I move—

I want to make a last effort and once more protest against the introduction of this Bill. I am not going to detain the House long because I know the Minister is determined to ensure this Bill going through, although he has not given vs any reasons why the report of the Civil Imprisonment Commission should be passed over and ignored. Still, he saw fit to introduce this Bill and to force it through this House without having consulted the public outside. That is his responsibility and the Government’s responsibility. I hope the public outside will express judgment on what the Minister told the House when he introduced a Bill to restore civil imprisonment, and I hope the public will compare what the Minister said then with what he said on the occasion of the introduction of this Bill. We have seen in the past what happened when civil imprisonment was abolished. I am convinced that there are many members in this House who feel on this matter exactly as I do, but they have not got the courage to come forward with their views. There is just one other matter I want to mention. I am sorry the Minister of Native Affairs during the debate yesterday went out of bis way to refer to an incident which happened in connection with this Bill, and said that it was because of that that I opposed him. I have opposed this Bill and it has nothing to do with the matter referred to by the Minister.

The hon. member cannot refer to that now.

Then I shall content myself with saying that I am very sorry the Minister of Native Affairs has referred to it.

I don’t wish to take up the time of the House on the general merits of the Bill which has already been fully debated since it is quite clear from the earlier debates on the Bill that there is an overwhelming opinion in favour of this measure, not only in this House but outside the House as well. My purpose in intervening is to ask the Minister if he will amplify the assurance he gave on the second reading. He gave an assurance that during the recess he would see in collaboration with the Law Societies and the Industrial and Commercial people whether some method could not be evolved whereby a recalcitrant debtor could be induced to pay his debts. I want to ask the Minister if in replying he will not only affirm that he intends to go into the matter but will confirm the assurance that supplementary legislation to provide a reasonably cheap and effective safeguard for the honest creditor will be introduced next session and put through. As the Minister knows there has been a good deal of disquet and unrest in regard to the taking away of civil imprisonment on the ground that the civil imprisonment procedure, although it is open to abuse and much objection, is to a real extent a safeguard against the recalcitrant debtor. The Minister has received a number of representations on this subject and has given the assurance I have quoted; but if he will amplify that I think the disquiet and disappointment at his not having found it possible to introduce a consolidating measure will largely be removed. I do not think anyone wants civil imprisonment to remain, but at the same time we want to be sure the Minister will substitute for it some effective and cheap method for the legitimate protection of the honest creditor.

I won’t detain the House very long, but I think that certain references were made during the debate on this Bill which call for a reply from me, particularly references made by the hon. member for Pretoria, Central (Mr. Pocock). In the first place, I want to make it quite clear that the support of the Law Societies to this Bill was purely a conditional support. The Association of Law Societies was prepared to support this Bill for the abolition of civil imprisonment, provided the Minister would undertake to put some system of debt collection in its place, and it was suggested to him by the Association that some cheaper and easier form of garnishee process would meet the case. The Minister could not see his way to incorporate that in this Bill, and while I, personally, agree with him, I must say that the Law Societies have not seen eye to eye with him. I want to make it perfectly clear that when I said on the second reading debate that the Association was supporting the Minister, that support was a conditional support, as I then tried to explain.

Rather late to say that now.

I also want to say that in my personal opinion attorneys, as such, should really have no interest in the retention or abolition of civil imprisonment. They should discuss the matter as any lay member of the public would discuss it, purely on its merits. I am afraid there are attorneys who are inclined to discuss the matter from the point of view of costs only, and I do not think that this is the right approach to the question of civil imprisonment. I am expressing my own personal opinion. I would go further and say that the Law Societies, as such, should not concern themselves with the question whether civil imprisonment should be abolished or not— they should not concern themselves with it as Law Societies. That is also only my personal opinion. I tried to indicate in my second reading speech that the abuses of the system were caused principally by certain disreputable members of the legal profession. Particularly on the Reef is that so. I must say this, however, that the Law Societies of the four Provinces have taken steps—they have tried from time to time —to eliminate from the profession the practices of certain disreputable attorneys, who, as we know, work in conjunction with debt collecting agencies. By means of this illegal association the whole system of civil imprisonment has been abused. I think I ought to say that as far as the Law Societies are concerned, they have spent a lot of money in unsuccessful actions in trying to eradicate the disreputable attorney responsible for the abuse. I thought when I spoke on the second reading that it was implicit in my speech that a certain share of the blame for the abuse of the system was to be laid at the door of these disreputable members of the profession. The hon. member for Pretoria, Central (Mr. Pocock), made an attack on me on Monday. One of the things he said was that I had never admitted or indicated in any way whatever that the legal profession itself was to blame for certain of these abuses. As I have said, I thought that that admission was implicit in the speech I made during the second reading. Then the hon. member went further and suggested that I had actually misled the House when I quoted certain figures to indicate the existence of abuses of the civil imprisonment system as far as numbers were concerned. Well, if any hon. member of this House was brought under a wrong impression through that speech of mine, then I shall immediately apologise to that member, and to this Honourable House. It was never my intention to mislead the House in any way, and if I refer shortly to the speech I made dealing with this question I think it will be abundantly clear that not only did I not intend to mislead the House, but that, in fact, the House could not possibly have been misled by what I said. I quote now from Hansard, column 2809, No. 7. As far as I could then see, every hon. member had the report of the C.I. Commission before him at the time, and it was easy to refer to the report—as a matter of fact, I then asked hon. members to refer to the report; I said this—

I think the House will agree with me when I say that that statement could not possibly have misled the House. At least, I cannot imagine that the House was misled into thinking that 192,000 people had been imprisoned for debt. I cannot believe that the House was misled into thinking that, and, as I have said, if the House was misled, or if the hon. member was misled, I offer my apologies. I certainly did not intend that. My remarks were definitely bona fide. Then the hon. member went a bit further. He apparently was annoyed not only at the speech I made at the second reading, but he was annoyed because of certain speeches I had made on certain other occasions. He said he did not like the tone of my speeches, and he referred to a debate in 1939 on the Attorneys Fidelity Trust Bill, and he said this: I made a note of it when he was speaking—

Quite true; how can any member find anything good to say for the malpractices of trust companies?

For the malpractices of any one.

I seem to be under the impression that, like any other member of this Honourable House, I am perfectly entitled to criticise what I think needs criticism. The hon. member went further and said—

The hon. member will have an opportunity of replying to my speech on the Durban Banking Bill debate, and if he has anything to criticise in my speech he will have every opportunity of doing so. As far as I am concerned I shall continue to criticise any matter before the House which I consider merits criticism, without any fear or favour. I shall certainly not ask the advice of the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) as to whether I should make a speech on particular lines or not. I think the hon. member was rather unfair in his references to me, and I feel certain, that in the light of what I have said, he will be the first to admit that his personal criticism was rather unjustified.

My attitude on this Bill is perfectly clear. I have supported it and I still do so. I am opposed to civil imprisonment and I therefore do not propose detaining the House by going into the merits of the matter. I have only got up to ask the Minister of Justice a question. I have received a letter from the Chairman of the Free State Law Society in which he says that there are certain amendments which were supposed to have been placed before the House on this Bill. These are amendments in which certain proposals are made on behalf of the Law Societies. I don’t know whether the Minister or his department have received those amendments. I may say that the Free State Law Society supports the proposal for the abolition of civil imprisonment, but they also ask for steps to be taken in regard to attachment and garnishee procedure. I should like the Minister to tell us why the recommendations of the Law Societies have not been dealt with, and why those amendments have not been put into the Bill—anyhow, why they have not been submitted to the House. I am anxious to know it because it seems to me that they have been submitted to the department and that the Minister did not see fit to place them before the House. I also want to know from him whether he will give us the assurance that the proposal of the Free State Law Society in regard to this matter will be looked into.

I am very sorry the hon. member for Pretoria, Central (Mr. Pocock) is not here today because had he been I am quite certain he would have been impressed, as I have been, by the obvious sincerity of the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Trollip). I don’t think for one moment that the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) when he made his criticism of the statements made by the hon. member for Brakpan was in any way endeavouring to make those statements of a personal nature. I think he took up the attitude which other members also took up, that there was a certain amount of unctious rectitude on the part of members of the legal profession and this was an interesting occasion to hear the hon. member for Brakpan admit that the standpoint taken up by the legal profession in this House in pitting itself against civil imprisonment was uncalled for. I was very much impressed by the arguments and the statements made by the hon. member for Brakpan that actually the question of the rights and wrongs of civil imprisonment is not a matter in which the members of the legal profession should interest themselves at all. Their job presumably is to be the servants of the public. Their job surely is to carry out the work in the best interest of their clients, and as long as they serve the interests of their clients it does not seem to me that criticism against the continuance or otherwise of the civil imprisonment system should carry much weight. Their job is to do their work in the very best interest of the persons concerned, and therefore I must say, and I am sure the hon. member for Pretoria (Central), had he been here, would have agreed with me, that we regard with great interest and pleasure this move on the part of the legal fraternity to discuss something from the point of view of the general interest and not from that of their own personal interest. But I must admit that I have no recollection of the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) suggesting that one should not criticise the malpractices of trust companies. I want to say at once that it is impossible to do so because there are no malpractices as far as trust companies are concerned, but if there were any the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) would no doubt have given perfect freedom to the hon. member for Brakpan to criticise them fully, and I want to say at once that there is no intention on anyone’s part to prevent the hon. member for Brakpan being anything but the fearless critic of anything he feels should be criticised that we know him to be.

I don’t want to take up the time of the House either. I only want to congratulate the Minister of Justice on the fact that this Bill has advanced to such a stage that we are now considering the third reading. The complaints and objections to the Bill come from a certain type of attorney, and as complaints are also made by the merchants and tradesmen these facts should prove to us that the methods of commerce and trade are not always what they should be. We have been told here, especially by the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren), that there are people who have money in their pockets but who refuse to pay. If that is so then this is the right time to introduce this Bill. The Minister of Finance has also told us that there is a lot of money in the country, that there is ample money for everyone to pay his debts and not live on credit. Consequently, this is the right time to introduce this Bill; this is the right time to induce our people to live on a cash basis and to get rid of the credit system which has done such a tremendous lot of harm to our national life. May I add this, I know there is a certain type of attorney, referred to by the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Trollip) and also a certain type of shopkeeper who will exercise great pressure on the Minister of Justice to reintroduce civil imprisonment to a certain extent when he introduces his consolidating legislation. I want to point out that civil imprisonment was abolished on a previous occasion after which it was again put on the Statute Book as a result of the great pressure that was brought to bear on the Government. I hope that will not happen again, and I hope no pressure will be brought to bear on the Minister and on the Department to re-introduce this provision in our Statute Book

I should not have felt it necessary to intervene in this debate but for the view expressed by the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Trollip) and supported, as far as one could gather, by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central (Mr. Hirsch). That was with reference to the limited interest which the legal profession in his view ought properly to take in a matter of this kind. It is perfectly true that the hon. member for Brakpan made it clear that be expressed his own opinion. None the less it is a view commonly held and I think in justice to the profession it is only right that the fallacy of that view should be exposed. The hon. member rather suggested that the function of the profession was limited to looking after the interests of clients, quite overlooking the fact that attorneys are officers of the court, and ?s such have an interest in the administration of the law, and the Law Societies in turn, as a collective body, in a responsible position, have that duty too. Their duty is not merely to look after the interests of their members, but to assist in seeing that a proper standard of justice is maintained, that the law is properly administered, and I should like to say that it is in that spirit that the House should welcome the co-operation of members of the profession in debates of this kind. While I have the floor may I just add this. The House in Committee agreed to the deletion of Clause 4 which means that the operation of the Bill is retrospective. The point has already been made and I Jo not want to labour it—but the House has always jealously regarded entrenched rights. Whatever it may do to rights not yet conferred, it has always guarded rights presently in existence. For my part I can see justification for this step only in the assurance given by the Minister that what is now being taken away is going to be replaced by something more effective.

How do you know?

I am assuming that I have correctly interpreted the Minister’s assurance, and that we can look forward to a more effective and cheaper alternative to civil imprisonment, and without those features of civil imprisonment to which objection is taken. The hon. member appears to be in some doubt. If there is any doubt as to the extent of the Minister’s assurance, I would join the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Egeland) in asking the Minister to amplify and clarify the assurance he has given.

I had not intended again taking part in this debate, but I have received a letter from the Chairman of the Law Society of the Transvaal, in which he refers to the speech of the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Trollip), and I consider it my duty to read that letter here. I accept the hon. member’s bona fides. The bona fides of the hon. member for Brakpan when he discussed this matter here were beyond doubt. Still, he gave me personally, and also the Chairman of the Law Society of the Transvaal, the impression that the Law Societies supported this measure. I want to quote this letter which points out that that is not the case.

The hon. member cannot quote anything with reference to a debate that has taken place here.

This letter refers to a statement made by the hon. member for Brakpan in regard to the attitude of that society, and I only want to refer to that.

The rule is that nothing is allowed to be quoted which comments on anything said in the debate.

Then, as a member of the Transvaal Law Society, and as a member of the Council of that society, I have to say that I was also given that impression by the hon. member, and I want to make it clear that the Law Society never supported this Bill, as was quite correctly said by the hon. member for Brakpan himself today. Now, I want to revert to one point that has been raised here, a point affecting the legal profession, because the attitude that has been adopted here is that a tremendous number of evils have arisen from the civil imprisonment system, and that the attorneys are responsible for those evils. That often has been the case, but it is quite easy to prevent it, and I have already made a suggestion in that regard. Abolish the provision in regard to costs in civil imprisonment cases. No blame will then be attached to the attorneys, but the creditor will still have the right to force a recalcitrant debtor who wants to evade his liabilities and who is able to pay—he will still be able to compel him to pay—by using this method. I fail to see what objection there can be to that. I was not present, but I understand that the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Egeland) asked the Minister not to proceed with the Bill in view of the consolidating measure which is to be introduced next year. I hope the Minister will realise that it is not in the interests of the country to proceed with this Bill, until, in the interest of the country, he is able to substitute something else for civil imprisonment. There are scoundrels in the country who cheat people and get credit; there are people who can pay and who won’t pay, and there must be something to take the place of civil imprisonment. We do not yet know what the Minister is going to propose. Civil imprisonment is now being stopped, but we don’t know yet what will be put in its place. The question of costs will again be raised if some other method has to take the place of civil imprisonment. I again want to object to the procedure which the Minister is now proposing to follow, and I definitely feel that he should not proceed with this measure until we know what system is going to take the place of the civil imprisonment system. Nobody is in favour of civil imprisonment. Nobody wants to summon and put him in gaol an unfortunate individual, who, owing to circumstances over which he has no control, is unable to pay his debts. We want to protect those people, but if scoundrels refuse to pay there should be some method to force them to pay, and consequently we should have something to take the place of this system.

I cannot refrain from availing myself of this opportunity to express my thanks to the Minister who has introduced this Bill. I hope he will not allow himself to be induced to water down this measure. It is quite clear that a certain clique in the country is not at all taken up with this Bill because that clique has been a clique of bloodsuckers in the past. Those people in the past have sucked the blood of the poor man to satisfy their money lust. In war time it is the poor man more than anybody else who is willing to give his life and his blood for his country and his people. The poor man sheds blood, and when he comes back a certain clique which stayed behind and did nothing at once steps in and starts sucking the blood of the poor man, and it is perfectly clear to me that even that does not satisfy them, they also want the assistance of the country’s laws; they want the assistance and protection of the Government to help them to tap the poor man’s blood. This ingratitude goes too far. They have all the wealth and everything in their hands; they are not satisfied with that, they want to increase their health with the aid of the Government, so that they can further oppress the poor man and put him in gaol if he fails to pay every penny he owes the rich man. I am very grateful to the Minister for his courageous attitude in introducing this Bill and I hope it will be passed unchanged; I also hope that this legislation will not be tampered with again in future. Even though the wealthy classes do not feel that they owe the Minister any gratitude the great majority of the people of the country consisting of the poor will thank the Minister for this measure, because it will tend to protect them so that the rich man will not be able to put them in gaol and it will not longer be possible to sue them for civil imprisonment which will eventually land them in gaol.

I had no intention whatsoever of taking part in this debate; I only want to say what I have said more than once, that I cannot associate myself with these expressions of thanks to the Minister. The Minister is there to look after the interests of the country and of the people; no matter whether he is dealing with the white man, the black man—the kaffir, the Moor or the Indian, he has to look after the interests of every section of the population, so why should there be all these expressions of thanks when he does his duty? The Minister may begin to think afterwards that we really want him as Minister although we are opposed to his policy. I don’t want to associate myself with expressions of thanks of that kind. There are two aspects to this matter. There are attorneys who deliberately press people, who sue them and put them in gaol, but there is provision also laying it down that people who are unable to pay will not be put in gaol. I know of one instance of a man who was put in gaol although he could not pay. That man was doing business against the wishes of his father, and he got into trouble. The assistant sheriff of the court came to his place; the young fellow helped him to outspan his cart and when his horses had been watered and everything, the assistant sheriff turned round to him and said: “You are my prisoner.” There are a few cases like that, but to come here with all these expressions of thanks to the Minister just because he has done his duty, well, I don’t believe in it.

I want to express my appreciation of the attitude of the hon. member for Namaqualand (Lt.-Col. Booysen). I assume that his thanks are not directed to me personally but that they are simply intended to convey the view that as a result of this Bill a great burden if being taken off the poor people. That is where I think the hon. member for Ceres (Mr. J. J. M. van Zyl) misunderstood the whole position. May I just say to the hon. member for Winburg (Mr. C. R Swart) that I did receive certain amendments from the Free State Law Society but those amendments cannot be dealt with in connection with this Bill The object of this Bill is to abolish civil imprisonment, but I am prepared to give an undertaking—and that also applies to the questions of the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Egeland) and the hon. member for Umlazi (Mr. Goldberg)—that, in consultation with the legal societies, the commercial people and the professional people, I shall go into this matter in order to obtain an equitable method for the recovery of debts. But let me say clearly that those methods will not be in the nature of civil imprisonment. There will be no question of locking a man up, the object will be to make people pay if they can pay. The object of the method will be to force the debtor who can pay to do so, in an effective manner. We don’t propose going beyond that. One point which will be taken into account is the question of the costs which are imposed today and which are sometimes out of all proportion to a debt which has to be collected. We had the case mentioned by the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) where a debt of £14 with costs was rushed up to £128. One of the great drawbacks of civil imprisonment is that an individual is locked up, with the result that he loses his employment, and in addition to that we have this bad point, that the man pays his debt and after he has paid off a lot of money he has not reduced his debt by a penny while the creditor himself has not received anything either. The object of the new method will be to see to it that the creditor is paid when debt is collected so that when a man pays he gets rid of his debt. But I don’t want to go into the question any further at this stage because I don’t want to anticipate matters. The whole question will have to be gone into in consultation with the bodies I have already mentioned and legislation will be introduced next session.

I move—

This is our last portunity to make ourselves heard against a Bill of this kind, and I therefore want to lodge a final protest on behalf of this side of the House. Let me say that this is legislation of a type which always makes one despair of the future. In the last war the nations of Europe allowed themselves to be led away by the selfsame spirit which the Minister displays in this piece of legislation, a spirit of blind hatred against a whole nation. That spirit is embodied in the Treaty of Versailles, and I think there are very few people in this House or in the world today who do not admit that it is the spirit of the Treaty of Versailles which is responsible for all the trouble in the world today.

No, that is not so.

The hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Long) says that it is not so. I say that this war is the child of the Versailles Treaty.

Gen. Smuts said so himself.

It is due to the fact that the democracies of the world, when the Treaty of Versailles was concluded, were animated by sheer blind hatred and vindictiveness, and a spirit of persecution, that they are suffering today as they are doing. England is paying today for the injustice that was perpetrated in the Treaty of Versailles.

And this is only the first instalment.

I had thought that all of us had learned our lesson, that all of us had realised that it did not pay to do an act of injustice. The hour of retribution is coming, and all I can say is this, that this Bill shows that democracy of today is once again animated by the spirit of the Treaty of Versailles.

But you don’t believe in democracy, do you? So why do you talk about it?

It shows that democracy is again intent on persecuting a whole nation, is again intent on destroying a whole nation, and all I can say is that if democracy displays that spirit it does not deserve to win the war, and, what is more, it will not win the war, because it is not in the interest of the world that it should win the war, because it will only lead to another Treaty of Versailles. It seems to me that some people will never learn the lesson taught us by Versailles. Let me put the attitude of this side of the House perfectly clearly. When we accepted the mandate over SouthWest Africa, we placed ourselves in the position of guardians. We promised that we would treat those people well, or, at any rate, we promised that we would not treat them worse than our own citizens. Those people are treated worse than our own citizens today. The Hon. the Minister cannot deny it. More is expected of them than the Minister dare expect of me, for instance. I am opposed to the war, I refuse to fight. It is self-evident that the Germans there are not prepared to take up arms against their own fatherland, but because they refuse to do so, they are now to be disfranchised, but the Minister dare not do so in my case; he dare not disfranchise me. The Minister is treating the people over whom he has accepted guardianship in the face of all the world as he dare not treat his own citizens. He discriminates against them if one compares their treatment with that of the citizens of our own country. It is perfectly natural that the Germans refuse to go and fight against their own countrymen. But that is not my reason. I am opposed to the war because I consider this is a mad and an unnecessary war; but the Minister dare not force me to go and fight, yet by this measure those people are to be compelled to go and fight. The Minister is acting here in conflict with the principle of guardianship, a principle which we have solemnly accepted in the face of the whole world. We have challenged the Minister before, and we have defied him to show us any other country in the world where steps such as these are taken. There are other countries which have mandates, too. I have asked the Minister before, and I want to ask him again— mention one instance of a single nation which is treating the citizens of a mandated country in the way we are treating these Germans. Can the Minister do so? This country is showing itself up to the world as a country which is treating its mandatory subjects worse than any other madatory country in the world. This Bill which the Minister is now trying to get accepted is a blot on South Africa’s fair name and fame. We are acting in conflict with all principles of guardianship. We are treating these people worse than our own people, and we should not do so. Before the eyes of the whole world we undertook to give them equal treatment. Secondly we are breaking our own solemn undertaking. In 1923 we entered into a contract with the German Government and we entered into a contract with those people—the Government entered into a contract with its own subjects—that for thirty years we would not ask them to take up arms against their mother country. It would be unnatural to expect it, and now, in the year 1942, we tell those people: “Unless you are willing to go and fight, not for South-West Africa but unless you are willing to go and fight in a war which even we in the Union say is not our war but England’s war, you will be deprived of your citizenship.” The agreement we entered into meant that we were guaranteeing them that we would not call them up before 1953, yet we are calling on them now to come and fight. It is a gruesome injustice that we are perpetrating here, and I am sorry that hon. members opposite have allowed themselves to be lobbied and caucused and whipped into giving their approval to a thing of this kind. There is the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside). I don’t know whether he can follow me, but let me say this to him: I want to mention an instance which I want him and the Minister to listen to. I know of a case of a German in the Windhoek district. He is married to an English speaking woman, she is a born British subject. She comes from a family which has been British and British subjects for hundreds of years. She is married to this German farmer. A number of boys have been born from this marriage. Two of the sons have done what their mother has asked them to do—they have taken up arms against Germany; they are fighting up North. That is because the mother was born a British subject and is inspired with the spirit to want to help England in this present trouble. Those two young fellows have taken up arms. Now what does this Bill do? This Bill deprives that German and not only him—his two sons are fighting for the Empire—but also that English speaking woman, of their citizenship, their nationality.

And it makes her a German.

It makes her a German— she and all her generation before, for centuries have been nothing but British subjects.

Where were they born?

The English woman is of English descent. She comes from England.

What a stupid question.

And the children?

The children were born in South-West Africa under our administration.

Where did you think they were born?

They did what their mother wanted them to do and they took up arms, but that does not matter at all to the Minister. He now deprives this citizen of his nationality and he also deprives the mother of her nationality.

But surely you know that that is not so.

There is an instance of an hon. member doing an injustice without even realising how it is going to affect people.

Have you ever seen such ignorance?

It is because we have so much ignorance here that we get these acts of injustice.

If that is the position, then it is an injustice.

Let me ask the hon. memmer this: if the Minister says that what we say is correct, what will he do? We cannot take it any further. All we can do is to say that, if it is so then it is an injustice. Here you have the spirit of the Treaty of Versailles and that spirit today is destroying England, and that spirit is going to destroy this country.

Before we come to a vote, I want to say very briefly why we on this side of the House cannot vote for this Bill, although our grounds for not being able to vote for it are different from those adduced by the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth). My reason why I am going to vote against this Bill is more weighty and more important. I can understand that the Minister from his point of view considers it necessary to deprive certain people of their nationality. I can understand that people, especially young people, are stirred up by a false philosophy of racial glorification, and that they are consequently not fit to be citizens of this country; but there is one question which I want to ask the Minister. I want to know from him what the attitude of the Administrator of South-West Africa is on this question? I do not know what the views of the Administrator are about the Bill, but as the Minister has not mentioned the Administrator’s opinion on the subject, I must assume that the Administrator is not very well disposed to this measure. And I can quite understand it. What this really amounts to is this, that the Minister has picked up a big sledge hammer to destroy a fly. What I really mean is this, that the Minister could have achieved his object by applying the existing laws, or otherwise he could have achieved his object by a small addition to the existing law. But what he is doing now is to deprive a whole class of people, the representatives of a certain race, en bloc, of their nationality. Now, the Hon. the Minister may say: “Yes, but those people also secured their nationality en masse.” That argument does not hold water, and for this reason, that those people did obtain their citizenship rights under the 1924 Act, but they had the right to refuse naturalisation. They had six months in which to decide whether or not they wanted to become citizens. The fact therefore remains that the people who became nationals voluntarily became nationals; that argument consequently falls away, and the only argument that remains is that the Minister humiliates a certain race as a whole. Perhaps there may be a certain amount of justification for this Bill, but I want to get down to the principle of the matter, and I want to get down to the way the Minister has set about this thing. We know that South Africa is a conglomerate so far as races are concerned, or possibly not even a conglomerate yet, because the racial feelings between the various sections in South Africa are strong, too strong for my liking, and as a result the time may come in South Africa when this sword which the Minister is taking into his hands today, this sword which is intended to hit these people, may be used later for the political decapitation of another race which the Minister is anxious to protect. By passing this Bill we are laying down a precedent which possibly may be very disastrous to the future of South Africa. That is my great objection to this measure. I have another objection to it. To my mind this Bill first of all displays unforgivable carelessness and lack of vision on the part of the Minister; or, alternatively, a reckless malice. We know that the world is in a state of hatred and vindictiveness today. Races and nations are at each other’s throats, like roaring lions, and one can quite realise that passions strike those nations with blindness, but it does not become a Minister of this Government to produce such a measure of hatred and vindictiveness here. He should not think merely of the conditions of today, he should cast his mind ahead and look to the great future which is awaiting us when the war is over. He should think of what we are hoping to achieve for South Africa afterwards. For those reasons I cannot vote for this Bill; I shall have to vote against it, and I do hope that its consequences will not be as detrimental to the future of this country as I am afraid they are going to be.

The hon. the Minister in introducing this Bill and in discussing it during the previous stages proved to the House and to the country how weak he and how weak his Government is. But he also proved the weakness of the British Empire he is serving; the worse conditions in connection with the war are, and the further the Minister is away from the firing line, the more he and his satellites try to satisfy their hatred by measures of this kind. During the second reading debate I put a series of questions to the Minister but in his reply to the debate he did not reply to a single one of my important points. He avoided all the questions put to him. In my case he avoided my questions by saying that I had been discourteous in my attitude. I replied in an interruption, and I tell him outright now to his face that he was too cowardly to answer those questions.

The hon. member should moderate his language a little.

That is why he said that I had been guilty of discourtesy. I asked the hon. the Minister to give an instance to show where those people who eighteen years ago had had citizenship rights conferred upon them, behaved in such a manner that the Administration of SouthWest Africa, or the Union Government, had had to complain of their conduct. I think that that is a very reasonable question. The hon. the Minister did not reply; he could not reply and that is why he did not reply. He remained as silent as the grave. All he said was that those people had sinned. More than that he could not say. They had sinned because they were born Germans and they remained Germans and that is why they have to be punished. We further object to this Bill because it applies not only to born Germans but it also applies to born Union citizens; it applies to people who obtained citizenship of the Union under the Act of 1924, and it also applies to their children. One instance was mentioned by the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) but that is not the only case. There are large numbers of them. It is not only those citizens who are being punished, and who are to be deprived of their citizenship. When any responsible body deprives any section of the population of its citizenship, a step of that kind is regarded as a most drastic one. I said during the second reading debate, and I say again, that this measure is equivalent to deportation. These people have been loyal taxpayers for eighteen years and after having paid taxes for eighteen years, and after having been loyal citizens for eighteen years, the Minister in his hatred comes here to commit this gruesome injustice against them. I objected on the second reading, and I emphatically object again against this degrading Clause 2 appearing in this Bill. Certain people are now to be deprived of their citizenship, whether they are guilty or not, simply because they have joined certain societies. Because they have joined the Deutsche Bund; that is why they must all be treated alike and that is why all of them have to be deprived of their citizenship. But there are certain exemptions, and I say that those exemptions, which are provided for, constitute a blot on the history of this House and on the history of this country. Who are being exempted under this Bill? Let me read sub-section (2) of Clause 1 again:

Expressed in simple language, what does it mean but this: It means that the Minister is now conducting a recruiting campaign and is asking those born Germans: “Are you willing to fight against your own people, are you willing to fight against your mother country, in spite of the honourable guarantee which the Union Government gave you? Are you willing to be so low as to commit an act of treason against your own soul and your own creation; if you are willing to do so then you can retain your citizenship.” This clause is really a degrading clause. It is a clause which descends to the level of the soap box recruiting speech. It is a clause in which these people are being asked: “Are you willing to betray your own people and your own country? Are you willing to betray your own nation? If you are willing to commit that act of treason you can get exemption.” What respect can the world, can the public outside, have for a Government like this? What respect can an honourable people, what respect can a civilised world have for measures of this kind, measures which hold out a bait to people to get them to join the army? This degrading Clause 2, concisely put, amounts to this: They tell those people who are born German citizens: “Go and fight against your own people and against your own mother country, and if you do so you can retain your citizenship rights. If you fail to do so we are going to deprive you of that citizenship.” I again want to make a comparison. This is an attempt to get people to go and fight in the interests of the Empire, but there are hundreds of thousands born British subjects in the Union of South Africa today who have not joined up. England has applied conscription; I asked the Minister on the second reading debate and I ask him again, why is he not applying those provisions to British subjects in this country? Those compulsory measures are being applied to Hollanders in this country and they are being applied to the Germans of South-West Africa. This is what they are told: “We are going to deprive you of your rights unless you are willing to fight for the Empire”; but those hundreds of thousands of British subjects walk about the country as they please. No appeal is made to them, no compulsion to join up is exercised so far as they are concerned. They can walk about and talk about the war all day long, but they do nothing. The Minister put up these objections. He said he could not do anything else. He had to introduce this Bill because under no circumstances could he allow dual nationality. Three-quarters of his reply was devoted to a statement that dual nationality was something impossible, something that could not be allowed to continue. We asked him what about the dual nationality which the Afrikaner on this side has been trying to get rid of for years? British citizenship, on the one hand, and Union citizenship on the other hand. The Minister now says that he cannot allow the Germans of South-West to retain their dual nationality. But let me put this question to him—how many people are not there in the country who have got dual nationality? But the Lord help you if you are born German and you want to remain faithful to your own mother country; then you are not allowed to have dual nationality. Let me say in all sincerity that I really hope not a single German in South-West Africa will be so low as to ask for exemption under these humiliating conditions simply to retain his citizenship. May I be allowed to put this question to the Minister? Assuming he gets a dozen people who have sunk so low that they want to comply with these requirements for exemption, as set out in Clause 2. Are those twelve people, or however many there may be—the people who have sunk so low that language can hardly be found to express one’s contempt for them—are they going to retain their dual nationality? No, in their case the Minister has no objection to their retaining their double nationality. They can retain double nationality so long as they are willing to comply with certain requirements, and so long as they are willing to fight for the British Empire. The Minister, in reply to the various questions I put to him, said: “I am not going to allow myself to be put out by the discourteous remarks of the hon. member for Boshof.” I don’t know where I was discourteous. I am not yet convinced that I was discourteous at any stage. Perhaps the Minister can convince me and show me where I was discourteous. I tried in all seriousness to deal with this subject on the second reading; I tried to deal with it on its merits. If the hon. the Minister does not understand Afrikaans, that is his fault, and not mine. Now, let me again mention a few of those serious reasons why I object to this Bill. I asked what the Minister’s objection was to those people. What harm have they done? Is that a discourteous question? Is it discourteous if I say, as I did say, that those people are to be denaturalised simply because they want to be as God created them? Simply because they want to remain Germans; simply because they refuse to be unfaithful to their own souls; simply because they refuse to fight for the British Empire. I asked whether that was their sin? That was the question I put. I am anxious to know from the Hon. the Minister whether he regards it as discourteous if somebody gets up in this House and puts a question like that? I put this question, and I quoted what one of their own poets had said, namely—

I quoted that on the second reading, and I want to know whether that is what the Minister described as discourteous on my part? Now he sits there and laughs. I don’t think he understood me at the time; he did not follow me, and now that he does understand it, he laughs—now it is no longer discourteous. That was part of my plea and part of the argument I raised. I said that those people had property, and I pointed out that they had to abandon certain rights in consequence of this Bill, and I asked whether they would also have to give up their property. I pointed out that those people had a feeling of loyalty which bound them to their mother country —did the Minister regard that as discourteous? I pointed out that that feeling induced those people to be loyal to what the Minister called Deutschtum—was that discourteous? The Minister quoted from lengthy documents to prove that some of those people had joined German societies. According to him, they proved their loyalty and their faith to Deutschtum by doing so. All they wanted to be was to be faithful to themselves. If an individual is faithful to Britishtum, then all is well, but if he wants to be faithful to Afrikanerdom and to Deutschtum, and if we say so, then we are using discourteous language. I want to know from the Minister whether it was discourteous when I quoted General De Wet’s words, namely, that the conquest of South-West Africa in 1914 was an un-Godly act, and that he was not going to take any part in disturbing the boundary lines of his neighbour’s country. Was it discourteous when I quoted from the Book of Books in which we read: “Cursed is he who displaces his neighbour’s land poles.” I put up a serious plea here and I did so in good spirit, and because the Minister was not able to answer my arguments he described my remarks as discourteous. I put up a plea and I asked the Minister not to allow our country to perpetrate this injustice. I quoted these words. “Righteousness exalteth a Nation, but injustice is a blot on a Nation.” I told him that we were committing an act of injustice and all the Minister could say to that was that I was discourteous. We are not allowed to speak the truth, because if we do so the Minister of the Interior comes here and says that we are discourteous. Let me tell the Minister that the Boer nation has a record behind it. The Boer nation has a history which it can be proud of. The Boer nation for three years fought with their backs to the wall against the powerful British Empire, and even though the Boer nation lost that war it did not lose its honour. The Boer nation in that bitter struggle, where it had to fight with its back to the wall, never did a single act in conflict with the basic principles of international law and right in regard to civilised war. The Boer nation never broke those principles of international law in one single respect. Can the Minister say that of Great Britain? I say that in that great struggle the Boer nation never contravened the principles of international law in regard to civilised warfare, and now we come here and we plead for the self same thing in this war, which the Government has dragged the Boer nation into. We ask the Minister of the Interior not to contaminate the clean record of the Boer nation. Even though this Government has dragged us into this war. Even though this side of the House and the Boer nation are opposed to the war we still feel that this Bill is being passed by this House of Parliament, and if this measure constitutes a blot on the Statute Book of the country it is not only a blot on the Government but on the record of Afrikanerdom. May I be allowed to refer the Minister of the Interior to certain basic principles of international law in connection with civilised warfare. I want to quote from Clause 44 of the Hague Convention of 1899, where we have the following words—

Is not the Minister by the scandalous provisions of this Bill contravening Clause 44 of the Hague Convention? Why does the Minister come here with this provision which tells the Germans that unless they are willing to go and fight against their own people they are going to be deprived of their citizenship? How is the Minister going to reconcile the inclusion of this clause in the Bill with his own conscience if he accepts the basic principles of the Hague Convention? No compulsion shall be exercised on the people of occupied territories to induce them to fight against their own people, and it is even worse, when, as in this case, we are dealing with people who in terms of the previous peace treaty, are placed under our Mandate. It is even worse if pressure is brought to bear oh them to induce them to fight against their own country. I say that when we commit an act such as this in compelling those Germans in this manner to fight against their own people, we are acting in conflict with the basic principles of civilised warfare as expressed in the Hague Convention. Now let me refer the Minister to another clause—any compulsion on the population of an occupied territory … And I say that here it is very much worse than in the case of occupied territory. Here we are dealing with people who have been placed under an honourable Mandate and Clause 45 of the Hague Convention says this—

Such people must not be compelled to take an oath against another country. Assuming we get a number of those Germans who have sunk so low that for the sake of the maintenance of their Union citizenship they are prepared to agree to fight against their own people, we know that the Government will require them to take the Red Oath. The Government will not absolve those volunteers from the Red Oath, and if the Minister does so I say that he is acting in conflict with Clause 45 of the Hague Convention which prevents him from doing so, and he is acting in conflict with the principles of civilised warfare. I want to draw the Minister’s attention to one final provision referring to civilised warfare. I read the following provisions from the Military Code of 1899—

I want to say this—what harm can those people do? Is it necessary to take steps against them, to put them out of action? The principle in civilised warfare is that the battle must be waged in such a manner that no greater harm shall be done to the enemy than is necessary to force him to surrender. Now I want to ask the Minister outright whether he thinks that by taking this step against the Germans of SouthWest Africa, Hitler will be forced to surrender? Is that the reason why he has introduced it? No, I can tell him that if he wants to save Great Britain he will have to take a great many other and different measures. The principle as laid down here is this—

I want to conclude by saying this, that the only result this humiliating Clause 2 of the Bill can have is to insult those people to the depth of their souls, so that they will never again have any respect for any measure which the British Empire, or its satellites, may take against them in this war. If the Minister again wants to say that I have been discourteous to him I hope he will tell me where I have been discourteous. Perhaps the only occasion when I was discourteous to him was when I told him during the second reading debate that the only supporters of this Bill were the oldest among Israel, and I also added that I did not want to go into the Minister’s own history. I do not know whether that was discourteous. In the same spirit as I objected to this Bill on the second reading, I still object to it. It is a drastic and unfair measure. It is a blot which will be cast on Afrikanerdom, just as it would be a blot on any country in the world which passed such a measure. I want to ask the Minister of the Interior before he forces this Bill through, to think what a blot it will be on the Statute Book of South Africa, and I want to ask him in all seriousness to spare the Statute Book of South Africa that blot which he will put on it by a measure such as this.

We have fought a hard fight against this Bill and today on the third reading we want to raise our voice against it for the last time. I want to remind the Minister of another example in our own history. I was born in the Orange Free State and I can look back with pride today on what the Free State did during the Anglo Boer War in regard to this matter. When the Orange Free State in 1899 went to war with England there were large numbers of English speaking citizens in the Free State. They had obtained citizenship rights there. The Free State commandeered its burghers but it did not commandeer the English speaking citizens. They had citizen rights there, but they were not commandeered to fight because the Free State said that it did not expect those English speaking citizens to fight against their own race, they could stay at home. Not one of those English speaking citizens was deprived of his civil rights. Large numbers of these English speaking people went out and fought on the side of the republican forces, but the others lived there; they made money there, and they enjoyed all the rights of citizenship, but when the test came they turned their backs on the Free State and they went and fought on the side of the English. Did the Free State deprive a single one of them of his citizenship? Did it shoot a single one of them for high treason? No, it did not do so. The Free State Republican Government set about things in a more humane manner. It told these people that they were committing high treason and that it would stop them, but it added that it was not going to compel them to fight against their own race. What an example did it not set to the world? The Free State went under, but it lost honourably, and it did not score its victories in dishonour. I am putting this forward as an example for the Government to take notice of, and I want to show the Government what another State has done, what my Free State has done, and I am proud of the fact that in those days when the Free State had to fight hard for its freedom it adopted this humane attitude. The Free State said: “I would rather lose the war than perpetrate an injustice.” It was because the Free State Government had such a deep conception of what race and blood meant, and because it had seen what it meant if Afrikaner fought against fellow Afrikaner—it was because of that that it did not see its way to compel any English speaking individual to go and fight against his own race. Those English speaking people were unfaithful to their pledged word. The Free State said that it stood for right and justice, and they did not want those people to be compelled to go and fight against the people of their own race. I am putting this example up to the Government as an example worthy of being emulated. We object to this Bill because it is dragging South Africa and its Government, and the people of South Africa, and the name and the word of honour of South Africa, through the mud. We object to it because it is perpetrating an injustice, an act of unfairness to the strangers within our gates, strangers to whom we on our own initiative granted citizenship rights. We object to this measure because of the injustice and unfairness to any person who is married to a naturalised German, even to the widow and children of such a German. We object to it because it is a breach of the position which is generally accepted in all principles of justice and law applicable to all the nations of the world, whether they are at war or not. We object because it imposes a punishment and it places a stigma on innocent people, simply because a few have offended, although the existing law and the law as being amended, would give the Minister all the power necessary to punish the guilty ones. We object to this Bill because it is unnecessary. We object because of the sophisms adduced by the Minister, the principal one of which is that he has taken up a stand against dual nationality. The Government has taken up the attitude that it is compelled to introduce this Bill because it is opposed to dual nationality in South Africa, and it does so knowing that there are thousands in South Africa who glory in their dual nationality. This measure has been conceived in hatred and born out of vindictiveness, and it will live in South Africa as the Siamese twins of injustice and oppression.

During the previous stages, when this Bill was under discussion, I did not take part in the debate, but I did listen carefully to the reasons adduced by the Minister for the introduction of such a drastic measure as this one, and in all the reasons adduced by the Minister I cannot find anything adequate to justify the Government in taking a step such as this one. At this late stage of the Bill, that is, at the third reading, I wish to lodge my serious protest against this measure. We on this side of the House protest against this measure on grounds of justice and fairness in every possible respect. Let me say this to the Minister, that this humiliation of denaturalisation of the Germans in SouthWest Africa definitely places a blot on the record of fairness and justice which has been so characteristic of the Afrikaans speaking section of the population of this country. The tragedy of the whole affair is this, that the Minister of the Interior is acting not only on behalf of that con glomeration opposite; he is not acting only on behalf of the Government, but he is going to put this blot on the Statute Book of South Africa, also on behalf of the Afrikaans speaking section of the population—in other words, on behalf of the whole of South Africa, and in doing so he affects the people and the country as a whole. He makes us jointly responsible for this evil deed he is committing, and that is why I feel that we cannot but lodge our most serious protest against such an unfair and unjust action. The Minister of the Interior is an English speaking person. He is a member of that section of the population which is so prone to talk of British fairplay, which is so keen to tell us that this, that or the other is not “cricket.” Now I ask him, is this British fairplay? Do you call this Bill cricket? Can he talk of fairplay when he introduces a measure like this against those people in South Africa whom we ourselves have induced to become Union citizens? Can he do so simply because their mother country is at war with our country today? And what is more, when our Government has entered into an honour able agreement with their Government under which they could voluntarily become Union citizens? But because the Government opposite is at war with their mother country, and because they are getting hit up in this war those Germans are now to be humiliated and compulsion is being used against them. I listened to the reasons adduced by the Minister for the introduction of the Bill now before us. He mentioned one reason—and there were not many others —but I particularly remember one reason he adduced for the introduction of this Bill. He said that an Afrikaner wanted to court the daughter of a German woman, and she kicked him out of the house. Is there anything unusual in that? Assuming the Minister of the Interior were to court a daughter of mine and I kicked him out —could one deduce from that that I was up against the English speaking people, or that I hated the English nation? I only kick him out because I do not like him as an individual, and simply because that woman did that to an Afrikaner, is that a reason for saying that they hate Afrikaners? And that is the kind of reason which the Minister puts up here as the introduction of a Bill as drastic as this one. The Minister says: “Look at the bad relationship between the Germans in South-West Africa and the Afrikaners. A German woman even kicks an Afrikaner out of her house.” No, the reason he has adduced is simply ridiculous. Are those adequate reasons for the Minister and the Government to introduce a Bill like this? Are those reasons sufficient justification for drastic steps like these? If those people in South-West Africa had not behaved, if a number of them had contravened the law in these abnormal conditions and circumstances, if they had kicked over the traces to a certain extent, the Government could have used the existing law and even the Emergency Regulations against them. Just as it used the Emergency Regulations in dealing with Union citizens. In this country the Emergency Regulations are applied against our own people, even when they do practically no harm, taking into account the extraordinary conditions under which we are living. They are persecuted and they are innocently put into gaol. All those great and strong powers, the powers of a dictator, are possessed by the Government. If those people in SouthWest Africa, whose guardians we should be —because they are the inhabitants of a mandated territory—had done anything in these abnormal times to show that they had kicked over the traces, or even if they had committed some more serious offences, the Government still had the power under the Emergency Regulations to take action against them; and if they are guilty, put them in a camp, as the Government does with our own people. Why degrade them by disfranchising them? There is no need for it, and it is something foreign to this country.

That is the only way they can get the Germans down.

The hon. member says that that is the only way they can tackle the Germans, by hitting at innocent people here who cannot defend themselves. Let me say this to the Minister: He knows that the Government has plunged this country into war with those people’s mother country. The war is not going well for the Allies. No one can anticipate the end of the war, but as things are now, the chances are fifty-fifty. I don’t say it is a probability, but there is a strong possibility of the Allies not being able to win. Assuming they cannot win, then I ask the Minister whether the mother country of those people against whom he is taking this action, will be quite satisfied when peace is made. Does the Minister think he will be able to face them then? I can assure him he will not. The Minister is creating a precedent here, and it is a very dangerous precedent which may be used by any Government coming into power in this country; it may apply that precedent and it may not apply it to innocent people like many of those Germans in SouthWest Africa to whom the Minister wants to apply it now, but when we come into power that precedent will enable us to do what we may consider necessary to do. These are measures of despair, which the Government is taking to keep itself in power. And I say that a precedent is being created for drastic actions which subsequent Governments may follow. This is a stick which the Government has made to beat those people, but that stick may be mercilessly used at some future time against the very Government which is applying it today. It will be used when this side of the House comes into power, and it is not merely going to be used for purposes of revenge, but for the sake of self-preservation and self-protection —it will be used to protect ourselves against what the other side of the House is doing today and against the injustice which the other side of the House is committing today. The Bible says that if one is hit on the cheek, one should turn the other cheek. But we have been hit on both cheeks so hard that we have nothing left to turn—we have been hit all over, and we cannot stand any more. We shall use the powers which the Minister is creating; we shall use them, and we shall use them against the other side. Many direct questions have been put to the Minister about certain aspects of this Bill. The Government is assuming unto itself powers to enable it to confiscate the property of those people. The Minister was asked on the second reading whether the Government was going to avail itself of those powers to confiscate the property of the Germans and use that property for itself when those people had been disfranchised. The Minister has not yet answered that. I trust, and the country trusts, that he will tell us now how he is going to use those powers? In conclusion, I only want to say this, that we on this side deplore that this so-called strong Government which boasts of having the whole country behind it in its war effort, has to descend to such a level that it must use its strength to introduce such a degrading measure as this to justify its existence. The Bible says that we shall not do unto others what we do not want to be done unto ourselves. The Minister is taking steps against these people which may rebound on the nation as a whole. We as the Afrikaans speaking section of the population, want to protect ourselves at this stage by protesting against such disgraceful measures and such disgraceful acts of violence by the Government.

We on this side of the House have fought this Bill step by step and inch by inch. We have opposed it because we consider it an injustice to innocent people, an injustice which cannot bring honour with it to our own country. We have thrown arguments at the Minister but all in vain. Even the appeal we have made to his sense of honour has been in vain. We have appealed to the respect he should have for the honour of his mother country but that, too, has been in vain. We have given him the opportunity to take all the powers that may be necessary to punish the guilty ones but we have said to him: Spare the innocent women and children who under this Bill will be treated alike and in the same way as the guilty ones. We have given the Minister the opportunity, if he is really genuine in all he has told us, to maintain his honour and to be true to his pledged word, but he has turned our offer down with contempt. He has shewn that so far as he and his Government are concerned, they are intent on applying this method of punishment to a whole group of people although only a few have offended. I want to remind the Hon. the Minister that there are other episodes in the history of his own mother country on which they look back with shame. He will remember the instance when certain people, subjects of Great Britain, also had offended, and the Government of the day or the man in charge punished the whole tribe. I am referring io what happened at Amritsar in India. He knows that a whole crowd of people were punished for acts committed by a few and he knows what a blot it is in Britain’s history. The method of punishing a group of people for the offences of a few shows the mentality of the savage. It is the code of the kaffir kraal; it does not belong to a civilised country. We told the Minister that we were prepared even to put the power into his irresponsible hands to punish an individual if he was guilty but he was not satisfied with that. He wants us as a Legislative Body to put our stamp on an act of disloyalty and injustice such as he is going to commit in this Bill. I told him and I want to repeat that his systematic refusal to accept what we offer him reminds me of the poet’s words—

His resistance to our reasonable proposals is worthy of a better cause. We are here putting up a statutory monument in honour of injustice and breach of faith. We are extending the hospitality of our Statute Book to an act of injustice against hundreds of innocent people, men, women and children, and are giving an official status to breach of faith. That is what we are doing in the Bill now before the House. When war passions will have cooled down and righteousness and moderation again occupy a place of honour in our national life, and also in this House we shall look back shamefacedly and with bowed heads on this bit of sickening history which we are making today. As astounded posterity will look back with shame on what we are doing here today but we want posterity if it looks back on what is happening here today to realise that this side of the House has with all the strength at its disposal raised its voice against such an act of disloyalty and breach of faith as has been perpetrated here today. Let me remind hon. members of another English saying. “In war the first casualty is truth.” I am afraid that there are other casualties as well as truth. Justice and fairplay also are casualties of the war. The inviolability of the word of honour of a nation is also a casualty of the war passion. We are going to pass this Bill today in that war spirit. The majority on the other side of the House can simply put aside all reason, all arguments, all appeals—the steam roller which will be used because in this time of war the spirit of Versailles prevails over mankind. That is why this sort of thing can be done. Time will come when hon. members over there who today are prepared to support this measure will feel ashamed of their complicity in an act which will place an everlasting stigma on the Statute Book of South Africa. I commend my speech on the second reading with the words that what we were doing in this Bill was something unprecedented in National law, something unparalleled in the history of civilised nations. I want to conclude where I started. This is such an act. And that is why we on this side of the House raise our voices in strong protest. If I were the Minister of Finance I would say that I protest against it with every vein in my body.

I am not rising because I can add anything particularly new to what has already been said, nor do I expect the Minister, after the pleas which have already come from this side of the House, to give in to my plea, but I rise because I feel it is my sacred duty also to raise my voice and protest against the decision which will probably be taken in this House and which will certainly constitute one of the most unfair and most un-Christian decisions which this House could possibly take. I therefore rise to protest and that is all I can do, but at any rate I shall have done something for my people, the people of South Africa. I am raising my voice at this last opportunity to warn the Minister as a man who wants to warn a friend for the last time. I think I must associate myself with what the hon. member for Winburg (Mr. C. R. Swart) said when this afternoon he drew the Minister’s attention to what happened in the Orange Free State Republic when a resolution was passed in favour of war against the English nation. I only want to repeat again that in the agreement entered into it was laid down that the Germans who in South-West Africa were given automatic naturalisation would not be expected to fight against thenown nation for the next thirty years. I have listened to everything the Minister has said, and to everything he has adduced as a reason for the introduction of this Bill—the only thing he has told us is that the Germans in South-West Africa still show too much German sentiment. This side of the House has already said that if that is a reason for denaturalising those people in this country, because they show too much sentiment for a people outside South Africa, then very few people will be left in this country who are entitled to keep the franchise. I think that the reason which the Minister mentioned rather honours than dishonours the Germans in South-West Africa. I don’t think anyone wants to have subjects who today have feelings of strong loyalty to one man and the next day have strong feelings of loyalty to another man. One cannot use that type of person. What can one do with a section of the people who descend from another nation which immediately loses its sentiment for the people it springs from? This measure is unjust; but not only is it unjust, it is also un-Christian, and anyone taking part in the passing of this Bill is unquestionably acting in the most unChristian manner in doing so. We are supposed to be in this war for the sake of right and justice, for the sake of Christianity. That is the contention. Is this the evidence which we get in support of the contention that we are fighting for Christianity, when people are treated in this unjust manner and when agreements entered into, solemn agreements, are broken simply because certain people show sentiments of loyalty for the nations they spring, from, from which they were only cut off a short time ago? No, if an agreement of that kind can be torn up like a scrap of paper then it is no use arguing that you are fighting for Christianity. If that is Christianity, if to be a Christian a man can act in that spirit, if it is Chrstianity when a minister introduces a Bill of this kind, then I must say I would rather not fight for Christianity. I say I would rather not be a Christian then.

There was a time in the history of South Africa when the English speaking section in the country committed a grave injustice to the Afrikaans speaking section, such a grave injustice that if we speak of it today they feel ashamed. There is a section which tries to deny that that injustice was perpetrated but I am convinced that every English speaking individual who knows of the injustice that was committed to the Afrikaans speaking section is ashamed of it. I am convinced that the hon. member for Klipriver (Mr. Friend), for instance, is very much ashamed of what the English have done to his people. Today the Government comes here and does exactly the same thing. It perpetrates an injustice to a section of our people. There are Germans whom we have taken up as our own citizens. We asked them to become citizens of our country and hon. members opposite, individual members on that side of the House, are not advised what the consequences of this Bill will be. There is the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) who was surprised when he heard what the implications of the Bill were, and the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) was also surprised when he heard that those people would retain their dual nationality. He thought that they would have complete Union nationality.

You must have been thinking again.

It is recorded in Hansard and I want to refer him to his remarks about my speech. Hon. members opposite do not realise the full implications of this Bill, but they are going to vote for it because they are inspired by one sentiment, namely, the sentiment of hatred and vindictiveness. That sentiment can never prevail. The day will come when they will also be ashamed of this kind of legislation, and that is why we on this side of the House want to avail ourselves of the opportunity to say that we do not want to have anything to do with this Bill. We do not want to have anything to do with the blot, the stigma, which is being cast on the South African nation by the Government. The Minister of the Interior made some remarks here in a spirit of irresponsibility. He first of all said that he wanted certain security measures passed in respect of South-West Africa, where wrong influences were at work among the Germans, which he disapproved of. That argument was childish, yet during the Committee stage of the Bill we had nothing but such childish arguments put before us, but then he came to the great discovery that the Bill had been introduced with merely one object in view, and that was to put an end to dual nationality. Then we from our side came along and pointed out that the Bill was not doing away with dual nationality, and the Minister thereupon manufactured the argument that if this Bill was not passed the people who would go and fight might be accused of high treason.

The hon. member must not say that the Minister has manufactured arguments.

We had never heard that argument raised before, and it is peculiar that if it is such a wonderful argument …

Order!

I apologise, but it was a peculiar thing to hear the Minister come forward with this brand new argument that he was out to safeguard those people if they should happen to fall into the hands of the Germans—that he wanted to safeguard them against charges of high treason. But this Bill will not have that effect at all. If this Bill is passed as it now stands the people who will still have dual nationality, if they fall into the hands of the Germans, will be brought up for high treason because they retain their German citizenship beyond our borders.

That was the whole of our argument.

Yes, as soon as they get over our borders they become Germans again, and that is why it seems such an extraordinary argument for the Minister to use. As a matter of fact, the Minister did not use that argument at all to begin with, but now he suddenly produces it. I must say that I am also surprised at the Minister of Finance who pretends to be such a great champion of Christianity and of justice, and who always tells us how we should live, and that we should treat others fairly and justly, sitting there like a dummy, without saying a word about this matter. I am surprised at the Minister of Finance allowing himself to be a party to unfair legislation of this kind. He should protest against it with every vein in his body. So far as we are concerned, we shall never associate ourselves with a Bill of this kind. Apart from any other arguments which have been used, this Bill constitutes a grave injustice against women and children, and particularly against orphans. Children whose deceased father was a German, children who were born in this country and who have no other country to go to, are now suddenly regarded as Germans, as foreigners. Can anyone think of a more unjust provision than this one? My whole sense of justice and equity rises in protest against this kind of treatment of people, and against this unjust measure having to be placed on our Statute Book.

I don’t know why hon. members opposite are so annoyed with me, and why they challenge me to get up, and why, when I get up to say what I say about this matter, they walk out of the House. Now they are running away. Those hon. members who asked me to say what my attitude was are the first to leave the House when I get up to explain my point of view. Hon. members will see at once how impossible it is to do anything with an Opposition like that. They challenge you, and as soon as you take up their challenge they get up and walk out. I don’t think that that is the best way to discuss a matter and arrive at a decision. I do think hon. members should at any rate be fair enough to listen to what one has to say when they challenge one. The hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) spoke about a mother of English descent who was married to a German, and who had two sons, who, as a result of the mother’s influence, had joined up to fight on the side of the Union forces.

The father had been automatically naturalised.

Now, the hon. member’s argument is that that mother is going to be denaturalised. I told the hon. member that that was not so, and I took the trouble to ask the Minister of the Interior what the position was, and the Minister told me that there was an opening left in the Bill, and that such a person would have a proper opportunity of getting his or her rights, and that the two sons were protected.

Where is the opening left in the Bill?

I asked the Minister to explain that point again to the House, even if it should mean repeating what he had said before, because I am one of those who is not going to vote for the third reading if I know that a woman like that and her sons are going to be deprived of their naturalisation, and if they cannot get what they are entitled to. The Minister explained to me that that mother can very definitely get her rights.

And the father?

He is of German descent.

But he has been automatically naturalised and he sends his two sons to go and fight.

The hon. member knows that there are Germans today who are behaving themselves and living quietly, but he also knows that there are Germans who are abusing the hospitality which the Union of South Africa has extended to them.

Don’t imitate Salt River now.

The hon. member knows that that is the position. Now it is said that we are animated and inspired by the spirit of Versailles, and in saying that hon. members mean that we are inspired by a spirit of vindictiveness. The hon. member for George who made that remark knows that if there is one country in the whole world which has shown hospitality to every one after peace was concluded, it was South Africa, but the hon. member will also have to admit at once that a great many of the immigrants whom we trusted and whom we allowed to occupy key positions in South Africa’s industries have abused their positions.

Germans in South Africa or in South-West Africa have done nothing more than what I and any other good South African citizen has done. They have, just as we have, refused to have anything to do with the war.

I never looked upon the hon. member in the same light as I looked upon the Germans. I always looked upon him as an Afrikaner who was opposed to the war policy. I do not associate him with the Germans who are of German birth, and who have abused the good feelings of the South African nation. I never associated the hon. member with them. The hon. member is not going to tell me that we in South Africa have not shown the greatest degree of good feeling and hospitality to the Germans. Let us be reasonable in the way we look at things. Germans came to this country and occupied key positions in our industries and then they started making German propaganda. I only want to refer the hon. member to the report of the Commission of Enquiry into Nazi activities in South-West Africa.

It is their country.

Before ever there was any question of war the Government of the Union found it necessary to strengthen the police force in S.-W.A. in order to put a stop to the rebellious German agitation which was going on in South-West, but the hon. member is losing sight of that.

Even the Administrator of South-West Africa said that he knew nothing about it.

There was no question of war at the time even. In those days our then Prime Minister said that there was not going to be any war in the next fifty years. He had hardly spoken those words when it was found necessary to enquire into Nazi propaganda and to send more police to South-West Africa.

And you objected to it.

We must try to look into those matters a bit more carefully and go into them on their merits. What right has any hon. member on the other side of the House to say that the spirit of Versailles was dominant in South Africa? Do they mean to say that we treated the German people, the Germans, in an uncivilised manner? On the contrary, the Union Government to my mind treated them most leniently and was most considerate to them. And what did we get in exchange for that? The attitude of the Union Government had a totally different effect to what we were entitled to expect. What defence can the hon. member put up for the Nazi activities which have been going on in S.-W.A.? He knows how things started. Even before the war started the Germans were saying that it would only be a matter of a few weeks and then they would be a German colony again. Most of them became the victims of propaganda, but if that is so we should not be reproached, and it should not be held up against us that they became the victims of propaganda.

But why should innocent people be punished?

The hon. member is talking about innocent people. If there is one thing that is certain it is that a great many more guilty ones are probably walking about outside than there are innocent ones in camp, and if there are innocent ones in the camp they have the opportunity of appealing. I believe that most of the internees today feel much safer where they are than they would feel if they were released. They are much safer there. We should try and respect and understand each other’s point of view. Have they not been threatening all the time? Will hon. members be surprised if I tell them that we heard only the other evening that the Minister of Finance should be disfranchised —and that, of course, will also apply to me and to many of us on this side of the House.

You are not of sufficient importance.

That is what hon. members opposite are striving for. What is the reason for all this terrible indignation over this Bill? If ever there has been a spirit of vindictiveness, as hon. members opposite are trying to make out, it must have started on that side of the House. Hon. members over there are now pleading for the Germans to retain their rights. I say in my turn that I don’t believe a single one of them who has not broken the law and who has not abused the good faith of the Union of South Africa who will fall under the provisions of this Bill.

Where do you find any exemptions from the provisions of this Bill?

Why are there exemptions?

Where do you see it in the Bill?

The hon. the Minister explained the other day that anyone could ask that the question of his nationality be reviewed.

Is that in the Bill?

Hon. members opposite now want to tell us that all Germans and their children are going to be denaturalised.

Every one of them, every one who under the 1924 Act was automatically naturalised is included in the provisions of this Bill.

It seems to me that whatever attempts one makes to make hon. members opposite understand the position—they simply refuse to take any notice of it.

You had better leave that point alone.

But hon. members over there are trying to strengthen their case by basing every sentence; they speak on sentiment, on the fact that they allege that there is going to be a terrible injustice perpetrated in South Africa, an irrevocable: injustice, and now they tell us that they are going to do the same thing to us one day. I tell hon. members now that if there were no redress in a case such as the hon. member for George mentioned, the case of the mother and the two children, I would not have voted for this Bill.

If they all automatically come under the provisions of this Bill, will you vote for it?

If there had been no redress I would not have voted for it. The Hon. the Minister will make the position perfectly clear and I hope that when he does so my hon. friend will not follow the example of his colleagues and simply disappear from the House. Let me tell hon. members that I would not vote for this Bill if there were no redress.

Also if there are no exceptions?

I have already answered that question. I hope hon. members will not repeat what they have done before namely to leave the House when they know that the Minister is going to knock the bottom out of all their arguments—and I hope they will stay in the House and listen to the Minister.

We are now on the third reading of this Bill, and I listened carefully to all the arguments advanced by the Minister as to why this Bill was necessary; and I must honestly admit that up to now I have not heard a convincing argument from him as to why it is necessary to pass this Bill. Even the eloquence of the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) did not help to clear up the Minister’s doubtful case. To be able to view this Bill in its proper perspective, it is necessary to be an Afrikaner, Afrikaners like hon. members on this side of the House who were placed in a position of the greatest contempt and oppression; people who were placed in the position of having had to crawl at the feet of a conqueror. We cannot do other than rebel against this kind of tyranny which the hon. Minister is again inflicting on a conquered people today. In my previous speech I asked the hon. Minister what assurance he could give the House that this legislation is not being placed on the Statute Book at the instance of a certain section in order to get into trouble those people who made the desert habitable and who built up farms and businesses, merely in order to allow certain people to rob them of their properties and their possessions. We still remember how the farms of the Boers fell into foreign hands in this country, after the country and the people had been ruined. Im this Bill I see the germs of a plan on the part of certain people to denaturalise these Germans so that they are perhaps put into internment camps, summonses can be issued against them in respect of debts which never existed, their farms and businesses taken away from them and destroyed, and those competitors who, in the past, were not able to compete with them in an honest manner, given free rein to do as they please. I put certain questions to the Minister and I asked him to give me this assurance; the Minister did not reply to those questions of mine, and for that reason I now want to ask him again to give us the assurance that he will see to it that the business of every person who falls under the Bill and who is denaturalised will be protected, and that his farm will be apparised, and that the Minister will see to it that when such a person is released, he will get back everything which he had, plus interest on his capital.

[Inaudible.]

I cannot hear what my hon. friend is saying, but I say that if the hon. Minister is prepared to give that assurance to the House, I will believe that that hon. friend of mine has a real case, but if the Minister is not prepared to give those assurances, I can only let my memory go back to what happened to my ancestors forty years ago, to the manner in which we were deprived of our land. The hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) said that even before the war had broken out, we had to send a police force to suppress a rebellion which threatened on the part of the Germans in South-West. Is the hon. member’s mind so small, or is his memory so short? Does the hon. member not know for what purpose the police were sent there? Does he not know that they went there in order to prevent certain acts from taking place, which have already taken place in this country in the past? We dealt with this matter in the House and it came under discussion when the Prime Minister took pride in saying that at the time he, is his capacity of Minister of Justice, had sent the police to South-West because disturbances were threatening; and then the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) stood up and said “Shall I refresh your memory and draw your attention to the fact that it was on my advice that you approached the Prime Minister with a view to sending the police there in order to keep the feelings of these people in check?”

Which people?

Those people who now intend robbing the Germans. Is the memory of hon. members so short that they now come forward with this story, knowing that only two years, ago that affair was dealt with by most responsible people.

What did the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) say?

What he said is correct. He put the matter correctly.

Now you have found a point of common agreement.

The Minister tried to make this House believe that the dual nationality which those people enjoy today, is a monstrosity; he tried to make out that they were abusing the hospitality which they were enjoying. To what extent did the hon. Minister convince the House by those arguments? Did he not at first say that dual nationality was a monstrosity? Thereafter he asks that certain people should be allowed to retain dual nationality if they are prepared to go and fight against their own people. I say that the Minister’s main argument was that we should do away with dual nationality, but the Minister now destroys his own arguments by inserting a clause in this Bill whereby he perpetuates ! dual nationality. I say that the hon. Minister has not convinced anyone in this House. I believe that no more has he convinced anyone in the country of the necessity for this legislation. We proposed an amendment. We said that we wanted to give the Minister the fullest right to deal with each case on its own merits. What is the Minister’s objection if any German abuses the freedom which he enjoys in this country, to denaturalising such a person immediately? He can take steps against such a person immediately. This House has offered him that right. Why does he riot accept it? He does not accept it because he does not want that right! He wants an opportunity to commit an injustice towards a small minority of the country which has been conquered. I have experience of the hospitality which a conquered person enjoys in his own fatherland. That is the kind of hospitality which we had in our own fatherland forty years ago. Let us now answer the question who these people are who have to be denaturalised. Are they people who came into South-West in order to do business and speculate? No, they are people who lived in that country as a part of their fatherland. They did not conquer the country; they tamed the country; they conquered and tamed a desert, and occupied it. They are the people, who, according to that hon. member, have forfeited their hospitality. I just want to tell him that it ill-becomes him to make that kind of statement. Be the position what it may, the Minister of the Interior has the right, if those people commit a crime under the laws of the country in which they are living today, to take steps against them. But he cannot say today that they abuse their privileges. That has not been proved. Although the hon. member for Krugersdorp speaks of rebellions which were threatening in South-West Africa, the hon. Minister has not yet said so. Oh, no; he is far too responsible to make that kind of statement, and for that reason I want to make an appeal to the Minister at this stage. I want to ask him to think of the injustice which he is committing against the children of those people, by applying denaturalisation to them. He is making creatures of them who are not entitled to the vote in the country of their birth, in the country which their fathers built up. This is the country which their ancestors tamed for them. No, today they have to do as I had to do in earlier years, and that is, to veil my eyes whenever I saw an Englishman. They must now again go and plead for the most elementary right which a person has in the country of his birth. That type of statement on the part of the hon. member for Krugersdorp will bring him into contempt in the eyes of all. I want to tell the Minister that we shall oppose him in this scandalous legislation. The people and the world must know that I and this side of the House have no part in that cruel injustice.

You, Mr. Speaker, will probably agree with us when we say that in your lengthy experience, both as a member of the House and as Speaker, there has not been legislation which has committed a greater injustice to a large section of Union citizens than this Bill which is before the House. We are inclined to talk about Germans, but we must not forget that today these people are Union citizens. For that reason I say that it is our duty on every possible occasion to do everything in our power to oppose this legislation. The hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) explained here what the consequences of this Bill would be, and then the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) said by way of interjection, that he would now tell us where the hon. member for George erred, and all that he told us was that the hon. Minister would get up later and show us where we were wrong. That was the explanation which we got from him as to why the hon. member for George was wrong. The hon. member also said that many of these people have been caught by propaganda. That is the last subject about which that hon. member can talk: he cannot talk of propaganda. He himself was caught by propaganda. He spoke of the trouble which arose at the time when the police went to South-West. Then he was still on this side of the House. That was before he had been caught by propaganda, and before he had gone to the other side; and then he did everything in his power to oppose the despatch of the police to South-West.

You are making a mistake; I was not even here.

I want to make use of this opportunity to point out something which we should not really do, because then it will be said that we are raking up the past. We must forget and come and help.

And so you ought to.

All that you have to forget is “Home, sweet home”. I would like the Minister to try to put himself in the position of those people. Say, for example, that he was one of them. Say, for example, that the Union of South Africa, for good or bad reasons, had taken his country from him and had allowed him to live in it; but he was not allowed to use his language officially in that country. Say, for example that they had begged him to become a Union citizen. We almost had to go on our knees, and ask them to become Union citizens. A war breaks out, and South Africa again pokes its nose into the war, and now we expect those German citizens to be just as enthusiastic about the war as the Minister is. Can he honestly expect it from those people? Would it not be an unnatural thing for those people to be enthusiastic about the war? If they had been enthusiastic about the war, and had sympathised with England, then they would have been a bad type, and then the Minister could just as well have sent them away from here. But because those people have some feeling for the country of their origin, they must be denaturalised and persecuted, and their Union citizenship taken away from them. Why should that be done? If we are of opinion that later on there will be developments, the Minister must not blame us. We on this side sympathise with those people. Our forefathers also trekked into the interior. We, too, had prepared a country in order to live there in peace. Our forefathers also lost that country, and if one studies the history of South Africa one sees what those people suffered on account of the war; so much so, that we, many years after that war, cannot yet forget what the British did. We cannot become enthusiastic about our British nationality. We took away the country from those people, and now we expect them to be enthusiastic. They may not sympathise with Germany, their original fatherland. If ever anything unreasonable has been expected of people, then it is this. If ever anything unreasonable has been done, then it is what the Minister is doing now. At the second reading debate, I explained in greater detail my reasons for opposing this Bill. I want to tell the Minister this. We shall not forget what measures he has introduced. But this measure is particularly one of oppression of people who are Union citizens. In this House the Minister has already given us many replies when we requested him to do certain things. He always asked us: “Do you want us to persecute a section of the Union citizens; do you want us to commit an injustice against them; do you want us to do it because they are English speaking or Afrikaans speaking or Jews?” The Minister has often given us that reply. Now, I want to ask the Minister why he, as Minister, singles out the German section of our people to commit a cruel injustice against them. But the Minister has other motives, which are not South African motives; it is a case of British hatred, and that is why this measure is being introduced against these people. And let us say on this side of the House that the more this British hatred is inflicted on the people, the more we on this side will protect them, and the more we will become anti-British. They are forcing us to develop a feeling which we should not like to develop. They are forcing us to adopt an attitude which, for their sakes, we should have liked to forget, but now the Minister comes along and tramples upon a certain section of the people. I want to tell the Minister this, that there are widowed mothers who are perhaps dependent upon their sons. The hon. Minister also has children, and I just want to tell them that the wheel revolves, and I do not hope that his children will ever be placed in the position in which he is placing the children of these German parents. I want to ask the Minister, at this stage, if it is possible, to withdraw this Bill.

Of course, it is possible.

It is possible. We on this side do not want to derive any benefit from it. We just want to see to it that there is right and justice towards those people who became Union subjects.

The hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) says that this Bill is symbolic of the spirit which prevailed amongst the nations at the end of the last war. He says it symbolises the spirit of the Treaty of Versailles, and by that I understand that he means that this Bill is born in a spirit of hatred, that it is revengeful, vindictive, and so on. I am not admitting the correctness of the hon. member’s assertions in regard to the Treaty of Versailles, but I am trying to interpret his charges against this Bill. He says it was conceived in the spirit in which a number of nations, including South Africa under the Government of Gen. Smuts, were also influenced, namely, by the spirit of hatred. Well, sir, if the nations were all imbued with this spirit of hatred and revenge, how does he account for it that the London Agreement was brought about in 1922 by the present Prime Minister, Gen. Smuts? How does he account for it, if there was this spirit of vindictiveness abroad in the world, that a large number of Germans in South-West, a conquered people, were given an opportunity of associating themselves with the people of the Union upon a basis of equality? No, sir, the history of the grant of automatic naturalisation to the German people in South-West Africa shows that, so far from being actuated by a spirit of hatred or revenge, the Prime Minister and the Union Government were out to give a square and fair deal to those Germans, former citizens of the old Reich Government. Hon. members know that the basis of that London Agreement was equality, equal rights, enabling those Germans to take part in the government of the country. They were anxious, when they were given a Constitution, to play their part in the government of the country, and it was necessary for them, in order to do that, to become Union citizens and have franchise rights, and so there sprang into being this process of automatic naturalisation. So far from being inspired by hatred, it was a genuine and honest attempt to give these persons a chance of assisting in the development of their own territory on the basis ow equality with other sections of the people.

Now you are taking it away. It was their land.

Yes, sir, but it was a conquered land, and so far from treating the inhabitants of that conquered land with hatred, cruelty and vindictiveness, the mandatory power, namely, the Union Government, at once proceeded, as the result of the London Agreement in 1922, to confer citizenship rights upon the Germans. And those citizenship rights, in their turn, led to a number of privileges which were the rights of Union citizens. It is necessary to go back briefly to the historical beginnings of automatic naturalisation in order to understand why the Government is taking away citizenship rights at the present time. I remind hon. members once again that there flowed from the grant of the London Agreement certain privileges, such as language rights. Although German was not accorded the right of an official language, it was entrenched for every German citizen in South-West, it was allowed to be spoken in the Legislature, and in the schools, and it was insisted upon in certain schools. Education was guaranteed and subsidised. Churches and missions were afforded medical treatment.

They paid for it themselves.

German members were afforded representation on the Land Board, pension rights, workmen’s compensation and so on. All these things were guaranteed to these former citizens of the German Reich. All they had to do in return was to accept Union citizenship. They had the right to contract out if they wanted to. They were not forced into it, but if they accepted Union citizenship they did so with their eyes open. They were not obliged to fight against their country for thirty years, but they undertook obligations the same as any other naturalised person assumed, and one of those oligations was that they would not directly or indirectly do anything detrimental to the Union. That was the position in regard to the inception of this automatic naturalisation. Now the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) said that no other mandatory power has dealt with the people under mandate in the way the South African Government is now doing, and he says that we are guilty of a breach of a solemn agreement. I repeat that there has been a breach of the agreement, there has been a breach of obligations, but those responsible for the breach are the Reich Government and those persons in SouthWest Africa. They are the persons who have broken the agreement, they are the persons who have failed to adhere to their obligations under that London Agreement.

You know that that is not true.

My hon. friend, like some of his Nazi models overseas, does not like hearing the truth, and does not like hearing hon. members on this side of the House say anything. We have listened to him courteously, I have listened with attention to the arguments, some sincere and others perhaps not so sincere, from hon. members opposite. Now I must disagree with one other point which the hon. member for George has raised. He said that no German either in the Union or in SouthWest Africa has done anything more than he has done as a Union citizen. I refuse to believe that. I have always looked upon the hon. member for George as a law abiding citizen.

And they have been law abiding too.

I admit that probably in the vice-regal atmosphere of Windhoek the hon. member may have been led astray by these people whose cause he is championing; so gallantly! But I want, him to remember that times have changed and a number of things have been done by these people whom he knew which he himself would not approve of. He is a law abiding person. My hon. friend himself was a high official in the Ossewa-Brandwag, but he has resigned from that body at the behest of his Leader and I refuse to believe that he is deliberately putting himself up as a candidate for the internment camps! But there are many of his former friends in South-West Africa who are in the internment camps, while others are not, but they are under control because they are abusing certain of their privileges.

You mean you imagine that they are doing so.

It has been notable that in the course of the debate not one single hon. member opposite has paused for a moment to remember the position of the Union section in South-West Africa. They have spoken this afternoon as representatives of the Afrikaners, so they tell us, but do hon. members remember that there are hundreds and thousands of Afrikaners in South-West Africa whose position has been seriously jeopardised by the actions of the Germans in the last ten years? Let me remind my hon. friend of certain observations in the report of the Van Zyl Commission.

That has nothing to do with the subject.

It has a great deal to do with it. It says here—

At the election they were politically wiped out.

Let me just remind the hon. member of what happened—

And what happened to Dr. Brenner — the Germans repudiated him.

That may be, but the Nazi Party was formed and it worked underground, under the guise of the German Bund. So that we find that at the beginning of 1939, very shortly before the war, the following resolution, secret resolution, was passed by the members of the German Bund, a body consisting mainly of naturalised Germans. This was the resolution and it was addressed to the Fuehrer and Chancellor of the German Reich—

Those are the people for whom my hon. friends opposite are pleading.

No, that is nonsense.

The hon. member for Boshof (Mr. Serfontein) let the cat out of the bag. He said, when referring to the provisions of the Bill dealing with exemption, that he hoped that not a single German would go and fight against his own land.

Do you hope to get any?

Now the hon. member has completely distorted the purpose of Section 1 of the Bill. The hon. member quoted from Scott: “Breathes there the man with soul so dead, who never to himself hath said …” and so on. But what does my hon. friend mean when he says that he hopes they will not fight against their own land? He speaks of their own land. If they were good Afrikaners then the Union would be their own land, but my hon. friend admits — quite unconsciously, of course—that their home land is Germany—and he speaks about them when he quotes his verse “Breathes there the man with soul so dead …” just as we might say about hon. members opposite—

Oh, yes, it is just because these people are prepared to work against the Union that we have had to pass this Bill.

You know very well that that is not so.

It has been necessary in order to deal with the evil to go right back to the beginning, to start ab initis. It may be that there are a few cases where persons who have abided by their obligations will be affected. It will be possible to deal with these cases. And let me deal at once with the case raised by the hon. member for George—the case of a woman of British birth or a British subject by birth. There may be such cases. She may have married an automatically naturalised German. Her children by virtue of naturalisation are British subjects. They joined up and fight. Now, by virtue of this Bill it is true that the children will be exempted but the mother and the father will revert to German nationality. But in terms of the second proviso to Section 12 of the 1926 Act—Act No. 18 of 1926 which reads as follows, their position is dealt with. I shall quote that section—

Will you read the first proviso?

The first proviso is this …

Read it.

Oh, no, my hon. friends are not yet in a position to dictate to us. I shall conduct this reply as I wish to.

There you are, you are afraid to read it.

The first proviso, as my hon. friend knows, deals with the case of a woman who wishes to make a declaration that she desires to retain British nationality. Say she happens to marry a man who thereafter becomes a nationalised Frenchman. She can sign out and this Act gives her the right to do so.

You mean to sign on, the right to remain.

To sign out of the new nationality. If her husband becomes a Frenchman she can remain a British subject.

Why don’t you say that?

I wish my hon. friend would listen to me a little more carefully. I am dealing with the second proviso which says that, in the case mentioned by the hon. member for George, the woman can apply to the Minister of the Interior and if her application is granted she can resume her former British nationality …

That applies to aliens.

That is the method.

That applies to aliens and not to a person who …

My friend has been very erudite. He has quoted Tennyson on two occasions. This question has been discussed by me with my advisers and they assure me that this provision is applicable to the case mentioned by the hon. member for George.

You are ill advised.

And that is the position of a mother. It is true that the father will revert to German nationality, but his case can be dealt with. It is competent to deal with his case under the 1926 Act. It is competent to deal with any person who has become denaturalised under the Act of 1926. But if that procedure is put into operation then great care will have to be taken that only those people who have been Joyal to their obligations—only people who have been loyal, will be naturalised, and will be given the full common status.

That is only those who are prepared to go and fight.

Well, my hon. friends have expended a lot of energy, a lot of quotations, a lot of force, and a lot of other things.

And arguments.

In fighting the case of a large number of persons who have abused their privileges.

You are absolutely wrong.

They have forgotten that there is a Union section which is anxiously awaiting a measure such as this.

Funny we have not heard anything about it.

There are many former Germans in SouthWest Africa who have wondered why a measure of this sort has not been passed before. I can tell my hon. friends that the former Prime Minister, Gen. Hertzog, was very perturbed about a number of incidents that were taking place in South-West Africa.

Do you mean to say that he contemplated a measure like this?

I am not going to deal with what the former Prime Minister contemplated, but at any rate when he was the head of the Government he sent a number of police into SouthWest Africa very rapidly, and for very good reasons.

Why do you misrepresent our attitude. You are saying we are fighting for the guilty persons. We moved an amendment to give you an opportunity to punish them.

I am not suggesting that my hon. friend, the hon. member for Winburg, is doing that, but members opposite have misrepresented the Government’s attitude by saying that this is a measure of hatred and revenge.

Don’t run away now.

You are misrepresenting our attitude.

He does not know anybody’s attitude.

I am quite prepared to enter into this duologue if hon. members will first of all give me the opportunity of getting this Bill passed. I have said more than once that it is necessary to make a clean sweep in order to clear up the position.

You are perpetrating a dirty trick.

You cannot tinker with this position.

A dirty trick!

And we start ab initio and then we know that those people who want to be citizens of South Africa are bona fide. Here is a good testing time. Then we shall be able to say in these times of stress and strain, when the position according to my hon. friend opposite is bad, we shall feel that those people who apply for naturalisation are genuine in their request. The people who want to make the Union their home will make their applications. They will have the opportunity, but those who abuse their privileges will get their deserts and whatever the hon. member opposite may say about a breach of obligations the Government’s position is this, that after having done everything possible to make the lot of these people easy, practicable and happy the vast majority of these persons have fallen to the propaganda of Nazi Germany, they have broken their obligations, and now they are only getting their just deserts.

Motion put and the House divided:

Ayes—73:

Abrahamson. H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Blackwell, L.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Burnside. D. C.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

Deane, W. A.

Derbyshire, J. G

De Wet, H. C.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Egeland, L.

Faure, P. A. B.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Goldberg, A.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Hemming, G. K.

Henderson, R. H.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Klopper, L. B.

Lawrence, H. G.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Marwick, J, S.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Moll, A. M.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Payn, A. O. B.

Pocock, P. V.

Quinlan, S. C.

Reitz, D.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Robertson, R. B.

Shearer, V. L.

Solomon, B.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steyn,. C. F.

Strauss, J. G. N.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Sutter, G. J.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Zyl, G. B.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

Warren, C. M.

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

Noes—48:

Badenhorst, C. C. E.

Bekker, G.

Bezuidenhout, J. T.

Boltman, F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Bosman, P. J.

Brits. G. P.

Conradie, J. H.

Conroy, E. A.

De Bruyn, D. A. S.

Dönges, T. E.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Erasmus, F. C.

Fagan, H. A.

Fouche, J. J.

Fullard, G. J.

Geldenhuys, C. H.

Haywood, J. J.

Hugo, P. J.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Liebenberg, J. L. V.

Lindhorst, B. H.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Malan, D. F.

Olivier, P. J.

Oost, H.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Rooth, E. A.

Serfontein, J. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. P.

Swart, C. R.

Van den Berg, C. J.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Venter, J. A. P.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Viljoen, J. H.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Werth, A. J.

Wolfaard, G. van Z

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

I was speaking of the measures taken to improve the conditions of natives in urban areas. My five principal points are old age pensions, invalidity grants, poor relief, labour exchanges, sub-economic housing, and an extension of medical and hospital services. If these were carried out it would result in a general raising of the urban natives’ standard of living, with constant dimunition of ill-health, inefficiency, and crime. Every day reports appear of the steady extension of disease and malnutrition among the nonEuropean population. The Minister yesterday touched on the question of native juvenile delinquency. I wish to say a few words on that this evening. This question is a very important one. We all know that the position at present is that if native delinquents are brought before a magistrate in the usual manner and found guilty, there is no alternative but imprisonment or perhaps lashes and the cane. The Chief Magistrate of East London pointed out some time ago that neither of these was a satisfactory solution of the problem, and did not lead to the rehabilitation of the delinquent. This matter has given cause for considerable anxiety in my constituency, because of the large number of young men and women we have there. The principal of the Native Secondary School at East London in a paper published in the “Medical Journal” last year, analysed the position thoroughly, and produced statistics which went to prove that native juvenile delinquency was due chiefly to poverty and ignorance, either as a result or as a derived result. Poverty caused both parents to be away from home working, with the result that children were left to themselves over long periods, eventually landing themselves in trouble in an effort to find occupation for their idle hands. The lack of compulsory education also contributed to this state of affairs. I would like to tell the House what East London is doing. The authorities of the town have taken up this matter, and they have drafted a scheme. I am going to explain this scheme for the benefit of members of this House and of people who are interested in this matter—

The scheme enunciated is worthy of serious consideration. If it proves successful other centres would do well to adopt similar schemes. What we are concerned with is the rehabilitation of the delinquents.

The hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno) made an appeal to the Minister to abolish the restrictions on the influx of natives into Cape Town, and in that connection he spoke fairly strongly about the restrictions that were imposed when I was Minister. I have asked the Minister of Native Affairs for information about the present position; without the data I am unable to judge what the present position is, but at the time when I imposed those restrictions it was undoubtedly in the best interest of the natives themselves to do so, and also in the interest of Cape Town, and particularly in the interest of the settled coloured community of the town. The restrictions which were imposed were applied in a very sympathetic manner. I said yesterday that the Department of Native Affairs tries, and to my mind succeeds very well, in adopting a sympathetic attitude to the natives; and in regard to the imposition of those restrictions they have also acted very sympathetically. The influx of people was not stopped suddenly and no attempts were made to remove people from Cape Town in a tremendous hurry. Months before the restrictions were imposed notice was given in the Transkei and in the Ciskei and also in other parts of the country from which natives are in the habit of coming to Cape Town. Notice was given that Cape Town was chock-a-block with natives and that there was no work here for natives, and that a prohibition would be put into force to stop the influx into Cape Town. The natives were informed and that information was given in a way most suited to reach them. This measure, therefore, was introduced in a very sympathetic manner. The position in Cape Town at the time was that there was a great deal of unemployment, particularly among the coloured community, so that the Municipality of Cape Town had even started relief works for coloured people. Housing conditions were as described by the hon. member for Cape Western; in Langa there was accommodation for about 6,000 natives, but there were about 20,000 natives in Cape Town. I have always urged and I even did so last year, that proper housing facilities should be provided for natives in Cape Town. As far as I can remember the census returns showed that the labour required in Cape Town was about 15,000 natives, and I have always urged that the housing provisions should be such that proper facilities should be available for all the natives needed here, and that such housing should be as close to their work as conditions would allow. I again want to remind hon. members that when the restrictions were introduced, housing conditions for the natives who were surplus to the requirements were most deplorable. The position was that natives drifted into the towns in large numbers although there was no work for them, and coloured people were replaced by natives so that the continuous influx caused such competition that the settled coloured population found it impossible to secure proper work and proper housing. The hon. member for Cape Western was mistaken therefore when he made it appear that the industrial requirements of Cape Town had brought the natives to the town. It was the attraction of large towns to the natives which brought them here. When a native starts off from the Transkei his head is turned to Cape Town, and when a native leaves Rustenburg his head is turned to Johannesburg, and when a native starts off from Rhodesia his head is turned to Johannesburg. It is the large towns which attract them and it is that which makes them drift to the towns. That is why the department said that the policy to be followed should be such that the natives would not come here in such large numbers that they would become a burden on the community and a burden to themselves. Now the hon. member for Cape Western says that it is an interference with their liberty and that it creates a grievance in their minds. When the hon. member talks like that he is only ventilating theories, and he is only using a number of battlecries emanating from his own political views, and not from the mentality of the tribal native. The tribal native takes up the attitude that the Government is a fatherly Government which has to interfere with his freedom insofar as it is to his good to do so. That is the conception on which the native has grown up. He expects it. He does not regard it as a restriction of his freedom as such. He expects it of the Government. He expects the Government to interfere in a sympathetic manner with a view to his own interests. Then he is not opposed to the Government doing so but he expects it and he welcomes it. That is the mentality under which the native has grown up. I am sorry that representatives of the natives in the House fail to interpret that mentality, but interpret a mentality putting European ideas and European battlecries in the natives’ minds. I say again that the natives expect that kind of control and that kind of control has been exercised in a sympathetic manner and in the interest of the natives themselves. I am not sufficiently conversant with the position as it is at present, but I do not believe that the restrictions on the influx of natives can be lifted, and I trust the Minister will not allow himself to be induced by the kind of battlecries to which I have referred. The restriction is in the interest of the natives themselves and in the inerest of the whole country as a whole. I hope the Minister will maintain it and I know that the Department will carry it out in a manner sympathetic to the natives.

I wish to draw the Minister’s attention for a moment to the question of the Bushmen. The Minister knows that his department some time ago proceeded to acquire land to establish a Bushman Reserve in my constituency. He also knows that objections were raised by the farmers of neighbouring farms to the establishment of a Bushman Reserve in that particular part. After discussion of the subject on last year’s estimates it appears that there are a number of Bushmen now in the Gemsbok Reserve in Gordonia although the Minister promised during the debate that he would send an ethnologist there to see to what extent those Bushmen were genuine Bushmen. According to the reply which I received to a question I put on the 3rd March it appears that the ethnologist visited those areas and made enquiries and found that quite a number of the Bushmen, to his mind, were not quite genuine Bushmen, but that there are today twenty-nine Bushmen who are genuine Bushmen. I have discussed the matter with the Chairman of the National Parks Board. He is of opinion that there is nothing in the law to prevent them from keeping the Bushmen and protecting them in the reserve in the same way as game and other fauna are protected. There is considerable difficulty about this matter there and the Minister must realise it. I want to ask him to give up the idea of establishing a reserve there and to leave those few Bushmen in the tremendously large Gemsbok Reserve where they are in view of the fact that there are only twenty-nine genuine Bushmen among them. The farm concerned “Struis Zyn Dam” used to belong to the State and the Minister now wants to establish a Bushman Reserve there. It belonged to the Land Board which has transferred it to the Department of Native Affairs. The farm used to have no value and then a man by the name of Blaauw arrived on the scene. He obtained the right to live on the farm; he secured a grass licence and found water, and after he had found water the Minister appeared on the scene and said that he wanted the farm for a reserve. According to the reply given to me it appears that the Minister does not intend now establishing a reserve there in the near future, and I want to ask the Minister to be good enough to leave the man there from year to year on an annual contract. I notice that £950 was voted last year for the Bushman Reserve and that only £70 is to be voted this year. Let that man pay rent to his department, he can then make as many improvements for the Bushmen in the reserve as he likes. I should like the Minister and his department to give some attention to this question, but now there is another matter I want to bring to the Minister’s notice, also in my constituency. We have a crowd of original genuine Hottentots there, and the Minister told the House that he would enquire into whether it would be possible to establish a reserve for Hottentots. I want to suggest to the Minister to get the assistance of the Missionary at Kakamas in regard to this matter because he is best able to give information about the genuine Hottentots in those areas. There is a Native Reserve in my constituency which unquestionably is one of the reserves being treated in a most deplorable manner by the department. That reserve is 82,000 morgen in extent, and I am told that there are a few thousand natives settled there. In reply to a question I put I was told that there were 150 families there, constituting 900 people in all. The position therefore must be that large numbers of the natives who used to be settled in the area have been forced to leave and to try and make a living elsewhere because the position today is that there is not a single borehole for those people, nor is there any dam or well, and no improvements are being effected. I have a memorandum here dealing with the policy and the activities of the Department of Native Affairs. Whatever may be done for natives in other reserves I find that not a penny has been spent for the natives in this reserve. Why does the Department treat that group of natives in so stepmotherly a fashion? I asked whether the Native Commissioners had ever visited the place and whether a senior official had visited the place. The reply was that no such official had been there, but that an official from the Agricultural Department had visited the place last year and had found that most of these people were making their living as stock farmers and were digging for wulfram. I want to ask the Minister to give some attention to this reserve this year. I find these natives in my constituency and they are undernourished and in a very deplorable condition. In my question I also asked whether there was sufficient water in the reserve for those people and it appears that the existing supplies of water are not adequate. That large area of 82,000 morgen has not got enough water for man and beast. That area is being treated in a stepmotherly way and I hope the Minister will give it his attention.

I want to draw the Minister’s attention to a point which has already been raised, but which to my mind has not received sufficient , attention, namely, the serious labour problem. I can assure the Minister that so far as labour in the agricultural industry is concerned—that is, stock farmers, as well as agriculturists—there is not sufficient labour available in those parts of the country which I represent, and even housewives are unable to get the necessary servants. The Minister of Native Affairs in his reply yesterday told us what was being done in regard to the housing of natives, but I want to point out that the more housing schemes undertaken in the towns the greater becomes the labour problem on the platteland. When housing schemes are being put into effect in the towns and the dorps, more and more labourers are drawn away from the platteland. I want to make a few suggestions to show how the Minister can assist in providing the platteland with more labour. First of all, the Minister should apply his housing schemes not only to the towns and the dorps, but also to the farms. Let the farmer be placed in a position to supply proper housing, say, by grants of £25. That would be a means of keeping the labour on the farms. A second point is that better wages should be paid to labourers. I know that the Minister will say that that is a matter for the farmers, but so long as the farmers are kept down by maximum prices and do not get minimum prices for their products they are unable to pay better wages to their labourers, and I want to ask the Minister to see what can be done in this matter. The nature of the work done by farm labourers is such that they wear out a lot of clothes, and I wonder whether the Minister realises how important it is that the labourers on the farms should be able to dress themselves properly. If they go to the shops they are stopped from buying anything by the high prices, and they have not got a chance to secure proper clothes. Cannot some provision be made by the establishment of a factory for the manufacture of standard clothes for labourers? We are doing it for soldiers. If those clothes are manufactured on a large scale, and it is laid down that the clothes are to be sold at a reasonable price, it will be of great assistance. There are tremendous numbers of natives and coloured people who would be able to use the clothes, but with the increased cost of living of today they cannot pay the prices which are asked for clothes. Now, there is another point. The Department of Finance on its income tax forms allows a reduction of £2 per month for labourers. It is unbelievable that the department can assume that a labourer only costs one £2 per month. I have said to them: “Send me as many labourers as you can get at £2, and I shall take all of them.” After a lot of agitation they raised it to £3 per labourer, but that is still much too low under existing conditions, and if it could be raised to £4 or £5 per month it would contribute very greatly to reduce the influx of labourers into the towns. Now, I also want to say a few words about poll tax. Cannot the Minister make some provision so that if a native stays, say, two years or even better, one year, with a farmer, the poll tax can be suspended temporarily? It may appear to be a small amount, this poll tax of £1, but to the native, who has to pay it, it is like a nightmare. If the native knows that he will not have to pay poll tax if he stays on the farm for a year or longer, that he does not have to pay until he goes to another farm or to the town, it will be an inducement to him to remain, on the same farm. We talk about increasing our production during wartime, but owing to scarcity of labour it simply cannot be done. The farmers cannot get on without labour, and one even gets parts of the country today where the farmers themselves have to herd their sheep, where they have no jackal proof fencing, and where they cannot get any labour. In combating blowfly, too, the position in certain parts of the country is also very serious, and it is of vital importance that the farmers should be able to obtain labour. I am afraid the Minister and his department are not taking up this matter seriously enough. The Minister of Defence said that he had stopped recruiting on the farms, but does he not realise that if natives or coloured people join up in the towns it means that labourers trek away from the farms to the dorps to take the places of the non-Europeans who have joined up. The stream runs on, and I should like the Minister to give this serious matter his personal attention.

I move—

My reason briefly is that the Minister, apart from other objections which I have, does not look after the work of his Department, and that he is very regligent in connection with it. One finds that in connection with these matters I have raised, that the Minister deals with them in a frivolous and insulting manner. He was not only insulting towards me but he was personal also.

What did I say?

You know very well what you said and what you had to withdraw. I know that sometimes a pumpkin breaks open and one finds that it is spongy inside, and I do not want to be as insulting as the Minister and apply that to him, but I hope that in future he will be less insulting. We know him. He is very irresponsible, and then he says things which he has to withdraw.

The hon. member must not continue with that now.

I shall not go into it any further. What I have said, here, I adhere to, and I shall also make a point of informing the country about it, and we shall see whether the people in the country and the tax-payers are satisfied with the attitude of the Minister. We have now got a memorandum with regard to the policy of the Native Affairs Department. The memorandum was laid on the Table long after the Minister’s department came under discussion. We only received it yesterday evening and did not even have an opportunity of going into it properly. When one looks at the date of the memoradum, one finds that it was printed long ago, but we received the memorandum for the first time now.

It was printed last week.

I notice the date on this is the 12th March.

It was printed precisely three days ago.

I adhere to this date which appears in the memorandum. That is an important document because hon. members of this House want to know what the policy is, especially in connection with the scandals which took place in the Native Affairs Department. I do not know whether the Minister has read the memorandum. We know that he knows nothing of the Native Affairs Department, and that he does not give any attention to these matters. He leaves everything to his officials. That is perhaps desirable too, because apparently they have a greater sense of responsibility than the Minister has. This memorandum is indicative of the policy which is followed; but we get this clue only after the vote has already been under discussion a whole afternoon. Does that show a sense of responsibility? Can we expect the Minister to know anything of his department? I say emphatically that he knows nothing of his department. What I quoted yesterday only related to the report of the Auditor-General.

When the House adjourned I was engaged in criticising the Minister of Native Affairs. I pointed out that in this House I have never seen a more irresponsible Minister and one who knows less of his department, and especially the Ministers who sit behind him. I want to return to what the Minister said. He made insinuations that I had made practically wild statements only. Just let me point out to the Minister that I am surprised at his giving such a reply. It must have been proved to this House beyond all doubt that he knows nothing of his department; or, at any rate, when his department is criticised by the Auditor-General he takes no notice of it, and he wants to cover it up so that the people in the country will not know of it. I did not intend to be personal. I was only referring to the report of the Auditor-General, and if the Auditor General’s report is of any value to the people and to the House as a guide, then the Minister ought to take notice of it; but I notice that the Minister is gradually making the Auditor-General’s report worthless, because he wants to cover up everything. Here, according to the Auditor-General’s report with regard to the purchase of farms, one clearly finds that those people who deal with it and who are responsible for it, are not believed by the courts. And nevertheless the hon. Minister sits idly by and allows matters to develop in this manner. I say again that it is not sound, where one has a Native Affairs Commission, a Commission which costs the country quite a good deal, that they are responsible for the purchase of land and at the same time have no say. I say again that it is a policy which the Government of the day cannot pursue. We heard from an irresponsible member of the Native Affairs Commission, namely, the hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Conroy)—we know why he is on the Commission and he wants to tell us what the duties of the Commission are. I think that many members in the House are better informed than he as to the duties of the Native Affairs Commission. When it is recommended by the Native Affairs Commission itself that a change should be brought about and the Native Affairs Commission itself disclaims all responsibility with reference to the high prices which are given for farms, and they disapprove of it … [Time limit.]

There is only one matter I want to bring to the notice of the Minister. I should like to bring the following to his notice. Between the urban area of Pretoria North and the Rustenburg railway line there is a plot of ground which is about 300 to 400 yards in width and which has always been empty; but about a year ago the owner started to let natives live on it.

Is it private property?

Yes, it is private property. I received a complaint from the voters, and I wrote a letter to the owner, but he has not replied to that letter. I then saw the Native Commissioner and he wrote a letter to the owner, who then simply replied that these were his farm labourers. I heard nothing more of the matter, but I understand that those natives live there and that they are not working for him; they indulge in drunken orgies …

Is that on municipal land?

No, it is private farming land. The owner alleges that these natives work for him. I really doubt whether these natives actually work for him. My personal opinion is that they are paying rent for the land and that they themselves work in that neighbourhood or in town. The result will be that the native and European children will play together. Many of the people in that neighbourhood are on night duty, and their families are unprotected. I shall be glad if the Minister will investigate this matter. I just want to emphasise that these natives took occupation there after the Natives’ Urban Areas Act came into operation. They took occupation there only recently. I shall be glad if the Minister will give his attention to this matter and give instructions for the natives to be removed immediately.

I should like to draw the attention of the hon. Minister to the number of natives who work in the mines and who return to their kraals after a few months. I want to ask the Minister whether the time has not now arrived for us to protect those natives against exploitation on a large scale. As you know, no one can visit the native territories today without gaining the impression that the natives who return from the mines bring back a lot of junk which they bought at some cheap shop or other. I say that the State should intervene in this matter. The majority of the families of these natives who remain behind do not receive a single penny. The kaffirs go to the mines; they earn money there—I understand that there are cases in Basutoland and also in Zululand where there are natives who remain faithful to their families and who continually send money home—but the greater majority of them become detribalised.

But we have not got jurisdiction there.

No, but to a certain extent recruiting takes place in Basutoland, and the matter can be adjusted by means of representations. These natives work on the mines for six months or longer, and earn a considerable sum of money, but the traders are usually round them like a lot of sharks when they want to go home, and they sell all sorts of junk to them, I do not want to speak of the illicit liquor trade which is taking place, and which also robs these people of their money. But I feel that something should be done with a view to preventing these people from going back to their territories with a lot of junk, instead of their money. My information is that an agreement was made with the mines in order to prevent this to a certain extent, but there is still room for improvement. Now I want to ask the hon. Minister whether we cannot make some agreement or other with the mines for the introduction of a stop order system throughout, so that the native can send something to his family, and so that, if he arrives home with nothing, his family will in the meantime, at any rate, have had something to go on with. The Minister knows how town life undermines the tribal customs of native mine workers. There are cases where the native goes to the mine; he is there for a short while only, and the natives at the kraal never hear from him again. He becomes detribalised altogether and becomes estranged from his family. Many of them have no sense of duty towards their families at all. I wonder whether it would not be in the real interests of the natives for the State to intervene in a drastic way in order to protect them against the exploitation of the supporter of the family. In this matter only we can help the natives at home. This complaint one hears on all sides. That is the one point which I want to bring to the notice of the Minister in all seriousness. I frequently visit the native areas in the ordinary course of events, and I know, therefore, what happens there. Now, there is another matter. I want to ask the hon. Minister whether he will not make representations to the British Government in connection with territories like Basutoland, where the coolie trader holds sway? Well, that is going too far. We cherish the hope of perhaps getting Basutoland, in the near future, to mention only one territory, as a part of the Union. I am afraid, however, that when we do get Basutoland as a part of the Union, it will be so full of coolie traders that it will have the same value for us as Natal, in so far as that is concerned. You have no idea how, within the last few years, the coolie traders have infiltrated into Basutoland. How the British Government can allow it is beyond my comprehension. I leave it there, and I should like to hear what the hon. Minister has to say in this connection. I would like him to make representations to the British Government in connection with this matter. Just a third point now, and that is in connection with the taking of a census of the native people by the larger municipalities. The Minister will remember that when the amendment of the Native Urban Areas Act was before the House, representations were made by all sides that the attention of the larger; municipalities should be drawn to the fact that it is in their interests to take a yearly census of the number of natives in their urban areas. Recently we only had 15,000 natives in Cape Town. One does not know what the number is precisely, but at the moment there are probably approximately 20,000 natives in the Cape Peninsula alone. The question now arises whether it is not necessary to force the Cape Town Municipality, in some manner or other, under the 1927 Act, to take a census. I would have liked to see that the hon. Minister forces the larger municipalities—he has that right—not to omit one year without taking a census. One can only control the natives if one has some idea as to their number. It is said that at the moment there is not a surplus of natives in the Cape Peninsula, because they are being used for service at the Docks and at other places. And, in passing, I also want to say this to the hon. the Minister of Railways, that this matter is going a little too far; there are sufficient European labourers. But, in spite of the fact that the motor industry has declined so much today, that one would expect a surplus there; in spite of the fact that the building industry has practically come to a standstill, and that a large number of those natives are no longer employed there, and, although the number of natives in the Cape Peninsula has latterly increased by four or five thousand, it is now said that there is not a surplus of natives. But now I want to ask the hon. Minister to follow to broad policy with regard to this question. What are we going to do with natives who come to the towns after these abnormal times are over? You are detribalising them and giving them employment in the towns. Just take the native who came into the dairy or building industry. In the majority of cases he does not return. One finds that after they have worked in the towns, they return home for a few holidays, but later on they do not return at all. They become permanent inhabitants of the urban areas. One can no longer allow the door of the urban boundaries to be left open, and permit natives to come in at will. There is no gate to shut to the incoming natives. If one goes out on the roads, one sees all the natives travelling southwards.

I would like to put a question to the hon. Minister. Wat steps is he prepared to take with a view to supplying farmers with native labour, especially in my constituency? Since the Government of the day is trying to promote production, the position has really become such that the farmers no longer see their way clear to produce. I am thinking specially of the district of Burghersdorp. Last year crops were sown there and large fields of corn were destroyod. Now some of the farmers have told me that they are still going to plough, but that they are going to plough with a view to feeding cattle for dairy purposes. It is impossible to get one’s corn cut. It has become just as inconvenient in so far as shearing is concerned. Today conditions are no longer the same as in former times when natives came in gangs and when farmers could get natives for the shearing season. Other hon. member have already gone into the question, and I do not want to go into it any further; but as the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) put it, when one gets natives they are inclined to go to the mines or to the railways, or to come to Cape Town and work for garages; they all want to work where they can get wages. When one asks them to do farm labour they are inclined to reply — and there is reasonableness in their reply—“We ourselves have now got farms which we can hire; why should we work for another person if we can farm ourselves?” I think the position has become such, especially in those areas which are dependent on native labour, that the Minister will have to make a plan in order to recruit native gangs. I am thinking of Burghersdorp, for example. During the last harvest I sent a telegram to the Minister of Agriculture. I asked whether something could not be done so as to help the farmers. He telegraphed that he had already suggested to the local magistrate that he should try, with the aid of farmers, to get gangs from the native territories. I was told that such representations were made to the native territories, that they should send out gangs, and it was a hopeless failure. They could simply not get native gangs. The Minister will agree with me that last year was a very poor year from the point of view of farming, and from the point of view of sowing mealies, the kind of farming which natives go in for principally, and if during the year when his crop is a failure he is not prepared to work, will he do so in future when his crop seems more promising? Now I want to ask the Government, since this constitutes the existence of the farmers, what steps it is prepared to take with a view to providing farmers with native labour.

In support of what the hon. member for Burghersdorp (Mr. Boltman) has just said, I want to bring a matter to the noticeof the Minister. In my constituency there is a certain Mr. W. Gibson. He asked me to bring this matter to the notice of the Minister, namely, that the kaffirs on the farms are being enticed away to the national roads. All the labourers capable of bearing arms, who can do farm labour, are enticed away, and it is not a question of getting better remuneration on the roads than is paid by the farmers; in the present circumstances farm labour has become very expensive and it is partly due to the fact that costs of production are today so tremendously high. This particular individual said that even young kaffirs and native girls are also now refusing to work on the farms, because the attractions of the national roads and other works are such that they simply refuse to work on farms. This is a very serious matter, and I hope that the Minister will give his attention to it and that he will meet the farmers by seeing to it that something is done to rehabilitate the position again. We know that we have to produce, and produce even more in the present circumstances, and if this type of thing increases, if the farmer cannot get farm labour at all, then I am afraid that the farming community will be ruined, and for that reason I ask the hon. Minister to give his attention to this matter.

I would like to bring something to the notice of the hon. Minister. I notice that the Committee is being asked to vote £3,000 in respect of emergency relief. It seems to me that this amount will be too small rather than too big, because the natives in the Northern Transvaal are already experiencing a condition of starvation. But I want to suggest that the Minister should give his attention to the regulations to be made by our law-framers in connection with the sale of mealie meal. If he does that, he will soon realise that there is a very great error. In the first place, the regulation appeared in January, which had the effect of cancelling all contracts in connection with the sale of mealie meal. I can tell the hon. Minister that it is the practice of the shopkeepers and traders in the North to buy their requirements in advance. In the month of April of 1941, for example, they buy a number of thousands of bags from the wholesale merchants in Johannesburg in order to satisfy their requirements for the next year. The price was recently in the neighbourhood of 11s. per bag, but as a result of the action of the Government the price has now risen, and where the trader could at first buy mealies at quite a low price, he now suddenly has to pay 16s. per bag. It stands to reason that the person who eventually pays those profits is the native who buys the mealie meal. A great deal more than £3,000 profit will be made as a result of this regulation by the big dealers in Johannesburg, and it is the unfortunate native, who needs the mealie meal, who will have to pay for it. I think that the Minister ought to take this regulation into review, and if he does that he will assist the natives with more than £3,000. The matter goes very much further. A series of regulations have already been framed in connection with the sale and purchase of mealie meal. The Minister will say that he has nothing to do with those regulations, because they do not fall under the Department of Native Affairs. But the natives are concerned because those regulations affect their food. The maximum price of mealies and mealie meal has been fixed, and a scale has been fixed, whereunder the price depends on the number of bags which are bought. The price is so much for six bags; if the number increases to twenty-five the price is somewhat less, and so it goes on up to a hundred bags. In practice it does not work out that way at all. Take a dealer, for example, who buys 500 bags. I am talking about something which I personally saw. He places an order for 500 bags with a wholesale merchant in Johannesburg. Then he receives a letter in reply to the effect that the 500 bags will be supplied to him, but that he must buy them in lots of 25 bags. That means that the retail merchant has to pay a very much higher price. In another case of which I know, an order was placed for 100 bags, and the reply was received that the merchant could get 100 bags, but in lots of five bags. The unfortunate part of it is that the persons who really provide the profit to these merchants in Johannesburg, are the kaffirs on the platteland. I would now like to know whether the Minister of Native Affairs is going to shrug his shoulders and do nothing in this connection, or whether he will do his duty towards these people who rely on him. It will be no use prosecuting the traders in the platteland if they sell mealie meal and mealies at prices which are higher than the fixed prices, because then they will simply discontinue supplying mealies, and then a very serious state of affairs will develop locally. The Minister must amend the regulations in such a way that a person who sells 500 bags of mealies will be prevented from insisting on the mealies being taken in lots of 24 bags. The Minister could do that easily. As it is, there are so many regulations that it will not matter if another dozen are made.

I was surprised at the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuvs), who put his foot very badly into it yesterday, coming here again today and doing the same thing again. The hon. member for Prieska makes insinuations against the hon. member for Vredefort (Mr. Conroy) who unfortunately is not here this evening. He insinuates certain things—he speaks of the irresponsibility of the hon. member for Vredefort. Let me say this, Mr. Chairman, that if the so-called responsible member for Prieska had the slightest conception of his duty he would not have done what he did yesterday and what he did again today. That hon. member is a member on the Select Committee on Public Accounts. He sits there in the capacity of a judge to give judgment on matters which are properly enquired into and then the hon. member comes here and discusses matters on which he and I are hearing evidence, and he talks in anticipation about scandals. In a prejudiced manner he is already giving judgment by talking about scandals. I want to tell the hon. member as an honourable man what his duty is. It is this, that as he has given judgment in advance he should not continue to sit on the Select Committee on Public Accounts to deal with this matter, because it means that he sits there now as an unjust judge. If he wants to do his duty and if he has a grain of self-respect he should resign as a member of the Select Committee on Public Accounts. I leave it to him to show the House whether he has that amount of self-respect. He has the choice of deciding for himself what we are to think of him in future.

I think the hon. member has now gone quite far enough into that matter.

I shall not waste any more time on the hon. member with his beer tables and Freemasons letters. I now want to get back to the Minister of Native Affairs. We have received a memorandum from the Minister of Native Affairs. I have looked through it rather hurriedly. Unfortunately I have not had the time yet to study it carefully. At first glance I noticed what the policy of the department was in regard to the natives who are drifting to the towns. The Minister shifts the responsibility from the Government so far as this policy is concerned on to the local authorities. I do not think that is fair. We are not in a position here this evening to get into touch with the local authorities to put our complaints before them. The Minister is responsible and the Minister has to be responsible because of the powers given to him and accepted by him. He is the responsible Minister and it is his duty to remove those evils from our towns and to act on the advice given to him by his own Native Affairs Commission. The hon. member for Tembuland (Mr. Payn) told us last night what the experience was in regard to young natives. Now the Minister goes on to say this. There are two Acts which deal with these natives. First of all there is the Native Urban Areas Act and then there is the Act which applies to the natives outside the towns in locations and on farms. The memorandum does not refer to this Act at all, the only reference to it is where it says that land is being bought by the Trust. But the object for which the land is bought and the object with which the Act was passed is to move undesirable natives from the farms and to send them back to their tribes. Land is purchased for that purpose but not a word is said about that by the Minister in his memorandum. Now I should like to know from the Minister what his policy is, because the purposes for which land is bought are twofold. The first object for which land is bought is to give relief to the already over populated native areas, that is, the existing native locations. Land is bought for that purpose, and the second object for which land is bought is to make areas available so that when the Minister has sufficient land natives who are living in urban areas under improper conditions can be removed and sent back to their tribes. The Minister has to have land available for that purpose. I asked the Minister last night what he intended doing. The law provides that as soon as the Minister has land available to which undesirable natives can be moved from the platteland, he can take steps under Chapter 4 of the Act by issuing a proclamation stating where Chapter 4 will apply. As soon as the law is put into force, local committees are appointed and the farmers who really need farm labour can apply to those committees for permission to keep as many squatter labourers as they need to for their farms. The Minister can apply the Act in that way and in that way he can combat one of the evils existing on a large scale in the non-producing areas. Let me tell the Minister that as a result of the competition by the natives it is almost impossible for the poor white class to make a living on the platteland. The natives work the land on half shares but no white man can possibly succeed in working on that basis. That is going on on a large scale. The law is there and if the law is enforced that kind of thing can be punished, but the law cannot be enforced by members of the police force. But once the Minister has proclaimed this Chapter 4 and the local committees are there, the squatters can be registered and they can refuse to register such squatters as the farmer does not require for work on his farm, and the Minister can then have such squatters as have become redundant removed to the native areas where they belong. That is one of the main causes for so many thousands of poor whites going to the towns, and I therefore say that the kernel of the native legislation is not being used, and it is that kernel of the native legislation which contains segregation. If the Minister does not apply Chapter 4 then it is unnecessary to spend millions of pounds for the two purposes I have mentioned and then this whole segregation policy, which was contemplated by previous governments, is being wrecked by the present Minister of Native Affairs. I should like the Minister to give his serious attention to this matter, because it is not only in the interest of the Europeans but also in the interest of the natives themselves that the conditions prevailing today must not be allowed to continue. We get this position today, that round about the large towns and round about every mine the farmers do not cultivate all their land, but they let land to natives for tribal purposes. There are thousands of natives on those farms and there is no law at the moment to prevent this soft of thing. The Minister has not got the power to stop it unless he has proclaimed Chapter 4. Failing that he cannot deal with this situation. For that reason I make a serious appeal to the Minister to enforce this Act. In heaven’s name proclaim Chapter 4 of the Act so that we can put the whole of our platteland affairs in order.

Sir, I would like to deal with some of the points which have been raised today. The hon. member for East London, North (Mr. Christopher) gave us a very valuable and interesting account of what East London is doing in regard to its urban native population, and I can only repeat what I said to the hon. member for East London City (Mr. Bowie) last night, that we congratulate East London on the efficacious way in which they are shouldering their responsibilities. We are very glad indeed. Then the hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno) rather attacked the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Mr. Fagan) this afternoon with regard to the proclaiming of Cape Town under the Act, he rather took him to task for it. I don’t like it very much myself, but I can only say that last year I gave the corporation the option of saying whether they wanted it cancelled or not. They said that on balance they would sooner retain it. There is no surplus of natives—that is my opinion—at any rate in Cape Town, but there is an undesirable state of affairs in regard to housing. There is a housing shortage. I was at Langa only a few days ago, the municipality has done its best but there is a tremendous shortage. I understand the municipality is now taking over Windermere, and they are going to start another housing scheme there which I hope will relieve the congestion. Meanwhile, the native—I don’t know that I blame him—is largely taking to the Cape Flats and he builds wattle and daub huts there. We are trying our best to remedy the situation. It was hardly fair to attack the hon. member for Stellenbosch, seeing that the Cape Town Corporation itself wants the status quo maintained.

†*The hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) has apologised to me for his inability to be present here this evening. He raised the question of the Bushman Reserve in the Kalahari. It was our intention to establish a Bushman Reserve there and it may possibly still be done. In the meantime however, the National Parks Board of which I am a member has as an experiment placed the Bushmen in the Gemsbok Reserve. They are allowed to shoot Gemsbok with bow and arrow, but not with a rifle, nor are they allowed to hunt the buck with dogs. I look upon those Bushmen as part of the Fauna. I was there four and a half months ago and they seemed to be very fit. I think it is a good experiment which we shall watch with great interest for the next few years. The hon. member also spoke about the Native Reserve in his constituency. The Native Commissioner has been there. He was not satisfied with conditions generally but the natives are doing quite well and they have money. The hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen) raised a few interesting points which I shall consider in consultation with my department. He also discussed the question of labour on the farms. I said last night that this was a very difficult problem. I have received the report of the particular Commission and I have done my best to put the Commission’s proposals into force. We have our labour committees in almost every district. I have tried to bring pressure to bear on the towns. The hon. member for Witbank (Mr. Bezuidenhout) said that I was shifting my responsibility on to the municipalities, and in some cases I tried to bring pressure to bear on them. Let us face this question of farm labour. The fact is that we cannot and we may not create a condition of compulsory labour in South Africa, neither for the Europeans nor for the non-Europeans. We don’t want to force labour, and just the same as with other matters, there are certain economic laws in regard to labour. I can’t take people by the scruff of their necks and tell them that they have to go to work here or there. We have to leave it largely to the free choice and wish of the labourer himself to say where he is going to work. I can’t go and tell the natives that a crowd of them have to go and work here and another crowd have to go and work there. I admit that the position is very difficult. I repeat what I said last night, that this is one of the few countries in the world where there is not sufficient manual labour to do all the nation’s work, We have expanded in every sphere, and that expansion has been such in the last few years that there is a shortage of labour everywhere. I have done my best. I have approached the Provincial Administration and I have approached the Railway Administration and instructions have been issued, that they are not to employ farm natives unless they have trek passes. In spite of that there is a drift of natives to the towns. We have the same experience with them as we have with the Europeans. We have that condition in this country and we find the same thing in other countries too. In a country like Australia about two thirds of the population of 10,000,000 are concentrated in a few large towns. That is the tendency, it is an unfortunate tendency, but I don’t know of anything to stop it. That is why we have those labour committees in the different districts and they devote themselves to making the labour conditions as attractive as possible for the natives. I repeat again, that the natives are under the wrong impression, that they are better off in the towns and the dorps than they are on the farms. They are much better off on the farms, but I cannot stop them. On the other hand we should remember that the industries and the inhabitants of the towns and dorps also have certain work to be done, and their needs also have to be met. It they have work for the natives, it is very difficult for us to tell them that they cannot get those labourers. I repeat that I have no golden solution for this difficulty. The suggestion made by the hon. member for Victoria West in regard to uniforms for labourers, and the other question about the poll tax and housing on farms, are very interesting, and I shall discuss them with my department. The hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys) made a big fuss here as he usually does, about the White Paper which is only being issued now. This is the explanation — that that document was printed because I want to introduce it in the Senate tomorrow. It was not intended for this debate. Had it been intended for this debate I would have laid it on the Table long ago; it was drafted and printed for the Senate. Hon. members will notice from the Minutes of the Senate we have introduced a new procedure this session under which the one Minister after the other submits his policy to the Senate. The Minister of Posts and Telegraphs has already done so and tomorrow will be my turn. The hon. member for Wonderboom (Mr. Venter) raised the question of a piece of ground in his constituency occupied by a number of native squatters. I shall get my department to look into it. The hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) spoke about the exploitation of mine natives and asked whether portion of their wages could not be held back and paid out afterwards. We dealt with this question on a previous occasion. Some natives do so voluntarily but 25 per cent. of them will not do it and, of course, it is very difficult to do so compulsorily. I myself have seen large numbers of natives with tins full of junk which they have bought instead of sending the money to their families. I shall discuss this matter again with the mines.

They can be given the money when they leave.

But must it be done compulsorily. I feel, however, that there is a gap and we shall go into the question again. The hon. member again raised the question of the position in Basutoland, and I understand that I am not allowed to discuss it. I am glad I am not allowed to. In regard to the native census in Urban areas I want to say that I did not insist on it because my information is that there are practically no redundant natives in our large towns. As a result of the great expansion of the labour field there are very few redundant natives, and it would hardly justify our forcing the municipal councils to incur the expense.

But their numbers are increasing tremendously.

I admit that, but the object of the registration is to stop vagrants or redundant natives and keep them out of the towns. My information is that actually there are no redundant natives. The hon. member for AlbertColesberg (Mr. Boltman) also raised the question of farm labour which I think I have dealt with fully and adequately; it has been raised by other members as well. I believe I have now dealt with all the points raised.

What about the points that were raised here last night.

I believe I have dealt with them all, but if there happen to be a few points which I have overlooked, hon. members can remind me of them again.

For the first time in my life ever since I have been farming, I have had to resort to native labour on my farm, on account of the fact that so many coloured people have been recruited for the Army. Our farming work was getting into the doldrums, and I had to turn to Queenstown. First of all, I had to pay £2 for every native who was recruited for me, and, in addition to that, I had to advance £2 or £3 for rail fare, and also money for lorry fares; by the time the natives get here they have run up a lot of debt. We do not know yet whether the farmers are going to get all that money back. The natives can only pay it off gradually. The recruiting money has to be paid out of our own pockets, but the rail fares and the lorry fares are paid back gradually by the natives themselves. Now, I should like to know from the Minister why we cannot write direct to the Magistrate, and so avoid having to pay the £2 recruiting money for each native. I also want to ask the Minister to make provision for cheap railway fares for the natives coming here to do farm work. We have to produce; it is in the interest of the Government and of the country as a whole. We are actually being boycotted on our farms today, our labourers have all gone away to the war, and we have to pay to get those natives as farm labourers. If we could write direct to the magistrate we could cut out those £2, and it would also help us considerably if we could have cheaper railway fares. The experience I have had of the natives is not what other members have had. They bring me their money, and they ask me to pay it to their wives; they buy nothing; they only eat mealie pap, and I have to pay them everything in cash. The Minister cannot do anything to alter that, but I want him to meet us in regard to Railway fares. The position today is that the native owes about £6 by the time he arrives here. The £2 we are not going to get back, but the other money he has to pay off in instalments.

I only wish to put a few questions to the Minister. I notice that the Auditor-General’s report mentions an amount of £118 1s. spent under the heading of “Information Service”. He further remarks that no vouchers have been submitted for that amount, but the Minister of Native Affairs has certified that that expenditure has been incurred under his authority. Now, we should like to know from the Minister whether he can give us some information about what that money has been spent on. In my constituency the magistrate has on occasion arrived at a place and addressed a number of natives. He practically told them to do espionage work against the white people. He told the native women to do espionage work against the housewives.

Which item is the hon. member speaking of?

I am speaking about the Information Service and the Auditor-General’s remarks.

That does not come under this vote.

Yes, it comes under Native Affairs. There is an amount of £500 on this vote for “Information Service”.

But the hon. member is speaking about espionage.

I am putting the question whether the money is used for that purpose, because I want to know what it has been spent on. If it is so, if the money is spent in this way, then we want to protest most strongly against natives being used to spy on their masters or their mistresses. We also notice that a considerable amount of money is being spent on the dissemination of news. An amount of only £500 appears on these Estimates, but the Auditor-General speaks of £5,000 being paid for the dissemination of news among the natives. We should like to know from the Minister whether that money is being usefully spent, and whether it is any use supplying the natives in the locations and in the native areas with that kind of information, and whether it really has a good influence on the natives? Then in regard to the purchase of land for the Native Trust we notice that the Auditor-General remarks that, with a few exceptions, which he mentions, the prices paid by the Trust do not indicate any unusual profit for those who have sold the farms. I do not wish to speak about the few instances mentioned here which other members have already discussed. I think these are scandalous cases, but the Auditor-General says that with a few exceptions no excessive profits have been made. Here we get a case now where a man paid £560 for inconvenience he has been made to suffer, although he has never even lived on the farm. Now let me mention a case where the very opposite happened. My information is that the Minister of Native Affairs is the man who refused to give his consent for the purchase of the farm of a poor widow, Mrs. Schultz, of Kuruman. My information is that the authorities refused to pay her the amount which her deceased husband had paid for the land. She was not even asking for a profit. What is the position? I have brought this matter before the Central Land Board and the Chairman informed me that if we could produce a document signed by prominent persons in the area showing that the woman had not been properly treated he would look into the whole matter again, and if necessary again send somebody to revalue the farm. As the Minister said last night, the question of valuation is a difficult one, but the Central Land Board in this particular instance has in its possession a document signed by impartial people, not people belonging to any political party, and insisted on being armed. The question was as follows—

The reply of the Minister concerned was as follows—

I believe that the Minister made the statement that the natives should be armed, and it is a peculiar thing that one should get an inquiry in the British House of Commons as to whether he really did say that.

The hon. member must not go into that any further now.

I also want to draw the Minister’s attention to the important problem of farm labour. The position is such that the farmers find it difficult to carry on their farming activities. So serious has the position become that the farmers in the mealie districts are compelled to buy tractors because they have not got the necessary labour to do their ploughing with oxen. Tractors are certainly very useful things on farms today but it means that people who are suffering most so far as labour is concerned and who perhaps cannot afford a tractor, are being compelled, if they do not want to go under and be forced out of farming, to buy a tractor. As fuel is becoming very scarce I want to know from the Minister whether he is of opinion that the farmers should have to carry on in the way they are doing, or whether something can be done so that better use can be made of the labour forces available in the country? I say this because I do not believe in the story that there is a shortage of farm labour in South Africa I contend that if the labour which is available is effectively used so that it can do the necessary farm labour in the most effective manner there will be no shortage. I contend that very large numbers of natives are idling away their time in the locations and the towns, and I feel that we should realise that the way in which they are carrying on today is going to land us in the most serious trouble. It is no use saying a few words here, and tinkering with the thing by means of legislation dealing with natives in the urban areas and things of that kind—the only way to dear with ft is to tackle the whole problem of farm labour as a whole. A few years ago I introduced a motion in this House trying to bring the seriousness of the farm labour shortage to the notice of the Minister. The reply I received two years ago is exactly the same as that which the Minister gave us this evening again—very kind and very courteous, but it will not improve the position. The farmers do not know what to do. There is another point I want to bring to the Minister’s notice, and that is in regard to the purchase of land by the Native Trust. In the memorandum submitted by the Minister I notice that so far practically all the land purchased by the Native Trust is already occupied by the natives. Now, I want to assure the Minister that that is not the position in my constituency. A large block of land has been bought for native settlement in my district, and a large proportion of that land is lying idle. One of our most prominent farmers (Mr. Hennie van der Merwe), of Halfontein, Ottosdal, has brought to my notice the fact that a native who used to live on his farm is today on the farm “Uitkyk”, a farm bought by the Native Trust, and that one native is today living on a farm which used to belong to a big farmer. I mention this to prove that probably the Native Trust does not at the moment require all the land it has purchased. I do not want to take up the attitude that the Government should not have bought this land, but I do contend that where land has been bought that land should not be allowed to lie idle. There are large numbers of poor Afrikaners who are moving from one part of the country to another, and who cannot find any place to uitspan their wagons. Why is a large part of the country being locked up so that nobody can live there, while many of our people are being told: “You can keep on trekking right until the end of your days; there is no room for you to farm”? There are many poor people today who have no land, yet we are buying large areas of agricultural ground for millions of pounds and we lock up the land, and then we tell the whites: “You must find some place for yourselves to settle, even if it is under the ground.” I want to ask the Minister very earnestly to go into the whole matter in consultation with the other members of the Cabinet, and to consider whether that land cannot be let in the meantime. That land can earn money for the Department of Native Affairs. Let the land until it can be used for the purpose for which it has been bought. I think that is a reasonable suggestion. There is land which was bought as long as four years ago—the grass is growing on it, and it is not being used as it should be, while the bywoners who used to live on that land are roaming all over the country, and are unable to’ get any land. Cannot the Minister let that land in the meantime?

The hon. member for Middelburg (Mr. Bosman) raised a few points which I forgot to reply to. He spoke about shopkeepers on the Molopo River, and he said that those shops had a monopoly and made the natives pay too much for everything. I shall go into that question. He also spoke about natives who were hanging about the towns. I have already dealt with that.

The hon. member for Langlaagte (Mr. Bawden) raised the question of brewing of kaffir beer and beer halls. Well, I have said before in this House that the matter is still in the experimental stage, and I hope to come to a conclusion about it later on.

†*The hon. member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. Rooth) has described the conditions prevailing in the North. I am very much concerned as to what may happen during the next winter. He talked of regulations, and I assume he was referring to the regulations of the Mealie Control Board.

Partly.

It is a very complicated matter, and I shall go into it.

And meanwhile some people are making a lot of money.

Certain things are going on which I cannot deal with this evening. The hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Olivier) asked for information about our Information Service. We have put a small amount aside which I use when I want to find out what is going on among the natives; what kind of propaganda is being made. If the hon. member can give me evidence to prove that a magistrate has given money to natives to spy on Europeans, I shall be glad to get the information, but I doubt whether anything of the kind is going on. An amount of money is being voted here for the dissemination of news. We have loud speakers, for instance …

War propaganda.

Information about the war. The hon. member for Kuruman raised a peculiar point about Mrs. Schultz. I deliberately say “peculiar” because last night there was a complaint that the Trust in those self-same areas where Mrs. Schultz has her farm is paying too much for land. Now, the hon. member says we are paying too little. May I say that that again shows how difficult it is to value land? As I have said, it is not an exact science. In regard to Mrs. Schultz, the position is that the Minister of Lands has repeatedly stated that we should buy that land, and that we should pay a reasonable price. I don’t know that part of the country. The Land Board has sent out its valuators, and I have told them that according to my colleagues’ opinion they are not treating Mrs. Schultz fairly. So the Land Board again sent out its valuators.

They did not go, they decided the matter from the office. They never went there.

I gave instructions three times and three times they stuck to their old valuation, and now we have the complaint that we are paying too little. I asked the Minister of Lands how I could depart from the valuation which was fixed three times by his own Land Board. What would my position be if I paid more? We have heard such a lot about the Auditor-General. What would he say if I paid more than the valuation of the Land Board? I told my colleague, the Minister of Lands, that I was not going to take the responsibility, but that I would have no objection if he brought the matter before the Cabinet as a Cabinet matter, and that is where the matter now rests.

Ever since the beginning of this session.

The hon. member should remember that we are a very busy Cabinet. Anyhow, the matter will now probably come up before the Cabinet. However important it may be to Mrs. Schultz, in this time of war there are more important matters, and this is not a matter of national importance. I hope, however, that the hon. member will realise that I have done whatever I could. How could I get past the Select Committee on Public Accounts if I had taken it upon myself to depart from the valuation which on three different occasions was put on land by the valuators of the Land Board?

I had not intended taking part in this debate but an important matter has come to my notice and I feel that it is so important that I am compelled to bring it to the Minister’s notice. I am referring to the speech which was recently made by Senator Smith. He stated in his speech that feelings of unrest were being worked up among the natives as a result of the Government’s news service which, so I understand, is intended to keep the natives informed of developments overseas. He states that the feeling among the natives is alarming, that the natives for instance welcome the Japanese victories and that one can notice rejoicings among them when Japan scores a success. He has expressed the view that the natives are aware of the fact that the Japanese are a non-European nation achieving considerable successes, and this fact has led to rejoicings among them. This is an important matter, and I wonder whether the Minister will be prepared to go further into it and to see what the real position is, especially in view of the fact that the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister a few days ago stated that if it became necessary he would arm the natives. It was stated on this side of the House that there was a possibility that if the natives were armed they would, instead of fighting for the whites, take the side of the Japanese.

The hon. member cannot go into that any further.

No, I shall not go into it any further, but as a result of this, and in view of the importance of our knowing what is going on among the natives in connection with overseas developments, I want to ask the Minister whether it is not desirable immediately to abolish this news service.

I just want to say a few words in reply to what the hon. Minister said in regard to the case of Mrs. Schultz. In the first place I want to say that the Minister did not put the position correctly. The Land Board made a valuation in the first instance, and then I approached the department, and Mrs. Schultz decided that she would not accept that offer. Then a higher offer was made by the department, and she did not accept that either. The offer was increased a second time, and then, too, it was not accepted by Mrs. Schultz. She could prove that she did not want to sell the land, and that she could make a good living on it. Then I went to the chairman of the Land Board, and he said that if I could bring a document, signed by prominent people, which proved that that farm is better than other farms in that neighbourhood, also with regard to water facilities, he would re-value the land.

Do you say that Mrs. Schultz does not want to sell the land?

Yes, not at the price which was offered.

Then it is her concern.

I want to ask the hon. Minister whether he will allow a European woman to remain on that farm, surrounded by natives?

If she is prepared to remain there, and if she does not want to sell, I do not see what we can do.

What becomes of the principle of segregation then, the principle that a white spot should not be within a black area?

Is she prepared to remain there?

I really think that the hon. Minister is trying to seek cover in order to get out of the difficulty. This woman proved indisputably that that land is worth more to her than the price she asks for it from the department. The Minister said that he could not get past the Land Board. That is precisely my objection, that the Land Board did not keep its promise. They promised to re-value the land, and they never did so. It is an act of unfairness, in our opinion, which is being committed in this matter. The difference between the price asked by Mrs. Schultz and the price which they want to pay is only £500. When one looks at the report of the Auditor-General, one cannot understand why such a fuss should be made of this difference. One feels that this is a very unfair case. I just want to ask the hon. Minister whether he will not be good enough to reply to the other questions which I also raised.

On a point of order. A moment ago you stopped the hon. member for Namaqualand (Lt.-Col. Booysen) when he referred to the question which was discussed in connection with the arming of natives. Now, I just want to bring the fact to your notice that the hon. member has not yet touched upon this matter which is of great importance, and in regard to which the Minister concerned made a statement, namely, the arming of natives. The hon. member for Germiston, South (Mr. J. G. N. Strauss), and the hon. member for Vereeniging (Lt.-Col. Rood), both referred to this matter, and they expressed themselves very strongly in regard to it, and hon. members on this side of the House have not yet had an opportunity of replying thereto. I want to sympathise with the hon. member for Namaqualand, in that you did not want to allow him to go into that.

This matter was discussed the whole of yesterday evening.

That is true, but thereafter hon. members on the other side of the House again discussed the matter. I want to put it to you that you should give hon. members, who have not yet referred to it, an opportunity of dealing with the matter.

Then we shall be busy with it for hours.

But you have not yet given us an opportunity of replying to what the hon. member for Vereeniging and the hon. member for Germiston (South) said. The hon. member for Namaqualand has not yet referred to it at all.

The hon. member for Losberg (Mr. Brits) replied to what the hon. member for Vereeniging said.

But he is not a member of the official Opposition.

I think that we have had a full discussion in regard to this matter.

On previous occasions I have brought to the notice of the Minister of Native Affairs the serious question which the farmers experience in the North-Eastern Free State in connection with the shortage of native labour. He promised to make investigations, and to see whether the position could not be improved, and because he has not yet done so I feel compelled pertinently to bring this matter to his notice. May I proceed?

Yes, the hon. member may continue.

I just want to tell the hon. Minister that he is convinced of the difficulties which the farmers experience in connection with the shortage of native labour, and he said that the difficulty could be solved, if, for example, local Commissions or Boards were appointed in every district to investigate the matter. Well, with regard to that, I want to tell the hon. Minister that in reality there is not so much a shortage of farm labour in the North-Eastern Free State as there are malepractices, and those malpractices must be ascribed to the fact that some farmers have redundant farm labour, while other farmers have no labour at all. And the Minister must understand that the farmers cannot report one another. We cannot go to the police and say that our neighbour has too many native labourers; but when it is ascertained by the police or by the department that a farmer keeps too many farm labourers, it is apparently the practice now to send out a sergeant of police to the various farms in order to make investigation, and if he then finds that the farmer requires another five labourers, for example, he is permitted to make application for them. The fact is that the natives flock to those places where most natives are in service, and for that reason a small farmer cannot get the necessary labour. I want to ask the hon. Minister to give his serious attention to this matter, and to see to it that the labour is evenly distributed. It is wrong to allow the sergeant of police to decide whether a farmer has too much or too little labour. The farming community experiences great difficulties today. Production costs have risen, and some farmers have insufficient labour; and it is necessary to keep an eye on the locations which are to be found on some of the farms.

I just want to bring a few points to the notice of the hon. Minister with reference to this matter of Mrs. Schultz, of which the hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Olivier) spoke. The Minister said that if she is not satisfied with the price she can remain on the farm, but I want to remind him of the fact that in 1938 over £1,000,000 was voted, when the hon. member for Stellenbosch (Mr. Fagan) was Minister of Native Affairs, in order to remove the white spots from the black spots, and to remove the black spots from the white spots. The House unanimously agreed to accept that. The only question which there was, was that in some cases it appeared as though there was some measure of favouritism, and as though a greater sum was paid for some farms than in the case of others which were perhaps of the same value. But I do not believe that the Minister is serious in saying that when there is a black spot within a white area, that if they cannot get it at the price for which they want it, those people should simply be left there. I hope the hon. Minister will see his way clear to get Mrs. Schultz away from there. The hon. member for Caledon (Mr. H. C. de Wet) asked the hon. Minister whether there was not a possibility of importing natives from other parts in order to solve the labour question on the farms. May I say that in Robertson the farmers recruited many labourers from the Queenstown district, and I hear that a large number of them ran away; but what I am certain of is that my son got two of them. They arrived on a certain Monday afternoon and worked on Tuesday, and on Wednesday morning they had completely disappeared.

And had eaten all the grapes.

I do not know whether they ate all the grapes, but I suppose a good quantity. I do not know what plan can be made, although we are eager, and made the experiment of getting labour from outside, from the native territories, and that is our experience. I agree with the hon. member for Caledon that where one has got a native and he has adapted himself to the circumstances, then one can rely on him, and then he is a truthworthy servant. But that is our difficulty at the moment, and we feel that something will have to be done if we want to keep farming in South Africa on the level that it is, or rather on the level it was, because it has retrogressed somewhat, and if we have to furnish the products which are required and which will be required for the people of the country and for the army of the country. I said the other day that the army must march on its stomach, and that the future seemed dark; and I hope that the Minister will find some way out of the difficulty for us.

I want to raise a few questions of policy with the Minister and I shall be very pleased to have the Minister’s attention. I want to deal with the question of the purchase of land by the Native Trust. This question was raised in a very frivolous manner on the vote of the Minister of Native Affairs, but I want the Committee to go very fully into the system which the Minister of Native Affairs is now allowing. I want to come to the point of certain valuations of land, which has been bought, having been deliberately withheld. Can the hon. the Minister tell the Committee what the reason is for that. The purchase of land from the farmers by the Native Trust is specifically provided for—the law provides how the land is to be bought. If it has to be done on that basis why then all this mystery on the part of the Minister and his department? Is it done deliberately in order to induce the farmers and to force the farmers whose land has to be bought, to accept a lesser offer? What is the reason for it? Does not the Minister consider that the actual valuation laid down by the Board of the Department of Lands as the value of the land should be the basis on which the land should be bought, or is this a Jewish bargain business that is going on with this land? I don’t think the law ever intended this, and what the Minister is doing here in regard to this land is nothing short of an absolute scandal. I want to come to this, that when a valuation is made by the Land Board the farmers should be informed that it is the valuation of the Land Board, but I know of numerous instances which I can mention where £2,000 and £3,000 and £4,000 less has been paid than the valuation put on the land by the Land Board. I ask why? Has the farmer to be penalised for a national cause such as this …

Are you, one of those who suffered as a result of this system?

I can speak from experience, and I am very pleased that the Minister has put that question. I have suffered to such an extent, as the hon. Minister knows, that where certain departments have laid down a definite policy that where land is purchased for the natives and where land has been farmed on, such an individual is entitled to from 10 per cent. to 20 per cent. for inconvenience, why did the Minister of Native Affairs in my case—seeing that it has now been raised—only give 5 per cent.?

Because you had never taken possession of the farm.

The Minister knows better and his department also knows better.

You never took personal possession. This whole matter is before the Select Committee.

The hon. the Minister’s department knows that that farm was occupied. I personally farmed there for two years. I was not there at the time but I farmed there and I had bywoners on the farm. Then why not lay down a policy which will apply to everybody? But here we have the same question again. The farmers have to be fined and they have to be done out of as much money as possible. That is the way a Jew does business. But now I want to come to another point.

What do you know about it?

Just as much as you know about it. I want to know from the Minister what part the Secretary for Native Affairs plays in his department. Is he one of the most sacred in the inner circles of the Vatican? Is he unapproachable? Are not members of the public allowed to approach him? Is that the policy?

On a point of order, the hon. member is now dealing with a matter which is still being dealt with by the Select Committee and I doubt whether the hon. member is entitled to raise it in this House. The hon. member is annoyed because the Secretary for Native Affairs has given certain evidence before the Select Committee. I do not know whether the hon. member is a member of that Committee, but in any case he is not entitled to raise the matter here now.

I think the hon. member is quite in order.

There you are, Mr. Chairman, that is the kind of refuge the Minister, looks for. The question which is before the Select Committee is whether the Minister has paid too much for farms.

For your farm?

Whether it is my farm or other farms makes no difference. I go so far as to say that so far as I am concerned I have been done out of a considerable amount of money, but I don’t intend going into that. I only want to know what the general policy is. Is the secretary’s policy not to be criticised? Whenever one wants to approach him, it seems to be a great privilege to be allowed to speak to him. I am glad to be able to say that that is not my experience so far as other heads of departments are concerned. It has been my unfortunate lot to have had to make repeated representations to the Secretary for Native Affairs.

Ad nauseam.

Whether I made representations ad nauseum is another question, but if the Secretary for Native Affairs had been a better business man I would not have had to make representations; but the question is this, has the Minister laid it down as a matter of policy that his secretary has to be on such a high pedestal, or whether he is an ordinary Government official?

He is a very good official.

I have a different opinion. He is the only head of a department with whom I have had that unfortunate experience.

I have nothing to say about these matters, because I have not had any trouble with natives, but I do feel that I must get up to protect the Secretary for Native Affairs. I have had a lot to do with him, and one cannot find a more friendly person and a more approachable person than he is. If he can do anything for one he does it. I don’t say so to flatter him; I simply say so because that has been my experience of the Secretary for Native Affairs. I have always been very well received by him.

I am glad that I have at last got an opportunity of saying something.

Order; the hon. member has spoken three times already on this matter.

I think I am entitled to speak on this. I am only insisting on my rights.

That is quite enough. If the hon. member goes any further, I shall have to ask him to sit down.

When my time was up I was busy pointing out that the department’s policy had to be revised. Before going any further with this matter, I want to reply to what the hon. member for Witbank (Mr. Bezuidenhout) has said.

I stopped the hon. member for Witbank.

But he attacked me.

I stopped him.

I don’t want to be personal; I have to suffer under these conditions. I only want to say that his argument was so miserable and so ignorant that there is no need for me to answer it any further. I again want to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that the policy that is being pursued in the Native Affairs Department is such that one cannot allow it to continue. I want to point out to the Minister—and I want to point out to the country—that an amount of £6,000,000 has already been spent on the purchase of farms for natives, a privilege which the farmers outside have not got, and if one raises this question here, then it is no more than right and fair that one should be allowed to ask that that money be spent in a sound way, and not in the way it is being done at the moment. I know that the Minister of Native Affairs wants to shut up this matter. Perhaps he has had something to do with it, and that is why he does not want it to come out.

What does the hon. member mean by that?

I demand that the hon. member explain what he means.

I mean that a certain policy has been followed.

That is not the point. The hon. member made an insinuation that there is something behind it which I am concerned in, and which I am trying to hide.

I ask the hon. member again to say what he meant by it?

In regard to this policy which is being followed in the department, I am asking the Minister to, come to a different conviction, and I want him to see to it that that policy is changed.

He said that I had a personal interest in this matter.

I did not say that, but you as the Minister have the exclusive say.

The hon. member must address the Chair.

You can turn it down, or you can accept it, or you can increase the purchase price of this farm.

The hon. member must address the Chair.

I feel that that is a right which should not be exclusively given to the Minister, and that is why I say there are scandals. We know the Minister. He is a man who perhaps does not give his attention very closely to these matters, and consequently he should not have that right. I want to ask the Minister whether he knows the scandals which took place when he bought a farm, and that farm had been valued on the basis of certain irrigable morgen of land, and when it was afterwards found out by the department that that irrigable land did not exist? Then I ask the Minister whether it is right that the country’s money should be spent in that way? I only want to refer to what the Auditor-General says in his report, so that the Minister cannot tell me again that I am making wild statements. Does the Minister know anything about that? If a thing like that can happen, does not the Minister admit that the policy in regard to the purchase of farms should be changed? Has not the time come, as quite correctly stated by the hon. member for Wodehouse when this policy in regard to valuations should be changed? Members of the Land Board make the valuation. They give evidence in court and they do not give evidence in favour of the Government. One would expect officials, if they give evidence, at least to give evidence for the Government, but one finds that they give evidence for the applicant to put the value higher than the agreement arrived at says. If that is the case it is not fair and reasonable, and will the Minister still say that in those circumstances it is not necessary, for a change to be made? I have spoken in this House about the officials who have been appointed—I have not spoken of Government officials, and I want to say this about the Secretary for Native Affairs, that if there is one official who is straightforward in these matters, and who gives his opinion honestly, it is the Secretary for Native Affairs. I want to pay him this compliment this evening, that he is a man who has raised objections to the purchase of many of those farms and he has said that he does not agree with those purchases, but in spite of that the Minister has gone over his head and had bought those farms. That condition of affairs should be changed, and that is why I tell the Minister that it is not desirable and not advisable for any Minister to-assume that responsibility. He should accept the advice of his officials, and if one finds senior officials to be opposed to purchases because they consider them wrong and because they consider them unnecessary, or because they consider the purchase price too high, then I say it is no more than right that that official should also be consulted and that his recommendations should be listened to. That is what we find in regard to this matter and I again want to ask the Minister whether, that being the condition of affairs which prevails, he will oppose this policy? Our experience has shown us that in some cases three Ministers have been concerned with the purchase of land and at the moment it is difficult to find out who exactly was responsible for the purchase thereof. If that is the condition of affairs you will agree with me that we cannot allow this to go on and we cannot tolerate it any longer. We find that certain farms have been bought for 500 per cent. and 600 per cent. more than the amount paid for them, and that title deeds have been passed at about the same time as the sale took place, and I say that if we have such a condition of affairs there must be something radically wrong. As against that we have a case such as that mentioned by the hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Olivier), where they want to pay a widow less than she herself has paid for the farm. Are not those facts which members of this House should know about, and are not those facts which must make us realise that we cannot tolerate such a condition of affairs, and that we cannot allow it to continue? One of the members opposite spoke, but hon. members opposite also know that what I have said is correct. They agree that there is something radically wrong, but they have not got the courage to come out with it. We are not going to allow money to be wasted in this wholesale manner. We want justice to be done, but it seems to me that there is no justice and no fairplay in this country with the Government which we have in power now, and with Ministers like the Ministers of Native Affairs and Lands. The Ministers are now going to hide behind kaffirs whom they want to arm. He will probably also use them to shoot others. That is his policy and that being his policy he thinks that he has all the power he needs and that he can waste the money of the taxpayers in whatever way he likes. [Time limit.]

There are only two matters which I very briefly want to bring to the Minister’s notice. The first refers to the memorandum which he has placed before us. He has told us that this memoranlum has only incidentally come before this House, and that it has really been drafted for another place. I want to suggest to the Minister that he should have had this memorandum drafted earlier on so that it could have been submitted to the House in good time because the information contained in it would have greatly assisted the Minister in curtailing this debate. Simply because the Minister has laid it on the Table of this1 House at such a late stage it means nothing more than a gesture to us. If he had submitted it to us in good time it would have assisted us greatly in this discussion.

I have already indicated that I could not have done it sooner.

The Minister has told us that it was not intended for us but I say it would have helped him a lot in curtailing this debate.

Yes, I agree that it would have been better.

I should like the Minister to tell his colleagues that if we can get something of that kind it will help them tremendously in curtailing the discussions. Now there is another matter which I wish to raise. I am sorry the Minister skipped so lightly over the question I brought up in regard to Basutoland.

The Chairman would not allow me to discuss it.

It would not have been in order to have discussed the Administration of Zululand here.

It is a question of Native Administration, and my point is that the Minister should be in continuous contact with the British Administration, and I wanted to ask the Minister to make representations to the British Administration in connection with this aspect of his native policy which affects us so intimately.

But I was given to understand by the Chairman that I was not allowed to deal with that matter.

May I just put my case? Let me put it this way. That in view of the fact that we hope at a later stage to make Basutoland a part of the Union and that we know that the former Prime Minister had already taken Steps in that direction, it is of the greatest importance to us that there shall be constant negotiation and contact between our Native Administration and that of the British Government, so that there may be a degree of uniformity. I asked the Minister to make representations in regard to this matter to the British Administration and to bring it to their notice in all seriousness.

I shall take it up.

It is the question of coolie penetration into Basutoland. This is a serious matter. We have this position, that in regard to religious matters Basutoland is getting into the hands of the Roman Catholics. I do not want to go into that matter any further but it is a very peculiar phenomenon. Economically the natives are getting into the hands of the coolies who are getting a stranglehold on them, and that is not in the interest of the rest of the Union. We have the coolie problem in Natal which is causing us quite enough trouble. In the Free State a coolie is only allowed to stay while he is waiting for a train — he can arrive by one train but he must leave by the next. But what is happening on the Eastern Borders of the Free State? The coolies who have settled there come to the native posts and there they trade with the natives. This is a serious matter, and I hope the Minister will make serious representations to the British Government to see whether they cannot shut the door. They allow the coolies to get a stranglehold over the natives, and nothing is being done to put a stop to it. It is not in our interest, because we are hoping to get Basutoland into the Union, and in view of that it is not in our interest, nor is it in the interest of the natives, to allow this coolie trade in that country.

The Minister was very vague in his reply yesterday on the question of communistic activities among the natives. I think the Minister should take this House into his confidence and that he should thoroughly explain the position in view of these most dangerous activities going on among the natives. I only want to tell the Minister that at the communistic congress the woman president last year made this statement—it was a definite statement—that the white party looked ridiculous with a few thousand members, but that in the communistic movement they had no fewer than 1,100,000 among the natives. I want to ask whether the Minister knows that. The movement has taken such a tremendous hold oh the natives that I should not be surprised if it already has 2,000,000 members.

Who made that statement?

If the hon. member wants to know I shall mention the name. The woman president of the communistic movement is a certain Gool. Perhaps the hon. member knows her. Then I want to ask whether the Minister knows what the battle cry of the communists among the natives is. It is this: “Down with the white man, down with the King, down with Smuts, down with Malan, and down with the Predikants.” That is the battle cry of the communists. They are not anti-British, they are not anti-German; they are not anti-Afrikaans. They are anti-white man; they are anti-white. That is their great point. Imagine! Where we have only 2,000,000 whites in this country we are faced with a native population of about 8,000,000. If this movement goes on in the way it has been doing so far then I want to know what it is going to lead to. And who are these communistic propagandists? That is what I want to ask the Minister. He is the guardian and the father of the natives, and he should know all the details about these propagandists. I say it is not the English, it is not the Afrikaners, because the English and the Afrikaners are Christian, nor do I want to include the Minister of Labour among them.

I look upon you as a fine type of Christian.

It is that type of Russian foreigner who has come into the country, and who has come here to undermine our natives. The hon. member for Ermelo (Mr. Jackson) is not here this evening, but he told us that communistic propaganda is no longer a danger to this country; and as he has told us that this propaganda might just as well be allowed to continue, I want to put this question to him: Will Russia allow them to make propaganda for the United Party in Russia? I ask hon. members opposite whether Russia would allow it. Not one of them would dare go to Russia to try and make propaganda there.

Which item is the hon. member discussing now?

I only want to explain that the communists from Russia want to spread their doctrines right throughout this country, but they keep Russia’s doors closed to any other political parties.

What has that to do with this vote?

It has this to do with the vote, that these Russian propagandists are undermining our natives and stirring them up against the white man and the constituted authority. I say that the time has come … the hon. member who is now detracting the Minister’s attention is one of those propagandists (Mr. Kentridge).

The hon. member must withdraw that.

What must I withdraw.

The hon. member said that another hon. member is a communistic propagandist.

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, I think what the hon. member said is quite correct, because the hon. member for Troyeville (Mr. Kentridge) is a member of the Friends of the Soviet Union.

That hon. member has the impertinence …

I am dealing with the hon. member for Namaqualand (Lt.-Col. Booysen), and I am asking the hon. member to withdraw what he said.

I do not see my way to withdraw it.

Then I must order the hon. member to withdraw from the House for the remainder of the day’s sitting.

Whereupon Lt.-Col. Booysen withdrew.

I move—

That the question be now put.

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—56:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen. F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, H. C.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Egeland. L.

Faure, P. A. B.

Fourie, J., P.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Henderson, R. H.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Klopper, L. B.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Moll, A. M.

Payn. A. O. B.

Pocock, P. V.

Quinlan, S. C.

Reitz, D.

Robertson, R. B.

Rood, K.

Shearer, V. L.

Solomon, B.

Strauss, J. G. N.

Sturrock, F. C.

Sutter, G. J.

Tothill, H. A.

Trollip, A. E.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Van der Merwe. H.

Wallach, I.

Warren, C. M.

Tellers: J. W. Higgerty and W. B. Humphreys.

Noes—30:

Bekker, S.

Bezuidenhout, J. T.

Boltman, F. H.

Bremer, K.

Brits, G. P.

De Bruyn, D. A. S.

Dönges, T. E.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Erasmus, F. C.

Fouche, J. J.

Geldenhuys, C. H.

Hugo, P. J.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Liebenberg, J. L. V.

Lindhorst, B. H.

Louw, E. H.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Schoeman, B. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, E. R.

Swart, A. P.

Swart, C. R.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

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

Motion accordingly agreed to.

The amendment proposed by Mr. Geldenhuys was put, and the Committee divided:

Ayes—27:

Bekker, S.

Boltman, F. H.

Bremer, K.

Brits, G. P.

De Bruyn, D. A. S.

Dönges, T. E.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Erasmus, F. C.

Fouche, J. J.

Geldenhuys, C. H.

Hugo, P. J.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Louw, E. H.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Schoeman, B. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, E. R.

Swart, A. P.

Swart, C. R.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Venter, J. A. P.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Warren, S. E.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

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

Noes—56:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

Derbyshire, J. G.

De Wet, H. C.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Egeland, L.

Faure, P. A. B.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Henderson, R. H.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Klopper, L. B.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Moll, A. M.

Payn, A. O. B.

Pocock, P. V.

Quinlan, S. C.

Reitz, D.

Robertson, R. B.

Rood, K.

Shearer, V. L.

Solomon, B.

Strauss, J. G. N.

Sturrock, F. C.

Sutter, G. J.

Tothill, H. A.

Trollip, A. E.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Van der Merwe, H.

Wallach, I.

Warren, C. M.

Tellers: J. W. Higgerty and W. B. Humphreys.

I move—

The memorandum that I have caused to be circulated is of such an explanatory nature, that members should be able to understand the leading features of the Bill, but I think it would be as well to supplement that explanation by stressing a few of the more important points. Before doing that, it would be just as well if I detailed very briefly the circumstances that have led up to the Bill. The House will probably remember, and if not the memorandum will have informed them, that so far back as 20 years ago, Parliament thought it necessary to take steps against the rapacity of unscrupulous landlords. You notice that I say unscrupulous landlords, and the Act that was then passed has been amended on several occasions, added to, and in some cases detracted from, but, sir, it has been demonstrated in practice that all these laws have been completely ineffective in achieving the object that was sought by such legislation.

Why?

It has been proved, and my hon. friend who takes a great interest in court judgments, must have noticed that where legislation set a limit to the percentage on cost which the landlord was able to extract from his tenant, that limit has not been achieved, because as the result of judgments landlords have been able to mulct their tenants in sums far exceeding what is allowed by the Act. This Bill seeks to put a period to that sort of thing. It now becomes clearcut that the ceiling that any landlord may hope to attain as percentage on his capital outlay is 8 per cent.

In 1940 it was 10 per cent. Why now 8 per cent?

My hon. friend will have an opportunity, when we come to the Committee stage, to go into that.

If you tell me now I will not have to worry at the Committee stage.

Well, you see, I hope to finish what I have to say before the adjournment.

I don’t think you will manage that.

Not if my hon. friend keeps interrupting. Now, what are the immediate events that have led up to this Bill? It became abundantly clear to the Government shortly after the war began, that a rack-renting racket was about to start; in fact, it had already started. Evidence was not only very strong, but was accumulating rapidly that that was the fact, so much so that the Government decided that it was of such vast importance, especially in the prevention of any rise in the cost of living, that they promulgated a regulation establishing certain checks which I will refer to later. That measure was found to be so efficacious in the short time that it has been in operation, that the Government came to the conclusion, in consultation with its supporters and others, that it would be well to make this a permanent institution, and put it on the Statute Book, hence the Bill that I am moving tonight. Hon. members may ask me to give an example of the rapacity of landlords which led the Government to this conclusion. Let me do so, sir. It was reported to me that there was a certain syndicate in Johannesburg — strange that private enterprise is so enterprising in Johannesburg and on the Reef—a syndicate had been formed which went round to do what? They would go to the owner or owners of a block of flats, and would say: “How much do you want for your block of flats?” Perhaps the owner would say £20,000, and the syndicate would then say: “We will give you £25,000.” The people concerned, seeing a cool £5,000 in it, would close at once and sell. Then up would go the rents in order to recoup the new owners for their outlay. That was one ramp. Another one, to my mind, was worse than that and with less risk about it. A syndicate is formed which interviews owners of flats—I use flats as an illustration because they are the most lucrative business.

It depends on who occupies them.

My hon. friend has a great deal of experience both as landlord and tenant. This syndicate goes to the owner of the flats and says “What is the rental return of your block of flats?” and if he says it is £100 a month they say “We will give you £125 or £150.” They don’t run the risk of purchasing the flats, but they purchase the rental return and then immediately put up the rents to meet the amount they have to pay. Well, sir, when legislation makes it possible for that sort of thing, surely the time has arrived to bring preventive measures to bear. That is only one evidence of this sort of thing. Let me take the ordinary abode. I have recently called for a return from the Cape Town Rent Board, who have not been dealing with this matter from day to day, but only on occasion, and this is the sort of thing I get. They have not got a full return of all their transactions but they have given me some of the more important features of cases that have come under their notice. I am not going to pillory the owners of these properties, that is not my business, besides it would be undesirable and unfair, so I am not going to mention names but only amounts. If hon. members are sufficiently interested I am quite prepared to give them the list provided they undertake to treat it confidentially. Here is an example of a house which the Rent Board found to be excessively rented. The landlord was charging £8 10s. per month, and the Rent Board found it necessary to reduce it to £6, or a £2 10s. reduction. Another one—this is not a dwelling house but looks like a block. The rental was £35 and was reduced to £27 10s.; another £8, reduced to £6; another £2 10s. reduced to £1 10s. The imagination of hon. members need not run riot very much to realise the type of dwelling for which a charge of £2 10s. was made. And how did the board deal with a poor unfortunate native who was being mulcted in 10s. a month, presumably for a room? They found it was in such a condition, so valueless from the point of view of habitation, that they reduced it by 50 per cent. and made it 5s.

They did not take the value of the land.

Everything is taken into consideration. We are providing for the control of room rents as well as house rents.

What about shops?

Now, don’t interrupt me. Personally I would very much like to have included that. Hon. members know that one of the root causes of the high cost of living is the tremendously high and rising cost of the rents of shops. Most of the people who hire these shops are helpless. They build up a business and are rooted to a particular locality, and the landlord knows it, and takes advantage of the fact. Of course, it has to be got out of somebody, and the customer has to pay, and it is reflected in the increased cost of living.

Why don’t you deal with it?

Give me time.

Do you want a few more years?

Life is very short.

I don’t understand the purpose of that interjection at all.

You say “Give us time.”

Well, sir, this list is only a short one, but it bristles with examples which are culled from the experiences of the board, which shows that we are exercising the strictest supervision over the machinations of these people who let premises to tenants who are mulcted in rents far in excess of their value.

You have not told us why you have not included shops?

Because shops are already provided for under the Act of 1940. That is being administered by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry through the medium of the National Supplies Board. At the same time I want to be perfectly frank; I would like to have included shops in this measure.

Why, if they are already controlled? t

And if hon, members were to make an amendment including shops, and there is a sufficient consensus of opinion in favour, I feel sure the rest of the Government will agree with) me that we should include them. Now what are the salient features of this Bill? We have made an important alteration in that we now make a ceiling of 8 per cent, upon the cost of the House, or its valuation by a sworn appraiser, or its valuation by the municipal authority. The Rent Board has to take into consideration all these factors in arriving at what is a reasonable 8 per cent. based on that valuation. Hon. members will remember that in the old Act it was laid down that the original cost of the building was the basis of the calculation as to the percentage return. That was found very often in practice, houses were built costing a tremendous amount of money, which houses became obsolete, and yet a rental was charged on a percentage basis on the original cost. On the other hand, in many cases this system operated unfairly against the landlord, so we give them the three options as the methods of discovering what the value is. But the ceiling upon that basis is to be 8 per cent. and no more. Hitherto we dealt with what was thought to be an unreasonable rent, and court judgments were given which allowed almost any rent.

You say it shall be 8 per cent.

No, we say it shall not be more than 8 per cent.

You recognise, of course, that it will be 8 per cent.

That is a question of administration on the part of the Rent Board, they are not compelled to make it 8 per cent. In addition to the value of the house, we also in this Bill allow 6 per cent. on the land as in the old Act. Now, Mr. Speaker, I hope hon. members will not run away with the idea that that is the only method of calculation; the landlord is allowed certain charges which are made obligatory. In other words, he gets 8 per cent. regardless of these allowances such as insurance, licence fees, and various other charges which are made obligatory. The Bill says—

My hon. friend will get a little bit confused unless I say that I propose to move an amendment which has resulted from representations made to me, very emphatic representations, that the Bill as drafted is not quite fair to the landlord. Frankly, I think it is fair, but in response to representations made, and hon. members knowing my sweet reasonableness in all other matters, will understand why I have done this.

You are very accommodating.

I always have been.

You must have had a rough house in your caucus.

No rough house at all, we were as sweet as angels. My hon. friend seems to think that in our discussions behind the scenes we are like the Opposition, a lot of Kilkenny cats. This limitation to 8 per cent. is one important feature of the Bill, but there is no absolute guarantee of 8 per cent. I want no misunderstanding on that point; the Rent Board may allow less than that, according to circumstances. The next important feature is that the rent is now applied to the House itself and not to the tenant. I am sorry to detain the House in making this explanation.

Oh, no, we are anxious to hear you.

Hitherto the rent has applied to the tenant. Supposing under the existing Act the tenant was not satisfied that he was paying a proper rent, he could apply to the Rent Board, and the Rent Board might see fit to reduce it. If by any means the landlord was able to get rid of that tenant, the incoming tenant often had the rent put back to the original amount; in other words, it was the person to whom the reduction applied, and not the House. We propose to remedy that in the present Bill, and the rent will apply to the house for all time, unless the landlord makes application for an increase. Another important point is this, hon. members may perhaps by a superficial reading of the Bill come to the conclusion that once the rent is reduced it cannot be altered. That is not so. The lessor can demonstrate to the Rent Board that he is not getting a sufficient return for his money, and if he can make a case the Rent Board can and will agree to increasing the rent. I think that will compose the fears of a large number of actual and potential opponents of this Bill. Then again if the tenant is paying his rent and not doing substantial damage to the property, he may not be evicted.