There is no question that the deletion of Clause 4 has altered this Bill very materially. Materially insofar that it has brought about the principle which has always been recognised in this House, and that is that vested rights should not in any way be interfered with before this House has been given the opportunity of judging whether such should be done or not. Now, as regards civil imprisonment itself, there is no question that there is considerable difference of opinion whether it should be abolished or not. I can understand that difference of opinion. I have contended in this House that when you have this difference of opinion the Minister in charge of such a Bill should direct his attention to it more than perhaps in ordinary circumstances. I am not going to reiterate what I told the House yesterday, namely, that I was of opinion that the Minister did not give his proper attention to the Bill for the reason that he did not accept the recommendations of his own Commission—he went further and he brought in a Bill which was in conflict with these recommendations— something which is unusual in this House, and something which hon. members will agree does not frequently happen. He has given us an excuse and his excuse was that it required undue haste, and therefore he is introducing this Bill because he intends putting something in its place. My reply is, if that is so then I say that a Bill of this nature, where there is this difference of opinion, should at any rate have time to be considered by the public and those concerned with it. But when it comes to deleting Clause 4, a clause which was put there by the Minister himself, then the question is quite different, and I submit that those who are directly concerned with this Bill were never given an opportunity of judging whether that provision should remain there or not. I don’t think it was right of the Minister to rush this thing through yesterday afternoon in a very thin House and not give members the opportunity of saying whether they approved of it or not. The hon. member who introduced it was the hon. member for Durban, Umbilo (Mr. Burnside), and we all know he will introduce any mad thing so long as he is not affected by it. I am sorry to have to say it but it is so. But when it comes to having the vested rights of the people interfered with, then I say the time has arrived when hon. members should give their attention to it. Here the rights of certain people, of people who could not know that this clause was going to be deleted, are directly affected. It creates an injustice which I submit this House should not allow, and the Minister at any rate should realise that the public have no knowledge that it was intended to remove this provision—they were not able to judge what the position would be. Had they known, the position might have been different. Now they are to be deprived of a right which they have always had and they never anticipated that this right was going to be taken away. I therefore appeal to the Minister in charge to stand by his Bill as introduced in this House, a Bill which was published to the public, and considered in the way it was published. These things create a very bad impression. When the Bill originally appeared before the public it had this particular provision in it which is now to be deleted. I want to make an appeal and ask the Minister whether he thinks it right to deprive people of rights which they have had, and to take those rights away without giving them a fair hearing and giving them an opportunity of judging whether these rights should be taken away or not. The Minister has taken ex parte statements. I submit he has introduced this Bill on representations from one section of the community, and the community which is really concerned with a Bill of this nature, and the people who are directly affected have not been taken into consideration, and now he has done it. But what do we find further? He accepts an amendment for the deletion of a clause which upsets the whole Bill and he has interfered with the rights of people—rights which this House have always very jealously guarded. I submit the Minister has not done the right thing. He has not consulted the people who are really concerned, and by allowing this clause to be deleted he has taken a step which will be deeply resented. The Minister may smile about it but I tell him that the time will come when the people will realise that their rights cannot be taken away in the way the Minister has done. I trust that even at this late stage the Minister will come to his senses and give the people the rights to which they are entitled.

I very much regret that I cannot accede to the request of the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys). He made some complaint about the deletion of this clause being agreed to in a very thin House. He was absent. I don’t think he realises what took place. This clause was deleted by a unanimous vote of the House.

At five minutes to six.

Very weighty arguments had been advanced why this clause should be deleted—arguments which carried considerable weight with the House, and also with me. I may mention one of these arguments. If we left this clause in it would affect returned soldiers more than anyone else.

That is a bogey.

… which I considered very unwise. I therefore cannot accede to the hon. member’s request.

Omission of Clause 4 put and agreed to.

New Clause 5 put and agreed to, and the Bill, as amended, adopted.

I move—

I object.

Third reading on 18th March.

When the hon. member for Winburg (Mr. C. R. Swart) last night moved his amendment to this clause I indicated that I would be prepared to accept it on condition that I had an opportunity of going more carefully into the legal implications today. I have had the opportunity of consulting the legal advisers and they have re-drafted his amendment in a more appropriate legal form. The sense of the new draft is in conformity with the amendment suggested by the hon. member and I may say that I have had the opportunity of consulting the hon. member, and I think he will agree that this meets his wishes. I move as an amendment to the amendment—

I second.

In regard to Clause 3, I want to move as an unopposed motion a further amendment—

I am sorry that amendments of which notice has not been given cannot be moved.

May I point out that this amendment was printed for the Committee stage.

But the hon. member has to give notice of amendments for the Report stage.

It is in the same clause as that in which the Minister’s amendment has been moved.

But it is not an amendment to the Minister’s amendment.

The hon. member had no opportunity of giving notice of his amendment, and I hope therefore that the House will give the hon. member the opportunity to discuss this matter.

I think it would be necessary and reasonable, if the Minister is not prepared to discuss the matter now, to allow for an opportunity of doing so later on.

I am prepared to discuss the matter now.

Is there any objections? [No objections.] There being no objection, the hon. member may move his amendment, and he may proceed.

We have in this Bill a new paragraph (e) which is to be inserted in the principal Act, and that is also the paragraph to which the Minister’s amendment relates. The clause in the original law provides that in regard to paragraphs (b) , (c) and (d) an enquiry is to be made in the event of an individual for reasons mentioned in those paragraphs having to be deprived of his naturalisation certificate. In those cases, if his naturalisation certificate is withdrawn under those paragraphs (b), (c) and (d) he will have the right to claim an investigation in terms of a subsequent sub-clause, and the Chairman of the Committee of Investigation concerned has to be a judge or an ex-judge. Paragraphs (b), (c) and (d) all concern serious allegations against the naturalised person, and it has been felt that it is not fair and just that such a serious allegation should be left for the decision of the Minister alone on the ground of which the individual may be deprived of his naturalisation, and for that reason the right is given to the person, whose naturalisation it is proposed to take away, to demand a Committee of Enquiry to determine in terms of Clause 7 (4) of the Principal Act, whether such action will be equitable or not. The Minister now proposes a further paragraph (e) which contemplates what is perhaps the most serious charge, because it deals with the individual who is to be charged with what amounts to high treason if he is dealt with under that paragraph. As the amendment reads now, it amounts to this, that if anyone who was the subject of a country with which His Majesty is now at war, is guilty of promoting the interests of that country to the detriment of the interests of the Union, he can have his naturalisation withdrawn. It means that that individual is guilty of high treason. What my amendment asks for is that in the event of an individual being dealt with under this paragraph (e) he shall, as in the cases of (b), (c) and (d), also be entitled to an investigation by a Committee of Enquiry if he so desires. May. I be allowed here to refer to the English Act which contains practically the same provision as that which I have now proposed? In Clause 7 (1) of the English Act, it is laid down that the Secretary of State can withdraw the certificate of an individual who by word or deed has proved himself to be disloyal or unfaithful to His Majesty, but then provision is made in 7 (3) that such an individual whose certificate of naturalisation is withdrawn under those provisions is entitled to demand an investigation in terms of sub-clause (4) of the English Act which provides that the person who will lead such investigation must be appointed by the Secretary of State with the approval of the Lord Chancellor and that person must be or must have been a judicial officer of high standing. We therefore have the same type of clause in the English law as what I am proposing here. I want to read to the Minister what is written about the English clause and I contend that these remarks about the English clause are just as applicable to the clause which we are now inserting—

We also want to have it provided for here that such a person can appeal to a semijudicial Committee of Enquiry as provided for in the corresponding clause of the English law, so that in times when feelings run high and common sense is pushed into the background such a person may know that he is not handed over entirely to the mercy of the Minister concerned, but that he has the right to appeal to some judicial body. What is proposed in the Bill is a very serious thing; it means depriving an individual of his naturalisation, and probably turning him into an enemy subject in a hostile country with all the implications of such a step. It is no more than right that in those circumstances a person may feel that his security and liberty are at any rate not dependent on the goodwill of a particular Minister. But that his security will be safeguarded by a committee of enquiry with a judge or an ex-judge as chairman. We have accepted the same principle in regard to paragraphs (b), (c) and (d) and if it is applicable to those cases then it is even more applicable to the new paragraph (b) which the Minister has proposed and which is probably the most serious of all four. The Minister will say that in time of war this procedure is too slow, and that we cannot afford the time required for an investigation of that kind. I want to point out to him that this English Act was passed in time of war. That provision was made for war time. Right and justice weighed with the people who passed that provision—justice was of greater importance than the question of what was most convenient, and it was more important than the question of time. I want to ask the Minister in all seriousness when he is taking such tremendous powers into his own hands, to find a man guilty of a crime which is nothing less than high treason, to allow that person to have the right to appeal to a Commission of Enquiry which can go thoroughly into his case, so that he can feel that his case is being objectively dealt with and is not subject merely to the subjective feelings of the Minister of the day, with all the possible political prejudices connected with it. We have quite enough instances in times like the present of people being condemned, with their freedom entirely dependent on the Minister’s goodwill and the Minister’s conscience. We find that there has always been an Advisory Committee in England to consider internment questions, and this Advisory Committee can always interfere. In Green case we find that the Minister condemned the man and the Advisory Committee confirmed his judgment, but that they were subsequently compelled to release him. The English newspapers denounced the man’s sufferings in gaol. We want to prevent people being sentenced and deprived of their rights without the usual court procedure, and without the impartial intervention of our judges. We don’t want people to be arbitrarily put in gaol at the behest of the Minister. I feel that the Minister probably did not observe this point when the Bill was drafted. I fail to understand why there should be a differentiation between paragraphs (b), (c) and (d) and the new paragraph (e). All we ask for in this amendment I propose is that precautions similar to those for the security and liberty of naturalised citizens under paragraphs (b), (c) and (d) shall also be taken in connection with the new paragraph (e) which is perhaps the most serious of all those sections. I hope the hon. the Minister will seriously consider the amendment. I hope he will agree to it, so that there will be provision for an impartial court, lest he be accused afterwards of being afraid to submit these cases to the judgment of an impartial court.

I second the amendment. We have had a long fight over this Bill, and last night the Minister allowed us a small amendment, but now another difficulty crops up in that connection, which has been raised by the hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges). This is an important question. It sounds involved but actually the principle is a very simple one. In the way the Minister has now changed the amendment which I proposed it means that if an individual behaves in such a manner that it can be reasonably concluded from his behaviour that he is serving the interests of another country then he can be deprived of his naturalisation. But the conclusion arrived at from his behaviour, the question whether he has behaved in such a manner that it can be concluded that he is serving the interests of another country — that question is left to the Minister’s judgment. Now I want to show how this question fits in with Clause 7 of the existing Act of 1926. That clause lays down certain provisions, not questions of opinion or deduction, but actual happenings on the ground of which an individual may be deprived of his citizenship, namely high treason, obtaining a certificate by fraud, unlawful trading or trafficing with the enemy and so on. There is no question of doubt as to whether he has done so or not. It is submitted to the judgment of the court, and then the Minister can simply decide whether he wants to deprive such a person of his certificate or not. The man must first of all be sentenced and found guilty of high treason, of illegal trading with the enemy, or other offences as provided for in the Act, and then the Minister decides whether he is to be deprived of his certificate. The court decides whether a man is guilty or not. It is further provided in the clause that a certificate of naturalisation can be withdrawn by the Minister if an individual, within five years after the granting of the certificate has been sentenced to imprisonment of not Jess than twelve months, or if such a person, since the granting of the certificate, has been absent from His Majesty’s territory for a period of not less than seven years, or from the mandated territory of South-West Africa, or if such a person in terms of the law of a State with which His Majesty is at war remains a subject of that State. The Minister is not the man who judges, but if the Immigration officials determine that a person has been away for seven years and has not come back, then the Minister can decide whether the man’s certificate is to Le cancelled. The Minister does not judge the facts in regard to the case at all; he only considers the desirability, after certain things have taken place, of withdrawing the certificate or not. Now, however, the Minister amends the position and it is left here to the Minister to judge the matter in its entirety. If the Minister feels that a person has behaved in such a manner that it can be concluded that he is serving the interests of a foreign country the Minister can withdraw the certificate. Now I want to add to what the hon. member for Fauresmith has said, that even where an individual has been found guilty by a court and there is no doubt in regard to the facts, the Minister can still appoint a court of enquiry.

He has to do so.

Yes, that is what it amounts to. Even if there is no doubt about the facts and a court has found a man guilty the Minister can be induced to have an enquiry made, but for cases, in terms of this amendment of Clause 7, it is left entirely to his judgment, a purely theoretical judgment. The Minister has to judge whether a man has behaved in such a manner that it can be reasonably concluded from his behaviour that he is serving the interests of the enemy. That is an entirely foreign principle in our law. The hon. member for Fauresmith clearly pointed to the seriousness of the matter. It is important to an individual who is affected that he shall not be deprived of his naturalisation in this way, while his friend next to him, who has actually been found guilty of certain crimes can demand an investigation. In the first case all the Minister has to do to is judge whether it can be concluded that from his behaviour that he is supporting the enemy. It is important that the Minister and the Government shall not lay themselves open to the charge afterwards of having acted blindly and like tyrants, if the Minister simply acts on his own judgment. We are merely dealing here with the practical effect of the law and I trust that the Minister will consider this matter seriously, and will seriously consider the amendment and accept it. The Minister says that it will take a long time, but what about those people who are first of all found guilty of other crimes, and who then ask for an enquiry? That also takes a long time. The Minister can intern these people if he wants to. He has the right today if he considers a man is acting in conflict with the country’s interests and is well disposed to the enemy, to intern such an individual. Give that man the same right as the man who has already been found guilty. Give him the enquiry. If the Minister has any feeling of equity left he must admit that some form of enquiry is very definitely required. That is why it is essential that he should accept our suggestion. It is no use saying that the Minister can order an investigation on his own initiative. We are dealing with legislation here and it should be put in the law that an enquiry is to be held. It should be made obligatory, or at any rate possible, under the law, otherwise it is purely a loose sort of investigation which the Minister can institute on his own, but for which no procedure has been laid down. The Minister can simply send an official and say: “Go and find out at such and such a place whether that man has misbehaved or is misbehaving himself.” The official may come back and say he has spoken to five people and that they all say that it can reasonably be deduced from his behaviour that he is well disposed towards the enemy. That is not sufficient. The amendment is perfectly fair and reasonable and if the Minister wants to be reasonable he should accept it.

I have listened with great interest and care to what the hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) said, supported by the hon. member for Winburg (Mr. C. R. Swart). I want to say that I appreciate the point they are making and the grounds on which they have based their case. I think that they have made a good point that in a matter of this sort every care should be taken to ensure that no arbitrary decision is given by the Minister responsible. My difficulty in regard to the course which they are suggesting is that it is a somewhat cumbrous one, and it involves a possible long waste of time. Now the hon. member for Fauresmith (Dr. Dönges) has pointed out that there is a provision somewhat similar to the new paragraph (E) in our Act, in the English Act. That is so. Section 7 of the English Act which he quoted enables the Secretary for State to revoke a certificate where the person concerned has shown himself to be disloyal, to His Majesty, and the English Act goes on to provide that where the Secretary for State wishes to invoke this particular section he should have an enquiry similar to that provided in our Act. But there is this distinction between the two enquiries laid down. In the South Africa Act, that is, Act No. 18 of 1926, it is provided that where the Minister of the Interior notifies a person that he proposes to hold an enquiry that person is given a period of six months in which to say whether he wishes such an enquiry or not. In other words, he can hold up the proceedings for a period of six months. There is not that six months’ provision in the English Act. The six months’ provision was, of course, inserted in peace time, but for the purpose of dealing with the class of person who had left the country in peace time. I understand that the very few cases which were dealt with under Section 7 of our Act were cases of absentees from the Union for a long period. It was necessary in their case to ensure that they had notice, so the provision was inserted. The persons whom it is contemplated will be dealt with in this Bill are all persons in this country; the bulk of them will be persons at the present time in the internment camps.

Why call it cumbersome then?

There may, of course, be others; there will undoubtedly be others, either in the Union or in South-West Africa. My first difficulty about the proposed procedure is this time factor. My second difficulty is this, that it seems unnecessary that the Minister should be bound in every case where there are certain cases which are so clear cut that ex facie …

Take the case where a man is convicted of high treason.

… when ex facie it is clear that no injustice will be done by denaturalising the man. To mention an example: there is the case of a person who was naturalised in 1934. In 1938 he wrote asking whether he would be allowed to be denaturalised on the ground that he had never realised what the implications of naturalisation were; that his sympathies had always been with the Reich Government and that he wished to revert to his former status. That person has shown that the indications of his allegiance prior to the war have been nullified subsequent to the war.

He would not ask for an enquiry.

It is true, he may not ask for an enquiry. But on the other hand if he has the right he may do so, only to hold up the proceedings. I am sorry that I am not able to accept the amendment of the hon. member. But I do feel that this is a matter which requires further consideration, and I am prepared to give my hon. friend this undertaking, that I should be obliged to him if he would discuss it with me and my advisers before the Bill goes to the Senate. I should then have an opportunity of deciding whether a proper amendment could be moved after introduction in the Senate. I would be obliged if the hon. member for Fauresmith therefore will not press his amendment today. In any event I am not able to accept it today, but I am prepared to go into the matter in order to see whether some alternate machinery for an enquiry can be laid down, and, after full discussion with him and my advisers, to consider the advisability of introducing such an alternate form of machinery. I give him that undertaking, but I regret that I am not able to accept the amendment of the hon. member as at present informed.

I want to appeal to the Minister of Native Affairs to allow this vote to stand over until we have disposed of subsequent votes. My reason briefly is this, that the Select Committee on Public Accounts is at the moment making a special investigation in regard to certain scandals which have occurred in the purchase of land. The policy in regard to the purchase of land by the Department of Native Affairs is also being considered and enquired into, and we are of opinion that it should be changed. As we have already said on previous occasions, and as the Native Affairs Commission has also suggested, a special department should be established to deal with the question of the purchase of land. At the moment the system is unsound, and it is not in the interests of the Administration itself. Today we cannot discuss those matters in this House, matters which are of the utmost importance so far as the Minister himself that the evidence is of the utmost important that the Minister should have the views which the Select Committee have on the subject, and it is also of the utmost importance that members themselves should be able to study the evidence that is being taken by us. I can assure the Committee that the evidence is of the utmost importance. We have even taken evidence on the subject from the Native Affairs Commission, and if we look at the Auditor-General’s report it must be clear to everyone that scandals and irregularities have taken place in connection with the purchase of land. I do not want to cast any reflections at the moment, but I want to tell the Minister—and I think he will agree —that if such irregularities do take place, he should know what those irregularities are, and the House should be able to consider the matter, and we should consider the question, too, whether the public can tolerate that sort of thing. I think the Minister will agree that a change should be made in regard to this matter. As we are enquiring into the subject at the moment, this vote should stand over. Naturally I have certain information which I can mention, but the Standing Rules and Orders do not allow me to discuss at the moment matters which are being dealt with by the Select Committee. But they are important, and members should be informed about them, so that they can judge whether it will not be in the interest of the Administration itself to change the method of purchasing land. We should be able to discuss the whole matter, so that a proper arrangement may be made between the different bodies, and especially with the Native Trust, so that everybody will be able to work in his own sphere, and the one section will not interfere with the other. I therefore move—

No.

It would be to the Ministers’ own interest to accept this motion. He should, first of all, have the opportunity of reading the evidence. The Minister cannot deny that such scandals—

Where are the scandals?

Well, the farmers bought for £2,250, and it was sold on the very same day for £11,250, so that a profit of £9,000 was made in one day by selling to the Native Trust.

No.

I want to refer the hon. member to the report of the Auditor-General. I don’t say that it is so, or that it is not so, but it is not a laughing matter. I know the Minister treats everything in a frivilous way. He does not want to listen to what anyone else has to say. If he himself were to go into the question he would find that this is not a matter which can be put aside lightly. I feel that the taxpayers are being made to bear burdens which are as severe as they can carry, and no unnecessary burdens should be imposed on them. The farming population is suffering hardships. Not only have they to cope with drought and all sorts of other difficulties, and with the labour problem, but everything the farmers need is now so much more expensive, and conditions are so difficult that they find it almost impossible to make a living, yet the Minister comes here in his light-hearted manner and refuses to comply with the reasonable request that we are putting to him, when we are actually trying to help him. I hope the Minister will get us and give us the reasons for his refusal, because it seems to me that the Minister is now trying to deny that these things have happened. If a man on an investment of £2,000 can make a profit of £9,000 in one day, I can only describe it as a scandal which wants looking into. But that is not the only case. There are a number of similar cases, not only in connection with the purchase of land, but also in connection with the policy of the Native Trust. The Native Trust consists of five members and a Chairman, and, although the majority was opposed to the purchase of a certain piece of land, that land was bought all the same. Now, I want to ask the Minister whether he still wants to laugh at what is going on. I want to know whether he does not consider that the condition is one which should be changed? If we criticise the Native Trust, they say that they have no say, and they tell us that they are entirely innocent, and that they cannot rectify the position. I defy the Minister to prove that the position is not as I have stated it to be, but, if it is so, then he should agree that there is something radically wrong. We are sitting here without having the evidence before us, and I hope therefore that the Minister will agree to let the vote stand over, so that we can rectify the position and allow the public to judge whether the procedure which is being followed at present should be continued in future. I therefore move my amendment.

I am not prepared to agree to the proposal. The hon. member talks about scandals. He is not entitled to do so. He is serving on the Select Committee enquiring into those matters. What right has he to speak about scandals? When the Select Committee’s report is placed before the House the hon. member can get as cross as he likes.

Who is getting cross?

The hon. member is as blown up as a frog.

I think, Mr. Chairman, you should ask the Minister to withdraw that.

Yes, I withdraw that. It seems the hon. member is still annoyed at the defeat he suffered over the Civil Imprisonment Bill.

Surely that is no argument.

Anyhow I am not accepting his motion. All these matters can be discussed when the Select Committee’s report is before the House.

The housing of natives in the larger municipalities has received a good deal of attention from the Department of Native Affairs and from the Government generally. I now want to bring to the notice of the Minister the case of those smaller areas which are not quite rural nor yet quite urban. In these smaller areas the local authorities have neither the means nor the machinery to provide for their people those services which a civilised community should provide. I am thinking particularly of a small place, Kirkwood, in the Sunday River Valley, which I think is representative of a great many of the smaller communities in this country. I suppose it might be classified as urban, but actually the people who live there, the native people who live there are essentially farm labourers for whom their employers cannot afford to give room on their farms. As the hon. Minister knows, the land in that area is irrigated land, and far too valuable to use for housing natives on a squatting basis. Now the problem is how these people who are really farm labourers receiving farm labourers wages, are to achieve the services they need—water, sanitation, health services. The conditions under which these people live might be a great deal worse, but I should not like to see it much worse. The location I am thinking of is three or four miles out of the village, right on the very top of a hill which is very steep. They have to carry every drop of water up that hill; they have to use the surrounding bush for sanitary purposes, and there is no clinic anywhere in the vicinity. I feel that the needs of a community of this kind must receive the consideration of the Native Department. I hope the Department will put its mind and experience to the devising of machinery by which those essential services can be provided. It is no use going to the Village Management Board and saying to them: “You must provide services for your native population”, because they literally have not the resources with which to do it. They cannot provide adequate services for the European community which are generally their first consideration, and it is quite useless to talk to them about the necessity for the provision of services of the kind I have mentioned for their native population. I am bringing this problem to the notice of the Minister because I think it is one of the major problems of the present time. We have these communities dotted all over the country, and their needs are becoming more and more urgent. What we need is some national machinery to meet the needs of these small local communities. These needs must become a national responsibility and not a local responsibility. Related to these needs is the need of improved housing. The larger municipalities have been able to take up the loans that have been provided by the Housing Board either on a sub-economic or economic basis, and they have been able to rehouse a portion, not a great proportion but some proportion, of their native population fairly adequately on the basis of those loans. I do not believe that any of the smaller urban areas are going to be able to take advantage of the facilities provided even by sub-economic housing loans, for I do not believe that the people for whom this housing must be provided can pay the rents that would be necessary. I think the Minister knows that Port Elizabeth is the only town in the whole of the country that has succeeded in producing good houses on the sub-economic loan at a reasonable rent. The rents there are 12s. a month for two rooms, 16s. for three rooms. These are the lowest rents that I know of. Other towns have not found it possible to charge less than £1 per month, and the wages paid in the poorer semi-rural areas simply will not allow of the payment of that sort of rent. Rents are still too high in the towns, but in the smaller areas it is quite impossible for native workers to pay these rents. I feel, therefore, that it is necessary that the Housing Board should revise its policy in order to meet the needs and the claims of these poorer areas. Another point that I want to bring forward is referred to in this report of the Native Affairs Commission. There are a good many things in this report with which I do not agree, but one thing in particular I wish to draw the Minister’s attention to. It refers to the problem of juvenile delinquency, a problem in which I have taken a good deal of interest. In Section 40 on page 44 of the Report there is a recommendation put forward which I am hoping the Minister will not adopt. The Commission, after having considered the reports of the Continuation Committee of a conference which took place in Johannesburg on juvenile delinquency, has put forward this recommendation among other things—

Sir, I hope the Minister will not adopt the second part of that recommendation, because I think it is extremely reactionary. For one thing I have always deprecated the use of the term “apprenticeship” in relation to native labour on farms. It is a misnomer. The system which it envisages has nothing in common with real apprenticeship. The boys do not learn anything beyond the duties of unskilled labourers. If they learnt some skilled trade it would be useful to the farmers and themselves, and might justify this term. As it is, the system is merely a revival of a miserable 18th century system of indentured labour. [Time limit.]

I wish to avail myself of the privilege to speak for half an hour. As we are now starting to discuss the Native Affairs Department, I feel that a word of thanks and praise is due to the officials of the Department of Native Affairs. I feel that I am entitled to say that of all the departments of State, one perhaps hears least about the officials of the Department of Native Affairs. In spite of that, they do work which in many respects is of the utmost importance to South Africa. To a large extent theirs is specialised work, and I am glad to say that of late years our universities have followed the direction of training some of our young men for this type of work, which to a large extent is specialised work. I believe, and I hope, that the Department of Native Affairs will also appreciate the work that is being done by our universities to provide training for these young men for this specialised work. I may say that at all the universities I know which are undertaking this training, the people at the head of the faculties concerned are authorities in this sphere, and that there is close co-operation between the universities and the department so to arrange the courses, that the students who obtain their degrees in this work will be of use to the department as a result of their having been trained in the direction in which the department has to work. I hope that when I say this the Minister and his department will make use of these young men who are being trained at the universities. When they have been trained in this comparatively specialised work, the sphere of activities in which they can be employed is very limited, except in the Public Service, and most of those young men who take that course take it with the object of joining the Public Service and of becoming good officials of the State. I feel that the good name of the Department of Native Affairs will be added to if they employ some of those students who are being specially trained for this work. Now, I want to come to the very disquieting speech which was made some time ago by the Minister of Native Affairs. I do not want to go into the details of that speech. I only want to discuss its consequences. I am referring to the speech which the Minister of Native Affairs made some time ago, in which he practically said that he was in favour of natives being armed in this war, so as to fit them to become members of our ordinary Army. I feel that that statement of the Minister’s came as a severe shock to the people of the whole of South Africa. I am not going into details of the moral side of the Minister’s statement. That aspect has been discussed in a previous debate, but I want to say in passing that it has always been South Africa’s policy not to arm the natives, and, as the Minister of Native Affairs has now practically said that he is in favour of arming the natives and of turning them into soldiers, it means that he is following a course which is in direct conflict with the old vested policy in South Africa, a policy which principally came from the side of the Afrikaans speaking people, a policy with which the overwhelming majority of the English speaking section in this country agrees, at any rate, all the English speaking people who are familiar with the natives, and who have been in close contact with the native areas. I want to deal with this question of the arming of natives in the light of the Communistic propaganda going on among the natives, first of all; and, secondly, in connection with the object of certain sections in South Africa, both white and native, to do away with all colour bars, all colour divisions, which we have in South Africa. I shall therefore deal with this, first of all, in connection with Communistic propaganda. I think everybody will agree that the natives probably throughout the whole world, and certainly in South Africa, supply the most fertile soil for Communistic propaganda, especially and almost exclusively in the case of the detribalised natives, the natives in the large towns. Those are the natives who have broken away from their tribal customs and their tribal traditions, and I believe that all members who are acquainted with the native areas know that the native who has not been detribalised, and the native chiefs in the native areas—that among those natives who are not detribalised, Communistic propaganda is most unwelcome. Tribal natives don’t want these Communistic propagandists. The fertile soil for Communistic propaganda is to be found in the detribalised natives. That being the case, anyone who has considered this question calmly and dispassionately, has to admit that if the Native of South Africa becomes strongly communistic, it may be a grave danger, and he will also have to agree that one of the best methods of counteracting communistic propaganda among the natives is to ao nothing to break down and to weaken the tribal tradition of our natives. I do not know what the policy of our department of native affairs is in regard to this particular question of the preservation of tribal customs, but I hope the policy is as far as possible to maintain ideas. In explanation of what I have said here I believe that anyone who knows anything about the natives in the native territories knows that natives from those areas very often go to the Witwatersrand. They are taken away from their old tribal traditions and customs, from the ethical conceptions of the tribe, and those natives in the big towns often become the worst criminals. A native in those circumstances may perhaps be a criminal in the town. Afterwards he returns to his own territory and the police then informs the territory that this particular native who has returned has a bad record with the police. In other words they must keep an eye on him. He returns to the native territory. There he does not become a criminal, but very often he becomes an exemplary citizen of the territory. That is due to the fact that when he comes back to the surroundings of his tribe the old conceptions return. When he is in the town he is away from his tribe, he is away from tribal traditions, and away from the public opinion of the tribe. He is away from the ethical conceptions of the tribe to which he is accustomed, and when he is removed from his old tribal traditions, from his tribal culture, and is placed in surroundings which are strange to him, where he does not fit in, where there is an absence of that public opinion of the tribe which he understands, he becomes a criminal. But as soon as he returns and lives again under his own tribal traditions he again becomes a normal and decent citizen. That is something which strikes us and it is something which we must not lose sight of when we deal with this question of communistic propaganda. The Department of Native Affairs must not lose sight of the fact that the type of communism which is proclaimed in the country is not the same type of national communism which we find in native life. It comes in conflict with it. There is something new in it to them. The longer we preserve the tribal customs of the natives the longer shall we guarantee and safeguard the natives from communistic influence and prevent such influence from getting a hold on the natives. I therefore say that one of the most important things to counteract communistic propaganda among our natives it to keep the tribal idea as vigorous as possible. Well, the fact that considerable progress has already been made with communistic propaganda among the natives, and the fact that it already has become an actual danger among our natives in the towns, cannot, I think, be doubted. It is an actual danger as we have already seen in the past. It is a danger which I am afraid it is going to be very much more difficult to combat in view of our present alliance with Russia—it is going to be very much more difficult to combat than it was in the past. Let us cast our minds back a few years. We know that a few years ago we used to have regular meetings on the Parade in Cape Town every Saturday when communists used to stir up those people against the Europeans, and also against the land owning classes. They were spreading communistic propaganda among the natives on the Parade in a way almost amounting to sedition. But it was not only at those public meetings where these things were done. We know that astute communistic propaganda was spread right throughout South Africa, especially among the town natives, and the people who were at the back of that propaganda were not primarily natives, but Europeans. They were white communists who conducted this communistic propaganda among the natives here in South Africa. Well, judging from external appearances, so far as the Native Affairs Department and the police are concerned, this communistic propaganda apparently decreased during last year. It is a very welcome sign here to notice that externally at any rate this propaganda has decreased. But now we have entered into this alliance with Russia, with the result that this Communistic propaganda has broken out in an almost aggravated form, and in order to prove this fact I cannot do better than read a few extracts from the report of a meeting which was held recently in the Cape Town City Hall. A meeting was held there under the aegis of a Trade Union. That meeting was attended by Europeans, natives, Indians, and coloured people. Speeches were made which cannot but make one feel nervous of what we have to expect in future if this agitation of the non-Europeans is to continue in the way they were agitated and stirred up at this meeting. The report points out that at the back of the platform were large banners bearing inscriptions. There were large displays and mottoes in the hall, such as “Masters make one million pounds profit, workers get thirty shillings per week.” “We demand a share of the profits.” “We demand a wage of 10s. per day.” “Down with the colour bar.” “We demand civilised rights and human rights.” One could agree with some of those things, but the whole spirit displayed by those inscriptions was the spirit of those Communists who are engaged on this propaganda in this country. The report of the meeting goes on to say this—

That, at any rate, indicates that they have a certain amount of common sense. And then the report goes on—

That, again, shows lack of common sense. And then the report goes on—

The Minister of Native Affairs and the Communistic Government of Russia were praised most of all at this meeting. Anyhow the Minister of Native Affairs was in good company. The report goes on to say that Mr. W. H. Andrews had pointed out—

I almost thought that he would exceed him And then the report goes on—

The two are brought together; they are one of them …

And so it went on. A non-European speaker, Baboo, held up Russia as an example of a country which had no colour bar. The last speaker was a coloured hat maker, and he said that South Africa’s non-European soldiers were among the most poorly paid soldiers in the world, and then he said we were expected to fight for democracy, and our wives and children were expected to live on charity. A statement like that, of course, is ridiculous, and far from the truth. If statements of that kind, so completely devoid of truth, are made, they are only made with one object, namely, to stir up the native and the coloured people, and to make them dissatisfied with the conditions they are living under, and once they become dissatisfied with their conditions of life they become fertile soil for Communistic propaganda.

If this last part is nonsense, why not the first part as well?

Which part?

That part to which you attach so much value in regard to the Communistic Government.

I am dealing with this nonsense now, and not with the hon. member’s nonsense. As we already have this danger of communistic propaganda in this country it can only make one realise it can only fill one with a sense of danger if we have to have consular offices in South Africa right throughout the country, in all the large towns and cities, for the communistic government of Russia. In the past we did not want them. We have never yet allowed Russia to open consular offices in South Africa. And the reason why it was not allowed here is the same as in America, where Russian consular offices were not allowed to be opened either, and the same applies to many other countries in the world, and the reason is that the experience of those countries has shown that if consular offices of communistic Russia are allowed to be opened they do not stick to the ordinary work of such consular offices but they abuse the opportunity to make communistic propaganda among our people. It was a very sensible thing in the past not to allow it, because it was a danger to South Africa where communistic propaganda was already going on on such a large scale, particularly as we knew that Russia took up the attitude that there must be absolute equality between European and nonEuropean. And the danger we have always had in South Africa is aggravated by the fact that to all intents and purposes we are going to allow Russia to create centres of communistic contagion in South Africa. When one sets about arming the natives and uses them to take part in the war other dangers and difficulties arise. We can see the difficulties there are at the moment between England and India. England hopes that India will take a larger share in England’s war effort. India declares that it is prepared to do so but on certain conditions, and as England’s distress and needs are becoming greater, and it becomes urgently necessary for India to take a larger share in the war, England is now inclined just as any other country would be inclined in similar circumstances, to meet India, to make concessions to the people whom England expects to do more for the war than she did before. I take up the attitude that South Africa’s traditional outlook on native affairs is a sound one, the traditional conception of trusteeship. I am in favour of the natives being given the opportunity of developing in their own direction and along their own lines, but I say again that if we ask the natives to take part in the war effort, if we ask them to become soldiers, then the natives will also make their demands and it will be very difficult not to concede those demands. That is the position existing in India today and that is the position we shall get in South Africa if large numbers of natives are armed. If we arm the natives we must abandon the idea of South Africa being a white man’s country and it means breaking away from the country’s traditional policy in regard to the natives. It is extremely dangerous. I believe that everybody feels that when the war is over, whatever may be the outcome, there will be a time of terrible confusion in the world, not only economic confusion, but also a time of intellectual and spiritual confusion. All our old foundations will be shaken. The whole world and the whole outlook will be cast into the maelstrom and nobody knows where we shall land. But if there is to be such a period of spiritual and intellectual and economic difficulty and confusion after the war, the sensible man will take precautionary measures not to aggravate the position, but to steer the country in a safe direction, and if all these facts are weighed up none has the right to expose the country to a further danger by arming large numbers of natives. By following the course I have shown, the Government will be creating grave dangers for the country’s future. We are going to have trouble after the war. It is not improbable that a large proportion of the natives will lean over to communism, and the group you will arm and use for the Army will consist mainly of natives who are particularly susceptible to communistic propaganda. If you allow the natives to be armed in South Africa—and we should remember that those people have not got the civilisation that we have but only a partial civilisation, it means that you are creating a danger for South Africa which may have terrible consequences so far as the white civilisation of our country is concerned. We should remember the difficulties which England has experienced in Malaya and Burma. The Japanese invaded Burma and Malaya and the Burmese and Malays proved themselves unwilling to take part in the war on England’s side. After 140 years England did not succeed in getting the natives of those countries to look at matters from the English point of view. Japan is there now and one of the reasons given for the failure of the English campaign in Malaya is that the natives do not care who wins the war or who loses it. We have the same position in South Africa, that the natives will not care who wins or who loses the war, but it will be the natives’ object to strengthen their predominance right throughout South Africa. If we help them to do so it means that we are creating great troubles and great dangers for the Europeans in days to come.

I wish to associate myself with the introductory remarks made by the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) and also to pay my small meed of praise to the impartiality and fairness of the native administration in this country. We have always received at the hands of the Secretary and his staff every possible consideration and assistance and we have reason to be proud in this country of our Native Affairs staff and particularly of the Native Administrators in the Transkeian Territories who administer over 1,000,000 natives with very little in the way of police support. They are able, by their own moral standard, to maintain peace and goodwill between the native and European races. The whole speech of the hon. member for Humansdorp confirms one’s opinion, how very necessary it is in this country that we should secure at all costs the goodwill of the native people of this country. We are only going to secure that goodwill by treating them fairly and justly. It has been said, and said quite truly, that the natives have a very high sense of justice, and I am sure the words which came from the hon. member for Humansdorp will be an echo of words which his father would have uttered, and would have been listened to by the natives of this country, because the name of Sauer still is a name venerated by the natives of this country. I want to deal with another matter, a matter which I dealt with on previous occasions, and it is a matter of considerable importance to the members of the farming community, particularly in the Eastern Province. I have before me the report of the Native Affairs Commission and I notice here that they had 49 formal meetings during the year and the following matters, inter alia, were dealt with by them: Applications for church and school sites; native hospitalisation; applications for grants to hospitals; applications for excision from or inclusion in released areas; requests by farmers and others for the purchase of land by the South African Native Trust; expropriation of “black spots” and so on. Now, what are those “black spots”? I think it is generally understood that it refers to native-owned farms in European areas which are entirely surrounded by European-owned properties in the European areas. So there should be no mistake when we refer to black spots just what it means— I don’t refer to mission stations, nor to stations where natives have individual title to grounds. I am referring purely to what we call black spots, native-owned land in European areas. I have read this report right through, and although the Commission is supposed to have dealt with this matter, at least they allege to have dealt with this matter, I can find no trace throughout this report of any action they have taken on this question. I now want to put a question to the Minister. I have dealt with this matter in the House for the last three sessions. I want to ask the Minister what is the policy of the Native Affairs Department in connection with this matter. Are they going to bring pressure to bear on these natives living in a European area, owners of these black spots, are they going to bring pressure to bear, or are they going to give any inducement to get them to sell that land to the Government, and to be transplanted into an area acquired by the Native Land Trust in terms of the Land Act. This question has cropped up from time to time at our Farmers’ Congresses and Farmers’ Association meetings, and the position today is becoming such that it is becoming absolutely intolerable to our farmers to farm with these, what I call, festering sores right in the midst of your stock farming areas. It is becoming absolutely impossible for the farmer to carry on his farming while these conditions exist. The position has become worse since many of our young farmers have gone away on active service, leaving their wives and families behind. They have lost all control over their servants, and today we find that stock thieving is on the increase and that these black spots are not being controlled so far as squatting is concerned. I have looked up the details and I find that from the 31st March, 1940, £5,000,000 have been specially appropriated by Parliament for the acquisition of land by the Trust. Of this sum nearly £4,000,000 has actually been expended in the purchase of 1,178,233 morgen and £663,949 has been allotted for the proposed purchase of an additional 252,000 morgen, making a total amount of approximately 1,500,000 morgen. That 1,500,000 morgen is all European owned ground, which has been acquired by the Trust for the benefit of the natives. I still have to learn that one morgen of native-owned land has been acquired—that is among these black spots—has been acquired by the Trust in order to move the natives from these black spots and put them in any native area which has been acquired for that purpose. I mentioned before that there is a very strong feeling in my part of the country. I find that 46,000 morgen have been acquired in the Border Districts of the Cape Province—that is, in the European area. Not one single black spot has yet been removed, nor as far as I know have any efforts been made to remove one of these native-owned farms and to move the native into an area acquired by the Trust. The natives themselves at their meeting of the Natives’ Representative Council held in 1941 passed this resolution—

That resolution was passed at the last session of the Natives’ Representative Council so that the natives themselves seem to be agitated that the ground which has been acquired is not at present used for the purpose for which it was acquired. The position today is really getting into such a state that I would ask the Minister and the Native Affairs Commission to take this matter into serious consideration. I am not exaggerating the position. I have come here with my plea year after year and I have been supported in my application by no less a body than the Eastern Agricultural Union, a body of about 150 representative farmers, who passed a unanimous resolution asking that this question be tackled. What is happening today? Let me just trace what is happening. A native family comes to a European farmer with probably two head of cattle. He and his family remain there as servants for a few years, they accumulate 10, 15 or 20 head of cattle, until the farmer says: “I cannot possibly let it go on, my grazing is too costly, I cannot supply you with grazing free for 25 head of cattle, you must either sell some of your cattle or I am afraid I shall have to get rid of you as a servant.” The native, fond of his cattle, is loath to part with them. He immediately makes for one of the black spots and there he and his family and cattle go and squat. He has to be careful that he does not contravene the Native Locations Act. How does he overcome it? By hiring from another native and entering into a written lease for £36 per year. He sends his son to the mines to work while he and his family squat on the property. They soon find that they need a lot of servants, and they gather round them a whole crowd, and when the police come these natives are all servants of this man with the property. [Time limit.]

This afternoon when the Minister replied to my request to let this vote stand over, he treated with contempt my statement that certain scandals had taken place, not only with reference to the purchase of farms, but also in connection with the whole policy followed by the Department of Native Affairs. I shall give a few further facts just now, so that the country can judge whether such scandals took place, and whether this House is not entitled to go into these matters and to ascertain from the Minister what he intends doing in connection with this type of scandal. I cannot describe it as other than scandalous. In support of that, I do not want to go into specific cases today with regard to purchases. But what concerns me particularly is the system of purchases which is also described by the Native Affairs Commission as wrong, and as a system over which they have no control. Because they have no control over the matter, they do not, of course, accept any responsibility. The Commissioners were appointed under an important Act, and they cost the country approximately £5,000 in salaries alone. Where you have such a Commission, you expect that they will have a certain amount of responsibility. But what is their position in connection with the purchase and valuation of land? The valuations are made by the Land Board and the Central Board. Let me mention a case here. A farm was bought for £403. The following year the farm was sold, without mineral rights, for £500, and a year later the purchaser again sold it at £2,400, when the mineral rights belonged to the farm. I merely quote this from the Auditor-General’s report. But what does one find further? A member of the Central Land Board goes out and values a farm, with the improvements on it, at £7,500. Later on the farm was again valued by three members of the Central Land Board —the member who had valued the farm at £7,500 and two other members of the Land Board—and they valued the farm at £6,419. That was an improvement, because it was a little less. But what does one find further? Independent appraisers were then appointed by the Department of Native Affairs, and they valued the farm at £4,364, for which the farm was bought. The members of the Central Land Board valued the farm at over £6,000; the first member valued it at £7,500, but when the first valuation of £6,000 was submitted to the court which had to arbitrate upon the matter, the court said that it did not accept the evidence of the appraisers of the Land Board, and they fixed the price at a little over £4,000. Now, I ask the Minister whether that is not a serious matter?

Which farm was it?

Zeekoegat.

Oh, Tommy Naudé’s farm?

I do not know Whose farm it is? I am only concerned about facts. The point is that the Central Land Board valued the farm at that figure, and they went to court and the court did not believe them. For that reason I say that the time has arrived for the question to be investigated as to whether those people who are doing the work are capable of doing it, and whether they should be allowed to appraise farms in the future. I am not mentioning the names of people; nor did I know whose farm it was. We are just pointing out the position. The Minister’s own department regarded the price as being too high, and turned it down, and the farm was then obtained more cheaply. But, on the other hand, one finds that the Minister’s own department turns down the purchase of a farm, but the farm was nevertheless bought.

No.

If the Minister makes proper investigation and goes into these matters carefully, he will see that he has no right to become cross and to accuse other people and to make insulting accusations against members who try to put these matters right. Here is the report of the Auditor-General, in which he says that the valuation of certain farms is based on the wrong schedule of irrigable area, with the result that too much is paid for the farms. Farms are therefore valued on the wrong area of the irrigable land, on an area which does not exist. How can information be furnished to the Government with regard to an area which does not exist, with the result that the Government pays on the wrong basis? I refer the Minister to page 52 of the report of the Auditor-General. Who suffers if there is an overpayment? The country. If such things go on, and farms are valued on an area which does not exist, have we then not the right to talk about scandals? I know of cases where the Land Board made a valuation in an area which was unknown to them, and they drew up the valuation without finding out from the office of the Divisional Board what the value of farms in that neighbourhood was more or less, and without going to the magistrate of the district in order to find out what the value of farms was in the neighbourhood. I want to ask hon. members whether that is right, whether I am not entitled to draw the attention of the Minister to these matters, because it is not right, and nor is it fair, towards the taxpayers of the country? I hope that the Minister will come to the conclusion that there is something radically wrong with regard to the valuation of farms, and that the time has arrived for something to be done with a view to introducing another system. One finds that the Native Affairs Commission disclaims all responsibility in connection with the purchase of farms, and one finds that cases arise where the Native Affairs Commission is against the purchase of a farm, since they regard the price as being too high, while the farm is nevertheless bought. If such things take place, there is something wrong. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Humansdorp has raised the communist bogey and I think the committee should be reminded of the fact that the effective answer to that bogey is contained in the report of the Native Affairs Commission recently issued, which said—

That is really the reply to the remarks of the hon. member for Humansdorp, but I would go further and say that the real menace of Communism as far as the native population, and even the European population, are concerned, is the economic condition under which the majority of the people are forced to live. If you are going to force Europeans and natives to live in conditions of poverty and slumdom, then that is fertile ground for all sorts of propaganda. And therefore the most effective method of countering that is to pursue a policy of improving the lot of the native population. I believe that the Minister of Native Affairs, and in that regard I would say that Mr. Grobler and Mr. Fagan, his predecessors, also have been showing a very sympathetic interest in the well-being of that section of the population for whose welfare they were responsible. The question still arises whether that sympathy goes far enough, whether there is action to follow up that sympathy, and I want to ask the Minister whether anything has been done effectively to raise the standard of life and the wage-earning capacity of the native population of this country, because I would remind the Minister and the committee that usually, nine times out of ten, the moment a person comes along and suggests that the wage of the native shall be increased, he is immediately told that he is red. That has been the experience here and in other countries, too. I don’t know whether hon. members have read a book ‘, The Grapes of Wrath.” There is a story there of a man always shouting about the menace of the Reds. The man was a capitalist, owning thirty thousand acres of land, and he was asked who are these “Reds,” and his reply was “A red is a man who wants thirty cents when I am only prepared to pay 25 cents.” And that, sir, is the issue. People talk about communism and the menace that it is when they are opposed to increasing the wages of these people who are working for them. The moment anybody, a trade unionist or anybody else anxious to raise the standard of living of the natives and the coloureds begins to press for it he is met with the communist bogey. I want to ask the Minister to what extent he is paying attention to the evidence which was given to the departmental committee which sat to review the economic conditions of the urban natives. The evidence before that committee shocked the consciences of the people of South Africa. According to that evidence a native family of five must have a minimum of £6 to £6 10s. a month to live, and the average wage paid is something like £4, and I regret to say that amongst the worst offenders in this matter of low wages is the Government itself. I ask the Minister in his capacity as Minister of Native Affairs what steps he is taking to try and get the Minister of Railways with his £6,000,000 surplus to increase the wages of the natives working for the railway department.

He is a Scotsman.

I ask the Minister what steps he is taking to deal with the inadequate hospital provision for natives. The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Henderson) the other day dealt with the conditions of patients in the native hospital in Johannesburg, and the reply of the Minister of Finance, who is well known to be sympathetic towards the natives, was: “Well, I have nothing to do with it; that is a matter for the Administrator.” I would like to ask the Minister whether he cannot stop the haggling between the Minister of Finance and the Transvaal Administrator whilst these natives are dying for want of hospital accommodation, and use his influence with the Minister of Finance, so that the necessary money can be provided in connection with this matter and an adjustment between the Minister of Finance and the Administrator made later. This is the direction in which the Minister can help. I am not going to talk about scandals, but I think there can be no doubt whatever that the policy pursued by the Native Affairs Commission of washing their hands of the price that is paid for land by the Native Trust is one which is bound to be detrimental to the interests of the native population, because as the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys) has said, we are spending huge sums of money, tremendous prices are being paid for land by the Native Trust which is bound to reduce the amount of land available for natives; and will place an unduly heavy burden upon the natives in the long run. I would like to suggest to the Minister that something should be done to alter the policy of the Native Affairs Commission, or to alter the Commission or even, as was suggested by Mrs. Ballinger, do away with the Commission, and as an immediate step, whether he cannot approach the Minister of Finance with a suggestion in regard to his land profits tax. The Minister recently introduced into this House a measure to check profiteering in the matter of land, and I think the Minister of Native Affairs might well consider asking the Minister of Finance to introduce a land profits tax in respect of land purchased by the Native Trust for the natives, and utilise the revenue from such tax in the interests of the native population.

The hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys) and his colleague, the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge), who just sat down, made a very serious reflection not only on the policy followed by the Minister, but also on the Native Affairs Commission. Well, before I deal with that, let me just say that it surprises me that both these members are members of a Select Committee which has not yet completed its deliberations. They were appointed by the House, practically as judges, in order to investigate matters, and then to inform the House as to their findings. They have not yet submitted any report, but they have already given judgment. Now, I ask you, what sort of impartial report can one expect from them? They have already expressed judgment, and the worst of all is that the hon. member for Prieska has given the House incorrect information with regard to it. We heard it from him in all his irresponsible, halfbaked speeches which he makes here. Let me just say this. With regard to the purchase of native land, from the beginning, after Parliament had passed legislation that land should be purchased, it was decided by the Government that the Native Affairs Commission would have nothing to do with the valuation and the purchase of land. The duties of the Native Affairs Commission were simply and solely to make recommendations to the Government with regard to the land that should first be bought. I want the House to understand that. That is the first point. With regard to the purchase of land, the Native Affairs Commission has nothing in the world to do with it. There is a body, the Land Board, a special Board which was appointed, consisting of experts who have a knowledge of land, and who are charged with the duty of buying Government land. That is their work. Now the hon. member for Prieska refers to this court case. That case has not even been before them yet. There the hon. member for Prieska again puts his foot into it. As yet the Select Committee is not even dealing with the matter.

I referred to the case which appears in the report of the Auditor-General, and which was before the court.

That does not alter the fact that that matter is still pending in the Select Commitee, and it has not even been before them yet. There is the Act under which the Land Board was appointed, the Board consisting of experts through whom the Government has to purchase land. The hon. member for Prieska referred to land which was bought for £403, and which was sold the next year for £500, and a year thereafter again for a much greater sum. If the hon. member has any knowledge at all of farming, he will surely know, and he ought to know it as an attorney, that if a farmer is worth his salt, when he has bought a farm and he has been on that farm for four or five years, he has effected improvements, and the value of that farm has increased. Here we are dealing with the policy of the Native Affairs Commission. I have shown now that the Native Affairs Commission has nothing to do with the purchase of land.

What do they recommend themselves?

In the second place, the hon. member made the accusation that the majority of the Commission made a recommendation to the Minister, and that the Minister acted on the recommendation of the minority. That is a naked untruth. As far as I know, the majority of the Commission made the recommendation, and I do not want to say that the Minister has always accepted everything which was recommended by the majority. As far as that is concerned, the hon. member for Troyeville said here that the big prices which are paid must necessarily result in less land being purchased for natives. He is wrong. The Act lays down that we must buy 7,250,000 morgen, and it is for the Government to find that money in order to buy it. Now, my hon. friend, the hon. member for Troyeville, sees that he is wrong, and he is man enough to admit it. If they want to take the trouble and want to get the necessary information, we will be prepared to give it to them, but notwithstanding the facts that the hon. member for Prieska had, and know that some of these matters in regard to which he had to act as judge, were still pending, he anticipated the matter and expressed an opinion here. He spoke of scandals.

I only spoke of the Auditor-General’s report.

The hon. member spoke of scandals, but did he advance any proof at all in order to show that the Minister or the Native Affairs Commission committed scandalous things?

I have given you the facts, but I cannot give you brains.

I know that the hon. member for Prieska is an expert in the sphere of brains.

He did say that there were scandals.

Precisely; he did say that there were scandals. If there were scandals, then it was his duty, since he made that serious accusation in the House, at least to point out those scandals.

I cannot quite agree with the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) when he suggested that we should abolish the Native Affairs Commission. I have read this report for the year 1939—’40; every member of the House has had one, and I think it is an excellent one. I was rather astonished to hear from the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) a few minutes ago, that there was such extensive Communistic propaganda amongst the natives. If that is the case, it is strange that the Representative Council which met during December at Pretoria, and which represents the entire native population, makes no mention of any such propaganda. As the hon. member for Troyeville has pointed out, the loyalty of the natives is unquestioned. They state in their report—

In view of that, sir, I have no fear of Communistic propaganda in South Africa. We know there has been some propaganda in South Africa in favour of Hitler and Fascism. During past years members of this House have dealt with the question of locations, and have drawn the attention of the Minister to the state of those locations as far as health is concerned. We have done that on several occasions, and we have been told that housing conditions are improving, and that the conditions of the natives generally will improve. We have, however, a long way to go. I am told on good authority that in some of the locations of this country infant mortality is far too high, in some locations as high as 50 per cent. Moreover, the hon. member for Cape, Eastern (Mrs, Ballinger), has pointed out that in the smaller areas not much has been done. In some municipalities great improvements have taken place in the locations. In the town which I represent, East London, the building of houses for the natives is going on apace, at a great pace, and we are spending no less than £800,000 to begin with. I would like to mention here what the Commission has to say, because their attention has been drawn to it—

After reading that, I think it is a question of too many cooks spoiling the broth. Another question referred to in this report I touched upon last year, and that is the conditions obtaining in peri-urban areas. That is a matter which requires very careful consideration, when you remember that out of a population of about 6,500,000, 745,516 of these natives live in urban locations or in peri-urban areas, and some of those areas are becoming a menace from a health point of view to the surrounding locality. Another question relating to natives in sub-economic houses is the matter of flooring. Hundreds of these natives sleep on the floor, and some means should be devised for doing away with concrete floors. It would be fatal, however, to provide wooden floors, because they harbour vermin, and that is a very sore point with the natives. With regard to the committee set up ;to consider the improvement of the conditions of urban natives, would it not have been better if, instead of appointing a Commission, the Secretary for Native Affairs had been asked to prepare a report? The committee heard a stream of witnesses, yet few of them said anything that was really new. All the facts were known to the chairman, and nothing new was put forward. Rather than appoint a Commission, would it not have been better if the Secretary for Native Affairs had been asked to prepare a programme for immediate action? He would then be given the facilities to carry it out instead of being appointed chairman of a Commission to go over facts so well-known to him. The chief object of the Commission was to enquire into ways and means of improving the condition of the urban native other than by raising the cash wages. Now, this, to me, is the root of the whole problem, the condition of urban natives is appalling simply because wages are low. [Time limit.]

It will help the hon. member who has just sat down, and also the hon. member for Troyville (Mr. Kentridge) very little to try to create the impression here that there is not a practical danger in connection with communism today. I do not want to say anything further in regard to that, but I just want to express the hope that the Minister will closely watch the position. Now I want to say something concerning the question of lack of farm labour. I dealt with the matter fully last year, and for that reason it is not my intention this afternoon to go into details again. The Minister will remember that a commission was appointed in 1939 to investigate the matter. The commission which was appointed submitted a report, and in that report the commission made certain recommendations. I just want to point out that the commission emphasised that there was no prospect of the position, with regard to the shortage of farm labour, being improved. The commission says—

The commission brought out its report in 1939. That is three years ago, and since that time the position has undoubtedly become much more serious. In the first place, it is perhaps as a result of the policy which the Government is following; that is to say, the Government’s policy in connection with the recruiting of farm labourers for the army. Recently the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister pointed out that recruiting was not taking place on such a large scale in the Cape Province today, but that recruiting was taking place especially in the North. I want to give the hon. Minister the assurance, and I think he will agree with me, that the Prime Minister is wrong in thinking that the position in the Transvaal is less critical than in the Cape. The position in the North is just as critical, if not more critical, than in the Cape. What is the position today? There are only a certain number of natives available for service. And in passing, I want to ask the Minister whether he can say how many natives have been recruited for the army up to the present. According to the commission there are 200,000 native labourers available for service on farms, and I should like to know what percentage of these 200,000 have already been taken up in the army. Certain recommendations were made by the commission, and I want to hear from the Minister whether he has done anything with a view to carrying out, or endeavouring to carry out, some of those recommendations in practice. Let me just state briefly what the recommendations are. In the first place, there is the recommendation that the Native Urban Areas Act should be applied as strictly as possible. The Minister has farreaching powers in that connection. He was given the power to take steps with a view to removing redundant natives in the towns on a fixed date. I want to ask the Minister whether anything has been done in this connection by his department. I take it that there is a surplus of natives in the towns today, unless all of them have been taken up by the army. The second recommendation of the commission is that the Minister must see to it that natives from other parts who are in the Union should be made available exclusively as farm labourers. The commission very strongly emphasised that the Government should not allow those natives to be recruited for the gold mines, for example. They should be farm labourers simply and solely. There is a large number of those natives, and unfortunately they are more and more inclined today to go to the big towns; one finds many of them in places like Johannesburg and Durban. The Minister should see to it that this recommendation of the commission is carried out. Then the commission further recommends that steps should be taken by the Government with a view to seeing whether natives cannot be got from the Protectorates. As a result of the war, there is apparently a shortage there also, but in any case I want to ask the Minister whether he or his department has done anything in this connection. And then finally, there is the recommendation that the Native Labour Act should be so amended that farm labour can be better organised, and so that employers’ associations can be established. I just want to ask whether the Minister proposes to do anything in regard to that. As I have said, last year I went into greater detail in regard to these points, and I just want to emphasise today that the time has definitely arrived for the Minister to realise how serious the position is. The position is very serious. With the best will in the world the farmers on the platteland cannot get farm labourers today at any price. When the mines complain about a shortage of native labourers, the Government is always at hand to make agreements with Portugese East Africa, or this, that or the other territory, in order to see the mines get the necessary labour, but up to the present the Government has not done anything at all to help the farmers. The time has arrived for the Minister and the Government to give their attention to this matter. The Minister must know, and the hon. the Minister of Agriculture will admit that there is a great shortage of agricultural products today, and if they want to prosecute their war effort, then they will have to see to it that these farmers are provided with sufficient native labour. At the moment the farmers, in many cases, have no native labour at all. But apart from the question of production I think it is the Minister’s duty to give his attention to this matter, to do everything in his power to bring about an improvement in the position for the sake of the farmers and in the interests of the farmers.

I should like in the first instance to deal with some of the remarks by the hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger) about the report of the Native Affairs Commission on the subject of “youthful delinquents.” The hon. member took exception to that part of the report which said that delinquents found in towns committing crimes should be deported to the native areas from which they came.

I said they should be apprenticed.

It seems to me that that is one of the most sensible recommendations that could be made. If a native from a native area drifts into a town, into Johannesburg or wherever it is and gets out of touch with his own people, it seems one of the fairest things to ask the Government to send him back. Why should anyone object to that? Then the hon. member took exception to the recommendation that these youngsters who came from a farm and drifted into a town, when they got into mischief, should be sent back to the farm.

You should mention the circumstances.

Now I want to know what the hon. member would do. These young natives drift in from the locations into the towns, and just in passing let me say this to some members of the House—I think some of those golfers who tempt these country youngsters to come and caddy for them should also be deported, just the same as these youngsters should.

Some of them would be deported to Jerusalem.

These youngsters come to the towns and are misled, they go entirely astray and the recommendation that they should be returned to the farms they come from is a very reasonable one. Their people and their relations live there. The hon. member says that they should not be apprenticed. Well, if there are openings for that it would be a very good thing. But one of the most serious menaces is this type of youngster who drifts into the towns, lives there and becomes an absolute pest. It happens in every town in the Union, and every member has seen it. It is one of those matters which the Government will have to take up before it goes too far. We, the Commission, have taken it up and we have made our recommendations, and I do not think the hon. member is right in taking exception to that particular recommendation. The hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys) has taken the Minister to task over certain transactions which at the moment are being discussed by the Select Committee on Native Affairs. Now it seems to me that when a matter is sub judice—and this is sub judice—it is to say the least of it bad form to raise it in this House. It is something which is not done in this House, and this is the first occasion that I know of when a matter which is being discussed in Select Committee has been raised in the House.

He said he quoted from the Auditor-General’s report.

He sits on that Select Committee and he knows all about it. That is all I wish to say in that connection. I want to support the hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Conroy) when he said that the Commission is not concerned with any of the transactions about the purchase of land. That policy was laid down by the previous Government—it was in force when the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Mr. Fagan) was Minister of Native Affairs and even before that. The position is that the Native Affairs Commission does not do any buying of land —they don’t come into the transaction at all. Their duty is to find out whose land is available and suitable, and then they make recommendations to the Government and that is where their duty ceases. An impossible state of affairs would arise if we, the members of the Native Affairs Commission, also had to do the valuing and the bargaining in respect of land to be purchased. It would put us in a most inviduous position. Eighteen months or two years ago the conditions in regard to the purchase of land for the Native Trust were stiffened, and I think today the position is more satisfactory. The hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) deals with the question of health and hospitalisation. That is a matter which has been considered in this House year after year, and it has been discussed over and over again by the Native Affairs Commission, but I want hon. members to remember that the provinces are responsible for hospitalisation. All the Commission could do was to draw attention to the fact that the provincial authorities are not carrying out their duties and that they refuse to do anything for the natives because they say that they are not responsible for the natives, and that they have no power to impose taxation on natives. Well, it is absolutely essential that something should be done. The Native Trust Fund are making grants just to enable missionary and other hospitals to carry on, but that money is really diverted from its proper use. That money was intended for the development of natives and native areas, and now it is used for hospital purposes. Finally, I want to deal with this question of communism. You, Mr. Chairman, were in the House twenty years ago when we had the Kadalie outcry. We had the communist scare here then. There was a cry that communism was spread throughout the country.

It is so today.

Are things worse today than they were twenty years ago?

Much worse.

Twenty years ago you had all sorts of troubles; gravestones destroyed all sorts of things.

You have even got communists in this House.

The hon. member does not know anything about communism, he may know something about Nazis.

Rather have Nazism than Communism.

I am speaking of the natives in the reserves and in the country, and I can say that this communistic attitude has not grown. There is a certain amount of anti-white feeling. The native is developing to a certain extent an anti-white feeling, but as far as communism is concerned I don’t think it has ever attained a hold on the natives.

What did Molotov say?

If hon. members go to the Parade and they hear a communist spouting there and they see a crowd of natives standing around they think all those natives are communists. They are not, but what else have those people to do? These natives go and listen to the speeches on the Parade because they have nothing else to do. They have no occupation, no recreation. If the citizens of this town realised that these natives prefer to play football—if they would give them something to entertain them, they would not hang about the Parade listening to communistic speeches, and the sooner the municipalities—not only here but in other parts of the country as well—supply some form of recreation or entertainment for their natives, the better it will be.

The hon. the Minister of Native Affairs has my sympathy with regard to the purchase of land, when the price which is paid for that land comes into question. In the first place, I just want to say this in that connection, before I deal with the Native Affairs Commission, especially that it means nothing, absolutely nothing, merely to draw a comparison between the price at which the previous owner bought the land, and the price at which it was bought from him by the Department of Native Affairs. Many other factors may come into the picture. One case which was pointed out to me was the price which was paid for land by the previous owner, and the price at which it was bought from his estate by the Department of Native Affairs. What was not revealed in this case was the fact that when the department bought, the farm had already been divided into four parts for the four sons of the previous owner, and everyone of them erected a dwelling house on his portion, and improved it, although they had not yet taken transfer. A number of things may happen between the time the farm is bought by the former owner, and the time the purchase is made by the Department of Native Affairs, and, unless one has all the facts, one cannot draw a comparison between these prices. It should also be remembered that the legislation, not the department and nor the Minister, but the legislaion itself, has laid down a very liberal scale of compensation because the owner is forcibly pushed off his land. The Act itself lays down that the person must not only be compensated for the value of his farm, but also for the value of improvements, and, in addition to that, he must get compensation by virtue of the fact that he is forced to sell, that he is practically deprived of his farm. In addition, 20 per cent. may be given in respect of the loss he suffers, and in respect of the inconvenience which he has to suffer merely as a result of the fact that he has to leave the farm. I say that just to indicate that it means nothing merely to make a comparison between the price at which he bought and the price paid by the department. I need not go into individual cases. The Minister can reply to that himself. I just want to make this general remark, and I have nothing to do with individual cases. Every case must be dealt with and judged on its own merits. Then I come to the desirability of the Native Affairs Commission being authorised to value the land. It seems to me that that is not at all part of the duties to be performed by this Commission; nor does it possess the necessary qualifications. The valuation of the land, or rather the manner in which the valuation takes place, has been taken into review as a result of experience acquired. Whether it was done latterly again, I do not know. It was not long after the present Minister took office that the method was reconsidered in the light of the experience which we had gained at the time. The Land Board makes the valuation, as was formerly the case. They have the people who are best qualified for the work, and not the Native Affairs Commission which was appointed for other purposes. The matter was taken into review, and there was a report from the appraisers of the Land Board and also from the Department of Native Affairs, which received reports from its officials who were specially qualified to make reports (either from the agricultural division, or from the engineers of the agricultural division—from those people who supervise the agricultural activities of the department). They submitted reports in regard to the land. In that way there was double control, and every purchase first has to be approved of by two departments and two Ministers. I take it that after that date experience was again acquired, and if this machinery can be improved, then all the better. But it seems to me that this is a much better form of control than if we were to charge the Native Affairs Commission with the responsibility of fixing the price of land. The Native Affairs Commission has quite a different function. It consists of people who can judge matters of policy, and not individual business transactions. Their attention should be centred on the big questions of policy, and their work is not in connection with the purchase of land, but it is to beacon off the territory as a whole which is necessary for purchasers, to give effect to the objects with which purchases are made. That is something which is on quite a different basis to the valuation of the land itself. I might almost say that different talents are required for that, and for that reason it would represent a much better distribution of work if the Native Affairs Commission were to go into the question of demarcation as a whole, and had nothing to do with valuation for the purposes of the different purchases. In another respect, too, this would serve a good purpose, because it would mean that when the Native Affairs Commission beacons off any territory, it could not be said that they proposed to give certain people a business advantage, because they would have nothing to do with individual purchases. They do not know when the land will be bought. There may be objections against those purchases, and there may even be a change in the demarcation. They do not know what price will be paid for the land. It therefore seems to be much better for them to confine themselves to questions of broad policy, and for the valuation of the farms to remain in the hands of experts in that sphere, namely, in the hands of the Land Board and its experts, and in the hands of the Department of Native Affairs with its experts. ‘The hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) touched upon a few matters here which deserve a great deal of attention, and with which I want to associate myself. He mentioned the question of the appointment of people in the Department of Native Affairs, who receive special training which renders them particularly qualified for the work of the department. I know that when the Public Service Commission makes appointments, it specially appoints people to the Department of Native Affairs, and specially gives that department the choice of people with special qualifications in connection with the interests of the natives. To give an example, people who know native language, all other things being equal, are assigned to the Department of Native Affairs. People who have made a study in that direction in other respects, in Bantu studies, for example, are appointed in the Department of Native Affairs. That is the right policy and it is a policy which we can perhaps investigate even further, now that we know that our universities make a point of providing courses in Bantu studies, native administration, native languages and other studies in connection with the psychology and customs of the natives. It is particularly important, because so much depends on the direct contact of officials with these natives. It is a matter in which the Department of Native Affairs is very lucky in that it has officials, generally speaking, who understand the native community very well on the whole, and who get along with them very well. It is necessary because the Department of Native Affairs is a department which can see to it, more than any other department, that the correct balance and relationship between the native races and the other races is maintained, especially the European race on the one hand; and that is one of the most important elements in keeping peace and happiness in South Africa, namely, to have a relationship between those two races which will cause as little friction as possible amongst the two races. And it is the experience of the Department of Native Affairs that the trouble is frequently brought about by the junior officials who come into direct contact with the natives. It is, as a matter of fact, the ganger and the foreman who have perhaps had the least training who are the men that frequently cannot appreciate the necessity for being sympathetic towards the native community. The highly placed officials are filled with a desire to see that there is no friction between the races, and they realise that they can bring that about by watching the interests of the Europeans on the one hand and by seeing to it that the natives, in their turn, will not demand anything which will create opposition on the part of the Europeans; but on the other hand that they should be sympathetic towards the native community. The natives are very grateful when their economic welfare is looked after, and when something is specially done in order to help them. They are grateful, and when we have sympathetic officials a great deal can be done to promote the interests of the natives without causing friction and without doing anything to prejudice the interests of the European community in our country.

Some three years ago the East London Municipality decided to apply for a loan for a sub-economic housing scheme for natives. This was granted and the municipality then agreed to go on with the rebuilding of a location. This work is being pushed ahead now, a definite plan has been adopted and it is hoped within a few years the natives will be housed in proper and hygienic quarters. The social work that is being done by the municipality and various public bodies and private bodies is something to be proud of. The hon. member for Tembuland spoke about the hospitalisation of natives. He is quite right when he said the province was responsible for the running of hospitals. Tuberculosis and T.B. contacts, however, come under the Hon. Minister for Health, and I asked the Minister the other day—

And the reply was—

Today we can only accommodate about thirty or forty, and if this disease is allowed to develop in the way it is doing we shall want 2,000 beds. I hope the Minister will take steps to stop the spread of this dreaded disease. The health of the natives depends on three things: better wages, better feeding and better housing. I have referred to better housing already, and the position in some of the larger municipalities is all right, but there are still a good many black spots. I could name them but it is not for me to do so. I hope the department and the Government will take steps to bring them into line with the other municipalities. With regard to better wages in my own constituency I know that most of the business people are paying their native servants and their labourers well—they pay them even more than the determination laid down. I know also that the municipality and the divisional council are doing so as well, but I also know that the Government are to blame in many cases because they are not paying their natives the same scale as private individuals and municipalities are. It is up to them to get busy now and do something and come into line. They have to set an example. After all, the natives have to live; they have to pay their rents. I am not talking from hearsay, I am talking from what I have seen myself, and when I see these poor kiddies starving — emaciated — through malnutrition, it is simply appalling. The trouble is that the parents cannot afford to feed the children. The milk scheme is very good, but it is not only milk they want. The parents have to be paid properly so that they can buy food for the children, and if that is done there will be less sickness and less trouble among the children. Mr. Garvie has done excellent work in connection with this free milk scheme. We have a location free milk fund. The people of East London got £676 together and they are looking after over 500 native children. I should like to read from Dr. Tremble’s evidence—he is a man who has considerable knowledge of this subject, and this is what he says—

This is the opinion, of a man who knows what he is talking about. The Government have been asked to contribute on the £ for £ basis but no notice has been taken of this request. Children attending European schools get free milk provided every day, and some of our coloured children have also been looked after but the native children get nothing.

I cannot but express my disapproval in connection with what took place here, namely, in connection with the matter which the hon. members for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys) and Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) raised here, before the matter has been thoroughly investigated and tried. I think that this afternoon the hon. member for Prieska, before we came to the vote, objected to the vote being discussed now because the matter is being dealt with by the Select Committee on Public Accounts. The hon. member for Prieska spoke of scandals in connection with the purchase of land. He has therefore expressed judgment before really being aware of the facts, and before the matter has been disposed of in the Select Committee. The case which be mentioned here has not yet been dealt with, and no evidence has come before the Select Committee in connection with the matter.

On a point of explanation, I referred to what appears in the report of the Auditor-General and based my arguments on that.

There are two matters before the Select Committee which will be dealt with, and the hon. member referred to them. I do not think that it is right to anticipate the matter, and to make accusations and to talk of scandals. But I also disapprove of what the Minister of Native Affairs did. Why does be go out of his way to say that the one case concerned a farm of Mr. Tom Naudé’s? The hon. member for Prieska spoke of scandals, and the Minister deliberately mentions the name of the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Tom Naudé).

I clearly said that there were no scandals.

But the Minister mentioned the name of the hon. member.

I intended it in a friendly way, and I thought that when the hon. member for Prieska heard the name, he would not continue with his accusations.

I am very sorry that these matters are raised in this way, because it is not fair towards those persons who are concerned. As the hon. member for Stellenbasch (Mr. Fagan) also indicated, the one case to which reference is made in the Auditor-General’s report, gives a wrong impression in the form it is put here, namely, that a farm is supposed to have been bought for £2,000 and sold for £11,000. No mention was made of the £1,800 which was written off and a further £2,000 in respect of quit rent which was written off. If the public read the speeches they must get the impression that a profit of £9,000 was made.

You know very well that a profit of £9,000 was made.

One cannot go on the amounts by which a farm is bought or sold. The place to which the hon. member for Prieska referred was bought in 1933 and sold in 1939, and from 1933 to 1939 there was an erormous rise in the price of land.

The hon. member for Prieska said that the farm was bought and sold within the space of two days.

In 1933 the price of land in South Africa was abnormally low, due to droughts and an unprecedented depression. Everyone who has a little knowledge of the position also knows that the price of land depends upon the demand for products. If there is no demand for wool, land will perhaps reach an average of £1 per morgen, but when there is a big demand the value goes up to perhaps £2 per morgen. These are things which must be taken into consideration. This farm is situated in an area where cattle farming especially is gone in for, and in 1933 the price of cattle was particularly low, but during the past few years the prices have risen a great deal, with the result that the price of land has also increased. Then there is the factor of mineral rights, which is also an important factor. Furthermore, one cannot leave out of account the improvements which are effected on a farm. If I buy a farm for £1,000 and spend £10,000 on it, then sell it for £11,000, then I have not made a penny profit on it. I disapprove of the fact that the hon. member for Prieska makes attacks here on officials as though they are inefficient and incapable of doing their work. I hope the hon. member for Prieska will be man enough to withdraw the accusation. I hope that we will postpone the whole matter until the report of the Select Committee is brought out. Then these matters can be dealt with on their merits. I would be the last person, if there has been a scandal, to want to cover it, but until such time as the matter comes before the House with all the data, we ought not to deal with it. I should like to bring another matter to the notice of the Minister, and that is in connection with the mixed marriages which are today taking place between natives and coloured people. Hon. members might ask why that happens. There are four factors which play an important role, namely, (1) that coloured people are put on the Voters’ Roll and not natives; (2) that coloured people who live in cities and towns are allowed to own land, but not natives—except under special conditions and circumstances; (3) that the natives pay poll tax and not the coloured people; and (4) that the coloured people pay nothing for their wives, while the native, when he takes a native girl, pays seven or eight or nine head of cattle for her. These four factors will result in very great difficulties in the country in the future, and I hope that the Minister will give his attention to this matter. Where are we going to stop? It is a very serious matter to me, because I live in the midlands, where coloured people and natives mix. In the Eastern Province one finds only natives, and there are no difficulties, and in the North-West, where there are only coloured people, one does not experience difficulties either, but in the Midlands mixed marriages take place on a fairly large scale. A native comes along and says that his mother was a coloured person, and, although his father was a native, he is exempted from all these things. I think that steps ought to be taken so as to lay down that these things which rest upon the natives will not only apply to the first generation, but to the second and third generations.

I think one of the most heartening things about this debate is that the subject has been dealt with without rancour. Sir, I and my colleagues have on many occasions referred to the need for finding employment for the educated classes of the native people. I can conceive of no greater danger to this country than that a section of the native people should at great expense to themselves and very considerable sacrifice, achieve a certain educational standard, which, if they were Europeans, would fit and entitle them to responsible employment, but who when they have achieved that educational standard, find that it is not the open Sesame that they hoped it would be. It is for that reason. Mr. Chairman, I am very glad to know that it is the intention of the department to find openings in native areas for that type of African. I would like, if I may, to ask the Minister tonight for a fairly full statement as to the policy, present and future, in that regard. I notice that as far as these estimates are concerned, there appears to be no provision for these particular appointments, and I am sincerely hoping that the putting into operation of this idea will not be too long delayed. I cannot help emphasising that this is a most important matter. One has to visualise the position and the feeling of these natives who find themselves faced with inability to find employment, notwithstanding the fact that they have equipped themselves for it. I want hon. members just for a moment—I know it is asking quite a lot —to put themselves in the same position. Supposing that you or your son had gone through all that, and were ready for work, able to do it, wanting to do it, and you found that the door was shut, banged and barred, what would your reactions be? Would you not look for some outlet or a relief for your feelings? And when you talk of Communism you are merely referring to the natural resentment which these people feel when they find that the door is barred against them. I therefore urge the Minister to hurry up this development and ask the department to investigate what other opportunities there are, without creating too much disturbance in the country, of finding employment for these people in the Public Service. There was some talk a little while ago about them attending a semi-medical course under a scheme which gave them two or three years at Fort Hare, and then they would go for practical work in a hospital, after which they would obtain positions in the native areas as assistants to qualified medical men there. I would like to enquire as to what is the present position of that scheme; is it still being considered, and is it likely to come to fruition, or is there some technical professional difficulty in the way? The knowledge of this proposed scheme appears to have spread among the the people, and I have had enquiries as to what is happening; and it is for that reason that I am asking for information. Now, Mr. Chairman, I want to refer very briefly to the Native Affairs Commission. I am not prepared to go all the way with those who suggest that the time has come for the Native Affairs Commission to be done away with, although I think perhaps the original conception of that Commission has been lost sight of. I do not think it is the Commission that is wrong, but it is the method of using and constituting that body for purposes which were originally intended, but I think have been forgotten. When I heard the hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn) saying, no doubt perfectly truly, that the Native Affairs Commission has nothing whatever to do with these land purchases, and when I hear an ex-Minister of Native Affairs making the statement that his department is not responsible, I say the time has come when we must institute some enquiry with a view to improving the position and making it impossible for mistakes to recur. The time has come when there must be some responsibility either on the Commission, or on the Native Affairs Department, for the final purchase of land at a price which the department knows is right. On the other hand, we have the Lands Department saying that they make the purchases bona fide, and act on the advice of their valuers. Well, with all these people handing the responsibility from one to the other, we find that things are going wrong. My remarks are not intended to stir up any personal rancour, but only to endeavour to stop this scandal, because it is a scandal—and it is a scandal which does not redound to the credit of the House and the ruling race in this country. For that reason I am going to ask the Minister, in fact, I am going to ask the Government, to reconsider the whole position in relation to this matter, so that there can be more responsibility placed on the people who are intimately concerned, that is, the Native Affairs Department and the people they represent. I sincerely hope that this will not be delayed. I may remind the House, sir, that I raised this question three years ago, and I am still raising the same point, still making the same request; and it will be a very grave reflection upon us if next year or the year after we on these Benches still have to raise this question and still await an answer. We on these Benches who represent the native people have to speak repeatedly about the same thing, and it may happen that we have come to be regarded as prejudiced and captious critics, but I would not like it to be thought that we are unmindful of the many things—useful things—that are being done by the Native Affairs Department. I may say for myself that during the years I have been here, I have received the utmost sympathy, consideration and courtesy from that department, and I take this opportunity of saying in this House how much I appreciate the efforts of the Minister’s right-hand man in carrying out what he believes to be his duty in relation to these matters. He is a man of the highest integrity, a man of great ability, and a man whom we, as members of this particular section of the House, have great faith in. He does not always agree with us nor we with him, but we do appreciate the fact that within the limits of the possibilities that are his he has tried to do what he can. I feel that the spirit of the House as exemplified in this debate is indicative of the fact that public opinion and members of this House have changed in regard to native affairs. There has been a change. Hon. members no longer talk with rancour on the subject, or talk of the black menace, which in my opinion does not exist, and which, if we handle the people properly, never will. I think the remarks of the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) constitute the strongest argument in favour of giving the African people some stake in the country in which they live. [Time limit.]

When listening to this debate, and especially to the native representatives, one gets the impression that the natives in South Africa are the people who are being treated worse than any other section of the population, and I think we should look at the matter from the other aspect. I do not think that there is any section paying less taxation and receiving better treatment than the natives in South Africa, nor do I think there is any ground for the complaint that the natives are not getting their fair share in South Africa. If one takes into account the amount of money which the State spends on the natives, compared with the amount they bring in to the coffers of the State, one comes to the conclusion that very few countries in the world do more for the natives than the Government of South Africa does. If one compares the position here with that of other countries, where there are large numbers of natives, one finds that the natives are being particularly well treated here. What I most strongly disapprove of is that those members who pretend to represent the natives in this House—I do not think it is so —are busy stirring up the natives and giving those people ideas which they never had before. If one asks a native in Cape Town whether he is better off in Cape Town and in the location than he was in the parts he came from one finds that the native in his own area was very much happier. They are worse off when they come to the towns. I want to ask the Minister to keep his eye on these things. We differ from the Minister in regard to the war, but I want to ask the Minister not to lose sight of the fact that the interests of all sections of the community must be taken into account. One finds that everything possible is being done to supply the mining magnates with labour so that the mines may carry on. I admit that it is necessary, but they are given every possible opportunity of getting native labour while the farmer, whose production is perhaps more necessary than the gold production of the mines, cannot get any labour. The position is extremely difficult so far as the farmers are concerned. They cannot get labour. On the other hand one finds that in a locality like Somerset West, for instance, natives are appointed at De Beers to take the place of white men to act as guards. They cannot even speak Afrikaans or English but they are put on guard there with assegais. To give an instance: A white man recently walked along the coast and suddenly a crowd of natives rushed at him and the more he tried to explain the more excited did the natives become. They jumped on him with their assegais until eventually the white man understood that he had to accompany them to a place where there was a white man in command. When he got there he found he was on prohibited ground and that the natives only wanted to make him understand that he had to come with them. That kind of thing, to put natives in that position, against whites, creates a wrong spirit. The hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn) said that he was not conscious of any communism in South Africa. I want to ask him whether he imagines that a religious body which is occupied with spiritual labour and has nothing to do with politics, like the Dutch Reformed Church, would without any reason ask the Government not to allow communism to be propagated among the coloured population and specially among the natives. Does he imagine that those people do not know what is going on, or does he imagine that they have some motive or other in warning against communism? I admit that many of the natives simply listen to the speeches on the Parade because they happen to be passing by and find someone talking there, or because they have nothing better to do, but that exactly is the danger. If the Minister does not put a stop to that sort of thing it is that type of person who will gradually come under the influence of communism. They are told how badly the Europeans in South Africa are treating the natives. They are told how strong the natives would be if only they stood together and found out what the position is. I happened to pass one day when a white man was talking on the Parade. I believe the hon. member for Cape Western knows who the man was. As a result of those speeches serious assaults took place in this town. The natives were agitated by this white man who said: “There is nothing to stop you if you stand together; you do not know your strength; you can be the masters if you stand and conspire together.” He told the natives that the country belonged to them.

Whom does the country belong to?

There we have a question. The hon. member laughs and asks who the country belongs to. There are Europeans whose purpose it suits to stir up the natives, and if they react, and if steps are taken, then we hear it said: “Look how the natives are being oppressed.” Go to the suburbs where the natives live. One cannot get a servant there, and they tell you: “We only have to wait a short while, because if Russia wins the war, we shall be the masters in this country.” There is a great danger of Communism, and the Minister should see to it that a stop is put to this propaganda among the natives. Hon. members opposite should remember that if difficulties do occur their families will suffer just as much as ours on this side. For the sake of the good relationship which has always existed between the natives, and especially the Afrikaans speaking Afrikaners, for the sake of the good of South Africa, the Minister should prevent the agitators from doing their subvervise work. Otherwise there is going to be difficulties. The farmers of South Africa will never allow the doctrine which is now being proclaimed by those people to be spread among the natives. Let hon. members take note of the meetings that are being held, in the Cape Town City Hall, for instance, where Europeans and non-Europeans sit next to each other on the platform, and where speakers in their speeches talk of comrades and brothers. That is the sort of thing we want to try and stop in South Africa. And we are appealing to the Minister, who is the son of an ex-President of one of the Boer republics, to help us. In the days when he was a young man that sort of thing was never allowed in South Africa. There was never any question of oppressing natives; they were not treated cruelly, but everybody knew his place. Everybody knew what was the white man’s place, and what was the native’s place. [Time limit.]

Perhaps at this stage I might be allowed to refer to the points already raised. It struck me this afternoon as a very welcome sign that members did not so much put questions to me as that they gave the House the benefits of their views on the various aspects of the native problem, and I was very pleased to hear the tributes which hon. members, such as the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) and others paid to the officials of my department. I think they were very well deserved and much appreciated. I would also like to say how much I appreciate, and I am sure the House will appreciate, the non-party spirit in which the debate was conducted. I think so long as our native questions can be dealt with in the atmosphere which prevails in the House this afternoon, so long have we a hope of coming to a solution. The first speaker was the hon. member for Cape, Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger). She raised the very important and thorny question of native services and native life in our urban centres, more particularly the smaller centres. The problem is a very difficult one, and it is in a very unsatisfactory condition. Of late years there has been an increased influx into the towns, both of Europeans and nonEuropeans. In the majority of cases the European who moves in gets a living wage, but not so the native. The native is too often suffering under the delusion that by moving into a town he will get a better wage, better living conditions. That is a fallacy. The native in urban centres, pays more for his food, for his clothes, and for almost everything he requires, and he also has the added temptation of buying things which he would not want in rural areas. That being the case, I think it would mean that in 90 per cent. of the instances natives living in urban centres working for Europeans, may be well enough fed, but his family, if he has a family, is living below the bread line, under conditions of malnutrition, poverty, misery, crime, juvenile delinquency, and a great many other things. The question may be asked what we are doing about it? To tell the truth, owing to the numbers of natives who have drifted into the towns, the problem has got a bit out of hand—I won’t say it is beyond us— but for the time being it is out of hand. My department, the Department of Justice, and other departments which are dealing with the matter are doing their best to cope with it. Successive Governments have spent over £6,000,000 on uneconomic housing for non-Europeans; I think it will require another £12,000,000 to undertake the full requirements, and that will be only in the large centres. Port Elizabeth, I think, stands pre-eminent in the way it has tackled the housing question. Cape Town has done a great deal; Durban and Johannesburg are also doing a lot; East London is pulling up, but still in no urban centres is the position entirely satisfactory. But this housing question will have to be dealt with, and we hope the time will come when the position will be more satisfactory than it is today. Hon. members know that last year at the request of the Prime Minister I appointed a Commission, of which Mr. Smit, Secretary for Native Affairs, was the chairman. That Commission is now in the course of drafting their final report. Their terms of reference were to go into the question of what could be done to improve living conditions in urban centres. I am looking forward with great interest to their report, and I am sure it will be a valuable one, but I doubt whether even the Arch Angel Gabriel could produce a report which would wholly solve the problem. However, we believe that with better housing, better transport facilities, better health facilities, better feeding arrangements, we shall be able to do something about it, but I think the public of the Union will have to realise that until they can reconcile themselves to paying the natives better wages, both in the urban centres and in the country, this problem will never be solved. I do not want to anticipate the report of the Commission—I cannot even guess at it, but one fact has emerged so far, and that is that in the towns the natives are underpaid. As a rule, they are paid an average of £4 to £4 10s. per month, and they cannot come out under £6 10s. That is the crux of the position and we shall have to reconcile ourselves to that.

What about the wages in the rural areas?

That is the corollary; if wages are improved in the towns they will also have to be improved in the country. It will be a good thing. It is a sound thing to pay the native a little more than a mere subsistence allowance. Let them become purchasers. The whole economic position of the Union can be improved if we cease to look upon the native just as a beast of burden, and if we look upon him as a human being. The hon. member for Cape Eastern raised the question of youthful delinquents. Let me say about that that it is becoming a cancer in our body politic. It is due to the terrible poverty and distress, and the lack of teaching facilities, in the towns.

Teaching facilities?

School facilities. These children run about the locations and the towns and the streets, and there is nothing for them to do, and it results in crime and delinquency. I may say while on that point that the hon. member for Cape Eastern asked me what I thought about the recommendation in the Native Commission’s report. Well, I would rather not commit myself to anything at this stage. I do not like the word apprenticeship—it has an unpleasant echo from the past, but I shall discuss it with the Native Affairs Commission and also with the Native Representatives. Then a number of hon. members raised, or rather discussed the question of communism. My information, and I have gone round a good deal, and I have looked into this question wherever I have been— my information is that communism is not spreading in this country, it is not getting a hold of the native. The hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn) was quite right when he said that it is not communism, it is a feeling that the native is not getting a fair deal, is not getting justice in this country— it is a feeling that a section of the European population dislikes, and does not trust him. Added to that there is the rising tide of colour, what you might call—or what I do call—a growing Bantu nationalism. We cannot object to that. The Bantu is becoming race conscious. I tell you, Mr. Chairman, the native population of today is not the native population that I grew up with. An hon. member this afternoon reminded me that I was the son of an old Free State President, and he asked me whether we knew anything like this in those days in the past. Well, sir, times have changed. I won’t say for the better. But we should not adopt an ostrich-like policy—if we refuse to recognise the fact that the natives are a different proposition from what they were thirty years ago, we would be making a mistake. Today they have their own newspapers with a circulation of some 65,000 readers. They follow the news and they are getting educated—of course, their outlook is a very different one from what it used to be. It is a nationalistic outlook—it is a Bantu outlook. Times have changed and we have to change with them. I am not an Exeter Hall crank but I am not going to adopt an ostrich like attitude. We have to face these things, and I repeat that our main task should be to tell our non-European population, to assure them, and make them believe that we trust them, and mean well by them. I am not arguing for social political equality, I am talking about justice and fairplay. I am not saying that they are not getting it, but many are under the impression that they are not getting it for the simple reason that their wages are too low, and that they are discriminated against. I won’t say anything about communism—as a matter of fact I don’t know what hon. members mean by communism. I do not think Russian communism is exportable. I don’t think the Russians want to export it, but if you mean discontent against white rule and living conditions, then I can only say that the best was to prevent that is to give them fair treatment and not give them a burning sense of injustice.

Are they being treated unfairly?

I say they are not, but a very large number have that idea.

Who puts that idea into their heads?

You do.

I do not want to introduce anything contentious because I say the one hope we have of solving the native problem is by keeping it out of the political arena. But when you find a native in the town being underpaid, when you find he does not get adequate schooling and hospital treatment, and in a large number of ways he is discriminated against … I am not preaching social equality, but I say in a large number of ways we should make an improvement. Take our Pass Laws in the Transvaal. I would like to know how many prosecutions, arrests and convictions there are under the Pass regulations in the Transvaal. And don’t forget that our Transvaal natives know that in the Cape and Natal there are no Pass Laws at all. And yet they are herded in Johannesburg like so many cattle for trumpery contraventions of the Pass Laws. Other hon. members have raised the question of schooling and hospitalisation. With regard to schooling and hospitalisation I must remind hon. members that until a comparatively recent period all the teaching was done by missionaries. It was not done by the State — whether that is right or wrong is not for me to say. Now-a-days the missionaries cannot do that any more, especially during the war — their funds have dried up or have been frozen and more and more these two burdens are falling on the shoulders of the provincial administrations. With regard to education, the natives continually tell me of the globular sum which we spend on European children, and they compare that with what we spend on native education — they say that that is one of the points which continually strike them as being most unfair. Take the position of native teachers; they are underpaid and for years they have not had any increases. A large percentage of the native children never see the inside of a school. That is also one of the problems we have to face. Take hospitalisation. It is true that the provinces have done a great deal but not enough. Personally I do not think they will ever do enough for the simple reason that they cannot tax the native, and native hospitalisation — and I say the same of education — I believe that native education and hospitalisation should come under the Union Government. There was a time when you could not get a native to go near a hospital. Today they are becoming increasingly hospital minded as they are becoming increasingly school minded. There again the matter has got out of hand. The position in Johannesburg was mentioned. I do not want to use the word “scandal” but the position of native hospitalisation in Johannesburg is too awful and should be attended to at once. Those are broadly the questions of policy which were discussed by hon. members this afternoon. Before I come to the questions put to me I also want to discuss the question of the Land Board, and also of the Native Affairs Commission. The hon. member for Stellenbosch (Mr. Fagan) and the hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Conroy) very ably set out the situation. The Native Affairs Commission was never intended to be a valuing body, they are not land valuators. Their official duty was to advise which ground should be purchased. They had to make recommendations. Allegations were made here about dishonesty and insinuations were cast around about scandals. Let me say this first about valuing. We have most honourable, efficient and honest land boards. I do not think anyone will ever breathe a word of suspicion against them about graft or inefficiency. But the work of land valuation is hardly an exact science. It is most difficult. When I had to expropriate land under the Vaalhartz Scheme I realised the many difficulties there were. You are always up against the unavoidable tug of war between buyer and seller, and again I would invoke the name of the Arch Angel Gabriel, and say that he could not give a valuation which would give complete satisfaction. It has been explained how difficult the position became and how unsound it was to take the original purchase price of land and then compare it with the price paid by the Native Trust, or recommended by the Land Board. You cannot do it. There are so many differing conditions. There is the question of the increase all round, of improvements and so on. Take the postion in the low country where I have some land. That land was originally given away by President Kruger to the original holders for certain services rendered. Then the land changed hands at £5 per piece — today it is worth £2 per morgen. It would be easy to draw up what would look like a scathing indictment and say there are 5,000 morgen sold at £2 per morgen, whereas originally the whole lot cost £5. On the whole the system has worked well. There are often differences of opinion. I have this difficulty sometimes. I am told the valuation is too low. We are taken to court, because the valuation is supposed to be too low. Then, again, we are told the valuation is too high and we are taken to court for that. But I defy any man to value a large area of ground without there being dissatisfaction and trouble and even complaints of unfair treatment. You cannot avoid that. I can only say that I pity the unfortunate Land Boards which have to do the valuations.

†*The hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) put a few questions to me. First of all he — I won’t say took me to task — but he criticised me because of the statement I had made about natives. It has always been the spirit and the policy in South Africa to keep the natives out of the white man’s wars. I agree with that policy one hundred per cent. but we must not forget that when war broke out Italy had 190,000 coloured troops in Abyssinia. Those troops were not intended to defend Abyssinia, they were undoubtedly intended to move to the South.

That is nothing but a bogey.

Thanks to the bravery of our troops it has now become a bogey, but it was not a bogey in those days. The army in Abyssinia consisted of about 190,000 coloured troops and it was my personal opinion that they were to have been used to move to the South. If that is so, is it fair then to send our white boys up North to fight against 190,000 coloured troops without giving our coloured men the chance of going with them? That was my personal opinion.

That was not the opinion in the Boer war.

There were no 190,000 natives in the Boer war …

We condemned the fact that the English used natives against us then …

You said so yourself.

I can say from my own personal experience that they used a few at O’okiep, and others were used as transport riders. I myself caught one who was armed. I do not deny that they had natives under arms on a small scale, but I do deny that we had to wage our war against 190,000 natives. I myself have seen coloured and native troops, but I have not seen any large forces of coloured and native men. Here and there there may perhaps have been an armed native. In a few of the block houses there were perhaps armed natives, but barring those cases which I have mentioned they did not take part in any battles.

That is a new kind of history.

Do not let us get heated about this matter. I repeat that in all the fights in which I took part in the Boer war I did not see any native troops except at O’okiep, and in a few block houses. I am not trying to defend the British policy of those days. Do not let us get all heated up about this.

You are talking nonsense now.

As I have said, I am not defending those conditions. I was giving an explanation of my own view and opinion on the question on which the hon. member for Humansdorp attacked me, and I say again that I fully endorse the policy which we followed in the Boer war. Now I want to go further and I want to say something which may even be used against us at the elections. What will the position be if the Japanese attack us here?

Oh, leave those things alone, you know that we don’t believe them.

I naturally hope that they will not attack us, but other countries also thought so. For instance Holland, America, and so on, thought so, but if it does happen will hon. members still say then that our young men must fight on their own against the yellow nation ?

Why should we be asked to reply to a hypothetical question.

It is not a hypothetical question. Other countries also thought as hon. members opposite are thinking. We should bear in mind what may possibly happen and we should act realistically in South Africa.

Cannot the natives become a danger to South Africa if they are armed?

To my mind they will not be a danger. At any rate they will be less of a danger to us than the Japanese will be if they come here.

But you have taken away the white men’s arms. Are you going to arm the white men again?

Yes, the white man who will fight.

But you took our arms away before we could show whether we were going to fight or not.

Anyhow, this is not a matter which should be raised on the vote “Native Affairs.” The hon. member for Humansdorp further said that he hoped we in the Native Affairs Department would make use of the students who are being specially trained at our universities in regard to native administration. In theory I agree with him. In the old British Colonial days they also specially trained people for that work. That is the theoretical idea, but in South Africa it is not so easy. Assuming we tell an official that for the rest of his life he has to live in Zululand or one of the other territories. He won’t like that, because he is also looking forward to the “plums” of the service. He does not want to be banished, so to speak, with his wife and children for the rest of his life. We have our difficulties. Personally I should be very pleased if I could get a separate department of State in which I had officials who had been trained only in native affairs, and who wanted to devote their lives to native affairs, but I don’t know whether it is practical. The hon. member further asked me what my idea was in regard to the preservation of tribal traditions among the natives. We do all we possibly can in the Department of Native Affairs to preserve the tribal traditions among the natives. We support the chiefs in their work and we try to strengthen their influence, but we have to face facts, and the facts are that the natives are gradually becoming more and more detribalised, and we get them in the dorps and the large towns. There are thousands of natives in our towns who have no chiefs at all. I deplore it, and I do everything I possibly can to preserve the tribal spirit, but the fact is that it is weakening and disappearing.

†The hon. member for Queenstown (Mr. van Coller) questioned me about the problem of the black spots. We have accepted the policy of eliminating these spots, expropriating the land, but I am free to confess the process has been a slow one, for the simple reason that the locations in the Transkei are so overcrowded that I have nowhere to put these natives from the black spots. I give the hon. member this undertaking, that the Secretary for Native Affairs and the Native Affairs Commission visit the Eastern Province shortly so that those whom the hon. member speaks of can come up and give evidence. The hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) raised the communist bogey and the question of the Johannesburg hospital, both of which I have already dealt with.

†*The hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Conroy) and the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Mr. Fagan) have already very ably dealt with the question of land valuations, and the work of the Native Affairs Commission in that regard, which I have also dealt with already.

†The hon. members for East London, North (Mr. Christopher) and East London, City (Mr. Bowie) both raised in essence the same points that were raised by the hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger), and I think I have traversed them more than sufficiently. I am very glad that East London is now doing its duty in regard to native houses.

†*The hon. member for Brits (Mr. Grobler) raised the question of the shortage of farm labour. This is one of those questions which is raised here every year and I do not think that we are any nearer a solution than we were when we started with this subject. I have said repeatedly in the past that the report of the committee concerned was very valuable, but I do not think it means a solution of the question. There is an influx of natives to the towns, to irrigation works, to the mines, to the roads, and so on. The fact is that we have not got sufficient manual labour in the country. We do what we can. The hon. member imagines that there are a mass of redundant natives in the towns. I have not got the figures here, but in no single instance is there more than a small percentage of redundant natives in the towns. We cannot get any assistance from that direction. I had hoped that the solution would lie in the labour committees appointed in nearly all the districts, committees which would put themselves out to see that the natives were properly housed and properly treated on the farms. The natives are under the misapprehension that they get better treatment in the towns than on the farms. That is not so, and I hope these committees will assist in that direction.

What about the natives from beyond our borders?

I do not wish to deal with the question of natives from beyond our borders here, because they are prohibited immigrants and it is a sore point with the adjoining territories. It is difficult for me to say anything about it, because if I were to express the opinion that we should attract prohibited immigrants it would be a sore point with our neighbouring States.

But the Commission has recommended it.

I think the hon. member should come and see me in my office about that.

†The hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn) raised the question of communism, and as I said just now, I think we should be careful to draw a distinction between what is commonly called communism in this country and what is a growing feeling of hostility to the white man. We shall have to discriminate between these two currents in the future.

†*The hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen) has raised the question of marriage between coloured people and natives. I don’t know whether he means legal marriages, or cases where they simply cohabit?

No, legal marriages.

That is an interesting point which has not yet been brought to my notice. I don’t know what can be done in that connection and I can only tell the hon. member that we shall consider the matter.

†The hon. member for Transklei (Mr. Hemming) raised the question of finding employment for educated natives. There again is a very difficult question, but I have at least made a start with putting into operation Gen. Hertzog’s promise to employ educated natives inside native territories as far as possible. At Lovedale I explained that the Public Service Commission is now creating vacancies for from 57 to 59 appointments for trained natives, and as we go along we hope to increase that. Well, sir, I think that comprises most of the points raised this afternoon.

When my ten minutes were up this afternoon, I had only put the one side of the point I was dealing with, and after certain remarks which have been made by the Hon. the Minister for Native Affairs, I feel it is all the more necessary also to put the other side. I spoke of the necessity of good relationship being maintained between the races in South Africa, and of the necessity of the Department of Native Affairs taking care that that good relationship should be maintained. I emphasised that it was essential that we should be sympathetic towards the natives. On the other hand, I also want to show that it is just as essential that the European should feel that he has no reason to fear the natives. It is absolutely essential that anything that might lead to a clash between the natives and the Europeans should be counteracted, and anything that might cause fear on the part of the Europeans, or that might otherwise interfere with the rights of the Europeans should be avoided. That can be done by showing every possible sympathy to the natives, and by protecting their rights as they should be protected, but it is particularly for that reason that it is so necessary to prevent any spread of propaganda among the natives which may give rise to fear on the part of the Europeans. When I was in charge of the Department of Native Affairs I had no reason to believe that Communism was being spread among the natives themselves, but the Minister cannot deny that attempts have been made to spread Communism among the nativees, nor can the Minister deny that it is a most dangerous doctrine for the natives in South Africa. I therefore say that a strict eye must be kept on the spread of propaganda of this kind. The Minister said here this evening that he does not know whether Russian Communism is an export article. It is one of the basic doctrines of Communism.

They have started on it.

I have before me the programme of the Communistic International. It is a programme compiled by the Communists at the annual congress, the sixth annual congress of the Communistic International in 1928. It was compiled under the leadership of men like Lenin and Stalin. Inter alia, in this programme the different parts of the world are specifically dealt with where Communism can be successfully spread. They divide the world into capitalistic countries, into the more capitalistic countries than the less capitalistic countries; and then there are the Colonial countries. Africa is specially mentioned as a country where the population is more backward and where there is a large proletariat. And then it is clearly stated that Communism must take up a combatant attitude in those countries in order to spread its doctrines. That is one of the doctrines of Communism, and we ask the Minister to keep a watchful eye on the spread of any propaganda among the natives which may cause anxiety among the Europeans, and which make it more difficult to deal with the native problem in a proper manner. That takes me to another question raised by the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer), a question which the hon. the Minister had replied to in part. I agree with the hon. member where he said that the arming of natives was one of the things which will undoubtedly give rise to nervousness and fear among the European population of this country. We are a population of 2,000,000 Europeans in this country, as against 6,600,000 natives. There are three times as many natives. When we talk of arming the natives we immediately raise fears among the Europeans. If I remember correctly, the Minister discussed this matter before Japan came into the war. It was not in view of the Japanese danger that he made his statement. It is a dangerous thing to talk about; it puts ideas into the natives’ minds which are best kept away from him, and with this fear complex among the Europeans it creates a most dangerous condition between the Europeans and the natives in this country, where we should have a sympathetic and friendly attitude between the races, an attitude which can only exist if there is no fear. That is why I say it is a pity that the Minister of Native Affairs proclaimed this doctrine. It really appears to me that he had no excuse for doing so. I want to emphasise this point, that while we should maintain a sympathetic attitude to the natives we should at the same time take care that no reasons are given to Europeans to fear, that economically or otherwise, they will be detrimentally affected by the economic or other uplifting work which is being done to the natives. The natives clash so easily with the coloured people. We have the trouble of the natives in the towns and the natives who drift to the towns. Now, we get towns like Cape Town, where the natives who drift in have to compete with the coloured people. The natives can get work all over the country, but the coloured people can only find work in certain parts of the country. I agree with the Minister that this influx constitutes a very difficult problem, a problem which can very easily get out of hand. Let us try and see whether we can apply the most suitable measure to make the number of natives fit in with the quantity of work that is available. When the Minister answers again I should like to know from him whether he can tell us anything in regard to Cape Town specially, and in regard to the influx into this town. If many natives come here they come here to the detriment of the coloured people. If larger numbers than are required come to Cape Town, it must be detrimental to the interests of the coloured people, and I want to know whether the Minister has any further information which he can give us on the subject. Are any steps being taken at the moment to make the number of natives who are admitted to the towns fit in with the amount of work that is available, so that they will not come into competition with the coloured people who have to work in these parts of the country.

I briefly want to draw the attention of the Minister to the scarcity of farm labour in this highly developed part of the country. This is a matter which has been raised in this House on several occasions. It is a matter which this House is fully conscious of, but I think the right place to discuss it is on this vote of Native Affairs. It is generally known that a large number of Europeans as well as coloured men from these areas have joined up, with the result that the labour market has become largely dislocated, so that we have not got the necessary labour to do the requisite work and to comply with all the requirements. The result is that the farms are getting empty — it is not merely that the labour is lacking but owing to the fact that it is very difficult to secure the necessary labour in those areas where a great deal of work has to be done, and where a lot of labour is required — I am referring to the parts of the country which are highly developed—because of the difficulties which the people are experiencing in getting labour they are selling their farms, or they leave the farms as they are and they go away. It is no secret that our production, in consequence of the conditions of the last few years, has been continually decreasing, and sometimes it has been decreasing very fast, and that at a time when there is a demand for more and more production, a time when food supplies, of which we used to have surpluses in the past, have to be rationed, and are going to end in a shortage. The surpluses which we used to have are being turned into shortages, largely as a result of the fact that there is a shortage of labour to help in the production of larger quantities. That shortage is largely added to by the fact that there is a shortage of farm labour owing to the difficulty which people have to contend with to secure the necessary labour to do the necessary work, so that a great deal of the work remains undone through the labour not being available. Now I want to know from the Minister what is being done in order to get labour from the native areas where a good deal of labour is available — what is being done to get labour from those areas where the labour market is still open to a large extent? I do not know exactly what the procedure is that has to be followed in the recruiting of labour, not only with the Union but also outside the Union. And I should like to know from the Minister whether any steps are being taken to supplement the labour shortage from those areas where there is an abundance of labour available. I want to know what the policy is of the Department of Native Affairs on this urgent matter, and then I also want to know whether labour can be obtained in the native areas within the Union, and if it is not available in the Union, whether the Minister will provide the necessary facilities to obtain labour from outside the Union, from the native areas outside the Union? I am also anxious to know what the actual position is, not only of the labour market but also in regard to wages and conditions, if such labour is made available for those areas where labour is needed? The shortage is not only in regard to farm labour. I listened to what the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Mr. Fagan) told us this afternoon. I don’t want to go into any details so far as Cape Town is concerned, but I know what the position is in many of our towns and dorps. Not only is there a shortage of farm labour but in the dorps of the Western Province there is also a shortage. People cannot get servants for their homes. Many of the people who used to have coloureds and natives in their service have no such servants today. In hotels, in the garages — the whole of the labour market is crying out for labour. The necessary labour is not available to supply all the needs. I go further: Many of our construction works are being hung up because the necessary labour is not available for the work to be continued. The gangs on our roads have been reduced so that some of the gangs in a number of the districts have completely disappeared, and one finds that position to prevail particularly at a time when there is ample work offering, for instance at a time when the crops have to be got in, and when the fruit crop and the wheat crop have to be gathered. The municipalities, the smaller village management boards, and the divisional councils have great difficulty in securing the necessary labour. Much of that work has to be held up simply through the necessary labour not being available.

What do you say is the reason?

I have already mentioned the reason.

It is the £8 per month.

My hon. friend is going blind through keeping his eyes on the one thing all the time. If he will listen a moment and not think that he is the only one who can talk about things and if he would not try to force his opinions on to others, he might learn something. I am particularly thinking of the mountain pass between Caledon and Robertson. Over £30,000 has been spent on that by those two divisional councils. The Department of Labour has assisted, but none the less it has cost those two divisional councils the amount I have mentioned. Now that work has been stopped. One cannot get labour to do the work at economic rates, so the money is locked up for those two divisional councils, and the interest amounts to £1,200 and £1,500 per year, for which they get no service owing to the work having been stopped in consequence of labour shortage. If we can find the necessary channels in the native territories where labour is available, and if we can get that labour to this labour market which is crying out for people, we shall be rendering a great service to the natives, and at the same time we shall get the work done which we want done so very badly. I want to ask the Minister to help us recruit in those areas, and to help us to get the natives from those territories to the labour market in these parts of the country. It is self-evident that the raw natives coming from those territories will be very raw at the work to start with, but I have had a lot to do with them and I have found that it does not take long before they become pretty skilled in their work. We get good work from them, and in that way we also help the native territories. It helps the country and it also helps the State very considerably, and it helps us in getting this very urgent labour question solved in these parts.

Having listened to what the Minister of Native Affairs told us I do think it is necessary to refresh his memory a little. He said that if there was one man who could talk with authority about the arming of the natives, in the Second War of Independence, he was that man. Now I don’t know whether in the Second War of Independence there also was a Maginot Line behind which the Minister took his position so that he failed to see what went on in his own country, but I should like to take him back to those days and read to him what actually went on, and then I should like him to tell me whether he agrees with it. As he and some of the hon. members opposite doubt these things I want to read this to them. I am reading it in English so that he and other members opposite will be able to understand it properly—

These were not a few who were armed but a whole tribe—

Who said so?

I wonder. The Minister perhaps can tell us. Now I want to go on reading—

I wonder whether the Minister remembers that language, but then it goes on—

I wonder whether even at that time the Minister was covered by the Union Jack so that he had become blind to the facts. He goes on to say—

I just want to read how it finishes—

It is good war propaganda.

I only hope that the Minister will now admit that the authority I have quoted was in a better position to judge matters, and that he knew more about conditions, than the Minister did. As that person is his leader today I hope he will also agree with his leader where he said that this was one of the greatest crimes ever perpetrated to the white race in South Africa. Now the Minister of Native Affairs sits over there and wants to repeat the same crime.

The speech which the hon. member read a few minutes ago was very interesting but we are no longer living in those times, that was forty years ago. Unfortunately, however, hon. members opposite are still living in the days of more than forty years ago. The quotation from that book is not going to help us in any way in the solution of our present day difficulties. I want to associate myself with what hon, members of both sides of the House have said in expressing their appreciation of the Department of Native Affairs, especially of the senior officials. We all agree that they handle matters very tactfully. I also wish to express my appreciation of the speech of the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Mr. Fagan). When one can get such a well-balanced speech one realises that there is still hope for the future and for the people, when problems are dealt with in that light. I particularly want to endorse the suggestion he made in regard to the younger officials in the lower grades. I know from personal experience that it is the younger officials who come in touch with the natives. They are the links between the natives and the white race, and sometimes those young fellows are somewhat inexperienced, and occasionally, not deliberately but as a result of inexperience, they make mistakes which lead to trouble. I shall be glad if the higher officials and if the Minister will remember it, and if they will impress on those young fellows the responsible position they occupy. The hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) made a speech here this afternoon. I must say that it was a good speech.

If you say so there must have been something wrong with me.

Perhaps there is something wrong with me if I judge the hon. member by his speech, but he said something which is a generally known fact, namely that the natives drift to the towns that they get spoiled there, and that they return afterwards. What does he propose should be done? I thought that in his wisdom he was going to make a suggestion as to how the problem might be solved. I am living in a district where we have tens of thousands of natives and I have had experience of them, since my childhood. The hon. member mentions the position and then thinks he has done a great thing.

Well, you had better make a suggestion.

I shall try to do so with the little I know about the matter. The hon. member for Brits (Mr. Grobler) and other hon. members spoke of the communistic propaganda among the natives. I say again that I speak from personal experience and not from what I have read or heard, and I know there is less communistic propaganda being made among the natives than Nazi propaganda.

Oh!

Yes, I thought they would say “Oh”, but we have evidence of that fact, because in the Rustenburg district more than one man has been interned for making Nazi propaganda among the natives. If hon. members want to know it I can give a few names. I am only mentioning this because I want them to remember the position as it is when they talk about communistic propaganda. I would tell members that the less they talk of communistic propaganda among the natives the better it will be for them and for us. The hon. member for Brits also referred, and correctly so, to the scarcity of native labour. I am very sorry but I can forgive him because he is not a working farmer—I can forgive him for having exaggerated the position a bit, because we know that as soon as one exaggerates the case loses its value. There is a scarcity and the hon. member said that that was due to recruiting. Let me tell the hon. member that in the Rustenburg district, which is an agricultural district, where a lot of labour is needed, and not so much of a kaffir district where less labour is needed, we have found that during the past few years quite a number of natives have joined the army, but three times as many natives as have joined the army have been absorbed in industries in the district. For instance, on the platinum mines, the chrome mines and the iron mines, so it is not right to say that recruiting is the main cause of there being a labour shortage; it is due to the industrial progress of the district. I want to express my thanks to the Minister and his department for the fact that when the scarcity of native labour became acute they stopped active recruiting in view of the interest of the farmers in the district.

I want to have the privilege of being allowed to speak for half an hour. I must say that I was sorry to hear parts of the speech which the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Mr. Fagan) made just now. The hon. member for Stellenbosch again raised the communist bogey. Now I have answered this before, and the Minister answered it effectively tonight, but I would make this appeal to the hon. member for Stellenbosch, to leave that sort of talk to people like the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. van Nierop), because the hon. member for Stellenbosch is not an irresponsible member; he has been Minister of Native Affairs and within the framework of what I believe to be a very bad policy, he was a good Minister of Native Affairs, and he had in a large measure gained the respect of the African people, and I am sorry to hear him make these remarks which would result in his forfeiting the respect he has earned. Now when the so-called policy of segregation was being laid down in 1936 and 1937, a policy involving ultimately, so we were told, limiting the rights of 6,500,000 people in regard to the possession of land to less than 20 million morgen of the area of this country, those of us who were in the minority, who were opposed to that policy, contended as we still contend, that such a policy would lead neither to segregation nor to any measure of trusteeship, but it might be effective in supplying to certain industries of this country a supply of cheap labour, but that was the only effect it could have. And secondly, we contended this, that it would react in practice—and that is what we are discussing tonight—it would react in practice in a disastrous manner on the people of this country as a whole, both European and African, and I am proposing tonight to quote impartial evidence to show that that is exactly what is happening at the present time. The main feature of this policy in respect of which its inconsistency is being brought out is in relation to the attempts, the futile attempts which have been made recently to stem the movement of the African population to the towns in order to keep them as labourers for the farms. Now I want to make particular reference to Cape Town, which is the major industrial area affected, for which a proclamation has been issued under the Urban Areas Act, prohibiting the entry of natives. That proclamation was promulgated during the time when the hon. member for Stellenbosch was Minister in 1939, and I have been protesting against it and attempting to show its ill effects ever since. I want to put forward the reason why this policy must be harmful, not only to the African people, but also to the European people of this country. This country is in the process of industrial development, a process which is becoming more and more rapid and it is the ordinary and familiar feature of a country which is in the process of industrialisation for the people of the countryside to move towards the towns. It is a necessary feature in order to supply the labour which the expanding needs of industry require, and it is also an inevitable feature because, as the population of the countryside increases, as the pressure on the population becomes greater, so the standard of livingin the countryside tends to fall, unless there is a movement of that kind. Now on these Benches this view has been put forward for years, but the correctness of it has recently received striking confirmation in the Third Interim Report of the Industrial and Agricultural Requirements Commission, a commission appointed by the Government since the war broke out in order to investigate the whole economic position of this country. I am going to refer to that report because I contend that this is an impartial document and bears out the statement which we have been making from these Benches for years, particularly in that aspect to which I am referring. In section 61 the report says the following—

The inference is that the population of the countryside is too great unless there is going to be a worsening of conditions in the countryside. Now, that same paragraph goes on to say this—

Almost the same words that we for years have been using from these Benches about the attempt to stem the natural influx of Africans and other non-European people into the towns. The Commissioners make it perfectly clear that they are not only referring to the movement from European farming areas; they are referring to the native reserves as well. In a later section of their report, Section 187, these words appear—

I may say that where they refer to mining, it is clear from the report that they do not refer to gold mining, but to the development of base minerals. Now, I do submit two things in connection with this report. One is that it is far too important a document just to be ignored as so many reports have been, and secondly, that it is by implication a major indictment of the country’s native policy, the so-called policy of segregation, the policy which we have always contended is not a policy of segregation at all. Now in view of these well-informed and penetrating words, I say it is disquieting to find the Native Commission, which has recently reported, putting up exactly the opposite recommendations to the Government. In the section of the Native Affairs Commission’s report headed “Economic Implications of Native Policy” they make it alarmingly clear that they still regard as the sheet anchor of native policy the provision of cheap labour to the primary industries. I am not abusive when I speak of “cheap labour”. I want to quote the actual words of the Commission, because they put it up for the consideration of the Government. On page 11 in the report of the Native Affairs Commission we find this—

That apparently is the standpoint from which they start.

Is not that true?

It is not true in terms of the recommendations of the Industrial and Agricultural Requirements Commission. They have said that the future of the country depends not on cheap native labour but on developing the resources other than the gold mining industry — which, as things are going at present, can only last another ten years — and on raising the purchasing power of the African population — a policy quite inconsistent with cheap labour and which involves the absorption of the native population in industry. It is that striking contrast which I want to point out.

There is no contrast, the one only refers to the gold mining industry.

The hon. member who is so concerned about the gold mines can make his speech later — perhaps he will allow me to make mine now. I am going to quote again from the report of the Native Affairs Commission. They say this. I think the hon. member will agree that a rural exodus to the towns has been set out as an absolute economic essential, by the Industrial and Agricultural Requirements Commission, but let us see what the Native Affairs Commission says on the point—

The hon. member is quite entitled to agree with that. The point apparently is that there should be a continuous supply of cheap labour, but if there is no such continuous supply, then I say it indicates that the economy of the country is finding a balance different to what it had before, and a better balance. Anyhow the point I make is this, that if it is a sound policy, as we are told by this Commission which the Government has appointed, and which has presented an interim report, if the industrialisation of the African population is sound policy, then it is negation of that policy to put restrictions upon their entering the urban areas in order to man the industries of this country. And that is the point which we have always made. And having regard to the low proportion of the national income that agriculture contributes, there is not a living on the land for the present native population. And therefore we say it is bad economics, and it is just as bad to put artificial restrictions in the way of a perfectly natural process such as is going on in the case of Cape Town and other areas. One only has to consider the position of the native reserves. One has only to consider the position in the native reserves alone to see that there must be relief for the pressure of the population there to maintain even the low standard of life of the African people at the present time. I want to quote certain figures to show the implications of the present policy—I also get these figures from the Native Affairs Commission’s report. According to the report, the native reserves’ population own nearly 4,000,000 head of cattle, and if that number of cattle is divided amongst the native families, it will be seen that the number belonging to each family is not very large. Now the least amount of land required for one head of cattle is about five morgen on the average, so that 4,000,000 head of cattle would require 20,000,000 morgen of land. There are estimated to be 600,000 heads of families in the native reserves, and it will be agreed that on the average, as in the Transkei, the minimum amount of land upon which a native family can make a living is 10 morgen, which means that, at 10 morgen per head for 600,000, 6,000,000 morgen of arable land would be required, making 26,000,000 morgen altogether to accommodate the present population of the reserve alone, and it must be remembered that that population is less than half the total native population of the country. If all the land were bought under the Native Land Act of 1936 and added to the present reserves, it would amount to under 18,000,000 morgen, and upon that you are going to accommodate, according to the Native Affairs Commission, not only the present population of the reserves, but about another 2,500,000 African people who are living on European farms at the present time and owning about 1,500,000 cattle. Now that cannot be done without a drastic lowering of their standard of living. So, as we have contended all along—we said it at the time of the 1936 Land Act—there is no adequate provision of land for carrying out anything like the projected segregation policy, unless, as I say, the standard of living of the native population is seriously affected. I personally do not believe for a moment, however much the Native Affairs Commission talks, that there will be any real attempt to accommodate these 2,500,000 African people in the native reserves. It will prove impossible. As the report of the Industrial and Agricultural Requirements Commission says in paragraph 173—

Well, as I say, Mr. Chairman, these are words to which weight must be given. They are altogether inconsistent with the present policy which is being pursued. If there were any real desire to carry out the segregation policy effectively, it would mean the European doing his work, and the nonEuropean doing his work separately, and if there were such an intention, the way to approach the problem would be to finance public utility companies for industrial development of the native reserves. But I cannot see any indication that for many years to come such a policy would even get a hearing in this country. I have gone at some length into the position as reported upon by the Commission, because, as I say, it is important as showing that we on these Benches, though we may be regarded as special pleaders, have not been talking nonsense, and there is something in what we have been saying, that what we stand for is essential for the economic development of the country as a whole, and not only for the progress and development of those whom we specially represent in this House. I ask the Minister at least to repeal that proclamation of 1939, stopping Africans from coming into Cape Town. As a matter of fact, the labour requirements of this area are expanding.

The proclamation is not stopping them.

The hon. member says it is not stopping them, and if so its effect is to cause ill-feeling and a sense of injustice, and to drive them into the bush, on the edge of the municipal area. Thus all that it does is to add to the filthy slums around Cape Town which are a shame and disgrace to this country—places like Windermere on the borders of Cape Town. I do make an appeal to the Minister tonight to repeal that proclamation. Whatever may be said on the subject, the Government will have to face up to this position, that housing, whether of Europeans, Africans or coloured people, must be a national responsibility. The population shifts from one place to another, according to the development of the national economy on a territorial basis, and the Minister knows the difficulty there is to get municipalities to take advantage of the subeconomic money which the Government has provided for housing. The housing position in Cape Town is quite hopeless. Langa is absolutely full, and is only housing 6,000. There must be well over 20,000 natives here in Cape Town now, and they are being rack-rented in the most shameful manner. I assure the Minister that some of them are paying £2 a month for a miserable room, and others on the Cape Flats are paying 10s. for a sandy plot. They have all got jobs and they are often people who have worked here for a very long time. The Government must force the municipalities, as far as possible, to provide housing accommodation, and, at a later stage but again as soon as possible, take over the responsibility for housing; and for goodness sake, let the Government allow these people who are now squatting on the Cape Flats, to purchase land and put up their own houses under municipal control, assisting them with loans to do so. These people are part of the population of the Cape, they are required here, and I therefore put in a plea to the Minister to recognise their presence in Cape Town but in other urban areas, and give them the right to purchase land and have homes for themselves. I hope the Minister will very seriously consider that, remembering that it by no means exclude the necessity of making other proper housing provision. There is one aspect of this question which is very important, and that is the fact that a landlord may not accommodate a native unless he takes out a licence, which he has to pay for. The licence, however, is not paid by the landlord, but is added to the rent, and the result is that this so-called segregation policy encourages rack-renting of these people. I hope the Minister will bring pressure to bear on the Cape Town Municipality to get them to wipe out these regulations requiring licences for landlords, at least until they are prepared to make provision themselves to accommodate these people. Now, I want to say a word on the subject of farm labour, which has been referred to several times in this debate. I do not think that the question of farm labour can be satisfactorily solved while the present methods of farming persist. Re-organisation of farming methods would enable economy in the labour used. However, I quite admit that this is a long-term policy. The Government has created Labour Advisory Boards, and perhaps they would be useful to some extent in the meantime, if only the Minister would consent to the native people being represented on them. [Time limit.]

It is very interesting to listen to the hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno). He has well and truly brought the case of the electors for whom he is responsible, to the notice of the Minister. I just want to mention this too. Various remarks were made by the hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn) and also by hon. members on the cross benches, newcomers in South Africa who know nothing about the history of South Africa and of the relationship between the European and the coloured person, which has been built up during the past 100 years. The Minister himself committed a very big error here; surely he cannot know the history of South Africa. There would not have been black races in South Africa today if it were not for the Voortrekkers, who, at Blood River, destroyed the barbarism which prevailed in this country, so that the black and European and coloured races could live here unmolested. People talk of equality and of injustice. How dare anyone think that the old historians, the historians of the people which gave South Africa a European civilisation, committed an injustice? We experience this today, that the Government, at this stage of our lives, is committing the most cruel injustice towards its own people since 1842, because it thinks that that is necessary. So we also find in the history of the world, that there are individuals who are a disgrace to themselves and to their people. We find that at the present time too. The Minister of Native Affairs is charged with, I suppose, the most weighty office with regard to the future of South Africa, and that is the maintenance of the European civilisation. If he makes a failure of that, the results will be what we experience today. The last speaker endeavoured to point out—and on the floor of this House it has often been pointed out what dangers exist of a yellow peril. But I want to put this question, what brought that danger? We Europeans. The Allies of 1914 brought that danger. Then it was one of our fellow-Allies which instructed that race by showing it how the European race destroys itself, and then still glories in it. What has that race done in the trade struggle? It has taught them to engage in commerce, and today they are efficient, like any European nation. But their standard of living remains Japanese. Today we want to make Europeans of our natives. I grew up with the children of Kaffir Captain Jonathan, who was taught in Oxford. But when he came out to South Africa, he put aside his Oxford training and again walked about in his red blankets and smeared himself with grease. I notice that the Minister is laughing about it.

No, I am not laughing about it.

A native will remain a native. But I want to issue a warning that we must not think that there is no such thing as communism. How did communism arise in South Africa? Who brought it into South Africa? I say British imperialism, which instructed the natives so as to stop the national stream which flowed here, and against which it clashed in 1806. It is said that the Afrikaners are the persecutors. Even today it is said throughout South Africa that the Boer nation is the persecutor of the native; their protector is Her Majesty—“God save the Queen.” That is history and that is the truth. No one can deny it. It is a fact, and it is now propagated by the Minister by arming the natives. That training which you are today giving to the native is the same training which the Allies gave to Japan, of whom they are afraid today. Some days ago I showed in this House what the attitude of the kaffir is. I read out a letter in which it was said that the time had now arrived for Jan Smuts to lead us to our own states; he says that they are awaiting the big word from Japan, and that when that word comes, there will be much bloodshed. He says that they are afraid of bombs, but that Jan Smuts must lead the Europeans to their own states.

But you are always teaching them that.

What can one do when one has to deal with such intelligence on the part of a person who is called “friend.” It is not anything to laugh about. This is a serious matter. The Minister knows this evening that there are people of his own blood who are at the front today; for what purpose does he sacrifice them? For South Africa’s welfare?

Yes, of course.

To South Africa’s detriment in the future, if those black and yellow races come here and destroy all the Europeans.

After what we have heard from the Opposition during the past few weeks, there are few things which can come from that side which will really surprise one. But I must say that the manner in which the hon. member for Bechuanaland (Mr. Du Plessis) took part in the debate this evening, surprised me. It surprised me to see the absolutely blatant propaganda-making for which this House is used, and more and more in connection with the exploitation of colour questions.

It was not the hon. member for Bechuananland, it was the hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Olivier).

Yes, I am sorry, it was the hon. member for Kuruman. We have had this colour question for years in South Africa. We have had the yellow peril, which has fortunately remained a long way off. Now that the yellow peril has come very close to us today, hon. members come here and their only reply in so far as the yellow peril is concerned, is that it is a bogey of which we have been hearing all these years. They know very well that there is a real danger today, and they know that the eyes of those people who have followed them up to the present, the people in the platteland and in the other parts who followed them—have opened, and that they are indignant at the attitude which hon. members on the other side have adopted, namely, that we should crawl to the Japanese to ask for peace; and in order to check that movement in the platteland now, they come here with the only reply which they can give, namely, that it is a bogey of which we have heard all these years. This is not a bogey; it is a real danger, but what is a bogey is what hon. members did here this evening, namely to rake up the past and to raise these matters here, simply because the Minister of Native Affairs expressed his personal opinion some time ago that we should consider the question of arming our own natives; and that is now held out as though it were a terrible sin, something which clashes with our history, which is antiRepublican, anti-Afrikaans, and against all our customs. The hon. member for Bethlehem (Mr. R. A. T. van der Merwe) spoke of the old Voortrekkers and of our history, but what is the position with regard to the arming of natives in so far as our history is concerned? It will be useful if I refer to the position which existed in 1858. I refer to “De Lokale Wetten der Zuid-Afrikaans Republiek,” and I find that in the Act of 1858—that was during the time of President Pretorius—the following appears in Section 96—

The following section reads as follows—

Not armed.

No distinction was made. Let me explain that to my hon. friend.

The question is how many were used.

The act provided for it, and they could use the coloured people if they wanted to. The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) ought to know that.

I know better than you do.

You may think so.

I know it.

The difference is that with regard to the European people there was an age limit of 16 to 60 years, but in so far as the coloured persons were concerned, there was not even an age limit. There is no distinction in the Act; they could have been used for any type of service. It would have been perfectly lawful for them to have been used as ordinary soldiers.

They were only used as ordinary non-combatants.

I know that it will be difficult for my hon. friend to learn this; but there is also the instruction to commadants in which this appears—

And then we come to President Kruger’s time. It may perhaps be said that during the time of the Voortrekkers it was necessary to arm the kaffirs against other kaffirs, but even in the time of President Kruger, we find the following in the Act of 1883—

That shows that the law has not been changed. It remains the same. We note the definition which is given above.

What do you say now?

It is a farreaching definition. Here one finds this in the time of the old republic in the year 1858. The provision of the law throughout was that one could use the natives as soldiers, without any limitation.

It does not say that they can be used as soldiers.

I notice that the hon. member is beginning to feel uncomfortable now. He finds that the position is against him. The Act makes it perfectly clear, and when reference is made in the Act to military service for Europeans and coloured persons, no distinction is made between the military service to be performed by coloured people and the military service to be performed by Europeans.

Could he have armed a young kaffir?

He could have been armed to the very teeth. Our old leaders during the time of the Voortrekkers, men like President Pretorius and even President Kruger, saw further than the blinded members of the Opposition, who are today simply intent on making propaganda, and who have progressed so far in the matter of propaganda that even Goebbels can take lessons from them. It is only blindness on the part of members on the other side, who can think of nothing else than to check the breaking up of their party, which is takingplace more and more every day, and to put the pieces together again. That little story which my hon. friend read out and his raking up matters of the past will not help in keeping their party going. We know that the people in the country can see through the thin veil with which they want to keep their political nakedness covered. I thought that it was necessary to quote these Acts in the House this evening, so that the people in the country can see what sort of mesmerism is being practised on the people by members on the other side.

The hon. member who has just sat down was first surprised, and then again he was not surprised at the criticism of this side. It is not clear to me what he wanted to say. We on this side have reason to be surprised at the attitude of that hon. member. If the yellow peril is actually as the hon. member wanted to picture it to us, then it certainly surprises us that he is still here, and has not gone forth in order to check that yellow peril. Let me tell the hon. member for Germiston, South (Mr. J. G. N. Strauss), that what surprised me more was the fact that he comes here and wants to make statements which are contradicted by history, while every statement which he made is contradicted by facts of history, with which he ought to be acquainted. He puts certain propositions here which are contradicted by the facts of our history. The history of our people is the noblest, and it is the pride of our people; it is the pride of Afrikanerdom, and that hon. member wants to lay it at the door of our forefathers that they made provision in the Act that they would use the natives in war service, while the whole history belies that statement. The Act made provision that the natives could be called upon, not to put them in service as combatants, but to put them in the service of the soldiers—not to provide them with weapons, as that hon. member alleged in his ignorance. It is very clear to me that the brain of that hon. member has become bemused by the company in which he finds himself, so that he cannot see facts as they really were, and so that he tries to paint a picture here just as the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) tried to do when he endeavoured today to give advice to this House, as to how we could prevent the natives from becoming Communists, and that notwithstanding the fact that he is one of the subscribers to the list of the Friends of Soviet Russia. I wonder whether the hon. member seriously means to prevent the natives from becoming Communists? I want to tell the hon. member for Troyeville that I should not be at all surprised if he gets up here and tells us that he is 100 per cent. Communist, because he is one of those people who applied himself to get recognition for the representatives of Russia in South Africa. I also want to make use of this opportunity —and I am glad that the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys) is in the House at the moment—to express my disapproval of the statements which were made here by him today. The hon. member is one of the members of the Select Committee on Public Accounts. The hon. member for Prieska is engaged in making investigations into the accusations which were made in connection with the purchase of land. I want to point out to him with respect to that farm to which the Auditor-General refers in his report, that in the neighbourhood of that farm land was purchased for approximately £10,000, and was later sold to the Native Trust for £4,300. I do not want to go into all the details of the cases which have been raised, but I want to give the hon. member the assurance that I fully agree with the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Mr. Fagan) that the price which was paid for a farm has nothing to do with the price for which that farm was eventually sold to the Native Trust. It is no evidence at all that irregularities took place, or scandals, as the hon. member for Prieska called it. Let me mention a case where land could be bought in Bethal in 1932—’33 at £6 and £7 per morgen, and I challenge that hon. member to go and buy that land today for less than £14 or £15 per morgen. I also want to refer him to a case of which I have personal knowledge, where a landowner could get £14,000 in 1914 for one-half of his farm. During the depression years that farm was sold, the whole farm, and not one-half of it, for £6,000. If that person had still had the land today, then he could have sold it at £24,000. There was a slight improvement after that period of depression, and that made a great difference. I mention these matters—the hon. member for Prieska ought to know it— because he also deals with the purchase and sale of land. There are times when the price of land falls to a very low level, and other times when the price rises again, and to come here and say that land was bought at a certain price and then again sold at a different price, does not indicate a scandal at all. Now I come to a question which I want to put to the Minister of Native Affairs. It relates to the future policy of the Government in connection with segregation, as we understand it under the native legislation passed by this House. If one studies the speech of the Prime Minister in the City Hall of Cape Town, at that meeting of the Society of Race Relations, then every one of us is compelled to ask himself whether this Government is still in favour of segregation. For that reason we should like a definite reply from the Minister of Native Affairs on this particular point. I want to give the Minister the assurance that in talking about this matter I am not influenced by any political consideration or political prejudice. But time and again— the Minister can check up on that—I have drawn the attention of the Minister to the conditions which prevail especially in the Eastern Transvaal. In that connection I am pleased about the remark which was made here by the hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn) to the effect that the young natives who ran away to the large towns should be removed from those towns, because they are only there to have fun and they become rogues. I am glad that the hon. member agrees that they should be taken back to their tribes. That is a very sound suggestion, and if the Minister wants to adopt it and to give effect to it, it will definitely be a step in the right direction. In this connection I want to put this further question to the Minister. I want to know from him to what extent he endorses the policy of removing undesirable elements from urban areas, and also from farms where, if the Native Trust and Lands Act is properly applied, they are not allowed to be. His predecessor sent a circular to all the districts to which certain replies had to be given, namely, to what extent the people in that neighbourhood were in favour of the application of Chapter 4 of the Native Trust and Lands Act, and I would like to know from the Minister whether he is going to apply Chapter 4, or whether he is not going to apply it; because Chapter 4 is absolutely the foundation of the whole Act, and if Chapter 4 is not applied, then the whole foundation of segregation is taken from the Act. It is for that reason that this country was prepared to make provision for funds in order to place at the disposal of the natives such a great number of morgen of land, in order to be able to segregate them. The intention was that those undesirable elements in the towns which congregate there, and which are made criminals there, can be sent back and again be brought into contact with the tribe. If they are allowed to flock to the cities, they become criminals, and it is not only detrimental to the country but it is also detrimental to those natives, because in that way they are detribalised’ I was glad to hear from the Minister that they want to do their very best to retain the tribal connection of the natives. [Time limit.]

It was my intention at the outset to support the hon. member for Queenstown (Mr. van Coller) in his representations to the Minister on the question of the black spots in my part of the country. As the Minister has, however, replied, I wish to express my appreciation to him for the promise he has made that the Native Affairs Commission will visit that part of the country, and I sincerely hope that arrangements can be made so that some of the native representatives can accompany the Commission and the native representatives and the Native Affairs Commission can come and see for themselves the circumstances existing in that part of the country, circumstances which have existed so long that they have, and are, creating prejudices in that part of the country which will not be easily overcome. It was my intention to deal with this subject at the end of what I hoped to say, but like the Irishman I may perhaps be permitted to put the cart in front of the horse. What I want to say to the Minister is in the form of an appeal. We have made urgent appeals to the Minister through every organisation we have since war broke out on a very serious question, seriously affecting the whole of the native question in that part of the country. I am referring to the question of native squatters, legal and illegal. Large numbers of tenants creep in and settle in the neighbourhood of European farms so that those areas become locations. That state of affairs is being created right along and in the neighbourhood of farms whose owners have left to join the forces and are up North today. There are hundreds of cases of that kind. Their wives and womenfolk are left. They are living on these farms. May I tell you, Mr. Chairman, that there are blocks of six up to twelve farms and not a man on them, and they are certainly worthy of greater consideration than they are receiving. I want to appeal to the Minister to deal with that situation. And, in making that appeal, I want to ask the Minister even at this late hour to try and improve the position for these women who are doing their duty nobly, who have to put up with insults and assaults—because many assaults have taken place, as the records of the Department of Justice will show—and, what is more, there is a tremendous amount of drunkenness going on there from one Sunday to another. The position is a very serious one so far as these women are concerned. Drunkenness possibly is the worst feature of all— the uncontrolled drunkenness that takes place. This is a feature on which I would like the Minister to reflect as an old warrior, as a man who went out and fought for his country, as a man who has taken part in many wars. Surely when he was out in the field his thoughts went back to his home, and he would think of the protection of his womenfolk at the hands of the Government. I can produce dozens of letters from these men at the front, who are receiving information of what is going on about the insults and assaults and the irresponsibility in these parts. I hope my appeal to the Minister may have the effect of making him reflect on the serious nature of things. We have our soldiers serving up North, and I feel that their wives who are left behind are deserving of a little consideration. We are right up against the thing; it is a matter of policy, but I am afraid the policy followed by the Government in this respect will not help to bring about a solution. It was my intention to deal with this matter at length, but, in view of what the Minister has promised us, I shall leave the question of policy entirely alone, and deal with it when meeting the Native Affairs Commission. I want to make an appeal to the Minister to try and remedy the position created in these areas since war broke out. If he cannot do so in any other way, then he must do it by issuing emergency regulations. There is one final word, and that is on the question of dual control throughout these areas. You have the Minister of Justice in charge of one section, but where you have black spots in the middle of European areas, the Native Commissioner is in power. That state of affairs exists today —if the native says he wants to make beer, he just advises his headman, and the Native Commissioner cannot stop him, so the result is there is a lot of drunkenness there. The position is becoming intolerable, and I hope it will be dealt with.

I should like to tell the hon. member opposite who has been quoting from all these Acts that I don’t want to slang him in the way he has tried to slang us. I only want to tell him that the Boer Nation has never yet gone so far, at least as far as I know, of having armed the kaffirs to fight for them.

I did not say that.

But that is what they are going to say.

Will the hon. member over there in the “kitchen” please keep quiet. I have a telegram here about this matter. The hon. member said that the people would be behind them. I know that the people will be behind them. We warned them that if the people of this country are put in a position of danger so far as Japan is concerned, if our children or our dependants or their fathers are killed in a fight against Japan, hon. members opposite will be the cause. They declared war against Japan without consulting us.

That is nonsense.

Where do you get that from?

Yes, if one chucks a stone in the midst of a crowd of dogs they always kick up a row. I only want to tell hon. members opposite that the people will be after them. That is what I expect, and they will have to run for it.

No, the runners are on the other side.

Good gracious!

And you will be on Japan’s side.

Slanging us is not going to help you. We expect empty barrels to make most noise. But we are going to tell the people of this country that war was declared on Japan without this side of the House having been consulted.

Will the hon. member please tell me what that has to do with this vote?

Surely I have the right to reply to what the Minister of Native Affairs has been saying. He told us what his policy was in regard to the Natives. He made the excuse that Japan was a yellow nation and consequently he felt that he was entitled to arm the natives against Japan. That being so I am entitled to reply. I want you to understand that what we say is this: that if Japan comes here the people will not allow you to rule. You will be chucked out and we shall have to look after the country.

With Japan?

Yes, it is quite easy to say that. Hon. members over there should realise that once Japan comes here it will be the end if the British Navy and the end of the American Navy. They have a lot to say for themselves just now, but they are in the same position as the youngster who challenged another to fight, but when his challange was taken up he turned to his friends and asked them to help him. That is what they are doing now. Still, I have finished with that point, I only want to tell the Minister that I have received a telegram from my constituency which was sent to me shortly after the Minister had spoken about the arming of natives, and this is what the telegram says—

I want the Government to realise what the position is and what the public outside feel about this threat to arm the natives. If the Government takes those steps and if it wants to turn us into a bastard nation in that way we are not going to assist it. The Government does not care one whit. The Minister who is responsible for Native Affairs, as well as the Prime Minister, know what the position is. They know that when they arm the Natives and when they armed the coloured people in the last war— they know what the consequences were for South Africa. They saw what happened after the last war, how the coloured people walked about here with white women they brought from overseas. They saw how impertinent the coloured people were and they can again see here in Cape Town how cheeky the coloured people are getting. It is due to the fact that those people were armed and if they arm them again now they are not going to remain satisfied with the rights which they have today, and they say so themselves. If the Minister of Finance reads his paper he will see that one of the Native professors of Fort Hare writes there that the natives will not fight for England. He says they fought for England in the last war and when they came back they were deprived of their franchise. Those natives will force them to give them rights which they are not prepared to give them now. And if they go and arm these people we may expect anything to happen. The position simply is this, that the Government knows as well as I do that the country will not allow this sort of thing to be done, and the Government knows that if they try to do it they are going to get all the trouble they are looking for.

The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) indulged in a lot of pious talk about the arming of natives.

It was not pious talk, it was very serious talk.

The question of using native troops against a country like Japan seems to be a terrible thing so far as he is concerned. Are we better or worse than that great country whose cause they are pleading so often? Are we better or worse than Germany which in the last war used natives against our white troops in East Africa? That great nation, Germany, is allowed to do it. Germany used native troops against the Afrikaner nation, but we are not supposed to do it against the Japanese. Are we such a noble and terribly pious nation that we are not allowed to do a thing which a big country like Germany itself has done? Do those hon. members go for Germany in the same way as they are now going for us because the Government has made this statement?

We have not got Germany’s estimates of expenditure before us.

Why don’t they also attack Germany which did use native troops? I want to go a little further. If hon. members criticise and attack the Government because it may possibly take such a step if it becomes necessary, why don’t they criticise their own ancestors? Why don’t they criticise the Hollanders who used native troops in Java? They are your own ancestors whom you have sprung from—why did they do it? Why don’t you also malign Belgium and France which used native troops in the last war? Now I am getting a little nearer home. The hon. member for Germiston, South (Mr. J. G. N. Strauss) has quoted from our own history. The language which he quoted is so clear that anyone can follow it, and the hon. member for Swellendam cannot say that when the old Republics spoke about coloured people they did not include natives as well, among coloured people. In the term “coloured people” the old Transvaal Republic also included natives, and the hon. member can go and ask the hon. member for Losberg (Mr. Brits) whether that is so or not. Now we are in our own kraal. I have here in front of me the history of the Republic of Vryheid. Lukas Meyer there fought on the side of 7,000 armed natives to help Dinuzulu for which he was given farms and those he proclaimed as the Republic of Vryheid. Now we are in our own kraal and I am giving an instance where we fought with natives on our side. Does the hon. member know the history of Dingaan’s downfall? Does he know how the Boers with the 3,000 armed natives moved up and fought a battle on their side? Is that not true? And if it is so why this terrible attack on the Government when the Government states that circumstances may arise when we may have to use the natives to fight against the Japanese or any invading nation? Is this not a hypocritical attitude for hon. members opposite to adopt? The Government said that it might become necessary, if Japan attacked, and those stories which we hear from the other side are nothing but hypocrisy, and the people no longer believe in them.

And how about your ancestors who fought in Palestine?

The hon. member is now becoming personal.

But you are also personal.

No, I spoke generally, and I reject these personalities in this House with the contempt they deserve.

You accused us of hypocrisy. Is not that being personal?

I spoke generally about the principle, and I did not accuse any individual member. Here we find that the Government is being attacked for having said that it may become possible that it will have to arm natives. The Prime Minister clearly stated that if there were a possibility of a Japanese invasion it might become necessary to arm the natives. I want to ask hon. members opposite whether in principle they are opposed to our arming the natives in those circumstances if by doing so we can save our country from a Japanese invasion. In other words, hon. members opposite declare that rather than arm the natives to save the country from Japanese occupation they would hoist the white flag and hand over this country and our people, too, to Japan.

And what if the natives help Japan?

I want to put this question definitely to the hon. member: Will the hon. member be prepared to say that we must arm the natives, natives who stand faithfully by us, if it becomes necessary to use them to help us fight against Japan, and so to prevent Japan conquering our country and our people with all its women and children ?

You need not become afraid.

The hon. member is now hiding behind the American and the English Navies. I again ask them whether they will be willing to use natives to stop Japan or Italy, which might attack us with native troops? The point is perfectly clear. Should we rather hand over this country and our people, with all its women and children, to the Japanese or to Italy— should we rather do that than arm our trustworthy natives? The question is perfectly clear, and I am going to use that question in the by-election. Where do hon. members stand? I ask my temporary neighbour, the hon. member for Losberg (Mr. Brits) what his attitude is, what his answer is to my question? The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) says that if Japan comes here, America and England will be beaten. That is running away from it. It means that you want to hide behind America and England. I come back to my question. Say, for instance, we have enough Americans and Englishmen in this country to defend the country against Japan, provided we arm our natives, will hon. members be in favour of that, or would they prefer to hand the country over to Japan, rather than arm our trustworthy natives?

If the Japanese land here we shall fight.

If I accept the hon. member for Swellendam to speak on behalf of the party opposite, then I take it that they will defend the country if the Japanese attack us.

Those people with those double salaries will not be there.

The hon. member may joke, but if the hon. member for Swellendam wants to help us fight against the Japanese, then surely he must not wait until we are threatened, and only then start training troops to defend our country in the way it should be defended. Once we are attacked it will be too late to start training and drilling our troops. How could a lot of untrained troops resist an attack on the country? If hon. members are really honest in their intentions, let them say that they are willing to allow their sons to be trained, but on condition that they will only be used against an attack by Japan or any other country. Are they doing that? No, they won’t even do that.

Why did you declare war? Why did you say that you would only use volunteers?

The hon. member is running away from the point. How can one defend one’s country with troops which have not been trained?

Are the natives trained?

That is not the point. The Prime Minister has said that he may possibly arm the natives if emergencies require him to do so, and the question is whether the Opposition will oppose such a step, and what they are prepared to do in the event of an invasion.

I only want to say this to the hon. member for Vereeniging (Lt.-Col. Rood), that the day the Japanese come here he will not be here.

Leave those personalities out.

I want to assure him that if the Japanese come here we on this side of the House will defend the country in Durban and along the coast. The hon. member now wants to arm the natives. Surely the hon. member knows that the natives in this country have been agitating since the time the Voortrekkers trekked to the North, and that they have been contending that South Africa is a black man’s country? They want to get the country back; they say it is their country. That being so, is it not most dangerous, where we only have 200,000 whites against 700,000 natives, to give arms to those 700,000 natives? Surely, if we do that, we put them in the position of taking the country? We know what happened in Malay and in Java, and what is going to happen in India? We know that the natives, as soon as the Japanese arrive, will take sides with the Japanese, and try to shake off the yoke which they think is resting on them. If you arm the natives here you will pick the bitter fruit of such a policy. As has been said, however, if Japan comes here it will mean that the American and English Navies would have been defeated.

And that is what you are hiding behind.

Those hon. members who declared war on the 4th September are full of talk now, but they should be up North and they should be fighting; they stay here and let others do the fighting for them. But the day when South Africa has to be defended against real dangers the members of this side of the House will be found in the front lines, but I am afraid we shall find very few of the hon. members opposite there.

I want to call the attention of the Minister to what I consider a very important point, and that is the sale of kaffir beer by the Johannesburg Town Council. That beer was supposed to be sold at cost, and it might surprise the House to know—I have the figures here—that during the year 1940—’41 the Johannesburg Council made no less than £62,547 profit on the sale of kaffir beer to natives. And that is not all. For this year it is anticipated that the profits will be no less than £79,787, roughly £80,000. That is a very large sum which has been extracted from the natives, who, as we all know, earn a very small amount of money. When he knows that an undertaking like the selling of kaffir beer brings in a profit of roughly £80,000 in one year, it is a matter that has to be seriously considered. It might be mentioned that when this scheme was introduced all profits were supposed to be spent for the welfare of the natives, and I want to ask the Minister to tell me how the natives have benefited out of this huge profit, and how that money has been spent. I am going to ask him if educational facilities have been provided from this money, and I want to go one step further and mention another very serious matter. Hospital accommodation for natives has been referred to at some length, and given a great deal of attention in Johannesburg. I don’t want to dwell on that, because that scandal is too well-known for me to mention, but I want to tell the House that, in anticipation of the big profits which the Council is going to make, it is spending £34,000 on the erection of another brewery, which is supposed to be the finest brewery in the country. Now, I want to be fair in connection with the purchase of that piece of ground for the brewery, because it is proposed to erect a hospital on the same site. The Minister is responsible for the granting of licences to carry on these undertakings, and I want to ask him in future if the obligations of the local authority are not carried out by spending the money in the way in which it is supposed to be spent, he will refuse to grant or withdraw licences already granted?

There are a few matters which I wish to bring to the Minister’s notice, and I should like him to reply to them and to tell us what he is going to do. First of all, in those areas where there are many natives, for instance, parts of Middelburg and Lydenburg, where thousands of natives are concentrated, concessions have been granted to certain shopkeepers who have been given preferential trading rights. There is no competition; no other people are allowed to have shops there; only those few who have had those concessions for years. The result is that things are terribly expensive, and that inferior goods are being sold to the natives at exorbitant prices. The natives are compelled to cover long distances to go to the towns to buy things there, but the worst of it is that this also applies to food, to mealies. Other people are not allowed to sell mealies to the natives —it is only those people who have those concessions who are allowed to sell mealies in their shops. The result is that the natives are starving. Instead of being able to buy mealies at a price not exceeding 15s. per bag, the shopkeepers ask as far as £1 5s. per bag of mealies. The natives in those areas are living practically on prickly pear at the moment. Food is very scarce in those areas, and there is a lot of poverty. The natives are actually starving, and there is no food, and they can only obtain food from the shopkeepers at exorbitant prices. Young natives who have been out to work and who return with a few pounds in their pockets in ordinary circumstances used to be able to buy a few bags of mealies, but under present conditions with these exorbitant prices they can only buy one or two bags of mealies for the whole family. I hope the Minister will go into this question, and will do away with those old concessions. There should be competition, especially in regard to foodstuffs. It is an injustice which is being done to the natives in this way. I have asked the big native chiefs what they have been doing, and they tell me that they have discussed matters with the Native Commissioners, but that it is no use. Now, there is another point I want to raise. In towns like Pretoria and Johannesburg one finds large numbers of natives who have left the platteland. Farmers in the neighbourhood of the towns let small stands to natives and they congregate there as against that there is a great scarcity of labour on the platteland. I want to tell the House what are the main reasons why the natives leave the farms and why they congregate in large numbers in the towns. This is a very serious position. They are unable to get work in the towns. The other day I noticed a crowd of natives at Germiston, surrounded by police. I wondered what was going on and I enquired. The police told me that those natives arrived in Germiston in large numbers to look for work and that they were being told that they could not get any work there. They hung about the towns and if they got tired they went back to their tribe. There are large numbers of natives who drift into the towns and who are unable to find work. The police stop them when they arrive to tell them to return to look for work on the farms, because there is no work for them in the towns. The position is very unsatisfactory. The old natives, and the native chiefs, come to us with complaints and tell us that they have no control over their children. The Minister is looked upon as the guardian of the natives and we want him to do away with those malconditions. The natives come to us to complain about the children being allowed to go to the towns where they commit offences and get into bad company, instead of doing useful work on the platteland. These people are agriculturists like their ancestors. One should realise that these youngsters, if they stay with the farmers, learn farming and the native chiefs urge us to see to it that the children are trained in that way. They will then be of some use to their own nation. Passes are today being issued by native commissioners to the young natives and they run to the towns where they get into bad company, and when they come back they are no use. I hope the Minister will intervene. Today they get a trek pass for which they pay 1s. and then they go where they want to go and stay away as long as they like. The result is that the farmer says to the old native: All your children have gone, now you have also to go. Where can those creatures go? It would be a good thing for the natives themselves, for the chiefs, and for the Europeans, if this sort of thing was stopped. I want to ask the Minister to apply the 1926 Act to the natives. The old natives would welcome it. That law provides that every young native, wherever he goes, has to produce an identification certificate. It would be of great assistance if that were in force. The identification pass shows his name, the name of his father or guardian, the place where he comes from and so on. In that way one can keep control over them and put an end to this loafing about, and to all this crime that is going on. Two or three years ago I read in one of the newspapers that the Durban police had collected all the young natives when it was found that 2,000 of these young natives could not tell the authorities where their parents were and where they were living. That gives us some idea of the way they are drifting about.

Mr. Chairman, when I was interrupted by the time limit I was speaking of the measures taken to improve the conditions of natives in urban areas. The five principal points are old age pensions, invalidity grants, poor relief, labour exchanges, sub-economic housing and extension of medical and hospital services. If these were carried out it would result in a general rise in the standard of living of urban natives.