with, and that is as far as I have got. I feel the time has now come when we cannot allow matters to continue any longer in this way. The Postmaster-General is incompetent to occupy that post, and we have quite enough members opposite who are competent to take over the post of the Minister. The interpreter who sits there is fairly competent; he could take it over. As we cannot get satisfaction from the Minister or from his first lieutenant, I want to move that the Minister’s salary be reduced by £1,250.

That has already been proposed.

Then I would almost move that his whole salary be deleted.

Does the hon. member move that?

I think we should do so, but as a motion for the reduction of his salary has already been moved, I shall not do so.

Mr. Chairman, I am not going to keep the House very much longer, because I bow to your ruling as far as this speech is concerned. I very much regret that I cannot quote from it, as I took a lot of trouble in unearthing it, but I bow to your ruling and I am not going to quote any more. I would have finished my speech if it were not for a few remarks from the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer), and since he spoke we have had the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. Van Nierop) on his feet. It was rather ludicrous to hear the latter say that his main objection to the freedom radio was that the characters of the Opposition were being attacked from the air. How on earth a responsible member of the House can get up and say that after I had been ruled out of order, when I was trying to protect the freedom radio and saying that they were not broadcasting untruths! I was quoting what they actually said over the wireless, and then we have a responsible member of the Opposition getting up and objecting to these libellous attacks coming over the air. I am surprised to hear the hon. member make a statement like that, because it was a direct contradiction to what I was trying to say here when, unfortunately, I was ruled out of order. The freedom station was quoting absolutely the truth, and nothing but the truth, as far as their broadcast of the speech of one of the members of this House is concerned.

[Inaudible.]

Did I hear the hon. member aright, was he calling me a fool?

No, I would be out of order if I did.

That is the sort of scurrilous stuff we get in this House, and it is not over the radio. I was pleased to hear the hon. member for Ermelo (Mr. Jackson) mention that he had never heard from the hon. member for Mossel Bay or any other member of the Opposition, give any support when the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister was libelled by Zeesen. I want to associate myself with that remark. Before I sit down, I want to make this further point as far as the hon. member for Humansdorp is concerned. He asked the Chair if I was entitled to read anything that is libellous in this House. It just shows how the truth hurts them, and how they cringe and try to run away from it. In conclusion, we heard a lot of condemnation of this freedom station. I am not associated with it at all, but I am serious when I suggest that the Minister should possibly consider, seriously consider, whether he should not grant them a licence. I feel that they are possibly doing quite a lot of good, and it might help to clear up things in the country.

I just want to draw the Minister’s attention to the deplorable condition prevailing in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs so far as buildings are concerned.

Does not that come under Vote No. 27, which deals with “Public Works”?

I believe I can raise it under the heading of “general policy”, but if I should raise it on another vote, very well. The other point I want to raise is in connection with the salaries which the Minister pays his officials. I want to ask the Minister to consider the question of paying his officials better salaries. I do not think there are any other officials in the whole service who have to bear so much responsibility and who get such poor pay. There are young women who do post office work and who have to handle hundreds of pounds and the salary they get is only £9 or £10 per month. Those young women have to pay £5 or £6 and more every month for board and lodging. How can they possibly come out on their salaries? I hope the Minister will grant his staff a better salary, a salary more or less in accordance with that received by other officials of the State occupying responsible positions.

The hon. member for Marico (The Rev. C. W. M. Du Toit) raised the question of the delay in telephoning from the Rand to Pretoria and the trouble in getting through to the Exchange. I have made enquiries and I find that there are difficulties in altering the arrangements. It is due to the enormous traffic between Johannesburg and Pretoria. Five or six years ago the House authorised an expenditure of £180,000 to put an underground cable between Johannesburg and Pretoria in order to carry the contemplated traffic—that was before Pretoria was on the automatic exchange. I made enquiries from the Department, and they were confident that the cable would be sufficient for the development of the Pretoria telephone traffic with Johannesburg for the next ten years. Well, the telephone traffic has developed so enormously that since the automatic exchange was opened in Pretoria it was using the whole of that space. Difficulties have cropped up, we should have a duplicated cable but it is impossible to get it, and I am sorry to say that the difficulties will continue until we can get the material. We have big orders for material. If we can only get the material we can carry on the development that is going on—and this applies to the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys)—in the North West. The hon. member for Prieska has spoken about this but they have not done badly in that area. Their lines go for hundreds of miles, and they are run at a dead loss to the country.

Is it not possible to telephone from a public telephone from Johannesburg right through to Pretoria?

No it is not, not from a public telephone.

Well, they can do it.

No, you have to ring up from a public telephone. You have to go through the Exchange on the Rand, that is from a public telephone. From a private telephone you can get through direct.

We want that altered if possible.

I shall make representations to the engineers and see if it is possible. Hon. members know that the policy of the post office is to give the best possible service. The hon. member has also referred to telegrams. It is true, there has been delay but I would point out that the telegraph traffic has developed beyond all calculations and when Parliament is sitting I wonder that we get on as well as we do. Difficulties have cropped up, telegrams have been delayed in delivery, due to lack of messengers. We are doing our best to get all the messengers we can. We have increased salaries in Johannesburg, Durban. Cape Town and Pretoria, but our difficulty is the war service — these various technical services which these people go to. The other point which the hon. member referred to is the morning broadcast. As he knows, broadcasting is controlled by the Board. Frankly I agree that the 7 o’clock news service is not worth listening to. It is very inefficient, and in consequence I have given up listening to it. I shall make the representations to the Board which have been made here, because all members have said the same. Most of these morning services, and particularly the Sunday midday service, gives very little news. I don’t know whether it is possible to duplicate the 8.15 Daventry Service in Afrikaans because that service is worth listening to. The hon. member for Rosettenville (Mr. Howarth) talked about the telephone communication between Cullinan and Johannesburg. We have done all we can and we realise the importance. This matter has been investigated on more than one occasion.

Why can Johannesburg get Cullinan and why cannot Cullinan get Johannesburg?

The hon. member says that, but the hon. member over there says the very opposite. The hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) referred to certain correspondence not reaching his destination. I shall make enquiries and find but he said that it referred to some feast at Krugersdorp on the 10th October. I wish he had communicated his complaint at the time, so that we could have investigated it, but I shall find out what happened.

You mean you will try to find out.

Yes, I shall try to.

I am sure you won’t find out.

Now, the hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Olivier) made some remarks about the secret radio station. I think I have said quite enough about that. We are going to follow up the suggestion. I have asked for his co-operation—if he won’t give it we can’t help it. He has given the name and we shall see what can be done.

Why don’t you thank him for his information?

Oh, yes, I thank him.

Why did you say you did not want any assistance from us?

The hon. member also referred to a post office which he wants. I shall get the position investigated and if it is warranted and if he can get somebody to build it, the post office will run the place. We are continually doing that, but we only do it if we find it necessary to have a post office in a particular area. That raises a question which other members have also referred to— the question of the pay of unestablished postmasters. That is one of the bugbears I have to deal with. Dozens of people occupying these positions have had their salaries increased. Their salaries are based on the amount of business that is done. I am glad the hon. member for Heidelberg (Mr. de Bruyn) is here. In many instances we run these post offices at a dead loss. Some people come and say that they will run it for nothing, but as soon as a post office is established they ask for an increase. Now the hon. member for Heidelberg says that he has erected a post office and he is prepared to run it for nothing but that we have turned down his request. Well, the report of the inspector is that there is no justification for that post office. I have informed the hon. member that I myself will go and see this place, but we are not going to establish branch post offices everywhere and be criticised for the salaries of the people who are running them. The hon. member for Bloemfontein (Mr. Haywood) raised the question of the under-secretaries, particularly with reference to Mr. Redelinghuis. There are three under-secretaries—one for posts, one for staff and one for telephones. It is peculiar that the person who is undersecretary for telegraphs, and the other who is under-secretary for staff—that both of them have received promotion in other departments. The one is secretary for Public Works, and the other is the Provincial Secretary for Natal, but in the list of post office officials Mr. Redelinghuis is the senior.

His job is looking after posts, and I want to say that unless we had gone in for this re-organisation the amount of work which the post office had had to undertake—the whole of the machine would have broken down. I am sorry there has been these complaints about letters not reaching their destinations. We shall see what is wrong there.

When shall we find out what you find out?

The hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen) raised the question of radio weather reports. These reports are not being sent out by reason of the requirements of the military and the navy. I am not going to explain, and I am not going to defend their attitude, or complain about the attitude taken up by them. It is something over which I have no control. The other question he raised in regard to subscribers is being investigated. We have large supplies of material on order and I hope some day the material will arrive in South Africa. The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) complained that the post office service is not as good as it was. I am glad to hear that other members do not agree with him; neither do I. I want to pay a special tribute to the work the post office staff are doing with 1,600 of their colleagues away at the front. I agree that a telephone on a farm is no longer a luxury. I have been preaching that gospel and I may tell hon. members that when I became Minister there was a waiting list of 4,000 telephones. We have erected over 70,000 — 13,000 last year. I repeat here that the policy of the Post Office is to get every man a telephone who is prepared to pay for it, but unfortunately we have not got the material at the moment. It is true that the post office at Bothaville should have been built long ago. I have dealt with the question of unestablished postmasters. I think I have now dealt with all the points raised, except that raised by the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. Van Nierop), and with that I hope to conclude. He complained of the position of the PostmasterGeneral. The Postmaster-General is the head of the Post Office, and as such carries out his duties as Postmaster-General. He gets nothing for the position he occupies in a military capacity. I have already replied to that question before.

What is his military rank?

He is a Brigadier.

That is a sort of a General, is it not?

No, he is not a Brigadier-General —he holds the rank between a full Colonel and a Brigadier-General, and he is attached to the Defence Force.

Why, what is the necessity?

Well, that question has been asked before and I cannot reply to it. It is outside my responsibility. I happen to know, but I cannot say.

Did he take that rank with your approval?

Yes, the Prime Minister appointed him in his capacity as Minister of Defence. Other officials of the department have also received military rank and are carrying out military duties.

Is it an honorary appointment?

You are not sending him to Libya, are you?

Amendment put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—25:

Bekker, G.

Bekker, S.

Boltman, F. H.

Bremer, K.

De Bruyn. D. A. S.

Dönges, T. E.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Fouche, J. J.

Geldenhuys, C. H.

Haywood, J. J.

Hugo, P. J.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Loubser, S. M.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Schoeman, B. J.

Serfontein, J. J.

Swart, C. R.

Van Nierop. P. J.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

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

Noes—43:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Allen, F. B.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Blackwell, L.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

Derbyshire, J. G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Fourie, J. P.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman, H.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Heyns, G. CL S.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys. W. B.

Jackson, D.

Lawrence, H. G.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Moll, A. M

Mushet, J. W.

Pocock, P. V.

Shearer, V. L.

Stallard, C. F.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

Warren, C. M.

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

May I be allowed the privilege of speaking for half an hour? We are dealing here with a very important vote and I hope you will allow me at once to move—

To reduce the amount by £1,800 from the item “Minister, £2,500”.

Just make it £1,000.

No, and I shall say why not. We are leaving the £700 which the Minister gets as an ordinary member of Parliament. If we take account of the amount of harm which the Minister has done to the country, we really would have to propose reducing his salary by £2,499, and leave him only £1 to return to Salt River. We do not want to go as far as that, however, but before I come to the harm which the Minister has done the country you will allow me to bring a few points of importance to his notice? He promised last year to give his attention to these matters. I do not know whether it comes under this vote, but first of all I wish to remark that the estimates now before us are in English and in Afrikaans and no longer separately in Afrikaans and in English. English is on top this time, and I hope Afrikaans will be on top next year.

I have already promised to do so.

Then the Minister promised last year that he would look into the position in regard to the laws which are still in High Dutch. There are still a large number of laws in Netherlands which should be translated. What has the Minister decided to do? A few days ago the Leader of the Opposition had to quote a law in English because part of the other side of the House does not understand Afrikaans well, and does not understand Netherlands at all. It is important that the law shall be translated into Afrikaans. So far as the administration, is concerned, there is a staff shortage in all the departments. When any matters are raised in the Select Committee on Public Accounts and any points crop up to which the Auditor-General has referred, even points where things are radically wrong, the heads of the departments all hide behind the one fact, namely, that their staffs are inadequate. I feel very seriously about this matter, and I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that it is detrimental to the country. Hundreds and hundreds of members of every department have joined up. Let them join up if they want them; we are in favour of those who want to support the war going to fight. Their salaries are also safeguarded; we have no objection to that either, but I now understand that a statement has been made that the people who go away will get their ordinary promotion when the time arrives for such promotion. In other words, what is going to happen? Today we have this position, that the departments and the country generally are suffering tremendously owing to so many officials being away and owing to unqualified persons having been appointed in their places. If the war lasts another five or six years we can well imagine how detrimental the position is going to be to the country. But if the people who are away are to be promoted in the ordinary course of events, what sort of a position are we going to get then? A man who is left here as a clerk will, when he returns, find perhaps that he is the head of a department. I shall be pleased if the Minister will tell me whether I am mistaken—but that is my information. Those people will be appointed to higher positions without their having gained the necessary experience in the meantime. As a result, the country will suffer for years and years after the war, owing to people who are not competent to occupy those posts, having been appointed to those posts. Now there is another point I wish to bring to the Minister’s notice, and that is Vote D. There is an expenditure of £2,000 in respect of Asiatic immigration. In terms of Act No. 37 of 1927 the expenses in connection with every person or every Asiatic who wants to leave the country are paid, and on top of that he gets a bonus on condition that he does not return within a year. They can return in two or three years’ time, but if they do they have to refund the amount that has been spent on them, and after an absence of three years nobody is allowed to return. Now, what happened last year? First of all let me put this question: Who leaves the country? It is not the old people who go; they are refused a passport; it is the young Indians who leave. The young Indian goes away and stays away for a year; he is not allowed to return within a year, but in two or three years’ time he is allowed to return and then he has to pay back all it has cost the State to send him away. But the law says that the wife and children of that Indian are allowed to come in. Last year we found that 37 Asiatics were sent out of the country at an expense of £2,377 17s. 7d. That is including the £814 which they were paid as bonuses. That works out at £64 5s. per Indian, so it costs the country £64 5s. for every Asiatic who leaves the country. In the meantime while we sent 37 out of the country last year 362 came into the country in the same year. Those are women and children I am talking of now. 362 came in.

Was that in terms of the agreement made by Dr. Malan in 1927?

Yes, that is in terms of the Act of 1927. I am not blaming anyone for that. I am blaming the system we have, which is quite wrong. Let me just read to the Minister what has happened since 1928. We find that since that year the following numbers came into the country: 794, 632, 506, 729, 811, 907, 1,041, 845 and 701. In other words, in those years they came in 500, 600, 700, 800, 900 and 1,000 every year, and as I have already said it costs the State £64 5s. for every Asiatic who leaves the country. We send the Asiatics out of the country to go and get married, and after having been away a year the man comes back and then we have to permit his wife and children to come in. We encourage Asiatics to come to this country. This, so far as I am concerned, is a most serious matter, and I hope the Minister will give his immediate attention to it and that he will see whether it is not possible to bring about some improvement in that position. I think the House will agree with me that this Asiatic question is a very serious one to this country, and if we allow it to develop in the way it is doing it will become very much more serious than it is today. Now, the Minister is also responsible for the civilian protection services for which we have to vote a certain amount of money. I want to ask the Minister whether the time has not arrived for him to interfere in this protection service which is undertaken by local bodies such as municipalities which are busy playing at war. I want to ask the Minister whether it is not high time for the Government to step in and put a stop to it. We know what has happened in Cape Town. They made regulations here in regard to motor cars which have involved the motorists in considerable expense and which have caused accidents and then had to be suspended. Take for instance these expenses in regard to black-outs. Is the Minister aware of the fact that people in Cape Town were compelled to spend not less than £500 in one day on materials for the black-out scheme? People are becoming discouraged, and the regulations are so ridiculous that it is really high time the Minister interfered. After all, what is the use of this black-out scheme to Cape Town? Possibly if Cape Town were attacked it would be useful.

You will also have to put a black cloth over Table Mountain.

Yes, they will have to put a black cloth over Table Mountain. But imagine, the City Council of Cape Town is now digging trenches, and they have voted no less than £40,000 for the digging of trenches. Is it not ridiculous? Is it not disgraceful to spend the taxpayers’ money in such a reckless manner? If the Cape Town ratepayers could afford it, I could still understand it, but I am told that the rates here are terribly high already. I believe that the Government should step in and put an end this sort of thing. Things like this are infectious. Paarl has really also become so injected that they have also decided to go in for black-outs.

They have not passed such a resolution.

They are busy doing so. They have become infected and I hope the hon. member for Paarl (Mr. Hugo) will use his influence there. The municipalities are playing at war and we have to pay for it.

Do you want the Government to interfere with local governments?

Yes, these people are playing at war, and the Government is making them a grant towards it. They have the say. The Government is the highest authority in the country, and I believe the Prime Minister has now interfered and put a stop to it, so that the regulations will not be in force as from the 1st April. The Government has the right to interfere, and I believe that the Cape Town ratepayers will be grateful if they do so. Now, I want to come to another important vote, also falling under the Minister. I am referring to Vote M. There is an amount of £536,000 asked for to be spent on internments. Let me say, first of all, that the most hated man in the whole country today is the Minister of the Interior simply because he has no heart for the Afrikaner people of South Africa. Secondly, because steps have already been taken to intern people where there is absolutely no cause for their internment. I have discussed the matter personally with the Minister, and I told him that if a man was guilty by all means let him be interned. If the man was an enemy of the State, intern him, but the Minister has given me an assurance that innocent people are not being interned. Now, let me tell the Minister what my personal experience is, and if I do so he will realise that we have every reason to feel that we cannot attach any value to his assurance. His department a fortnight ago sent detectives to me to crossexamine me. They also sent detectives to a number of people in Kuruman, to make enquiries about a statement which had been received, that I had given instructions or that I had received instructions to blow up the railway line on my neighbour’s farm. Now, let me say that if I were an ordinary person and not a member of Parliament, I would have been put in gaol; I would have been kept there for two or three months before a complaint would have been made, and I would then have had the opportunity of denying the charge, but my denial would not have been accepted. But the ordinary procedure is that people are arrested when a complaint is received, especially where such a serious charge is made about blowing up a railway line. Anyhow, I saw that charge, and my question at once was who had sent in that report. It was in connection with a speech which was made at Vryburg. The reply was: “We cannot give you that information.” But I further asked: “I am anxious to know whether it was a Jew or an Englishman or a Hans Khaki or a Khaki Knight.” The detective could not give me that information either. Does not the Minister realise the seriousness of a matter like this? He may get a long typewritten report which has no foundation of fact. If the Minister’s Khaki Knights are animated by …

What has it to do with me?

It falls under the Minister’s internment and espionage service.

No.

Well, it is perfectly clear to me. We have the Information Bureau under this vote, and that Information Bureau supplies the Minister with all kinds of information. Surely that information goes to the Minister, and he is the man who interns people.

That is nonsense. All that work is done by the police.

The Minister may perhaps say that this should come under the Minister of Justice.

But internments come under the Minister of the Interior.

Yes, that is the position. All internments come under the Minister of the Interior. I want to give this assurance to the Minister, that there are people in the internment camps who are quite innocent, and I want to declare again that if I had not been a member of Parliament I would have been interned. Many of the people who have been arrested have not even had a charge made against them yet. I want to know from the Minister whether that is done to other people?

I shall make a statement on that point.

People are, first of all, arrested, and only after that do they hear what charge has been made against them. The Minister cannot deny that.

And long afterwards, too.

He is the man who has us arrested and has us put in the internment camps. I have already told the House of my personal experience. Many people have been interned by the Minister of the Interior, and that is why I feel tonight that he is responsible for the fact that large numbers of people are innocently kept in the internment camps. Only recently large numbers of members of the police were interned.

No, they were not interned.

Well, hundreds of them were sent to Koffiefontein.

No, they were certainly not interned.

But what is Koffiefontein except an internment camp? Special trains had to be obtained to send the innocent people back from there.

That does not come under my vote; that is a matter for the Department of Justice.

These internment camps come under the Minister, and he is the man who is responsible for detaining the internees there. How can the Minister say that the internments do not come under him? There are 87 members of the police in the internment camps today, and I believe that eventually only three of them will be found guilty, and that the others will be released. What is the result of this internment policy? The deepest resentment is being created in the hearts of the Afrikaners. I don’t know whether the Minister realises when he goes to sleep at night—I don’t know whether he ever thinks of the poor families of men who are innocently kept in the internment camps. Can the Minister realise what is going on in the hearts of these people? I had a talk recently with a man who had been innocently interned. One feels the resentment in that man’s heart, a sense of resentment which we shall not be able to eradicate during our life time.

Who is that man?

Surely you do not expect me to mention his name. He has been released and he would not have been released if he had not been innocent.

No, that is not so. Quite a large number of people are released if we feel that they will behave themselves in future.

I shall tell the Minister afterwards what the man’s name is; I can give him the assurance that possibly here and there may be somebody …

If you allege that an innocent person has been interned you should give me his name. It is your duty to give me his name.

How many people have not been innocently interned and been discharged afterwards? Day after day we get admissions that people have been innocently interned, because day after day people are being released. Would they be released if they were not innocent. The Minister of Justice has denied that innocent people have been arrested and been released. I again want to tell the Minister that a feeling of deep resentment has been created in the hearts of those people and that we shall not be able to get over that feeling of resentment. What has been the result of the internment of a few hundred members of the police? A few days ago there was a report in the papers about crimes committed in this country. What is going on? The number of crimes committed in this country this last year exceeds the number of crimes committed in the last twelve years. I have an extract here from one of the papers supporting the Government which in large letters refers to the increase in crime. The police are being interned and naturally people who want to commit crimes now have the opportunity of doing so. I hope the Minister will see to it from now on that no people are interned unless there is good reason for doing so. Now I want to come to another point which indirectly concerns the Minister, a point on which he has expressed his personal opinion. It is a question in regard to the espionage system in the schools. I have expressed my disapproval of this system on a previous occasion, but as an old teacher I have a feeling of contempt for the methods used by the Minister in regard to our schools in the Union. The Minister, speaking at a Congress of the United Party at Bloemfontein, made the following statement: He said that complaints had been received that politics were being introduced into the schools on a large scale.

Under what item does the hon. member want to discuss that point?

It comes here under the teachers who are being interned. The Minister said that politics were being introduced in the schools and that the Government required the assistance of every man ad every woman to stop it. He said that when it got to the stage that people who had brought information had to be cross-examined, they left him in the lurch because they were scared of victimisation and publicity, and he went on to say this:

How the Minister can say that they should not be political bodies but that party members must serve on those bodies I fail to understand. Does the Minister imagine for one moment that while he is carrying out these internments he can come and say that he wants more vigilance committees appointed? But he says at the same time that so far he has appointed a hundred secret committees in the Cape alone. To do what? To do contemptible espionage work among teachers, and then to put the teachers in the internment camps on statements made by children. The Minister went further and he said that he would take steps to see that it was done, and what has been the result? We find now that “professor” Eli du Plessis has been appointed to get teachers put into the Minister’s internment camps. I want to ask the Minister whether he has had anything to do with the appointment of this person. The Minister does not answer. Now I want to ask him whether he knows who this man is? If the Minister can find the time to go to Petrusville he will find the sole of a boot there, with a bit of foot in it, stuck in a rock, and that is the remnant of that man’s leg which was left in that rock. That man went there in 1900 to do espionage work against the Boers. He was the man who was stripped and driven away because of the filthy work he had done. But that same man made a statement that he had lost his leg in the war, and he is now drawing a war pension. That is the type of person that is being appointed today to go to the schools in the Cape to undertake this low type of espionage work. It is disgraceful to think that people can go so far as to have educated people ordered about by a man like this Eli du Plessis, and to have a man like Eli du Plessis spying on them. I cannot express my disapproval in words strong enough to show my indignation. Unfortunately my time is nearly up, and I don’t want to say anything more on that point. Now let me come to the Board of Censors. A few months ago the police recorded the names of certain books. A few days ago we found that two books entitled “Hoe sy Stierven” and “Helkampe,” of which 10,000 copies had been printed, were recalled and stopped. I want to ask the Minister whether the publishers are to be compensated for those books. What is the Minister’s reason for recalling those books? I want to ask the Minister whether he also intends recalling “A Century of Wrong.” Is the Minister recalling our history books to try and hide the black deeds of the English in 1900? Does he want to destroy South Africa’s history? I want to tell the Minister that he may perhaps ban those history books, but he will never succeed in eradicating our history from the hearts of the South African people. I want to assure the Minister that if he succeeds in killing one Afrikaner, ten will rise to take the place of that one, to keep the history of the Afrikaner people where it has been in the past, and in spite of all his efforts to destroy the history of the Afrikaner he will not succeed.

This is an opportunity that I have been waiting for for quite a long time. I want to speak about this £2,500 which is set aside for Civilian Protective Services. I want to say, at the outset, that I am rather disappointed at the very small amount the Minister has put forward on this occasion. The Minister has done quite a lot of interesting work in connection with C.P.S.; he has visited Johannesburg on several occasions. I am not going to say that he has made very large promises, but I believe he has created an impression that the Government is going to do a consierable amount in connection with the C.P.S. services throughout the Union. This £2,500 which he has got a vote for is very small indeed to be expended over the whole Union, and especially in the principal cities. I may say there is a possibility that there is an amount in the Defence Vote for these services. Of course, that is more or less a secret, but I hope the Minister will tell us something in connection with that vote and whether there is anything in the Defence Vote for these services. I don’t think I need remind the Minister at the present time that this is considered a very important matter indeed; the Minister knows that a large number of people are interested, and they want to know what the Government’s intentions are. I saw in the paper a day or two ago something about a very important gathering of representatives in the various cities waiting on the Minister. I don’t know whether this deputation has interviewed the Minister as yet or not, but if so he may be able to tell us what representations were made to him. I have not seen any account in the paper yet, but possibly the Minister may tell us, and he may have told them, what the Government’s intentions are. One has to realise the great importance of these services today on account of the changed situation which has come about recently. The Johannesburg members are expected to take this matter up, and we are expected to give some kind of account of what we have done in this matter when we go back. For that reason we have no hesitation in approaching the Minister; I have done so on one or two previous occasions, but the time has not been opportune. This is an opportune time, and I shall be very grateful if the Minister will tell us what the Government intends to do in connection with these services. I don’t think I need say very much more; I have spoken on it on two occasions before and have not been able to get a reply from the Minister. I am sure the Minister, in replying, will be good enough to tell us how far the Government intends to go, and what it intends to do in connection with this matter.

I should like to say a few words on this vote, Internments, £536,000. First of all, according to what we have been told, included in that amount is expenditure in respect of people from outside the Union who have been interned. That is to say there are people in our camps who are at the expense of the English Government. That expenditure is probably included in this amount.

That is so.

That expenditure is covered by that amount of £536,000. I also want to express the hope that our Government will keep a very careful account of this expenditure which will have to be repaid by the British Government at some future date, and the capital expenditure will also have to be repaid, not merely the daily expenditure in regard to the supervision, over and above feeding of the internees. We cannot blame the Government for having internment camps. I believe that any country which is at war has to have internment camps. It is usual in time of war to intern enemy subjects so I don’t want to say anything on that point, although it is noticeable—and I say so in passing—that Union citizens were not interned in Germany after the war had broken out, although we started interning German subjects.

They are engaged on broadcasting from Germany.

No, I can tell the Minister that that does not apply to all of them. There is a very telling case to prove how peculiarly we have acted. There was a Union citizen, a fairly wellknown person, who was in Germany when war broke out. He was not interned, he was given the opportunity of returning to South Africa by a Portuguese ship, and when he arrived here we interned him. The German Government allowed him to go at the risk of his taking un arms against them here. They did not intern him but we interned him, and that is not the only instance. There are more instances of Union subjects who were studying in Germany, or were travelling there, or whatever they might have been doing there. Germany did not intern them, but they came to South Africa after the outbreak of war.

And what about those who are there now?

I believe there are still some of them in Germany today but they have not been interned.

Because they are broadcasting for Zeesen.

Well, whatever the reason may be, they did not intern our people; but now we come to the internment of our own subjects, and when we get to that question we really feel that we would be neglecting our duty if we did not discuss the matter here in Parliament. This subject has already been discussed but as we are now dealing with a particular Vote under which these things come we have to raise our voices in protest against the way the Government is acting. What is happening in regard to the internment of those people who are Union subjects? I must honestly say that what is happening here is not to the credit of the Government of the day. Particularly is it not to the credit of the Government if we notice the way information is supplied to the authorities concerned. I am afraid that the Government is availing itself of the poorest traits in people’s character to get them to carry information to get their fellow men into the internment camps. The Government goes out of its way to spend money directly or indirectly to induce people to spy on their fellowmen; if a man is in that service, and he has any grievances against somebody else, it is easy for him to get the other man into the internment camp. All he has to do is to make a charge. Some of our best known and most responsible people, Ministers of Religion, teachers to the poorest type of worker, the Railway man and the official, have been interned on charges which have not been sworn to, or simply because of what we call back biting. The time at my disposal is short and I am not going to say much at this stage, but I do want to say that the way people are being interned is most reprehensible. How many cases have not happened of people being suddenly interned without their being given the opportunity of saying good-bye to their wives. I know of one instance where a man’s child was ill in bed. The man was arrested, he was picked up like a criminal and he was not even allowed to go and say good-bye to his child. Why should methods like that be applied to our own Union citizens? Those people are arrested, they are interned; in other words, they are punished without having the opportunity of appearing before an impartial court. The man does not even know what charge has been brought against him; he is simply put away, and once he has been interned his case may be referred to an official; and that official is not impartial because he is an official who is paid by the authorities who intern those people. And once a man has been interned, how is he treated? Do hon. members realise that if one looks closely into the position the condition of the internees, among whom there are some of the best and most noble people of our country—the treatment meted out to those people when they get visitors is such that it is equivalent to the conditions applied not only to criminals but to the worst criminal of all, the man who has been sentenced to death, on a charge of murder. If a man is charged with murder and he has been condemned he is taken out of the ordinary gaol and confined in a separate cell. I myself have visited people like that in gaol. They are treated as dangerous individuals. They are kept behind meshed steel wire, and there is a guard walking up and down all day and night, because there is no door to their cells. There is meshed wire; and what happens if the wife of a man like that comes to visit him?

Where is that?

I am talking of the gaols.

That is nonsense.

Then the Minister does not know anything about it. He should go and visit those gaols.

It is just as nonsensical as the report that I was going to intern you.

Then it is high time the Minister visited the gaols. I have done official work there and I have visited that part of the gaol.

There are no gaols in connection with the internees.

If the Minister will wait a little while I shall tell him what I am driving at with this comparison which I am making. I have come into contact with these things officially. If it is an ordinary criminal I can go inside and talk to the man in the courtyard. I can go to him, shake hands with him and talk to him. But if one visits a murderer who has been sentenced he is put in a cell and one cannot get near him. We cannot shake hands with him, and we cannot go inside. Now, what happens to these internees, among whom are some of the best people in this country? If the wife comes to visit her husband he is behind meshed steel wire and the meshed steel wire is in between them. In between there is a corridor and there is a guard there walking up and down all the time she is there. Consequently, we have this position, that the man and the wife have two sets of wire in between them, and the guard walks up and down between them. That is what happens there, and the Minister cannot deny it. No, the fact is that our own people who are interned are treated like criminals, so far as their visitors are concerned. They are treated like condemned murderers. This sort of thing has made a very painful impression. It is not only the wives who visit their husbands there, but their brothers, too, go to visit them. Somebody told me that he went to visit his own brother, but he was so deeply affected by the whole position that he decided rather not to visit his brother again.

I have been asked to bring to the notice of the Minister the position in regard to institutional accommodation for non-European mentally defective children. The case has been well set out by the Cape Mental Hygiene Society, and I would like to quote from their statement as it will be far better than speaking at random on this technical matter. It reads—

The reply of the Department is that there is at present a very serious shortage of accommodation both for non-European children and European mentally disordered persons, and that the Government has first to meet their need before giving consideration to this other question. This is a matter which I think the Government should give some sympathetic consideration to, having regard to all the circumstances. Mental deficiency is inherited and the result on the coloured community with its repercussions upon the people generally is very serious. The position of the mother, her capacity to maintain the home if she has a mentally deficient child, to care for, is most difficult and the effect upon the rest of the children is deleterious. There are other points but the Minister is acquainted with the position, and I only wish him to give it his serious consideration, and to ask whether it could not be arranged, if it is not practicable at present to establish an institution, at least for something to be done in a small way in order to make provision without going to the necessity of a expensive building at the present time. I would therefore submit this matter for the consideration of the Minister, as to whether some provision could not be made, even as a temporary measure, for these deserving cases.

I just want to ask the Minister for some information about the camp at Ganspan at Vaal Hartz. We have been given to understand that the internees there were removed within a few hours. The Department of Social Welfare had prepared that place as a settlement for a certain class of person. After it had been completed the Government took over the buildings and the other things there for an internment camp. The people have now left that internment camp and I want to know whether the Minister is going to return the houses in the camp to the Department of Social Welfare for the purpose for which they were constructed. Have they actually been returned?

Yes, they have been.

Is the Departement of Social Welfare now in possession of the whole place?

Yes, that is so.

We have on previous occasions repeatedly criticised the Government’s internment policy and we have pointed out what has been going on in these internment camps. Last year I revealed a number of things which came direct from the internees themselves, and I pointed out what the condition in the camps was. The Minister simply shrugged his shoulders and said that he did not know. I then asked him whether he would be prepared to allow members of Parliament to go to the camps and make an investigation. The Minister would not allow that. Now we understand that he has allowed certain members of Parliament, including a member from this side, to visit the camps. They were given special permission to go to the camps, and we want to know from the Minister what his policy is in that regard. We want to know whether he will allow us to go there, not to help those people to escape or to do any subversive work, but to see what is actually going on. I don’t know what the conditions are at the moment. Last year I had certain information which had reached me first hand from a reliable source. Meanwhile the supervision has apparently been made stricter and one does not know what is going on, but there is a feeling of uneasiness throughout the country about the treatment of the internees in those camps. People are upset about the conditions which they hear about from various sources, and I want to ask the Minister to allow members to go to the camps and make enquiries themselves so that they may know how the people are being treated there. In view of conditions prevailing, and the feelings in the hearts of our people that things are not right, the Minister should grant our request. I particularly want to ask him whether he will allow the church organisations to send people to visit the camps to see what is going on, and not so much to see what is going on, but to visit the people there, to relieve their minds, and to set them at ease; to relieve their anxiety from the conditions in which they find themselves. I want to appeal to the Minister to allow the various religious bodies to send representatives there to get in touch with the internees. I want to tell the Minister that we occasionally get reports of very hard and deplorable cases in regard to people who have been interned, and one often gets the impression that the senior officials who have to decide, and the Minister who has to control matters, have hardened their hearts and are actually displaying a strain of cruelty. I want to mention one case to the Minister which came to my notice in the last few days. It is the case of a certain Dr. Kuhnle. He was a German doctor who had been naturalised in South-West Africa under the Naturalisation Act. I know nothing about this particular case, except the information which was sent to me. He was interned; he was let out, and then interned again. I have a medical certificate here which I should like to read out to the Minister. That certificate reads as follows:—

Was that certificate sent to the Internment Authorities?

Yes, his wife sent it to them. I must assume that this medical certificate is correct. It is really cruel; if a doctor certifies that it is tantamount to sentencing a man to death if he is again interned, to take that man back to the internment camp. Now there is another matter. It is not quite clear where the dividing line comes in between the Minister of Interior and the Minister of Justice, the dividing line between internment and arrest. I must say that I personally am very confused about it all. I don’t know where the dividing line is, and I don’t know when a person is interned. The Minister told us that the police had not been interned. Why then were they all sent to an internment camp? In the course of another interjection the Minister remarked that there were no gaols in connection with internment camps. On the other hand we know that our gaols have been proclaimed to be internment camps. That was done by Proclamation.

That was done in regard to Marshall Square.

Yes, I went to visit them as the advocate of some of the internees and when I got to the gaol I was told that it was not a gaol but a internment Camp. That is why I ask where the dividing line really comes in? The Minister says that those internment camps where the police are interned are no longer internment camps, and the police who have been put there have not been interned. These members of the police were arrested, and afterwards they were sent to the Koffiefontein Internment Camp and not to the gaol. We had to assume that they had been interned, and we should be pleased if the Minister would give us an explanation before we discuss this matter any further. Now I want to say a few words about the treatment of the internees. I have had the opportunity during the past year of coming into close touch with some of these people in court cases which have taken place. I want to mention the case of the Italians who escaped, among whom was Dr. Mario Mazzacuratti. There was a lot of talk about the escape of these people. They were punished twice. First of all they were punished in the internment camp under the Internment Regulations, and after that they were brought to court and were punished again. The judge expressed his surprise and said that he did not know why these people were brought before him. In that connection I want to tell the House how those people were practically invited to escape. On certain days those people are allowed to visit doctors or dentists in Kimberley or Bloemfontein, and that is what happened that morning. Early in the morning when the motor car had to leave there were five Italians there who got into the car without being asked who they were or how they had got out. There was only one driver in the car, and he was not armed. Hon. members will realise the temptation there was to those people to escape; if the Minister had been interned in Germany and he had been given that chance would he not have availed himself of it?

That is not the point. Those people escaped; it was the custom for them to be conveyed by motor car.

The Minister does not understand the position at all.

The one moment you complain that they are dealt with too severely and the next you complain that they are dealt with too leniently.

The Minister does not understand me. We say that these people should be properly treated in the camps. These men were punished twice for having escaped, and we say that it was due to be Government’s neglect, the Government’s own carelessness, because they were practically encouraged to escape.

But they committed an act of theft, they stole a motor car.

I say that the judge objected to these people being brought before him. At least, he was surprised. The Government treats those people badly inside the camps; but instead of guarding them properly, that is not done, and that is where the Government was careless. They were not asked who they were, they were simply taken into the car, and naturally those people attempted to escape. I do not necessarily approve of everything they did; I am simply pointing out what happened. [Time limit.]

I wish to make a few more remarks about the Government’s internment policy. I mentioned a number of points rather hurriedly, but there are a few other matters I wish to raise. I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the way these people are being treated, apart from the suffering caused to those people’s families. These men are interned and as a result of the Government’s policy we find in many cases that their families, I would almost say, are turned into poor whites. The husband is put in the internment camp and the wife and children are dependent on the wages which the man used to draw. They no longer have that income, and very soon the woman does not know where to get money to pay the butcher, the baker, the Town Council and all the other Bodies whom she owes money to in the towns. She does not know how to keep her family. Now I tell the Minister that if those are the results of internment the Government should be very careful, very much more careful in regard to whom, and how it interns people; it should be very much more careful than it is today. We know that in many cases the Minister has already been compelled to release people again. In other words, the official concerned, the man appointed by the Government, has received the impression that it was an injustice to keep those people in camp. In other words, those people were not guilty. I say that in view of the fact that there are so many cases of that kind it is high time we urged the Government to change its methods! I definitely feel that as the Government’s internment policy has caused such an outcry the Minister should give the matter his attention when we raise these matters here in Parliament and when we criticise his policy and his methods. Prominent people in this country are being interned, and surely when we discuss the matter here we should have the Minister’s attention. I can assure the Minister that if this Internment policy is to continue I agree with the hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen) that it will be no use to banish a few books from the book cases of the Afrikaner people, because he is busy writing his own book of hatred in the hearts of the Afrikaner. And I can assure the Minister that he must not imagine that by taking up an attitude of nonchalance or indifference towards these questions which are raised here in Parliament he is going to get rid of his responsibilities. Responsible people outside have already said, and a strong feeling is being created, that if certain people on the Opposition side ever got into the position in which the hon. members over there are today, they will settle with them in a proper manner. I did not mean to use bitter language. I intended speaking to the point and I brought these matters to the Minister’s notice, and it ill becomes the Minister not to take any notice of me and to talk to another Minister and keep up a conversation.

As you have been away from the House for such a long time you should give me a chance to consult one of my colleagues.

The Minister should realise that he is dealing with people among whom are prominent men and men of standing, Professors, Ministers of Religion and teachers. As soon as these people are interned their salaries and wages cease and their families are often turned into poor whites. It is unjust to these people because they are not given the opportunity of proving their innocence before an impartial court. The Minister must not imagine that he can get out of those things so very easily. The Government is carrying on in a most aggravating manner, and I doubt whether there is any other country in the world which has taken up such a drastic attitude towards its own citizens as this Government has done.

What about Germany?

We are speaking of what has been happening since this war started. We are not referring to what happened some time before the war when certain people were interned because they had committed misdeeds against the State. We are dealing here with people who have done nothing of that kind; they are not criminals. They have not been accused of political crimes. We are talking here of honourable men, and even the Minister has to admit that large numbers of these men have already been released because they are not guilty of anything.

I have never admitted that yet.

Of course not, but your actions have admitted it, your actions contradict your words. The Minister now says that he has never yet admitted it, but his actions admit it. Why, otherwise, does he release those people? If they are guilty, if they are a danger to the State, why does he release them? If these people are guilty of sedition, why does he release them and give them the chance of committing acts of sedition again? The Minister knows that some of those people have been kept there unjustly, professors and men of honour, as honourable and perhaps more honourable than any member of the Cabinet. I am not going to say that it was due to the fact that he had been interned, but one of these men died shortly after he had been released from camp.

That was long before this matter came under my control.

I don’t want to go into the merits of the case, but the Minister is carrying out the Government’s policy, and my complaint is against the way in which those people are put there, they are put there as a result of the smelling out of the Truth Legion, they are sent there as a result of the tactics of people who are paid to lodge complaints against their fellow men, and to get their fellow men into trouble. In my constituency resolutions were passed at twenty three meetings against the Government’s internment policy. When the Chairman at one of these meetings asked who was opposed to the resolution one man raised his voice. He had the courage to put up his hand and vote against it, but what did we find out? We found that he was a paid Khaki Knight who month after month had his cheque changed in a shop nearby. Those people are used to persecute their own families, and to lay charges against them. We find today that people are used to lay charges against their own flesh and blood, to spy among their own people, and to try to get people into the Internment camps. I want to know what the Minister intends doing to improve the position. We are not talking here merely to hear our own voices. We are raising our voices to ventilate the complaints of the people outside, and we say that the whole position must be improved.

I want to support the plea of the hon. member for Roodepoort (Mr. Allen) in connection with the provision of facilities for taking care of coloured mentally deficient children. I am not suggesting at this stage that the Minister should provide any expensive institution, but there are a number of urgent cases that have come to my knowledge which could be taken care of in small homes on the lines of the Maitland Childrens’ Home. There are a number of cases of these mental deficients amongst the coloured families, and it means that the parent very often is tied to the home looking after the child, and is therefore unable to go out to work. Also, the presence of such a case is bound to affect the whole environment of the home if a mentally deficient child is on the premises. I can quote a few instances of cases that have come to my notice. The first case is that of a child of eight years living with a widowed mother. The father died of meningitis. The child is a feeble-minded epileptic and speaks very little. An elder sister of the mother is mentally defective. The mother has four other children. I don’t want to take up the time of the House, but there are 35 cases listed here as urgent which have been supplied by the Cape Mental Hygiene Society, who feel that some provision should be made as soon as possible for a home for such children, and later on some vocational training to fit those who are capable of learning, of following some useful occupation. I am aware that the Government has a very big problem to find accommodation for the mental patients who now overcrowd our mental institutions, but I suggest that with very little expense a coloured mother could be found who would be willing to undertake the care of these children if they could be placed in small homes, such as I have cited in the Maitland Cottage Homes, where children who are suffering from pulmonary complaints are looked after. I hope the Minister will give his sympathetic consideration to the plea which we are making.

I want to predict that the Minister’s reply about the internment business will be the same this year as it was last year. After what happened last year, however, we thought that the position would be improved, but there is no noticeable improvement whatsoever. On the contrary, conditions are worse under existing circumstances than they were before. I again want to draw the Minister’s attention — and I hope with more success this year to the unfair manner in which Afrikaners are treated in their own country, and the inferior position in which they are being placed. We expect the Minister of the Interior not to treat the Afrikaners he is having arrested worse than criminals. We expect him to treat them as political prisoners. The result of the scandalous behaviour of the Minister of the Interior and his Government is that numerous Afrikaners are fugitives in their own mother country today. I know of instances of honourable Afrikaners in my own constituency, people who have served the community and the church to the best of their ability, who are fugitives today in mountains, kloofs and valleys, because they are scared of the treatment they may receive at the hands of the Government. People are being arrested on false charges, they are interned on false charges and put behind lock and key. After a while the Minister finds that the charges against them are false and then he releases them. And so it goes on all the time, but no hand has ever been stirred to take steps against the people who make those false charges. The result is that as soon as people get the impression that they are suspected, they run away and become fugitives. We are not going to put up with the scandalous treatment that some of our most highly honoured citizens have to undergo. Therefore, innocent or guilty, these people are going to evade arrest. In the second place I again want to draw attention to the fact that these people are not even given the opportunity that any criminal is given. We discussed this matter last year and we have done so again this year. If a man breaks the laws of a country, if a man has misbehaved, he knows what the charge against him is, and he can demand a proper trial. Even the worst criminal is entitled to that. I hope the Minister is not going to tell us again that these people are given proper trials. There are many of them who had no trial at all, many of them have been in the internment camp for months without even knowing what charge has been made against them. These are facts which cannot be denied. I had a case brought to my notice the other day, and when I put it up to the Minister I got the usual answer, namely that the man was guilty. But after that he was released and he was restored to his position.

That case had nothing to do with his internment.

The Minister does not even know what case I am talking about. That man was interned.

Well, be fair and tell us the name of the individual.

I shall give the name when we are on another Vote. Every now and then, when the question of internment is concerned, it is a matter for the Minister of the Interior, but that man was arrested at the same time and detained in a cell in Johannesburg because he had to give evidence.

I know nothing about it.

But that man was interned.

No.

I will state the facts; he was interned and subsequently released. The Minister cannot deny the fact that many people are interned who afterwards are found to be innocent.

Give me the name?

The name of the man I am thinking of at the moment is Roux. He was in the internment camp at Koffiefontein.

I shall enquire into that.

And how are those people treated in these internment camps? I want to tell the Minister that the way he has treated Afrikaners during his term of office compares very badly with the way people were treated in the past. Let me refer to the war of 1914 to 1918. In those days people were treated very much better. I am now speaking of Afrikaners who are interned at Koffiefontein. It is a fact that members of the families of interned men are not allowed to visit their menfolk in camp, except for half an hour once a month. One man is allowed to visit an internee once a month for half an hour. And what are those people doing now? In order to be able to spend an hour with a relation they put the two half hours together. They come at the end of the month and they see their relative for half an hour and then they try to get in the next month’s half hour at the same time. Sometimes they travel tremendously long distances to visit the people in the internment camps, and then they take the two half hours. Why cannot people be allowed to visit their relatives and stay with them for longer than half an hour? If a man is interned and his wife comes from a long distance to call on him, she does not come just to see him, but she wants to discuss business matters with him, she wants to discuss a number of affairs. Now they have to discuss their business in front of others, in front of the guards who are there, and so on. They are behind wire and that is how they have to discuss matters with each other. I ask the Minister whether it is not possible to make some change. During the 1914-1918 war if the internees’ dear ones came to visit them they were allowed to meet in a room with a guard in attendance, and they were able to talk to each other decently, like civilised beings. What is the Minister afraid of? They are in a room and a guard is in attendance, and there is another guard in front of the door. Surely they cannot escape? This sort of thing savours of unnecessary victimisation, and these people should not be treated like that. I want to mention the case of Stephen Eyssen. Eyssen’s son went to the camp with a solicitor but when they arrived there the regulations were read out to them stating that only one person was allowed to see the man, so the son was not permitted to see his father because the solicitor had to see him on business. The son could not see his father. What kind of conditions are those?

When did that happen?

I cannot give you the exact date.

I shall be pleased if you will give me the details.

I am giving the details now. It is a disgrace and a blot on South Africa’s fair name. Women come over tremendous distances and then they are only allowed half an hour with their husbands. I know of one case where a woman travelled a long distance to see her husband; she had also hoped to be able to join up the half hour of the one month and the half hour of the next month. As it happened the train was late, with the result that she lost the half hour of the previous month. She had to return home after having only the one half hour. The other half hour she lost. All these things constitute a blot on the Minister.

I should like to know what this item means, £75,000 for pay for work and allowances payable to internees. I think this is a very liberal amount. On what scale are these payments made? Then there is an amount of £27,900 for grants to dependants of internees. This is a considerable reduction as compared with last year. I want to know what the scale of allowances is for the wives and children of internees?

I should like to ask the Minister whether he has been able to give consideration to a suggestion I made in my budget speech in regard to the hearing of appeals from internees. I mentioned then that I realised that the Appeals Commissioner was a very busy man, and I suggested that it was only fair and reasonable that appeals should be heard as soon as possible, and to that end I made a suggestion to expedite the matter, namely that additional or assistant appeals commissioners should be appointed. I will be glad to hear from the Minister whether he is able to entertain this suggestion.

I have on a previous occasion pleaded with the Prime Minister and asked for a different attitude to be adopted to people who differ from the Government’s policy, and I want to address my remarks this evening to the Minister of the Interior on the subject of his internment policy. We are told time to time by Ministers that they see to it that justice is done, and that internees are given a reasonable opportunity to present their case; but afterwards we are faced with hard facts and we come across cases which make us feel uneasy. The Minister knows that I called on him recently and made representations to him about a certain case. Let me say at once that the Minister received me in a very friendly way and that he immediately went to some trouble to enquire into the case. Now I also want to say that if it becomes necessary to approach the Minister about a case of this kind, it makes us feel very uneasy about lots of cases where people are perhaps not so well informed and have not got anyone to present their case to the Minister. There must be numerous instances of that kind. I want to ask the Minister to see to it that his internment policy does not cast a further blot on this country and particularly on himself. Is it not possible where people are interned on nothing but suspicion and where people have been interned for two years and have behaved well, so that it becomes clear that the authorities are dealing with men of standing, with educated and reliable people, is it not possible to let such people out on parole, and if necessary let them stay with others whom the Minister trusts? That was done in the late war from 1914 to 1918. There are people in the camps whose health is suffering as a result of their being locked up there. Could not those people be billeted with others who are trusted by the Government? They could be watched so that they would not have a chance of indulging in subversive activities. Surely those people could do no harm. Is not the Minister prepared to do that? There are large numbers of people in internment camps who are simply fading away—they received their death sentence the day they were assigned to the internment camps. There must be large numbers of such people. I have in mind at the moment the case of a man who is in camp today and who should never have been there. Could not he be released, and be made to live with somebody else whom the Government trusts? The Minister would save money if he followed that policy and he would do the humane thing. It was done in the last war.

Are you talking of Union citizens?

Not specially. There may also be German subjects who have been in this country a long time and who are well known. Some of the Minister’s own supporters, members opposite, would perhaps be prepared to stand good and see to it that these people did not indulge in subversive activities.

Is that the father of the children?

I am seriously trying to appeal to the Minister. If the hon. member over there wants to ridicule the people in the camps, let him do so. The Minister can now prove that he has humane feelings. I am making an appeal to him. There may be Afrikaners in internment camps overseas, or Afrikaners may land in internment camps at some future time and if we treat these people here in a humane manner they may put in a good word for the Afrikaners in the internment camps elsewhere. I am thinking of the families of these people, of the wives and children who are passing through days of great stress and great sorrow because they know that their husbands are fading away behind barbed wire fences. I hope the Minister still has some humane feelings left, and I hope he has a sense of responsibility. I appeal to him to give these people a little freedom. I know what happened to us in our home during the last war. My father had an interned German in his home. My father was a Justice of the Peace and he was responsible for the man, and he had to report on his behaviour. The man knew that he had to stay on the farm and he worked there and he was productive. He assisted us to produce food. Surely the Government wants us to produce as much as possible in days like the present.