May I, with the leave of the House, put the following question to the Prime Minister of which I have given him notice—

The hon. member has given me notice of this question, but it reached me shortly before 1 o’clock and I have not had the time to obtain the necessary information to enable me to reply. I would therefore suggest to the hon. member that this question should stand over until the next sitting day, namely Monday.

May I assume that the Prime Minister will give us an assurance that in the meantime none of those people will be sent out of the country? I am asking this question because certain people have been notified to be prepared to leave before Sunday.

I may perhaps still get the information this afternoon, but I have not got it before me to enable me to reply to the question. I do not exactly know what the position is.

I should like an undertaking from the Prime Minister that nobody will be sent away before Monday. I hope the Prime Minister will tell us whether he is, or is not prepared to give such an undertaking? It is a very urgent matter.

I am in a difficulty. I should like to be able to comply with the hon. member’s request, but in the absence of information, which I may perhaps still get this afternoon, I am not prepared to give such an assurance.

Then I regret Mr. Speaker that I am compelled to move—

I only want to point out that there are numerous cases before the courts. So far as I am aware one of those cases has already gone to the Appeal Court. The case mentioned here is quite unknown to me.

That is the first case.

There is a third case also being heard in the courts. Unless I know what is going on in court, and how far that case has progressed in court, I would not like to give an undertaking in this House which may possibly have an effect on the trial of those cases which are before the courts, and that is why I ask for a little time to be given to enable me to get the information. It seems to me that it would be wrong at such very short notice to invoke the aid of the House to decide on a matter which is pending.

If I understand the position, the intention of the hon. member for Gezina (Mr. Pirow) is to raise this matter because there is a danger of the Netherlands subjects referred to being transported before Monday.

Yes.

I have no information on that point. None of us have any information on the matter.

I think that in the circumstances I should allow the motion being put. Will hon. members who are willing to allow the motion to be put, rise in there places?

Upwards of fifteen members having so risen.

The hon. member may move, but I want to ask hon. members to be as brief and as much to the point as possible in dealing with the motion.

I am sorry that it was impossible for the Prime Minister to give me this assurance until Monday because I have information in my possession to show that there is a danger that some of those people may be sent out of the country before Monday. That is why the matter is one of urgent public importance. I am prepared even now to sit down if the Prime Minister will give me an assurance that he will not allow those people to be sent out of the country before Monday, but as the Prime Minister is unable to do so I have to proceed with my motion. The matter to which reference is made in my motion is the case of Bysters vs. Smuts N.O. et al, and those others include the Netherlands Government. The case arose in Pretoria, and in the High Court a rule nisi was issued against the Government to show reason why they should not be prevented under Proclamation No. 1 of 1942 to send born Hollanders out of the country. Those people are born Hollanders but they have made their homes here in South Africa. Many of them are married to Afrikaans girls and they have released themselves in every possible respect from Holland. They are prepared to fight for South Africa but they are not willing to be sent overseas.

I have now received information which enables me to give the hon. member the undertaking that nothing will be done before Monday. No Hollander has been arrested, and nobody has been notified to leave the country before Monday. With this information at my disposal I am in a position to give the hon. member the assurance which he asked me first of all to give in the dark.

In the circumstances I think the hon. member should withdraw his motion.

If on Monday the position is still the same as it is today, that the Prime Minister cannot give an undertaking that these people will not be sent away, can I propose the same motion then on Monday?

The hon. member can propose his motion, and whether it will be allowed will have to be judged in the light of the circumstances which may then exist.

What I mean is this, whether the fact that I have moved this now and have withdrawn my motion will not prevent me under the rules of the House to move it again on Monday?

It is not prevented by the rules of the House. The motion will then be considered in the light of existing circumstances.

Then I withdraw my motion now.

I move—

I want to say that I am glad, and I am grateful to the Prime Minister for having enabled me to bring this motion before the House. That in itself is tangible proof that the Prime Minister, together with the members of the Government, regards this motion as an important one, and, because it is such an important motion, I want to make an appeal to hon. members on the other side not to regard this motion from a political point of view, but from the point of view of a national matter, from the point of view of the interests of the people in the country. As hon. members will notice, my motion is divided into three heads. I do not want to read it to the House again, but I divided it into three heads, because I considered each one to be dependent on the other. The labour problem in our country is not only a difficult one, but at this time, at any rate, it is one of the great problems which demands our attention, and which not only demands our attention, but I hope that the Government will see to it that something is done in connection with it. In the first place, my motion asks that the Government be requested “in view of the growing problem faced by the farming community through coloured persons and natives leaving the farms to enlist for active service”; and—as I say in (c); “in view of the fact that housewives on farms, as well as in towns, are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain domestic servants”, to take into consideration the advisability of improving the position. I want to deal with the motion from three points of view. In the first place, I want to deal with the necessity for the acceptance of this motion; in the second place, I want to deal with the causes of the trouble; and, in the third place, I want to deal with the remedies for the solution of the problem. In dealing with the necessity, hon. members will agree with me that I can mention none other than the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister himself as an authority in connection with this matter. He admitted that this matter was one of extreme importance to the farming community. He went even further, and said that next to the soldier the farmer was today playing the biggest role in the country. In other words, he meant that the successful prosecution of the war was of primary importance to the people, and, that at the same time, the farmers were playing the second role in the country. My reply to the Prime Minister is this: that we can take it that the role played by the farmer is of greater importance than the role played by the soldier. Because, if the soldier gets no food and is not fed, then he cannot prosecute the war. For that reason it is of the utmost importance that we should see to it that food is provided, so that the soldier will be enabled to prosecute the war. Since that is the position, everyone will admit that something should be done in order to see to it that more food is produced in our country, so that there will not be a shortage of food, and in this connection we notice that the Government has deemed it necessary to import corn into the country. The Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister has already insisted that we should produce more in the country. I agree with him, because if ever there has been a time when the country should try to be self-supporting, then it is the present time. We should learn in these war circumstances to be self-supporting to a greater extent, and as the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister himself said in his speech, there are already certain cases where people in this country are experiencing a shortage —not to speak of starvation. Just let me refer him to his own speech at the Agricultural Show in Cape Town: “There is frequently a shortage in so far as the civic community is concerned, forshort periods, and convoys cannot be supplied fully.” Here we have an admission from the Prime Minister himself that there is a shortage with regard to food provisions in our country. And we must not lose sight of the fact that there is not only a shortage in our country, but we must also provide a large number of people with food today who temporarily reside in our country. It is for that reason that it is so extremely important that the farmer, who is the backbone of our country, and on whom we must rely to produce, will not be put to inconvenience. It is the duty of the Government to assist him, and if there is anything which thwarts the farmer in his efforts to provide food for the people, then the Government must remove it. What is the position on the platteland in connection with the farming community? Just let me refer to a grain district like Malmesbury. The hon. member who represents that district will possibly give further information about it, but one finds that in one of our main grain districts—the most important grain district—although it is a closed district in so far as the recruitment of non-European farm labourers for the army is concerned, a large number are nevertheless still joining from that district. In that district and also in other districts the position has become very critical. The position has already, as was said at the show, left its marks on the Agricultural Show. Farmers who were competitors at the show in the past could not compete owing to the shortage of labourers, and in some cases, total lack of labourers. The secretary of the local Agricultural Association had to use convict labour to put the show grounds in order. In some parts one cannot get coloured people at all, even though the farmers are prepared to offer 10s. per day. Although the farmers offer up to 10s. per day, they cannot get coloured labour which normally costs 2s. 6d. or 3s. a day. That is the position in the platteland. It is not a question of payment, but simply that one cannot get any assistance, with the result that the farmers are not in a position to produce properly. In a district like Caledon one finds the same position. There the circumstances are the same. Here we have two of the biggest grain districts, and in both cases we find that they cannot obtain labour. They cannot produce, and the result is that we will have a shortage of foodstuffs which may have fatal consequences in the future. I know that the Prime Minister and other Ministers concerned with the matter will say that they are following a policy whereby they endeavour, as far as is in their power to do so, to meet the position and to see to it that the coloured persons do not go to the towns or join the army. The Prime Minister will say that the Government does not encourage them. The same will be said with reference to native labour. That policy of the Government, or what they pretend is their policy, was made known on the 28th October, 1940, already. One finds that they then lay down such a policy, and it may interest hon. members to learn that at that time a circular was sent to the magistrates. I may say that this did not emanate from the Native Affairs Department. But the circular read as follows—

That is the policy which they allege they follow, and our objection is that the Government makes promises and sends our circulars, but they are not carried out. For that reason we strongly urge that the policy of the Government should be carried into effect, and that these promises should be carried out. Notwithstanding the circulars, one finds that the army and the Department of Defence took no notice, but continued to recruit even in the smaller towns of the country. I shall deal, in a moment, with the reasons why those non-Europeans leave the districts and go to the towns and cities, and why they are joining up; but at the moment I want to deal with the position which has been created. Plans are made, but nothing is done. A policy is published but it is not carried into effect. For that reason one finds that agricultural associations and higher organisations have from time to time made representations to the Government in order to point out that recruiting was still taking place. When we think that as far back as the 28th October, 1940, the policy was laid down that recruiting in the platteland should be discontinued, and one finds that it was still taking place, and is today taking place, then I think I have the right to say that the Government is not doing its duty. When one goes to the Government with this matter, then they refer you to the Department of Labour, which deals with the matter. When one makes representations to some department or other then one is referred to the Department of Labour. Let me say immediately that if there is one department which is ignorant in connection with this matter, then it is the Department of Labour. The moment one goes to the Department of Labour one is lost. I must say that I have never seen greater ignorance in connection with the administration of any matter than is to be found in the case of that department. They cannot give one the slightest information. In this respect I think that the Native Affairs Department tries to be more helpful, and that department is better informed, but with regard to the Department of Labour which deals with the matter, I am sorry to say that they are entirely ignorant. And the sooner the Government realises that this is a matter which must be tackled, and that a person should be appointed who has a sense of responsibility, and who has to see to it that there is an improvement in the position, the better it will be in the interests of the country. I need not go any further into the necessity of taking steps in order to improve the position, because the Prime Minister himself has admitted from time to time in his statements that the farmer is an essential factor in the prosecution of the war, and if one does not meet the farmer so as to enable him to furnish the necessary products, then one cannot prosecute the war. That, briefly, explains the necessity. As I have already mentioned, the farmer must be assisted. But since the whole House will agree that it is necessary to do something, we now want to try to trace the causes. Briefly, the causes are, in the first place, the big allowances which are paid to coloured people and their dependants, and also to the natives. That is one of the main causes for the big influx from the platteland to the towns, and to the army. Just let me point out what the allowances are which are being paid. I have in front of me the regulations in connection with army service by non-Europeans. What does one find? Hon. members will be surprised to see that very big allowances are paid to the dependants of the ordinary coloured people. These are ordinary coloured people who usually receive no more than 2s. 6d. per day and a free house on the farms. One finds that 1s. 6d. is paid to the wife and children of a coloured person who has enlisted, plus 1s. 6d. in respect of rental, plus 2s. in respect of further allowances; 5s. altogether, which is paid to the dependants, or an average of £7 10s. per month. That is the least they get. There are some of them who receive £9, and in some cases the dependants get an allowance of £10 10s. If the allowances are so attractive, can one expect the coloured people to remain on the farms of the farmers, and not to flock to the towns or to join the army? There are coloureds who earn £2 10s. or £3, and now their dependants alone are receiving an amount of from £7 10s. to £10 10s. I hone that hon. members will get up, especially lady members, in order to persuade the Government to do something in this connection. The farmers can no longer get labourers, the farmers’ wives are without servants, and the women in the towns cannot get servants either. It happens that when a coloured woman is asked “Come and work for me” that she replies “We need no longer work; the European women can now come and work for us.” That is the position which has been created, and the House will agree with me that something will have to be done in order to remedy the position. That sympathy which one gets from members on the other side who say “The coloured people and natives are assisting us to prosecute the war successfully, and we must therefore put them on an equal footing with the Europeans in the country.” is something which is very dangerous, and which will bring bitter fruits in the future. I hope that the House will be sensible enough not to agree with that. I do not want to blame anyone this afternoon, but a position has suddenly arisen which is extremely unsound. We cannot carry on in this manner. Many of these coloured people do not know what to do with the money which they have now suddenly got hold of. They have never had £7 10s. to £10 10s. in their posession, and as a result of that fact they are now altogether out of hand. The big allowances represent the main reason why the coloured people are leaving the farms in order to join the army. I hope that the Prime Minister will at least take the allowances into review. This matter is one of extreme importance, as the Prime Minister admitted himself. The Prime Minister intimated that the farmers were placed in such a difficult, position that they could not carry on their farming in a proper manner. Do you know that the position is such today that farmers in certain parts of the country cannot start to plough? I understand that in Malmesbury and Caledon, too, such cases occur. The matter therefore requires immediate attention. During the course of the budget debate the Prime Minister told us that the farmers were so dependent upon coloured labour that they could not do without it. That is a fact which is generally known, and since they have not got the coloured labour, something should be provided in its place. The Prime Minister went further and said that he was also going to arm natives and coloured people. We hope that he will not do so, but that be will see to it that coloured people and natives who are so essential on the farms, will be placed at the disposal of the farmers, so that the farmers will be enabled to produce the necessary food. It will be fatal for our country if a food shortage occurs. If a food shortage occurs in this rich and fruitful country, then the blame will be laid at the door of the Government. Then the Government will be reproached that it did not take the necessary steps in order to see to it that the farmers were enabled to produce sufficiently. The Prime Minister himself admitted that agriculture was just as important to the war effort as the strong development of industries. He said that the farmers should produce the maximum, and that they could regard it as a patriotic contribution to the war effort. If the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister expects that of the farmers in South Africa, then it is his duty to enable the farmers to produce. The Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister was sympathetic in his speech in this House, and I know that he appreciates the position. I do not ask this from a political point of view. Let us be honest and regard this matter from a national standpoint, and let us show the world outside that when big issues are at stake when the interests of the country are at stake, we can still co-operate in this House in order to deal with those interests. If we do that, we shall be doing a great deal to restore the confidence of the people in this House. For that reason I hope that the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister will accept the motion.

I second. I think that the farming community and the housewives will be grateful to the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys) for introducing this motion, whereby an extremely important matter is being brought to the notice of the Government and of the Prime Minister. I think that this matter rightly deserves the serious attention of the Prime Minister. There is a great shortage of farm labourers and domestic servants, but not only is there a shortage of servants, but I go further and say that this matter also deserves the attention of the Government by virtue of the fact that it is also in the interests of the coloured people that something should be done. This unnatural influx from the platteland to the towns will undoubtedly have a very serious effect on the coloured community itself in the future. It is a well-known fact that even years before the 4th September, 1939, there was an unsound influx of coloured persons from the platteland to the cities and the larger towns. I want to mention a few reasons why the coloured people trekked to the towns before the war. In the first place, they were attracted by the apparently higher wages which are paid in our cities. I say “apparent” because, in comparing wages, it is usually not taken into account sufficiently what the coloured people generally receive on the farms, in the way of food, free housing, fuel, etc. When one goes to the farms, one finds coloured people there with large families; in fact, a whole brood of young coloureds, and they are all as plump as partridges. When we compare the children of the coloured people in the platteland with those in the suburbs, then we notice a striking difference. The coloured children of the platteland are very much healthier and better built. Another reason for in infiltration of the coloured persons to the towns is to be found in the lust for amusement. They like to congregate in large numbers. This factor, too, is not to the advantage of the coloured persons. Another factor which attracts the coloured people to the cities, is the shorter hours of duty. As we know, these shorter hours of duty cannot be applied to our farms, but I want to point out that the work which the coloured people do in the platteland, affect them to a lesser degree bodily than the work which they do in the cities, where they are not in the fresh air. There, again, the coloured people in the cities compare very unfavourably with the coloured people in the platteland, notwithstanding the long hours of duty in the country. The coloured people in the platteland are much healthier. I want to mention another factor, an important factor, and that is the agitators who are at work amongst the coloured people in the platteland. Especially if we go to the towns we find how, every Saturday afternoon and every week-end, the coloured people are incited; and these matters of longer hours and seemingly higher wages are matters which are exploited. Communistic propaganda is spread amongst the coloureds in the platteland, especially in the dorps. All this was going on before the 4th September, 1939; today the Communistic inciters amongst the coloured people in the platteland are working with renewed strength. And, in addition to that, thousands of coloured people are now being recruited for military purposes. To begin with, they did the recruiting themselves on our farms. When we urged the Prime Minister to do so, he put a stop to recruiting, and promised that no more coloured people would be recruited on the farms. I think the Prime Minister will remember that on that occasion I pointed out to him that when he recruits coloured people in the towns and cities, the coloured people of the towns will be replaced by coloured farm hands, and those coloured people, in their turn, will again be recruited, and so it will go on in a circle. That is the primary reason why our coloured people are today leaving our farms. At one time the Prime Minister promised us that if we submitted the names of these coloured people, then these coloured persons who were formerly working on farms, would not be recruited. We found that that did not help at all. These coloured people have more than one alias, and if they have one name on the farm, they have another at the recruiting office. We cannot get away from the fact that it is the particularly high compensation which attract the coloured persons to the military services, and the compensation which they receive there does not only entice them from the farms, but it enables their whole families to refrain from working. That allowance of 5s. per day which their families receive is a very attractive sum to the coloured person who earned 2s. 6d. in the past, and it is also a sum which places his wife and children in the position that they need no longer work, or, when it is a young coloured person, it is no longer necessary for his father to work. Now I want to tell the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister this, that the farmers experience great difficulties in connection with this matter. When the harvest time arrives for the wheat farmers; when it is harvest season for the tobacco farmers; when the wine farmers gather their crops, and the fruit crop is gathered, it is then that the farmers experience the greatest difficulties in obtaining labour. We experience this today, that hundreds of miles are covered with motor lorries in order to fetch coloured persons during the season, and those coloured persons which are so fetched are very reluctant to work. We can understand it. That coloured person knows how necessary it is for the farmer to have him; and apart from that, in that manner we are drawing the coloured people from one neighbourhood to other neighbourhoods in the country. I can give the Prime Minister the assurance that in the near future the corn farmers have to start ploughing. As the Prime Minister knows, the ploughing season lasts from four to five weeks. The farmers have equipped themselves for it, they have teams of mules, and they have incurred all the costs in getting seed and manure; and today there are farms in my neighbourhood, there are farms in the neighbourhood of Cape Town and Bellville and Malmesbury, where there are wheat farmers who are without a single hand on their farms. There are others who have two or three men on their farms, and I would like to ask how we can expect the wheat farmers to carry on with their work in such circumstances. I think the Minister will know that in so far as work with mules is concerned, we cannot use an untrained person. Even if we get a kaffir, we cannot allow such an untrained person to work with a team of mules. I further want to point out to the Minister that the wheat farmer has been advised by the Minister of Agriculture not to resort to machinery. Today those people are without machinery, because machinery is not only difficult to obtain, but even when we can get it, the costs are prohibitive at present. What does he expect of the wheat farmers and of other farmers; what must they do in the present circumstances? The Prime Minister expects the wheat farmers to produce. I am not going to say that we apply ourselves to production because the Minister expects it of us. We do it for our own living, but the fact remains that in our own interests and in the interests of the country, we must produce wheat. Now I want to put the matter in this way. I ask the Minister, if he doubts what I am saying here, to cause enquiries to be made from the wheat farmers in the Western Province. And let him make enquiries from the supporters of that side, from those people who support the Government and its policy, and then the Minister will discover that what I am saying here is the real state of affairs. On the other hand, I also want to agree with the hon. member for Prieska that with regard to domestic work, the position is also critical. The allowances which they receive have resulted in the coloured women refusing to do domestic duties, and I want to say this to the Prime Minister, that he should rather quarrel with the farmer than with the women of South Africa. I also said that it was in the interests of the coloured persons themselves that the Minister should face this matter. What is the position going to be when the farmer has to resort more and more to machinery? If there is a depression after the war, what will happen to the coloured person then? Once the farmer has obtained machinery and has resorted to the use of machinery—that is our experience —then he does not again return to ordinary labour on a large scale. In connection with this matter, it is in the interests of the coloured people themselves that a stop should be put to this influx from the farms to the towns. That is the position today. When one asks what can be done, then I want to say that I realise that it is a difficult matter. The matter has already progressed very far through the instrumentality of the Government’s policy, but I nevertheless want to make a few suggestions to the Prime Minister for his consideration. The first is to put a stop altogether to the recruitment of coloured persons. If he is not prepared to discharge those coloured persons who have already joined up, then let him at least make sure that when they want their discharge, no obstacle will be placed in their way from retiring from military services. In the third place I want to ask the Prime Minister to take into consideration the question of reducing the allowances which are given to coloured persons, and especially to the families of the coloured persons; and if he does not want to reduce it, then I want to ask him to consider the question of giving the allowance to the coloured people in some other form. This question of allowances to the families of coloured persons is one of the utmost importance. The fourth suggestion which I want to make to the Minister is this, that he should see to it that especially in the coloured dorps in the platteland, where there is a deliberate incitement of coloured persons against the Europeans and especially against the farmers, drastic action is taken in order to prevent it. In the fifth place I want to make this suggestion. The Emergency Regulations are applied to the farmers. Now I want this to be applied to the coloured labourers too, in order to prevent coloured people from leaving the platteland and going to the cities and towns on a larger scale in future. Then I also want to ask the Prime Minister whether he is not prepared to take into consideration the question of bringing back to the platteland, in some manner or other, those coloured people who trekked to Cape Town and other cities after September, 1939. I realise that since the matter has progressed so far, this is an extremely difficult matter to cope with. But it will not avail the Government and the Prime Minister to say that it is a difficult matter and then to do nothing. The Prime Minister will discover, if this process continues, that the farmers will simply not be in a position to carry on with their work. Before I sit down I just want to say this to the Prime Minister, that, as I have already told him, he can very easily obtain information in connection with these matters which I have mentioned, relating to the shortage of farm labour and the difficulties which face the wheat farmers in getting labour on their farms, and as to how they had to struggle during the last harvest season.

This is a very important subject and that is why it has been allowed to be introduced in spite of the fact that today is set down for Government business. The motion was on the Order Paper, and although the Government had taken the day for Government business, I thought the hon. member should be given an opportunity to move it. Still, the time put aside for it is limited. It has been agreed by the different sides that this debate will not continue after 4 o’clock so as to allow the next Order to be proceeded with. I therefore want to say a few words on the subject before the time allowed for this discussion has passed. The subject is an important one, it is most important. The Government feels that everything possible should be done, everything that can reasonably be done should be done to keep farming going in this country, and to ensure that the public have the necessary food supplies. That is why a few days ago the Government decided on the far-reaching step to increase wheat prices for the next season. That is a step which has never before been taken here, and we have taken that step in order to make sure everything possible will be done to ensure that there will be supplies of food in the country and that the position in regard to food will continue to be on a sound basis. Nothing really practicable has been put forward here with the exception of the suggestion by the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. Loubser). I want to say this, that so far as this question of farm labour is concerned I have ever since last year, when the first representations were made to me, been dealing with this matter, because I, as a farmer myself, and as a man familiar with farming conditions, know where the shoe pinches in regard to farming, and I know that this labour question is a very important one to farmers. That is the case, not only during war time, the difficulty existed even before the war. It has now been aggravated by war conditions. It has become a serious difficulty affecting our farming, and I realise that we should do all we can to assist the farming industry. Representations were made to me during March and April last year asking me to put a stop to the recruiting of coloured men from the farming districts for military service. Since then, since March and April, one step after another has been taken at the request of the farmers themselves to improve the condition and to put a stop to the recruiting and in the end, in September last, a measure was passed and instructions were given in all the districts concerned, that no coloured man of any kind was to be recruited from those districts, whether he was employed on a farm or whether he was not a farm labourer—it was simply stated that none of them were to be recruited in those districts, because the people were drifting from the farms to the towns, and from farm to farm, and from the one town to the other, so that it was very difficult to take effective steps unless there was a total prohibition against recruiting in those districts. That was in September last, as I have already said. As I informed the House on a previous occasion, there was a total prohibition against the recruiting of all coloured men in those districts, namely, Bredasdorp, Caledon, Ceres, Malmesbury, Montagu, Paarl, Robertson, Somerset West, Stellenbosch, Swellendam, Tulbagh, Wellington, Worcester, Calitzdorp, George, Knysna, and Ladismith. Those are the principal farming districts and in the wheat districts of the Province particularly there is a total prohibition against the recruiting of coloured men. For the other districts in the Province, a different kind of prohibition has been issued. It is not a complete prohibition, but, in view of the need for farm labour, I have laid it down that a certificate from the magistrate must be produced that a coloured man who is recruited shall not have been employed on a farm during the last six months, or shall not have been resident in one or other of the districts in which the prohibition is in force.

Does that refer to coloured people only, or also to natives?

I am dealing now with coloured people; I shall come to natives later on. I am explaining the position, because I want the House to understand that anything that could possibly be done to put a stop to it has been done. In all the wheat districts not one single coloured man is being recruited today—not one. The only place where coloured people are still being recruited at all in the whole of the Province, is here in the Cape Peninsula.

That exactly is where the trouble comes in.

And even here a certificate has to be produced from the magistrate that the coloured man has not been engaged on farm labour for the last six months, or that he has not come from one of those districts to which the prohibition applies. My hon. friend in his speech said that that instruction had been issued, but that it was not being carried out. I simply cannot accept that.

I said that these coloured people have more than one alias.

Yes, the hon. member said that the coloured people changed their names. There are difficulties connected with it in special circumstances, and I do not deny that there is a certain amount of evasion of the regulation, but instances of that kind are the exception. Whatever can be done on the part of the Government to stop recruiting in this Province is being done. Now, hon. members ask me whether I cannot send back the coloured men who are already on active service, and who want to return to work on the farms? I am almost prepared to give that undertaking. If I can get an assurance that those people will really go and work on the farms, then I am almost prepared to give that undertaking. I consider this question of production to be so serious that I shall be prepared to do so.

My coloured men want to come, and I shall give you their names.

I shall have those cases looked into to see whether I cannot assist there. I am taking this matter very seriously. I can quite understand how the farmers feel about the matter, and if the coloured men who are on active service are prepared to return, and if I know that they will return to the farming districts, I shall be pleased to assist. The hon. member further suggested that we should reduce the grants to the families of the coloured men who have joined up. The objections to that suggestion are very considerable, and I shall tell the House why. I take it that the grants and allowances which we pay the families of the coloured men who have joined up, so far as farm labourers are concerned, are perhaps too high. I accept that, but we cannot differentiate between the man who comes from the farming districts and the man who has been recruited in Cape Town, the man who perhaps was employed in industry, or was a skilled artisan, who used to earn very much more here in Cape Town than we are paying him in the Army. We know the conditions prevailing here. A large proportion of the coloured population are employed in industrial concerns; they come under the Wage Act and Wage determinations which are on a fairly high scale and the scale we pay in the Army and the allowances which we pay do not amount to as much as what they used to get in their industrial employment before they joined up. I say that animated by a praiseworthy spirit of patriotism hundreds of these people gave up their employment in garages, business concerns and other places where they received more pay and joined the Army: We cannot draw a line between the coloured men coming from the farms—whose wages were smaller— and the coloured men coming from the Cape Peninsula who drew a higher wage before going into military service. We cannot differentiate between them; and the suggestion made by the hon. member that we should reduce the allowances is asking us to do something we cannot do. On the contrary, strong representations are made to me every day asking me to increase the allowances, because the families of these people here in the Cape Peninsula cannot come out on the allowances they get from the Army, and they cannot live in the way they used to do. Well, I have not given way to the pressure which is being brought to bear on me, but I mention it to prove how difficult it will be to go in the opposite direction and to pay less than we do now. The hon. member also suggested that we should put a stop to the drift of coloured people from one district to another, and that we should send back those who had already moved away. The hon. member knows that we cannot do a thing like that in this country. The law does not allow us to do so.

But the Emergency Regulations are applied to the farmers. Why cannot we apply those Emergency Regulations to the coloured people too?

I feel this is a difficult question and it is becoming more and more difficult. I have for a long time been enquiring into the question whether I cannot get over it by using the prisoners of war. We have a large number of prisoners of war in the country, men who in other countries are used for ordinary labour. The Geneva Convention allows prisoners of war to be used for ordinary work which is not in any way connected with military operations. I am getting over the difficulties of the situation but I do not know to what extent I shall be able to assist the farmers. It is quite possible that the other industries may be assisted, and that in that way the farmers may also be assisted. If it were possible for us to distribute the prisoners of war who are willing to work, among the farmers, we would be able to assist them in that way. If I can get over the difficulties with the assistance of the Farmers Associations, I shall be pleased to do so. The difficulty up-country is a different one, because we have the natives there. There the difficulties are not as great as they are in these parts where we have to deal with coloured labour. Up-country we have large supplies of native labour, a larger supply than here. There is no doubt that the trouble is greatest here. I am as well acquainted with farming conditions up-country as I am with farming conditions in these parts, and in certain respects I am even more familiar with conditions in the Interior. I know that although there are difficulties about obtaining adequate farm labourers, the position is not as serious there as it is here. We can manage to get along up North, although not as well as we used to in the past, but we cannot have everything we want in war time, we have to make some sacrifices, whether we like it or not.

Or when we are compelled to.

It is not a case of being compelled to, but there is no doubt that the amenities which we are enjoying during war time, in spite of all the difficulties resulting from war conditions, are fairly considerable, and that we have always been able so far to get over our troubles fairly easily, and that we have suffered less, so far as our farming conditions are concerned, than most other countries. I should like to see all the difficulties which still exist removed. If the use of prisoners of war offers a solution of the difficulty for the farmer then I shall use all my efforts in that direction. Negotiations are going on partly here and partly in London. As hon. members know the bulk of those prisoners of war come from the North and we have taken them over from the British Government. The Geneva Convention renders certain negotiations and agreements necessary, and we are dealing with the matter. I can assure the House that I am taking this matter very seriously, because it is a serious question, and I shall be very glad if I am able to assist the farmers, not only for the sake of the farmers themselves, but also for the sake of the position of the country and of our war effort. The more we produce here to secure our own position so that we shall have enough food for ourselves and also perhaps to help other countries with what they require, the better it will be for us and the better it will be for the world. Both from a local point of view and from an international point of view I want to see the farmers assisted in every possible way to make the maximum effort and to have the greatest possible success with their work. I shall not be wanting, in my efforts to help them, but I want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that the position is a difficult one and that there are many things which cannot be done at the moment. There are a few other points which I should have liked to have touched on but in order to give effect to the agreement we have arrived at, I want to move—

I second.

Mr. Speaker, I am in favour of any sound scheme for assisting people to save money, and I am fully in favour of any scheme which is sound and good to assist as many people as possible to acquire their own homes. For this reason I feel that the building societies of this country have rendered a very great service because for the past sixty years they alone practically have been carrying on business in this way, and have enabled thousands upon thousands of people to acquire their own homes. I think the fact that people desire to own their own homes is a good thing from the point of view of the stability of the country, because a man who owns property and especially a man, who owns his own home, is a responsible citizen. It is a very natural desire for a man to set foot upon his own property when the day’s work is over. I would like to see provision for housing in this country expanded along sound lines. As I say. I look forward to the day when every family will live on their own property, but so far as this Bill is concerned, I am not satisfied with it. I do not believe it will go very far towards achieving that end, and I think that it contains a number of points which are very disadvantageous. The hon. Minister of Finance stated the other day in the course of this debate, that he was opposed to the Burnside Bill introduced last year by the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside), because it covered several municipalities in this country, or it would have covered the case of several municipalities. He said he was not opposed to this Bill because it was confined to Durban only. Last year the hon. member for Umbilo introduced a Bill, which was designed to cover eleven or thirteen municipalities in this country. Now, whether this Bill is going to rest with Durban only is another matter entirely, because when the hon. member for Stamford Hill (Mr. Acutt) asked in this debate the other day how it was that Durban was the only municipality, which wanted a savings bank in order to go in for a housing scheme, the hon. member for Umbilo immediately interjected by saying that Durban was not the only town which wanted it. The hon. member for Umbilo having been the introducer of that Bill must know a good deal more than other hon. members and I submit that it is clear that as soon as this Bill has been granted to Durban we shall have other municipalities coming forward and asking for similar powers. So it is not a matter of granting this to Durban only. There are probably eleven or twelve municipalities, which are going to present private Bills — at least they will try to get them introduced here. The hon. Minister also said that while he had no objection to these powers being given to Durban he did not agree that similar powers be given to other municipalities.

Why?

The Minister said so. I say this, that if we grant these powers to Durban I cannot see how we can refuse to grant similar powers to any other municipality. How can we split hairs and refuse it to others? We shall have a plethora of Bills from the other municipalities, which will want something similar “for the poor working man”.

Well, why not?

Now what is going to happen if Durban asks for the £2,000,000 limit in the Bill to be increased to £5,000,000 or £6,000,000; and what is going to happen if a number of municipalities having engaged in this business, all want extended facilities. This type of business is going to become a very serious matter in competition with the established building societies, and that is why, as the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Trollip) said, the building societies oppose this Bill. Not on the ground of the Durban Bill itself, but because of what this Bill will lead to, what is ahead of us. Now, are we going to consider the Bill in the light of the bigger aspect of similar rights being asked for by other municipalities, and I submit that we must consider it in the bigger light that other municipalities will also come forward. Now, let us come back to the position of Durban itself. It is evident from the record of the Select Committee and from what has been said, that this measure has experienced an extremely rough passage in the course of its career extending over eighteen long years. It has experienced ups and downs—more downs than ups, in the City Council of Durban—it has been thrown out by the Provincial Council of Natal. The Treasury and the previous Minister of Finance were opposed to it, and one cannot ignore the fact that there has been considerable opposition to a measure of this nature. We are told that Ratepayers Association wanted this, but as far as I can ascertain the only Ratepayers Association was the Point Ratepayers Association.

Who said that?

Someone said it in this debate. Then we had rather a good test recently in Durban in February. Only a few weeks ago, when there was a by-election — rather an unusual thing to have in these days when elections are suspended. If one peruses the manifestos of the three candidates, there is not a word about this important Bill, and surely, if these candidates attached the great importance to this Bill, which it is represented they do, they would have said something about it. But there is not a word about it. In fact, they said nothing about it. The Bill has not yet been passed…

With Hoggenheimer fighting it you may be able to hold it up.

There is no question of Hoggenheimer. One of the candidates in this particular election said his principal objective was to win the war. The other candidate had as his principal plank the Social Security Code. So one must ask oneself whether the people of Durban want this Bill or not, and I submit that on that argument everything is against the promoters of this Bill. Then we come to the third point, whether it is desirable that local authorities should engage in this kind of businessbanking and lending money—or whether they should not keep to their more orthodox type of business, raise long-term loans, improve the conditions for their citizens, and attend to the necessary public functions. This point requires consideration and I feel it is not desirable that local authorities should be granted these powers. Now I have heard it said that this Bill, if passed, will be made an immediate success, and I was in consequence rather interested in Durban’s one essay into banking. In 1915 it established a Native Bank, and in the evidence before the Select Committee I see that twentyseven years later the total funds amounted to £1,000, spread over three branches. I imagine it must be very expensive to have only £1,000 spread over three branches. But let us take this point further. I want to refer to the report for 1938—’39 of the Post Office Savings Bank, and to point out what the Post Office Savings Bank has done in regard to native savings. We find a very different story. Ten years ago there were 32,000 natives depositing £313,000, an average of £9 15s. per head. Ten years later this number of 32,000 depositors had increased to 215,516 with an amount of £1,806,691. It is very significant that the average sum per head remained fairly close to the original figure, namely, £8 7s. 8d. Now this is an indication that the native has become conscious of saving money. When one considers such an enormous increase in the post office savings bank it goes to show that the native has become saving-conscious, and then we find that Durban’s effort has attained the enormous sum of £1,000 accumulated in three branches.

What is the point?

The point is this: the municipality is seeking certain increased powers, and we have an example of what Durban has accomplished.

But what is your objection to the Bill?

Surely I am showing that. Now the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Trollip) the other day in this debate referred to the fact that opponents of the Bill regarded it as an objection that the City Council is mistrusted, and he went on to say in support of the Durban Council that the Council had been entrusted with £13,000,000 of public savings and approximately £500,000 of Government housing money. A little later he made the statement that the Council had built and financed the building of 729 economic houses costing £866,000 and that they had administered these bonds smoothly and had never lost a penny. I do not want to go into too much detail, but I just want to review the question of housing carried out under the Central Housing Board’s Scheme. Economic Housing Schemes fall under two headings—applicable not only to Durban alone, but to other municipalities as well. The first is a loan of 80 per cent. of the value of land and buildings. The money is lent to individuals for the purpose of enabling them to purchase land and put up buildings. The second is a different plan. The municipality puts up the building and then lets it to the individual or sells it on a hire purchase basis for the full price. Now with regard to the first, that is, where the purchaser is entitled to select his own piece of ground and put up his own building and then obtain 80 per cent. of the cost of buildings and land by way of loan. Now, when we review this scheme, the report of the Central Housing Board gives in detail the borrowings of twenty-one different local authorities, and then lumps the remaining one hundred and seventy eight local authorities together. At the top of the list we find Pinelands, which has had £336,854 for the erection of 404 houses, and at the bottom of the list is Glencoe in Natal with £21,486 for thirty-seven houses. And in this list of twenty-one different local authorities we find the following: Pinelands, Bloemfontein, Pretoria, Cape Town, Springs, Roodepoort, Maraisburg Vereeniging, Krugersdorp, Benoni, Brakpan, East London, Potchefstroom, Pietersburg, George, Kroonstad, Ficksburg, Witbank, Mafeking, Port Elizabeth, Germiston, and concluding with Glencoe. Durban does not figure in the list at all. Durban is one of the also rans included among the 178 local authorities, so obviously any amount, which Durban may have borrowed, must be less than £21,000. If Durban is so very keen on building houses, why should not Durban figure above a little place like Glencoe? As I say, Durban figures among the also rans. This type of loan enables a man to borrow money, to buy his own land and call for tenders for putting up a building and so on. In this respect the Durban Municipality becomes not a “money lender” as someone alleged of the building societies, but a money lending agent. It is precluded from charging more in interest than it pays to the Housing Board, so apparently it is impossible for the Durban Municipality to recover the cost of administration, and this type of business must be run at the expense of the municipality itself. It has certainly given me a shock to find that Durban does not appear in this section at all. Now let me deal with the second category—the type of loan or rather business, where the Durban Municipality sells the property on the hire purchase system lending 100 per cent.

What is the 100 per cent.?

Under this scheme there is a very different state of affairs. We find that among the towns which have erected more than 100 houses under this section Durban figures second. We find Port Elizabeth at the top of the list with £567,662 for the erection of 1,051 houses. Durban has borrowed £472, 312 for the erection of 429 houses. I have a list giving all the details, but I don’t want to weary the House with a conglomeration of figures.

I would not if I were you.

Now, it is well known that in providing such a loan the Durban Corporation has the full say, and the question arises: “Where does the land come from on which the Durban Municipality has built these houses?” Where does that land come from? It is probably land they have acquired years ago.

What does that matter?

How do we know it has not been acquired for a string of beads from some Zulus?

What nonsense!

Oh, no; it is not nonsense. That is an important feature to remember when I give the House some figures of relative costs.

It’s no use doing that; we cannot check them.

I am astounded to find that of the ten municipalities which erected more than 100 houses in the twenty years from 1920 to 1940.

What are you astounded at?

I am astounded that the average loan for dwellings in Durban works out at £1,101, as against £704 for houses in a suburb like Pinelands, which is only a few miles from this House.

You cannot compare that with Durban.

No; you cannot the average loan in Durban works out at twice as much as loans in Port Elizabeth and Cape Town, and nearly twice as much as the average loan in Pinelands, a wellappointed township, where homes are erected in most congenial surroundings, and no non-Europeans may own property.

What has that to do with the Bill?

The interesting feature is this: I have tried to ascertain what the costs are in Durban, as compared with other places, and the only basis I could find reasonable is a room basis. By taking the number of respective rooms there is an extraordinary result. In terms of rooms, the average room in Durban has cost £297, whereas the average room in Pinelands works out at £167, a difference of £130 per room.

Ah! But what size are they?

The houses in Pinelands probably contain better rooms.

You are talking through your hat.

Yes, I suppose the hon. member is rather uncomfortable about Durban’s cost figures.

Is that not an added reason for this Bill?

But what are you trying to establish?

This. It seems to me an extraordinary state of affairs that the cost of the building in Durban should be so much higher. Within reasonable limits I could understand it, but I do not think hon. members will agree that £130 per room is reasonable.

Is that the fault of the Durban Municipality?

I am coming to that.

You have been coming to a lot of things, but you have never got there.

It seems to me there is something radically wrong with the arrangement in Durban for building these houses.

That is why you should support the Bill.

And it seems that they have succeeded in building a number of houses at an unduly high cost, compared with other towns.

What is the argument?

In Durban it works out at practically twice the amount, compared with elsewhere.

But what do you want to prove by that?

What I am getting at is that it costs Durban practically twice what it costs the municipalities inland. I do not see, further, why the cost in Durban should be so very much higher than it is here in Cape Town.

Who told you all these things?

I challenge hon. members to dispute these figures; they are taken from the Housing Report. It may be said that the land was bought long ago.

Why don’t you come to the Bill?

It is said that the Durban Corporation is making a great deal of money out of selling houses, and it looks to me as if that is probably the reason for these very high costs.

Who gets the benefit of the high prices?

Probably Durban.

The citizens of Durban.

And who has to pay? The poor working man. I do not want hon. members to misunderstand me. As I have said before I have a great deal of sympathy for a sound scheme.

When did you say you had sympathy for a sound scheme — if you have you have not shown it.

I said so at the outset when the hon. member was not in his seat. Now let us see what has happened in the case of non-Europeans. We find a very similar state of affairs there. We find that the average loan per house in Cape Town is £292 as against the average in Durban of £600 and in terms of rooms in Cape Town the average cost is £70 whereas in Durban it is £177.

Are these Europeans?

No, I am referring to nonEuropeans now. The same state of affairs exists and I think the promoters of this Bill should explain why costs in Durban are so much higher. The hon. member for Brakpan says in support of this measure that Durban had in the vicinity of 300 or 400 more applications than could be granted. I am sure the hon. member for Brakpan knows full well that applications often considerably exceed the numbers that can be granted, and that a considerable number do not come up to the required standard of loans. Hon. members have also seen the memorandum which has been circulated.

What has all this to do with the Bill?

I am coming to that.

What, again!

I now come to the Housing Board’s sub-economic schemes. I have an extract here from an interview which the hon. member for Durban, Point (Dr. Shearer) gave to a representative of the “Natal Mercury” on the 21st February, 1939, in which he says—

Now the hon. member for Durban, Point was not quite correct because the report of the Housing Committee shows that the Durban Municipality had borrowed £235,000 in round figures; but it is very interesting to note that as aginst what Durban has borrowed, Port Elizabeth has borrowed £1,364,000 — a municipality which is about one-third the size of Durban and has borrowed more than five times the amount. Continuing the hon. member said—

That is why I am moving the Bill.

I quite agree that the position in Durban is more than tragic, and I am just wondering how Durban, when it has failed to take advantage of the facilities which other towns have taken advantage of, can expect this Bill to do much for it. I cannot for the life of me see what advantage this Bill is going to be to Durban.

That is not the only thing you cannot see.

The question arises whether Durban is anxious to build houses, is anxious to meet this demand for houses, or whether behind this Bill there is another idea. The Bill as now presented to the House is a different measure to the one which the Durban Corporation framed. In the Bill which was first introduced in the House, the Durban Corporation only wanted to allocate 25 per cent. of the money for housing loans.

Why?

That is what I would like to know. Durban wanted 30 per cent. of the money to play with, and only wanted 25 per cent. for housing; but the Select Committee in its wisdom has seen fit to alter that, to eliminate the 30 per cent. altogether, and to bring the amount for housing up to 75 per cent.

And Durban is very pleased.

Durban may be very pleased, and I am glad to hear it, because it is a very substantial change in the Bill. I wish the Minister of the Interior would cause some investigation to be made into the high cost of property in Durban. The hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Trollip) told us that he was a director of a building society, and he was critical of what he termed the “little” loans recently issued by the building societies.

I didn’t call them “little” loans, do you call £72,000 a little loan?

You did. I have quoted Hansard. I have looked at the balance sheet of the Pan Areas Building Society, of which the hon. member is a director, and it rather reminds me of the firm of solicitors, Smith, Smith, Smith and Smith. The Trollip family appears to be well represented. A. E. Trollip is a Director. The auditors are Peter McDonald, Wells and Trollip, and the attorneys Trollip, Solomon and Joubert.

Something to be proud of.

I agree.

Then what is your point?

The hon. member for Brakpan in criticising these “little” loans quoted one granted to he Natal Mercury of £70,000. I see that his society has £107,000 in mortgages, including one for over £15,000 on 20 vacant stands in Brakpan—a single loan of £15,000—according to 1941 accounts. The Natal Building Society, which is a very well known and highly respected institution in Durban, and of which Durban is extremely proud, also produced a 1941 balance sheet revealing mortgages exceeding £5,000,000 and amongst the loans exceeding £5,000 I cannot find one enumerated which reaches £10,000. The hon. member for Brakpan knows, and I think hon. members of this House also know, that building society policy has been to cater for the small loans. It has only been in recent years through the abundance of money and in order to deal with deposits, that the societies have been forced to grant bigger loans. In the evidence of the Select Committee it was shown that in the case of seven of the leading building societies in Durban, there were no fewer than 33,341 persons owing them £16,900,000, making an average of approximately £500 per borrower. That does indicate that building societies put all their money into big loans. I know, the hon. member for Brakpan knows, and so does anybody who knows building society practice, that these societies much prefer the small loan. They would rather lend thousands of people small loans than one big loan. But this is the position under the Act: A building society is obliged to put the whole of its deposit money into mortgages: and if it cannot find mortgages it cannot take deposits and if the societies cannot take deposits, people cannot save money. There you get the sequence straight away. Furthermore these societies have to issue £1 in shares for every £3 deposited. I want to analyse the Natal Mercury Loan of £70,000. It represents 48 per cent. of the value of the property, which is good business. It has enabled the Society to accept £70,000 in deposits, which otherwise could not have been accepted. And the Society has been obliged to issue shares to the value of £23,333. The loan has therefore created saving facilities amounting to £93,333. This is surely meritorius, and all the more so when one considers that there is great difficulty in getting investments today, because more money is available than people know what to do with. The hon. member for Brekpan also raised the point that it was the intention of the Durban Corporation to borrow money at 2½ per cent. and lend it at 31 per cent., there being a three-quarter per cent. margin. The Natal Building Society had a very unfortunate experience in 1931—’32, when money was being shipped out of this country at a very rapid rate, and when one could not even get a loan from a bank against the security of a bank fixed deposit receipt. The Society, although absolutely solvent, found itself short of cash, and unable to raise money against its securities. The trouble arose because 100 per cent. of its money was in short term deposits, and that upset the equilibrium. [Time limit.]

I had not intended speaking on this Bill, as I feel that the Bill speaks for itself, and the condition in which the country finds itself also speaks for the Bill. I do not believe therefore that there is any great necessity to commend it, but I do want to say something about the speech of the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. Bell). I really believe that if we were to ask him what he had said against the Bill he would not be able to tell us. He has not referred to one single instance where the Bill is wrong in principle, and it is the principle particularly which we have to deal with this afternoon. A brand new principle is being created here, namely, whether we are going to allow a co-operative spirit or a co-operative institution to be created in the municipality between the municipality and the citizens of the town; whether they are going to co-operate in the first instance for the extension of the town; whether they are going to co-operate for the improvement of the town. And if we accept that principle that there must be a co-operative relationship between them we have to accept the fact that something has to be created to enable them to give effect to that principle, and I say that that is the underlying principle of the Bill which we are dealing with here. We admit in the first instance that the great need today is for housing, and that we should harness all our forces in the State to supply proper housing to all members of the community. The second thing we feel is essential is that all citizens must devote their minds to this question, and that the goodwill of the citizens as a whole must be obtained to solve the burning question of the scarcity of houses in the country. The building societies control an amount of about £70,000,000 in the country, and we want to admit today that they have done good work. The building societies, first of all, charged a certain rate of interest and only afterwards, when some other building society reduced the rate of interest, did they get a fright and say: “Now, we are also going to reduce our rate of interest.” To my mind there never was proper cooperation between the building societies and the real need there was for housing. I think the tendency of the building societies was more in the direction of eventually developing as financial houses, and today the building societies are really in this position, as stated by the chairman of the building societies, that they are saddled with an amount of £3,000,000; they cannot invest the money because they say there is no demand for their money; while there is a crying need for housing, there is no demand for money. But he also says that their business is really somewhat beyond the small man, and when we asked him for a definition of a small man he said he meant the man who had £2,500. We now find that the Durban Municipality wants to provide for the needs of the small man who is worth less than £2,500. The principle also covers other ground. As your Town Council provides houses, so it provides work for people in a municipal area, and as the town expands, so the whole town benefits from the taxpayer who is a settled property owner. I fail to see therefore on what ground the principle contained in this Bill can be opposed. Another point has been made, and that is that if one gives Durban this privilege, it may eventually have to be extended to other municipalities. Now, I want to ask why not? Such an excellent and sound principle should exist in every municipality. I say that if the building societies really stand for the principle for which they were created, namely, to provide the population with houses, they would welcome this Bill, this attempt which is being made by Durban. I am satisfied that the principle of this Bill is entirely sound, and that the co-operative system which is being encouraged in our rural areas to assist the richer man to invest his money and look after the housing of the poor man, is a sound principle in the Bill, and should be supported by us. I wish the promoter of this Bill success in his efforts; I wish him the success he deserves, and I wish him luck. And I wish him and his predecessors the luck they deserve in having managed to get this Bill to its present stage.

Under ordinary circumstances, a private Bill can fairly be left to the judgment of the Select Committee dealing with it, and those who are interested in the subject matter raised can form a judicial opinion upon the weight of the evidence, one way or the other, but there are certain features about this Bill which force me to the conclusion that it cannot be disposed of on such lines. This is not to be treated as a private fight between a number of building societies and a municipality, or municipalities generally. The issue, as I see it at any rate, is one which is much more far-reaching and raises questions of very considerable principle, and it is impossible to deal with it on the lines of the evidence laid before the Select Committee. This question is one really which affects not only the municipality of Durban, which it purports to do, but affects all municipalities, and therefore affects municipal government. It is really a proposal to enlarge quite considerably what his hitherto been regarded as the sphere of activity of a municipality. I gather from what I have read that it is an open question whether or not an ordinance passed through the Provincial Council would enable the powers which are here contemplated, to be given. I can express no opinion upon that at all, but the fact that this question has been before the Provincial Council, has been before past governments and has been before municipalities, makes me think that it is unfortunate that this matter should be brought before this House as a private measure, and particularly as it is raised not as a question affecting all municipalities, but as a question which is affecting Durban alone. I wish profoundly at the outset to express my dissent. This Bill is proposing to enlarge what has been hitherto conceived as the sphere of municipal enterprise by the starting of a savings bank, so called, into which deposits are to be invited from all persons. All the proceeds, after the cash in reserve has been provided for, the whole of the balance is to be invested in the putting up of buildings in the municipality of Durban alone. It is a somewhat curious position. The municipality of Durban alone is to be the place where the houses are to be erected, but the invitation is to everybody to deposit money. Well, now, this is either going to be a success or a failure. If, of course, it is a failure, the Bill falls away. I assume, therefore, that it is going to be a success, and that the municipality is going to obtain the benefit of £2,000,000, and a very substantial amount of it will be put into a number of houses within the municipality. If that is a success, and that end is attained, is the experiment going to stop at Durban?

I hope not.

I accept the statement from my hon. friend. I understand that has really been behind the policy of this Bill for a very long time. I accept that statement as being indicative of the impulse which is behind the promoters of this Bill. In other words, if the hon. member is correct and this policy does not stop here; the principle of this Bill is going to be extended to other municipalities, and the hon. member says he hopes that it will. This, therefore, seems to me to be a confession, well, I won’t say a confession but an acknowledgment of the fact that the object of the real promoters of this Bill is not merely to deal with Durban, but to enlarge the whole ambit of municipal enterprise. If the promoters of the Bill are pioneers, that is, the confirmation of the point which I am making, that this is a pioneer movement which is to be extended to all municipalities, and if that is so, it is surely radically wrong that this should be introduced first of all as a private measure; and, secondly, that it should be introduced ostensibly as only involving the municipality of Durban. If they are really pioneers, and if their object is to expand this principle, and I at once accept that it is their object, then the proper way to do this is by a public measure and one which is going to take the form of an enabling Bill to apply to the whole of the municipalities. If this Bill is a success in Durban, I think it is beyond question that somebody or other, some powerful group, public or otherwise, some movement, some school of thought, will be responsible for extending the same to Johannesburg, to Cape Town and all the other municipalities. Therefore, the whole of the argument, and there was a good deal of argument and evidence laid before the Select Committee, devoted to a consideration of the £2,000,000, goes by the board, and the question, from its financial side is one which involves not £2,000,000 contemplated by this Bill, but financial commitments expanded to all the municipalities on a corresponding scale, and the more successful the scheme is the greater will be the financial commitment. From the simple acknowledgment of my hon. friend that he hopes that what I am saying will take place, the House has got to look at this thing not as a private Bill dealing with Durban alone, but a measure of vast public importance which is intended radically to change the ambit which has hitherto been accepted for municipal enterprise. Now, sir, if we once strip the Bill of its trappings as a private measure, and strip it of the limitation because of its application to a single municipality, surely my submission to this House should be accepted categorically that a private Bill must be ruled out and this matter should be pursued as a public measure, which has been considered by all the municipalities and by all the provincial councils, before it comes to this House in its proper setting. The history of the activities of the promoters of this Bill, which is set out in the earlier pages of the report of the Select Committee, shows that this is not a movement suddenly undertaken, not a movement which is applicable only to the affairs of the day, but is part and parcel of a movement which has been going on for many years, and in which the promoters have adopted the process of by-passing the Provincial Council and launching their measure before Parliament under the guise of a mere private Bill, a mere dispute between a number of building societies and a municipality, and under a guise designed to hide the real effect of the measure. I take the strongest exception to that; I do not think that is the proper way to approach the matter, or the proper way in which this House should consider it. We have a great deal of history behind our municipal enterprise, and a number of members of this House, myself included, have given a good deal of attention at one time or another to municipal self-government. Many members of this House have had personal experience of it as councillors, and presiding over the destinies of different towns. I think it will be admitted that one of the difficulties in municipal life is the difficulty of obtaining men who combine public spirit and experience, and can give the time to the multiferious occupations which fall to the lot of a councillor. I know from the evidence which I have listened to, that that has been the fact, at any rate, in the Province of the Transvaal. If that be so, we should consider what direction the addition of further activities and responsibilities is going to have on municipal government as a whole. I remember some years ago there was a considerable movement to do away with the principle of elections, and to ask the Government to appoint a city manager in the different municipalities at a considerable salary, and we had to consider the principle of that proposal. I myself was strongly against it, and I am strongly against it at the present day. I believe in the principle of election. I believe in the principle of popular control. I am face to face with this, and I think every one who has tackled that problem is faced with that, that it is difficult and it is becoming increasingly difficult to get the type of man who understands business and who has the necessary time to go on to Town Councils. And we are now drifting in the direction of getting people on to Councils who can afford to give their time, but who have not got the experience which is so desirable. I do not say that that is universal, but I put that forward as a tendency at the present time. With that tendency there is a corresponding tendency to throw responsibility on the paid servants of the Town Council. Your great public servants, like the Town Engineer, the Town Clerk, and the Town Treasurer, have to undertake a lot of responsibility; they have to take the initiative, in regard even to policy as well as in regard to detail. And that is significant of the present-day development. To allow that to continue and to intensify is to substitute for real selfgovernment in municipal affairs a bureaucracy, and a bureaucracy which is so established that it is increasingly difficult to bring the responsibility home to the real man who is responsible for the policy or the action. I personally regret that tendency. I think it is a tendency which is serious, and which, if not overtaken or checked, will lead us inevitably in the long run to substitute for our election method a procedure something of a nominated or appointed commission of control. Now, what is proposed in this Bill? If this Bill is adopted for Durban and copied in the other municipalities throughout the Union, we are going to have tacked on to the present responsibility of members of, the Town Council the whole responsibility for what is a vast banking concern—perhaps I should not say vast—but let me say a large banking concern, and a large building enterprise which will compare with the building enterprise of many building societies. To overtake that, to find the men who, themselves elected, can go into detail in business of this kind, is not only a very hopeful and ambitious idea but it is one which there is no evidence to corroborate and to lead us to the conclusion that it can be achieved, and I can only say that in my opinion to add this vast burden to the present responsibilities of members of a Town Council is going to render the bureaucracy of the municipality more and more independent of the elected body, and is going to discourage the men engaged in active responsibilities going in for municipal life. I regret that myself and that is one of the reasons why I think that this measure should not be adopted under the guise of a private Bill as affecting one municipality. I say that these issues should be soberly weighed up— they should be weighed up and considered most carefully before we commit ourselves to a matter of this kind.

Will you undertake on behalf of the Government to bring in a measure?

Oh, no, it is not a Government measure at all. I regret that I have to deal with this as a private Bill and I regret this Private Bill. I am not committing myself to this policy. I am opposing it. I think that this is going in a direction which is designed to undercut the basis on which our municipal self government is founded. That is the view which I take. In this case we have not only not consulted the other municipalities—I am basing that statement on what I understand from the evidence before the Select Committee, but they have been left out. They have not been consulted because it was not thought that they were interested. The fact that the other municipalities of the Union are not interested in the sense that they do not want to participate is a very telling circumstance. If it is really attractive, and it does sound attractive for Durban, to have a couple of millions to build an increasing number of houses, to bring in additional rent payers and ratepayers—if it is attractive there, surely it would be attractive to other municipalities and it would mean that we are going to have a movement of population from country to town, we are going to have a movement for the further aggregation of these ratepayers. That opens another vista winch we should consider before accepting this Bill. It is calculated to accentuate the flow of population from the country to the town.

Why not?

I see. You want that. I thought you wanted this for 500 people. The promoters of this Bill are not interested in building houses elsewhere, they are only interested in building houses within the municipal limits of Durban, and if that principle is adopted it will apply to other municipalities as well. The principle of this measure, if it is carried through is designed to denude the country districts and get a further conglomoration into the bigger towns, which can undertake building schemes on these lines, and I doubt very much whether the House would put the seal of its approval on such a policy. I think I have made my viewpoint clear and I do not want to do more. There are one or two other features I want to deal with. The financial side of this has repercussions which have been referred to but which I think I must refer to again. Mr. Havenga, when Minister of Finance, set his face against this system of allowing municipalities to have savings banks, to get deposits and to compete in the money market with the national effort which may be made from time to time through the Treasury. In the evidence it was sought to answer that by saying that there was £60,000,000 lying idle in the commercial banks. It does not stop there. And that is not an adequate or an elementary answer to the problem. The question of whether you are going to allow municipalities as a whole to compete with the national effort to collect money not for national causes is not one that is going to be disposed of by a private Bill dealing with an individual municipality; particularly at the present time when we have a war on, and have such tremendous demands being made on everyone to subscribe all we can to the different funds which are launched by the Minister of Finance. It seems to me very unfortunate. It seems very strange that an effort should be launched by the good City of Durban which is apt to have a counter effect and a counter attraction. There is another feature, that is, what effect it will have on man power? If this is going to be successful—and I am only dealing with this on the supposition that it is going to be successful—can the machinery of this considerable institution be set up; can the complicated accounts which are implicit in the Bill be carried out by the existing staff? Of course they cannot? You will want a completely new staff to keep these accounts. You will want considerable new staff in order to do it, and I say at the present time when we are raking through every private enterprise in order to release men who are not keymen—I say that it is a very unfortunate thing to find Durban proposing to set up another institution which is calculated to attract some of these men of military and fighting age who instead of looking after key positions in the City of Durban should be looking after fighting posts up in Libya. It is a very unfortunate thing that the City of Durban is setting out to do this thing at the present time. And when it is suggested that the returned soldier is going to be benefited by this—I say, what nonsense. The returned soldier has to be looked after by the Government, he has to look to the Government and not to municipal enterprise to do the right thing for him, and I protest to any effort to fob off the responsibilities of the Government on any municipality, and if you want to do the right thing by your fighting men you should not make fresh key positions to keep your men there—you should go out and denude your key positions if necessary to send your men away to the fighting front. From these points of view I think it is unfortunate that this Bill was introduced in the way it has been and the setting which it has, and above all I think it is unfortunate that it has been introduced at the present time.

I had not intended intervening in the debate, but I was Chairman of the Select Committee which considered the petition for this Bill, and as the Minister who sits in front of me (the Minister of Mines) has seen fit to throw the weight of his authority against the Bill, perhaps I may be excused if I say a word or two about it. Now, this Select Committee which was appointed to consider this Bill was not a partisan Select Committee. If anything, it may be said that perhaps the majority of that Select Committee, when we began to hear evidence on this Bill, was inclined to be opposed to it. The Select Committee arrived at its decision in favour of the Bill entirely on the evidence led before it, and on the cross-examination of the witnesses which was undertaken by counsel. I do not wish to exaggerate to hon. members the importance of the decision which was arrived at by the Select Committee. I am perfectly aware of the right of the House to reverse the decision if it thinks fit, but I do say that these members of the Select Committee who heard the evidence and who delivered their judgment on that evidence, have at least the right to ask that members of the House should read the report of the Select Committee before they proceed to decide this question in this House this afternoon. There is one point made by the Minister, which, as Chairman of the Select Committee, I think is not fair to the promoters of the Bill. He has used the phrase that by bringing this kind of Bill before the House they have “by-passed” the Provincial Council. Now, what are the facts? The facts are that a previous Bill in favour of a municipal housing scheme was introduced into the House last session by the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside). There was a long debate on the second reading. The suggestion was made that that public Bill should be referred to a Select Committee before the second reading. That was not accepted by the hon. member for Umbilo, and in the end the second reading of that Bill was defeated.

That is not quite what happened.

No. The motion for the adjournment was carried, and the Bill was withdrawn. Now, what happened? During last year, after that Bill had failed to pass this House, the Durban Council actually introduced into the Natal Provincial Council an Ordinance to give the right to Durban as a municipality to start this municipal Savings Bank. Last year, that is, in 1941, after the House had refused to accept the hon. member’s Bill, that was the step taken. And when that Ordinance was introduced into the Natal Provincial Council the law advisers of the Crown submitted to the Administrator the opinion that the Ordinance would be ultra vires the Provincial Council, and on that ground, and on that ground alone, last year, after this House had considered the public Bill, the Ordinance was withdrawn from the Provincial Council. The Durban Council did not hurry to introduce this private Bill. They then went to the Natal Provincial Division of the Supreme Court for a declaratory order that the law advisers were wrong in thinking that the Ordinance was ultra vires, and the Provincial Division of the Supreme Court refused to give them such an order. The Durban Council were not satisfied with that: they went to the Appellate Division and asked them to give a declaratory order to say, in effect, that the law advisers were wrong, and that such a Bill as this in the shape of an Ordinance would be intra vires the Provincial Council of Natal, but again the Appellate Division refused to make such an order.

Not on the merits.

No, but I need not go into that. The attempt to introduce an Ordinance to establish a Municipal Savings Bank in Durban has been completely foiled by the opinion of the law advisers which the courts have refused to interfere with. Therefore, the Municipal Council of Durban have come to this House to ask us to pass the Bill. There was another alternative, and that was to introduce again a public Bill on the same lines as that introduced by the hon. member for Umbilo, and to agree to refer it to a Select Committee before the second reading. And if hon. members will do the Select Committee the honour of reading the evidence taken by them they will find that the Chairman put that to one of the witnesses and asked him “why did you not introduce a Public Bill again and consent to send it to a Select Committee before the second reading?” The reply was that which the Minister has quoted—that there was no real evidence that the other municipalities, apart from Durban, were sufficiently interested in such a Bill to make it justifiable to ask the House of Assembly to pass it. That seems a legitimate reply. And let hon. members not forget that whereas a Public Bill would have cost the Municipality of Durban nothing, this private Bill has cost the municipality a lot of money.

And the Durban ratepayers have to pay for it.

That expenditure of public funds was taken quite deliberately and I think it is a little hard now to blame the City Corporation of Durban for having asked this House to pass this Bill. There is one other point which as Chairman of the Select Committee I should approach. The Minister of Mines has suggested that this Municipal Savings Bank, if established, will be in competition with our national effort and he has reminded the House, quite properly, that when Mr. Havenga was Minister of Finance, the Treasury set their face against any measure of this kind on the ground, no doubt, that the post office savings bank and the saving certificate scheme had to collect a large amount from small people, and it might be possible that such a municipal savings bank as this might get into its coffers money which would otherwise go into public funds— into savings certificates and so on. But I must point out that the present incumbent of the Ministry of Finance does not take the same view as Mr. Havenga took. When our Minister of Finance spoke last year on the hon. member for Umbilo’s Bill he said quite definitely that he did not take the view which his predecessor had taken about this Municipal Savings Bank Bill. He did not take the view that the establishment of such a savings bank would illegitimately trench on Government agencies for promoting thrift. It must be evident that when the Select Committee was appointed to enquire into this Bill it was entirely open to the Minister as representing the Treasury to appear before the Select Committee either in person or by a representative. If he had held any such adverse view about the effect of this Municipal Savings Bank on our national finance, it was his duty to appear before the Committee and give evidence. And I think the Select Committee was entitled to presume that as the Treasury did not intervene in any way …

Why did you not call the Treasury?

Well, Mr. Speaker, I do not know what the ordinary procedure of a Select Committee would be in that regard.

What are you thinking about?

I am merely trying to avoid language which might hurt the feelings of the hon. member. I do not wish to take a partisan line, having been Chairman of the Select Committee. I want to maintain an attitude of fairness, but surely the Select Committee was entitled to presume that if the Treasury thought there would be a serious threat in this Bill to our national finance, surely we were entitled to assume that the Minister of Finance with his department would not wait for their evidence to be called but would regard it as their duty to give evidence.

It would have been much better to have had it on record.

No doubt. If the hon. member had been Chairman of the Select Committee he might have taken a different course, but as a matter of fact we did not take that view. And as I say, my view as chairman—if I may be allowed to put my view to the House— was that it was not for the Select Committee to call the Minister of Finance but that it was for the Minister of Finance, if he desired to interfere, to take the initiative and ask to be called before the Committee. I must leave it to the House whether that attitude was proper or not. I do not wish to go on at any length, but there is one point I wish to deal with and that is that owing to the amendments made to this Bill by the Select Committee this Bill today stands primarily as a housing measure.

Are you sure—I am not.

The hon. member, who was a member of the Select Committee, knows that when this Bill first came into this House there was a provision that 30 per cent. of the proceeds of the deposits might be applied to any purpose the municipality might like to apply them to. The Select Committee cut that provision out.

Yes, we thought so.

It did cut it out. The hon. member does not suggest that there is anything—shall I say “phoney”—about that provision. No, the hon. member knows that the intention was perfectly honest and fair and any balances over the amount of those deposits which have to be kept in cash, or in gilt edged securities—and the amount to be put into gilt edged securities has also been cut down—that the balance shall be put in houses.

There ain’t going to be no balance.

Surely the hon. member realises that when a municipality is provided with funds for the purpose of housing its first instinct will be to put that money into housing.

Its first instinct should be—whether it will be is another question.

Does not the hon. member know that in the case of every housing scheme promoted by the Town Council of Durban that scheme has been heavily over applied for?

That means nothing.

The hon. member for Orange Grove talked about Durban’s housing schemes, but he never pointed out that so content have the ratepayers of Durban been with these housing schemes that the number of applicants has in every case heavily exceeded the number of houses provided for.

Yes, we know all about that, and then the houses fell down.

If the hon. member had read the evidence he must know that that only applied to one of the early schemes, and that since then the City Council of Durban has promoted many housing schemes without a word of criticism, and in every case the approval of the City of Durban, of the people of Durban, was shown by the fact that very many more people applied than there were houses available. Surely hon. members will see that, that being so, and the great bulk of the proceeds of this municipal banking scheme being applicable only to housing, the question before us in this Bill is whether Durban needs these houses, and whether we are going to stand in the way of Durban getting them. That is the essential point. I would put it to hon. members that that really is the point which we have to decide in this Bill. It is said that this scheme will not stop with Durban, and that it will extend to other municipalities. Well, may I again point out to hon. members that the promoters of this Bill never made the least secret of the fact that they regarded themselves as pioneers of Municipal Savings Banks. There was no pretence that, if they succeeded in getting Parliament to approve of this, it would stop there. From the very first moment, when the City Treasurer of Durban gave his evidence, he said: “We are pioneers in this matter; we are confident that we shall make our housing scheme a success, and our Savings Bank a success, and we anticipate that our example will be followed all over the country.” The opponents of the Bill, in my view, gave away the whole principle when they said that they did not mind this small £2,000,000 scheme, their only objection would be if it spread through the country. But, Mr. Speaker, if one objects to the principle of the Bill, then one must object to the small £2,000,000 scheme, just as much as to whether it spreads all over the country. I don’t want to say any more, but I do ask hon. members, when they decide on this Bill this afternoon, not to be led away by what one may call random ideas about the delinquencies of City Councils. If democracy in our country is ever to have a chance of surviving, we must have faith in its institutions, and the fact that occasionally certain of our democratic bodies have stumbled in the past should not make us abandon the experiment, or refuse to increase their powers. It should rather encourage us to give them more responsibility, so that by that responsibility they may learn to carry on our democratic system. To say that you must refuse to allow municipalities to extend their powers in this way, is to my mind to falter in our faith in our democratic system generally, which is obligatory on all of us at the present moment.

Since this Bill has been introduced, the Government has brought in a measure of compulsory saving, and the Minister of Finance has also foreshadowed something of the kind in his Banking Bill. Well, sir, these two measures are going to absorb a great deal of the surplus money that is at present in the country. In addition to that, you have in Durban an abundance of facilities not only for housing, but investment and thrift in other directions. For a Bill of this nature to be successful, you want a larger population than you have in Durban, which cannot be compared with Birmingham. I want to say, sir, that this Bill is by no means a popular measure in Durban. Prior to the last election in 1938, I think the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) brought a Bill into this House, and I think in the Council elections in Durban, it was considered that that particular Bill would not come up again, seeing that it had been rejected by Parliament. In that election which I speak of, out of 32,000 electors only 19,000 voted, and that was partly due to a new sense of security that this Bill would not appear again. I think that accounted for such a poor election. The Bill was not a plank in that election, and as a result of the election there are seven members out of twenty-four opposed to the Bill, and amongst the seven is the Mayor of Durban. To be successful a Bill of this nature must have a sympathetic population behind it, and Durban has not got it. I am well acquainted with Durban, as well acquainted with it as anyone here, and I say without fear of contradiction, that if a plebiscite had been held in regard to this Bill, it would never have seen Parliament. I say that Durban has an abundance of building facilities. Durban is the most important port in the Union, handling a greater tonnage than all the rest of the ports put together; it is the port of embarkation for the Army and for Army stores; it is also a coaling port, and handles all the huge tonnage in the base metal business. Besides all that, Durban has the largest graving dock in the southern hemisphere. The servants of the Railways and Harbours Administration form a considerable slice of the population of Durban, and they have not the slightest interest in this Durban Savings Bill, not the slightest. To refresh your memory, sir, what I consider a most successful housing scheme is now in operation, and that is the scheme which the Railways and Harbours have established. It is most popular, and a large amount of money has been spent on it. Any Railway or Harbour Servant who rents a house and wishes to acquire it makes an application to the Administration; they send an inspector, a qualified man to assess its value and its condition, and, if approved, the house is purchased by the Administration for that Railwayman, without any initial deposit. The Administration naturally safeguards itself in the ordinary way by insurance and so on. All the servant has to do is to sign a stop order on his monthly wages for redemption or repayment. Up to the 31st December, 1941, 1,600 loans had been granted, representing an expenditure of over £1,750,000. I do not say that all this money has been spent in Durban, but Durban has had a large proportion of it. Owing to the war, there has been no curtailment of this scheme, and, in addition, the Railway Administration are launching a scheme for the sub-economic housing of its lower paid men. There is no reason why this scheme should not be as successful as the one I have just described, and Durban, as a Railway and Harbour centre should be well catered for in regard to houses. Let me repeat that the Railway and Harbour Servants have not the slightest interest in this Bill. I would like to read here some questions and answers in the Select Committee’s report. This is a question put to Mr. A. G. Cook—

Mr. Speaker, that class of man never pays his money into any bank, and if the hopes of the City Treasurer are based on the man who goes into the City Hall with money in his pocket, and a bookies’ patron, I am afraid he is leaning on a very broken reed. I was chairman of the Jockey Club executive in Durban for three years, and I had my office in Durban, and I claim that I know something about the racing fraternity. Durban is the racing mecca of South Africa, and racing in Durban is a tremendous business.

On what clause is that in the Bill?

The principal patrons of racing are the wage earners, and I challenge contradiction on that. Durban has two racing clubs, and to show you the enormous amount of money that is expended on these racecourses—I am speaking now of the ordinary monthly meeting and not referring now to the meetings in the season when the July Handicap and other races are held and when a whole lot of Johannesburg money comes to Durban, but I am referring to the ordinary monthly meeting in which Durban money principally is involved.

Are you in favour of racing being restricted?

I am supporting my argument that Durban has not a population to support a bank of this kind. I maintain that the racing patrons have got no time for a municipal bank, but as I was saying, there are two race courses, and to give the House some idea of the volume of money that is circulating on these courses, I tell the House that at a recent meeting of the Clairwood Club on February 28th, the amount that went through the totalisator was £25,981. And whatever amount was passed through the tote, the bookmakers handled at least 30 per cent. more. The totalisator is a cash transaction, very much like going into one of these bazaars, and you have to put your money down before you can get your goods. On the Durban race course, on March 7th, 1942, the amount that passed through the tote was £31,118. One thing which makes these race courses so attractive is the double. In January in Durban there was a double on the totalisator and one humble man and his wife took the one successful ticket, the dividend on which was £2,272. Well, sir, that man and his wife got so fearfully excited that she gave the show away and the police had to escort them off the course.

Order! I am afraid that the hon. member is wandering away very far from the Bill.

As regards the building society, I would like to ask hon. members who are supporting this Bill how many thousands of homes have been built by building societies. The hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Trollip) claims to be a director of one of these societies, and I think that if I were a director of one I would regard myself as a trustee of those whom I represented instead of coming to this House and speaking in a derogatory manner about these societies, institutions that have stood the test of time. The hon. member speaks of them as money-lending concerns. These societies do not only lend money, but they also encourage and assist thrift. They have facilities for saving. They have a scheme whereby a man who pays in £4 a month for 3½ years can draw out £200, and when once a man gets the spirit of saving, he carries it on. He does not lightly put thrift aside. One society in Durban has been operating for the last 50 years. I think it is called the People’s Bank. The functions of a building society are not entirely confined to lending money, because they also do a certain amount of welfare work. The hon. member for Brakpan takes strong exception to big loans granted by the building societies to flat building, but does not the hon. member realise that today we are in a world war of a magnitude never known before, and does he not know that no man today is going to build a home principally because of the increased cost of material, and the fact that materials are not readily forthcoming. These societies, having a large amount of money which they must invest, are obliged to invest it in large sums if small loans are not in demand. We know that the Government came to the assistance of home builders in conjunction with the building societies, and blocks of money were lent at 3½ per cent. under Act 41 of 1937. That Act is not operating today on account of the war, but during the few years it has been in operation 1,643 loans were granted, amounting to £1,745,000. Unfortunately the war has intervened, and the scheme has been in abeyance, but perhaps the war will end much sooner than we think and this Act of 1941 will be in operation again. The hon. member for Point (Dr. Shearer) made a statement here for which, if the hon. member were in his seat, I would have patted him on the back. The point he made was the refusal of hotels and flats to accommodate children. I fully agree with what he said, but it is no use his saying that this House should deal with that matter. The hon. member should approach the Durban Municipality and ask it to double the rates in the case of hotels and flats which refuse to take children. The hon. member stated that during 1932 we had long queues waiting to deposit money at the Birmingham Municipal Bank in England. Shortly before we went off the gold standard, any one who had money in building societies withdrew that money and transferred it to England where it appreciated very considerably in value. Every £100 of South African money that was sent over earned 33 per cent. in England. I know men who withdrew thousands of pounds and sent it over to England. When South Africa went off the gold standard everyone withdrew whatever he had. But all that money come back to South Africa. For every £100 that was sent over £133 came back. Under this Bill I defy any hon. member to show me that if this Bill were passed it would be obligatory for the Durban Corporation to lend a penny for housing schemes.

The Bill says 75 per cent.

If the hon. member, who is a lawyer, reads this section carefully he will see that there is no obligation whatever on the Durban Corporation to loan 1d. for the building of houses. I would like the hon. member for Durban (Point) to tell us how he can say that the Durban population support this Bill. This bank proposed in the Bill aspires to compete against the post office savings bank. Well, sir, in that connection I want to tell the House of a case that occurred on my farm. A native a labour paying tenant. In January he died, and when his affairs were settled I found to my astonishment that this native had over £50 in the Post Office savings bank. I think I have said enough to convince every hon. member in this House that this Bill should not be passed and I hope that in the interest of Durban every member will oppose it.

When last this Bill was before the House in its more general form, I opposed it on two grounds. First of all, I opposed it on constitutional grounds; and, secondly, on practical grounds. Since then I have found nothing which can make me change my views, and I feel it is my duty therefore to point out the position as I see it. I consider there is an important principle involved in this matter so far as the functions and powers of municipal authorities are concerned. I am brought to my feet in a large measure by what the hon. member for Cape Town, Gardens (Mr. Long), said. He made certain references to the position. On a previous occasion, when I put before this House my view in regard to the constitutional position, I referred to certain judgments which had been given, and I referred to the fact that the Provincial Council is part of our constitutional structure, and, so long as our Provincial Councils exist, so long should this House, whose power is, I will admit, paramount, not interfere with anything which properly falls within the jurisdiction of the Provincial Councils. That view is held by the Minister because only on the last occasion when he spoke, he made it perfectly clear that in his view the Government should hesitate to do anything which interfered with the jurisdiction of Provincial Councils. The hon. the Minister of Finance expressed his own personal view, and very carefully guarded himself by stating that he did so not as a lawyer. I think he was a little modest in protecting himself in that way, more particularly in view of the fact that he stated that quite eminent legal opinion supported his view in regard to the matter. Whatever the legal opinion may be of the gentlemen who are the advisers of the Crown, the fact remains that there are certain judgments of our highest judiciary on this very question in regard to the functions of Municipal Councils. On a previous occasion I referred to a case in which judgment was given in 1934, namely, the case of Rex vs. Dickson, where on page 233 the learned judge said—

It is instructed to note that in this case that is referred to, that of the Bloemfontein Municipality vs. the Bosrand Quarries (Pty.), Ltd., the learned judge who delivered judgment, the late Lord De Villiers, said this—

If the English language means anything at all that makes it perfectly clear that any matter which deals with municipal institutions, except insofar as it is repugnant to any Act of Parliament, would be within the jurisdiction of the Provincial Council of legislative force and effect. We have the very example in connection with this case now. We have before the House at the present moment a Banking Bill. If there were anything repugnant in the Banking Bill which would limit or qualify the powers of a Provincial Council, that council could not act; but that Act has not been passed. Under the existing conditions, relying as one is entitled to do on the judgments of our highest courts in the country, I say this is a matter which is properly and correctly within the jurisdiction of the Provincial Council, and I want to take the very argument that the hon. member for Cape Town (Gardens) has given us. He says we should extend the powers of our municipal authorities. Who gives our local authorities its powers? The municipal authorities are given their power by the Provincial Council. Its area is defined by the Provincial Council. Its powers are conferred on it by the Provincial Council. The hon. member says that we should extend those powers. Good, but why should we do it; let it go to the proper body. Why not ask the Provincial Council to extend the powers? Apart from every other consideration, on purely constitutional grounds I say that we should not interfere with any matter which properly falls within the powers and the jurisdiction of the Provincial Council, and I for one will never be a party to anything which I think should be properly and correctly dealt with by a Provincial Council. The second question is purely one of economic grounds. It is either going to be a savings bank or it is going to be a building society. I have already, on a previous occasion—and it has been pointed out so often that I do not want to be guilty of repetition—pointed out that as a savings bank there are already sufficient facilities at the disposal of every man and woman to be able to exercise thrift. There is not a dorp or a town or a part of a city where within reasonably easy distance a man or woman cannot get to a post office savings bank. He can tender his humble shilling and it will be accepted. He can exercise thrift by making any small deposit. There are other institutions which will take money in the same way. From the point of view of seeking opportunity to exercise thrift, this is a matter which leaves me cold, because I say the facilities are there, and the Government, which is directly interested in matters of this kind, places the facilities at the disposal of everyone. The question, then, is in regard to building societies. I think that the matter has already been so fully dealt with by institutions which cater for this type of business that one need not take the matter any further. I think the Hon. the Minister of Finance very correctly used a phrase which illustrates how carefully the public is guarded in so far as building societies are concerned. He stated that they have been put into a strait jacket. They are being controlled. It may not be within the knowledge of every man that if you go to a building society they will give you a loan today for a large or a small amount, so that the facilities there are at the disposal of everyone. But apart from that you can have your mutual building society. I have belonged to one myself. Anyone can do it. I know of men who have been able to acquire their own property, and more than one, because they have used the mutual building society beyond the intention for which the building society was brought into being. Therefore, whatever way I look at it, I say that I can see no need for a Bill authorising this municipality to have certain powers for itself alone. Is that the idea or the intention? The hon. the Minister was very careful on a previous occasion to show that he is dealing only with the municipality of Durban. He said—

Are we then to determine here which of these particular municipalities and other local authorities are to be allowed to have this special privilege? Does it not bring one back to what I said before, that this matter is one properly to be decided upon by the Provincial Council, which governs and regulates and creates the municipal councils? I say that if you are going to open the door here by accepting the principle, you are going to have no end of difficulty as a result of various municipalities claiming the same rights as this municipality. I can see no need for it. I think it is wrong from a constitutional point of view. I cannot see that it is a savings bank, and I can see no advantages which are going to be gained by creating a precedent which is going to be set up in this case, and which it would be very difficult to withhold in the case of other municipalities.

Mr. Speaker, I am satisfied that it would be wrong for me to vote for this Bill … without giving at least some reason for my doing so. The hon. member for Berea (Mr. Hooper) sees in this Bill the handiwork of one, Councillor Smith, known affectionately I understand to a large circle in Durban as Sidney. It seems that the hon. member does not like Sidney. That is of course unfortunate, but it may well be Mr. Speaker that Sidney does not like the hon. member. But these are considerations which seem to me foreign to an impartial consideration of the merits of the Bill. And so I prefer to confine myself to matters rather more relevant to the question into which the House is called upon to enquire. I was particularly impressed with the work of the Select Committee. I was impressed Mr. Speaker with the fact that a Select Committee which included in its personnel four legally-trained minds, an asset for which I have unstinted admiration found the preamble of this Bill proved, and I put myself in this position in relation to the duty that I am called upon to discharge. I asked myself, in the face of that decision, what good grounds could I find for differing from it. That is the way I approached the problem. The House does not need to be reminded that this is a private Bill, and that every member is called upon to exercise independent judgment. I have done that by examining the Bill and the evidence before the Select Committee, and considering the decision of the Select Committee. Having done that I have come to the conclusion that it is right and proper to accord this Bill support. Capital has been made to a very large extent of the fact that by coming to the House the sponsors of the Bill as it is said are interfering with the functions of the Provincial Council. Now, if that were so, let me assure the House that I would be emphatically opposed to the Bill; but I do not take that view. I had intended to tell the House of the various steps which had previously in this matter been taken by the sponsors, how they had in the first instance submitted the matter to the Provincial Council, of the decision of the Provincial Council that it could not deal with the matter because it was legally not competent to do so, and of the Corporation’s approach to the courts to determine the competence of the Provincial Council in relation to the matter. But the hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Long) has detailed the various steps proposed more lucidly than I should have done, and I shall not weary the House with a recapitulation of the facts. In order that there should be interference it must first of all be a fact that the Provincial Council was willing to consider the matter, and that the sponsors were not prepared to give the Provincial Council an opportunity of sitting in judgment on this Bill. But there surely can be no interference if, as is the case in this matter, the Provincial Council has said: “We will not consider the Bill.” True, they have said that because they took the view that they had no right. But the upshot is that the Provincial Council has said categorically “We will not consider the Bill.” How, in the light of that, can it be said that the sponsors are not giving the Provincial Council the right to say aye or nay to the Bill and have instead chosen to come to the House, and let me add this, the building societies are in no small measure responsible for this Bill being before the House today. The building societies themselves before the Select Committee of the Provincial Council took the point that the Provincial Council had no jurisdiction, that this was ultra vires the powers of the Provincial Council, and that view was upheld. And now the building societies ask the House to take the view that this matter should go before the Provincial Council. Well, the building societies cannot have it both ways. Either the Provincial Council was the right body, in the first place, or it was not. That has nothing to do with what is in truth and in fact, the correct legal view. It has no bearing on the question whether, in point of fact the Provincial Council has jurisdiction. I do not share the view of the law advisers—I say this with all due deference—that this matter is ultra vires the Provincial Council, but today in the face of the present facts, that is entirely beside the point, because the Provincial Council has said: “We will not consider this Bill.” If that is so the sponsors of the Bill were left with no alternative but to come to the House. As I said, they had a hand in bringing the Bill to this House. I criticise, Mr. Speaker, the inconsistent attitude of the building societies, but, in doing so, I do not find it either necessary or justifiable to deny to them the credit that is due for pioneering work; in particular in the case of the Natal Building Society, a fact to which the City Treasurer before the Select Committee freely and frankly paid tribute. I do not want to take up time unduly, but I want to remind the House that the opposition to the Bill, before the Select Committee, came from the building societies and the trust companies, the latter consisting of 43 societies, of which, at most, one carries on business in Durban. That is indicative of the spirit which has been behind this Bill, of the opposition towards the Bill. This federation of trust companies which cannot be affected has seen fit to appear before the Select Committee. The building societies who are concerned had their opportunity, and they availed themselves of it, of representing their case fully to the Select Committee. And they did so with the aid of eminent, and I have little doubt, expensive counsel. All that could be said on behalf of the building societies was said. In the face of the ablest representation of the building societies’ case, and the fullest criticism of Durban’s case, the Select Committee found the preamble proved. It is extraordinary that one of the main points taken by the building societies was that the post office would be affected. That is the Government’s thrift campaign maintained through the post office. I should have been impressed by that if the Minister of Finance had said “I agree.” In the face of the Minister’s view, with which I agree, I am not impressed with that objection. The Minister went further and said that while this would mean competition, it would, in his view, encourage thrift, and I share that view, too. Now, the point has been made that this Bill does not reflect the wishes of the citizens of Durban. How anyone can say that it does not reflect the wishes of the citizens I am at a loss to understand. It has been said that the executive of the Ratepayers’ Association in Ward 2 objected to this Bill. If they object, surely it is because they have the right as a democratically elected body to speak on behalf of their ratepayers, and if that is so, surely they must concede the right to the City Council of Durban, which is also a democratically elected body, to speak on behalf of the citizens of Durban. That in present circumstances is the only test which to my mind can validly be applied. The real objection of the building societies emerges very clearly from the evidence of Mr. Fleming Orr. He was frank enough to admit that the building societies were not afraid of this Bill; what they were afraid of was the extension of this principle to other municipalities. We are here concerned with an application from Durban, and it would in my view be a wrong approach to the problem to judge the merits of that application upon the basis of contingencies which may or may not arise. The issue before the House is clear, and it is limited, and ought not properly to be influenced by considerations which are entirely out of place at the present stage. The hon. member for Stamford Hill (Mr. Acutt) was grieved, as he said, that at a time when Singapore had either fallen or was about to fall, that legal pundits should have arrived in Cape Town to take part in proceedings before the Select Committee. The House may know that leading counsel for the Durban Corporation, Mr. Mackeurtan, K.C., is a man of some bulk. As I heard my friend give expression to his grief, I wondered whether he felt that if Mr. Mackeurtan had thrown his weight in at Singapore he might have averted the disaster. The Government, Mr. Speaker, despite the war and despite the setbacks we have suffered, is not only not curtailing its programme of social legislation, but is pushing on quite vigorously with it. I view this Bill as in keeping with the spirit of the social legislative programme to which I am glad the Government has committed itself. To meet the legitimate claims of the less privileged classes the Government has in some instances gone to considerable length. In the Workmen’s Compensation Act we actually took away the rights hitherto enjoyed by the insurance companies. I would point out here, Mr. Speaker, that in this measure the House is not being called upon to take away any rights whatsoever from the building societies. I have a number of criticisms of the Durban City Council, but I shall choose the right time and place to urge these criticisms. I regret, for instance, that the Durban City Council has not seriously applied itself to Indian housing. But I refuse to allow criticism, however legitimate, of the Durban City Council to blind me to the merits of this Bill which commends itself to me.

If ever there was an inappropriate time to bring a Bill like this one before the House it is this present time. We are dealing with a Banking Bill, a consolidated Banking Bill in Committee, and it will come before this House again. As the Minister of Finance correctly stated, it is an important measure and I agree with him that this is the right time to amend our banking legislation. The Minister of Finance, however, correctly said that that Bill is a temporary measure to serve until such time as improved legislation can be brought before the House and the country at some future time. In the meantime the Durban City Council comes along to this House with a Savings Bank Bill. As has already been stated, it is undesirable to deal with it now, at a time when we are consolidating our banking legislation, and at a time when we are regulating our banking system. It is very difficult to do so, and at the same time, while one is doing this, to pass another Bill also in connection with banking. I think hon. members should be careful before they accept this Bill. It lays down a very farreaching principle, the principle that a private body like the municipality, which in the past has always concerned itself with local affairs, is now to be given powers to carry on banking business. I think it is very undesirable to approve of that principle. We may later on get other municipalities in other parts of the country also coming before this House with special legislation to carry on banking business. When one deals with banking business one should in the first place make sure that the body undertaking it has experience of the administration of banking business. I therefore feel that the mover of this Bill would be well advised if he were to give the House the opportunity at this stage properly to consider the whole matter. When one is dealing with a kind of business which does not fit into the scope of a municipality, or of a local body, one has to enquire whether that local body has at any rate the necessary experience to enable it to do such business, whether it is competent to do it. If I compare the municipality of Durban with the municipality of Cape Town, of Germiston, Pretoria, Johannesburg and other centres, what do I find? I find that the Administration of the Durban Municipality is certainly one of the very worst one can find in the whole country. I am going to prove it. They also drag in the word “housing” in connection with this Bill, and they give us to understand that it is also a “housing Bill”, whereas in actual fact it exclusively is a banking Bill. The object of the Bill is not housing, but banking business. I say that the Administration of Durban is one of the worst of all the municipal concerns in the country. Take housing. In Durban 921 houses were built under various schemes, and the average loans granted for such purposes amounted to £1,101. How does that compare with Cape Town? So far as administration is concerned, I must say that the Cape Town Municipality is not much better, but I have to pay Cape Town the compliment, at any rate, of saying that it is better than the Durban Municipality, because one finds that the average loan granted in Cape Town was only £539. Consequently the Administration in Durban is just 100 per cent. more expensive in this regard. That by itself is tangible proof of the fact that their administration is not only rotten in comparison with other administration, but also that we cannot entrust them with such an important matter as banking. I therefore hope the House will not accept the argument that we should give Durban the opportunity of running a banking concern, but what I particularly object to is that these “riem” telegrams are being sent to members of this House. I think the time has arrived when we should object to certain areas with which we have no concern trying to prescribe to us in this way what we must do. A certain city councillor of Durban, a Mr. Smith, is in Cape Town. He sends a telegram to his colleague, a certain Mr. Patterson, in Durban, and that shows how this matter is being engineered. We are responsible members of this House, and we should object to being dictated to in the way certain people are trying to do now. If we cannot judge for ourselves we should not be here. I hope hon. members will agree with me that we should disapprove of the sending of such “riem” telegrams, and that we should disapprove of attempts to influence us in this way. Just let me read this telegram—

That telegram was sent by Councillor Smith to his colleague, and in that way we, as Afrikaners, are now to be induced to vote for the Bill. They have to telegraph us that the Afrikaners in Durban are being fairly treated. They also let Durban know that—

Hon. members can see how far things go. They make arrangements to telegraph us. We are to support the Bill because the Afrikaners in Durban are being treated fairly, and they also drag the Church Council into it. To show the way they set about things, I have another telegram here, too, from the Rev. Van Rooyen, one of the principal parsons in Durban, a man who speaks with authority there, a man who is able to speak on behalf of his congregation. The branch manager of Sasbank in Durban got into touch with him. Now, I want to say that the attitude of the Durban public and of the City Council of Durban to the Afrikaner is shown up by the way in which they try to behave towards Sasbank. As soon as an Afrikaans enterprise is started, an honourable enterprise like Sasbank, which assists the poor man, efforts are made to work against it. Sasbank is an institution which tries to provide for the needs of the poor man, and, with that object in view, a branch was established in Durban. The Durban City Council wanted to kill that fine financial institution. Why? Because they do not want the Afrikaners to maintain their rights there. The branch manager of Sasbank asked the Rev. Van Rooyen—

Here we have it. The question is put here whether the Church Council has promised the support referred to in the other telegram. They know that it is to their benefit if they can play on the religious sense of the Afrikaner. By doing that they are touching a tender and soft spot. What was the Rev. Van Rooyen’s reply—

Altogether one gets 5,658 members belonging to that church. They have never had any time for the Afrikaners in Durban, but it now suits their purpose to play on the sentiment of the Afrikaners. I consider it despicable to use those means, but what do we find further? They try to make it appear that the Durban City Council has treated the Afrikaner fairly. I say that an Afrikaner has just as much right in Durban as any other citizen living within the boundaries of that municipality. Why should the Afrikaner be excepted in this particular instance? But let me read further—

The Afrikaner who goes there is prevented for three years from obtaining any qualifications or any rights in Durban. Is there one other Municipal Council anywhere else in the country which has made similar provision in regard to citizens of the country who come in from outside? But they send out these circular telegrams to create the false impression that the Afrikaner is well treated. It is time the Durban City Council realised that we are not going to allow them to carry on in this way any longer. We further find that a telegram was sent to those two City Councillors—

They want to create the impression that the Afrikaners are being well treated and they are doing so to promote their own objects, but we see the way the Afrikaners are treated. [Quorum]. In view of the fact that the Banking Bill is before the House, and in view of all the facts I have mentioned, we should not pass this Bill which proposes to make a radical alteration in the administration of local bodies, and which is going to lay down a precedent for the future. We should first of all pass our big banking bill and then we can see whether it is advisable to give a local town council these powers. Let us first of all make experiments with our new Banking Act. There are provisions in our banking Bill which we are considering at the moment, which will affect this matter, how can we pass a Bill meanwhile which may be in conflict with those provisions? I therefore say that we should put off this matter until we have had the opportunity of going properly into the question and until we can really decide whether it is desirable to confer these powers.

I don’t like this Bill and I am going to oppose it, but before I speak on the merits I must say that I regret that this debate, not so much this afternoon, but on a previous day, has very largely taken the course of an abuse of building societies. The whole trend of the debate very largely has been a disparagement of the building societies, and that is wrong. Surely the supporters of the Bill could find better arguments for the Bill than to try and put the building societies in the wrong. They were branded by the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Trollip) as concerns which did not build houses but which were simply money lenders. After all, if we look at this Bill, what is the Durban Corporation but a money lender? They are in the same position as the building societies, and they will only lend money and not build houses. No, that argument is not a sound one. Now let me say this. I have no building society shares, I have no interest in them, but the building societies have played a big part in the development of our cities, they are born of the people, they are conceived of the people, they are supported by the people, and they are as democratic an institution as any in this or in any other country, and they have a great record. They have a record of £70,000,000 of public money invested in their concerns. Is not that proof of the confidence which the public have in the building societies? I have a very much bigger objection to the Bill than that. If ever a Bill was opportune and brought in at the wrong time it is this one. We are in the midst of a war, not for gain, not for the acquisition of country—we are in the midst of a war for life and death. Men are laying down their lives to win this war, and here we are fiddling about with a question of setting up tickey banks which are going to take men, money and material every ounce of which should be thrown into our war effort.

Sob stuff.

I am very glad that the promoter of this Bill raised the question of the Birmingham Bank, both in this House and outside, as a wonderful example of a municipal bank. I am going to throw a challenge at him. If the hon. member will accept the constitution of the Birmingham Bank I shall support his Bill.

What is it?

Well, well, he does not even know. That bank was authorised in England by wartime legislation and the Act of 1916 was passed to facilitate the starting of municipal banks to receive monies for investment in securities for the purposes of the war. The main provisions of the Act were that all deposits other than those required to meet the current expenses of the bank would be invested with the debt commissioners. It was a war measure pure and simple. The Birmingham Bank was set up as a savings bank for war funds, and was not to be carried on for a longer period than three months after the war. Power was then given to the bank to apply to carry on. My hon. friends here who wears the King’s uniform, are they going to be loyal enough to accept this principle under which the Birmingham Bank was started, are they willing to support a thrift bank, the proceeds of which will be invested for carrying on the war effort? That is a fair challenge. I have no doubt as they wear the King’s uniform, the symbol of loyalty, they will show it by adopting the constitution of that bank which is an example that should be followed, and a good precedent. I believe their loyalty is absolute, and I ask them to accept the constitution of the Birmingham Bank. I think that is a very fair argument and a challenge to put to them. As I said before, we want in our war effort every man, we want all our material, and we want all our money in the war effort. The hon. member will not accept my suggestion. Well, well, the loyalty of Durban apparently does not go so far as running a savings bank for the war effort. Is there any need for a bank of this kind in Durban, where they have commercial banks, a savings bank department of the post office, thrift societies, endowment and life policies which give excellent returns, and I do not think any other facilities in this direction are needed. Furthermore, is there any need from the point of view of building? And if so, can the Durban Municipality do any more or do any better than the building societies, who have practically built Durban as it exists today? Has the Durban Municipality the necessary ability to run a savings bank? I was greatly struck by the speech of the hon. member for Point in introducing the Bill when he spoke of the negative attitude of the building societies contrasted with the dynamic influence of the Durban Municipality. This dynamic influence is shown by the fact that in one Government housing scheme Durban’s name is not even mentioned, but is classed with those municipalities which spent less than £25,000. Durban spent less than £21,000, while other municipalities spent £300,000, and Durban catered for the rich people. On the other hand, the value of their houses built by the Corporation was higher on the average than other parts of the Union. Where does the poor man come in, whose needs have been stressed? That was the dynamic influence of the municipality. I should like to read an extract from the evidence before the Select Committee in regard to the attitude of Durban as far as housing is concerned. This is Mr. Cook, the Treasurer of the Durban Municipality, who is now speaking —and is only one of several similar statements made by him—

Durban has been a pioneer in high-priced houses, but not in regard to houses for poor people. Mr. Cook says that Durban has always led the way, and the Council is all out for housing, and that they have shown in the past. I don’t think! The hon. member for Point stressed the need in Durban for housing, but surely he knows that the present demand is entirely fortuitous. We are not living in normal times; there are something like 13,000 or more evacuees from the North in Durban; 1,000 refugees from Singapore have been landed there, and large numbers of soldiers’ families are also living in Durban. So that these are not normal times. Let us return to normality, and there is not going to be the great shortage in Durban that the hon. member would make us believe. All the housing legislation in this country emphasises that the money shall be devoted to new buildings, that is a condition in all housing loans. This Bill, however, appears to be designed for the purchase of existing buildings. How are you going to relieve your housing shortage by altering or repairing a house, or by buying a house that somebody else is occupying? If they confined this to a scheme for building new houses, there might be something in it, but that is not the case, since it provides for property changing hands. Can the Municipality offer better security or more sympathetic treatment than the building societies? And is there more business ability in the Durban Council? Let me just quote …

Why don’t you say something original, and stop quoting?

Let me quote a statement by a certain Mr. Sidney Smith, who was being examined. He said that management expenses would absorb 11.8 per cent. This was the estimate of the Town Treasurer. Do you mean to tell me that the building societies work at 11.8 per cent? Then working costs are not half that. Moreover, you have cleaner administration in the building societies. I would rather trust my interests to those men who have built up those great organisations, the building societies, men of brilliant and unblemished records for fair dealing, than I would to the Durban Corporation. I am very loth to make a statement like that, but when my friends query this statement and make interjections, let me inform them that only this morning the Appeal Court confirmed a sentence on a Durban councillor. A bench of five judges confirmed the conviction of this councillor for taking bribes from poor people who wanted assistance. I say you get cleaner administration in the building societies, and I have no hesitation in repeating that. The Durban Town Council has 24 members, and 17 of them signified their wish to proceed with this Bill, and 7 were opposed to it, including the Mayor.

Including the directors of building societies.

I say without hesitation that the better element of Durban was among the seven, all the best of Durban was included in that seven. That is the only body in Durban that has asked that this Bill be proceeded with.

What about the Trades and Labour Council?

The hon. member has delivered himself into my hands. My hon. friends cannot show me a tittle of evidence that either the Chamber of Commerce or the Chamber of Industries supported this Bill. But I am not altogether concerned with that. I am more concerned with the expression of opinion by the public at the election which was held recently. We have been told in this House that the candidates were all labour men, and it did not matter which got in. A Mr. Johnson is the man who was fighting the official Labour candidate, he is a pukka Labour man and the fact that he got in does not signify any confidence in the Labour Party.

Order. Will the hon. member tell me what this has to do with the Bill.

I am trying to show the platform of the candidate who defeated the protagonist of this Bill.

On a point of order, is the hon. member entitled to discuss the records of members of the Labour Party on this Bill?

I am just following the argument to see how far it goes. I think the hon. member had better leave that. I cannot see what it has to do with the Bill.

This Bill is the baby of the Labour Party, and at the election this Bill was put in the forefront of the Labour Party’s programme. Mr. Sidney Smith, who gave evidence, stated that it was the Labour Party’s programme, and the Durban electors threw out the pukka Labour candidate, by an enormous majority and put in the candidate who had an unflattering opinion of the Labour Party, and these friends of ours tell us that he is a real Labour man.

I cannot see what this has got to do with the Bill.

I bow to your ruling, sir, but I think the Labour Party appreciates the argument.

We appreciate that it is filthy.

Then comes the question whether the municipality is the most suitable body to administer building schemes outside public utility services. I wonder if you will allow me, sir, to tell the House the story of one of the Durban schemes which very fortunately came to nothing. I allude to the scheme called the civic square. Some few years ago this scheme emanated from the Labour Party, and it was suggested that the civic sphere should be a sort of forum where Durban councillors’ memory could be perpetuated by statues. This involved a building scheme and a large purchase of property. An option was secured …

Will the hon. member tell me, what has that to do with the present Bill?

I am trying to show that the municipality is not a proper body to run this sort of scheme. I think I am entitled to do that.

I think you should withdraw that.

May I say, sir, that not one syllable I utter has any personal application. To get on with this building plan a large number of properties had to be acquired. I happen to know one of the parties who was in touch with one of the Durban Town Councillors. An option over the properties to be bought was acquired, and one of the two individuals whom I knew confided to me at the time what a wonderful “spec” they had, because they had the City Councillor behind them who was going to see the scheme through. They got options to the extent of about £120,000 on all these buildings that had to be acquired, but unfortunately it got out. The cat was let out of the bag, and it was not the domestic breed of cat that sits by your fireside, it was something much more like the polecat, and the stink of it was such that the scheme had to be dropped. The repercussions were such that in the end the Chamber of Industries and the Chamber of Commerce approached the Provincial Council in 1939 to hold an enquiry into the financial methods of the Durban Council. These are facts, Mr. Speaker, and my friends know that they are facts.

And the Council supported it.

The stink that the polecat made was so great that they had to support it.

Order! Will the hon. member tell me what this has to do with the Bill?

I am trying to show that the City Council is not the right kind of body to be entrusted with this sort of scheme. Nobody will argue that you get the best man on city councils, nobody will argue that the men with the best ability sit on municipal councils. Certainly you get many good men, but you don’t get the best; I should like to call the attention of the House to the methods that have been adopted in support of this Bill, and which were alluded to by the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys). I contend that methods have been employed which have never been employed in this House before.

What about the support of the Labour Council?

I will tell the House about that. A wire was received in this House from the Labour Council of East London, urging the strongest support for this Bill. It was received here on the very day that the Bill was handed to hon. members in its printed form. East London knew nothing about it. A message had been sent by the protagonists of the Bill, asking someone at East London to send that wire. One step further, Mr. Speaker, it is a curious fact that this Labour Council in East London, which sent this telegram, forwarded no request of any sort that this scheme should be extended to East London. They never said “Will you please extend it to our own town.” Can you imagine that anything like that is bona fide? Then, of course, we have this wire which was quoted by the hon. member for Prieska. This one is most illuminating. This wire was sent to Comrade Petterson: “Please help our Bill by getting one or two Afrikaners to telegraph to the Chief Whip of the Afrikaner Party to support the Bill now before the Select Committee. Wire should state fair treatment accorded Afrikaners by City Council.” This was signed “Sidney.” I don’t know who Sidney is, the only Sidney I know in this House is Mr. Marwick, and I don’t think he would lend himself to a wire like that. The response to that, sir, was a wire from the Church Council of the Dutch Reformed Church at Durban saying that they supported the Bill, but the extraordinary part of the story is that following that wire when the true facts of the case were known, there was another letter received absolutely repudiating the wire on behalf of the church. It is astonishing to me that such methods as these should be employed, that anyone could descend to depths of this nature to secure support for a Bill. Let me go on with the story. Let me tell the House what happened with regard to the platteland, and the influx from the platteland to the towns. That was entirely …

I am afraid this is entirely irrelevant.

May I not go on with this, sir, in order to prove what I submit are the malefides behind these telegrams.

The hon. member is not entitled to try and prove things against something that has come from outside.

I want to show that the City Council passed a resolution laying down that no employment should be given to any person …

That is entirely irrelevant to this debate.

Very well, sir, if you rule me out I must leave that matter. I want, however, to emphasise my objection to the methods that have been adopted to secure support for this Bill. There is another extraordinary feature about this Bill, which emerged from Select Committee, and was published for the information of the country, and then after that a draft Bill was put forward to be submitted by the Durban Corporation to the Provincial Council for its approval, and it contains the following clauses.

On a point of order I have been instructed by the promoters to assure the House that in the event of this Bill passing the second reading, that Clause 7 of the City of Durban Extended Powers Private Draft Ordinance, 1942, will be withdrawn. It is not the intention of the Durban Council to circumvent the restrictions imposed by the Select Committee in this Bill. Clause 7 of the City of Durban Extended Powers Private Draft Ordinance, 1942, was approved of by the Council before this Bill came before the Select Committee.

It has evidently taken this speech of mine to bring out that explanation. I know that a telegram was sent some time ago, but the House was never informed. It is now the first time that the House is informed of it. There is another point in this Bill that is very illuminating. It has been suggested that there may be a loss. It has been suggested that this Bill which we have before us might result in a loss to ratepayers, and it probably will. This new Bill contains the following clause—

It means this, that if this Bill is to cause a loss to ratepayers, they can call on the Water Department or on the Light Department, or the Tramway Department, whichever has a surplus, to make up this loss. That is unreasonable. If that had been done years ago it might have been a different matter, but to ask for such a power at this juncture. It seems to me that there is a tacit admission that there is likely to be a loss, and it seems to me it is very wrong to make up the loss in this way. One more point—I daresay greatly to the relief of my hon. friends on my left—and that is the point which my hon. friend absolutely denied, and that was that there is no compulsion to use the funds of this bank for housing purposes. The Durban Corporation need not put one sixpense of the money subscribed to this bank to housing loans. Let me read the relevant section to you—

1. (6) The Council shall hold and keep either in cash, or upon deposit, withdraw a bill upon demand in a bank approved by the Administrator of Natal, not less than 5 per cent. of the total amount received by it on deposit, and not yet repaid.
2. (7) Such portion of the said amount as is not held as in the previous section provided, shall be invested in one or more of the following forms of security, and in no other manner, that is to say, (a) not less than 20 per cent thereof shall be invested in the securities (other than its own stock or debentures in which the Council is required to invest the sinking funds created by it in connection with loans raised by it under the authority of an ordinance from time to time or in loans to depositors upon the security of their deposits; (b) (not more than 25 per cent. thereof may) the balance thereof shall be invested in advances approved by the Administrator of Natal by way of first mortgage for the purpose of erecting, improving, adding to, or purchasing within the city of Durban a dwelling house on freehold land and upon the security thereof; provided that no such advance shall be made to any person who does not satisfy the Council that he is not the owner of any other dwelling house suitable for his occupation and that he intends to occupy personally the dwelling house in respect of which the advance is applied for.

Not less than 20 per cent. shall be invested in any investment, and under that clause the Council need not advance a single penny for housing loans. This money may be invested in some security bearing considerably higher rates of interest than the rate of interest paid to the depositors and there is no provision for any appropriately interest or of profits. It is true that the Council is liable to 2½ per cent. to depositors, but the Bill is absolutely silent as to what the Council proposes to do with profits and I have already heard it stated that the supporters of the Bill have outwitted us already and that they can apply profits to their own use … . [Time limit.]

I move—

I am not prepared to accept the closure at this stage.

I have made a careful study of the reports of the Committee, and as an old member of the House I have on previous occasions expressed the opinion that when important Bills are before the House we are not justified in proceeding with the measure when there is an empty House. When I look around and see these empty benches this evening—only one member on the other side and not a quorum on this side, I ask myself whether we are justified in proceeding with a measure of such importance as this which embraces very important principles, and deals with very high finance. I listened to the speech of the hon. member for Gardens this afternoon and I was very much impressed with it, and if I had to exercise my vote at this juncture I would feel inclined to pass my vote for this measure, but I ask myself whether in important principles of this kind it is right that in an empty House as we have tonight a private Bill should be passed in conditions such as these. I ask myself that as one who has been associated with the Legislature of this country for the last thirty years. I do not think that we can take an expression of opinion by the few members who are here as an expression of opinion by this House. I do not think it is fair to the House, nor do I think it is fair to the country to ask that we should come to a decision on an important matter like this under these circumstances. Under these circumstances I move—

I second.

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—17:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Bell, R. E.

Christopher, R. M.

Deane, W. A.

Gilson, L. D.

Henderson, R. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Marwick, J. S.

Neate, C.

Payn, A. O. B.

Stallard, C. F.

Sutter, G. J.

Van Zyl, G. B.

Tellers: J. G. Derbyshire and J. G. N. Strauss.

Noes—30:

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bezuidenhout, J. T.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowker, T. B.

Burnside, D. C.

Clark, C. W.

Davis, A.

Fourie, J. P.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Hayward, G. N.

Kentridge, M.

Klopper, L. B.

Liebenberg, J. L. V.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Molteno, D. B.

Robertson, R. B.

Rooth, E. A.

Shearer, V. L.

Steenkamp, W. P.

Van Coller, C. M.

Wallach, I.

Warren, C. M.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

Tellers: A. E. Trollip and M. J. van den Berg.

I think in order to get a true perspective of the question and the principle underlying this Bill, it is necessary to give a short history of it. A report in 1924 by the City Treasurer was put before the City Council, advocating the institution of a savings bank. It was not until 1933 that a clause was inserted in the General Ordinance of the Provincial Council, but the Select Committee of that Provincial Council rejected it as the time was not opportune. In 1934 the clause was inserted again but withdrawn by the Council owing to the fact that there was a Union Treasury objection. In 1936 they were again inserted but the clauses were withdrawn by the Council before the Select Committee, as the view of official circles was against the measure; and the building societies first appeared in opposition to the measure. In 1937 a separate Ordinance was promoted for the first time by 12 votes to 11. This was referred to the Select Committee of the Provincial Council who found the preamble not proved, influenced, it is stated, by the fact that the Ordinance did not limit the borrowing power of the provincial council. In 1938 the City Council negatived a motion to promote an Ordinance by 12 votes to 10. In 1938 there was a general election in which the Reform members withdrew, owing to the scandalous scenes which took place at meetings of the Durban City Council. Prior to that, at a previous election, there was a reform ticket in the Durban election and several members—in fact all the members who stood—were elected to the Council. In the 1938 election, owing to what they described as the intolerable conditions in the Council, these Reform members did not stand and Durban got a Council which it did not deserve. In 1939 the new Council promoted the Ordinance by 15 votes to .4. This Ordinance passed the Select Committee which held that the preamble was proved, but it failed to pass the Provincial Council itself, influenced no doubt by the Union Treasury which stated that it was a matter for the Union Parliament. The Treasury opposed the principle of a savings bank run by a local authority. The Treasury doubted very much whether the Ordinance was intra vires the powers of the Provincial Council. In 1939 the Ordinance was promoted by thirteeen votes to six. In 1941 the Burnside Bill which applied to all municipalities or to thirteen of the larger municipalities, was introduced into this House and withdrawn again. In 1941 the Council went to the Appellate Division for a declaratory order under the General Law Amendment Act, and it failed. In the Select Committee the promoters of the Bill skated very lightly over this application, and actually the result of the application to the Appellate Division was not disclosed to the Select Committee, and as far as I know the members or some of the members who endeavoured to obtain it, were not able to find it. But my recollection of the decision of the Appellate Division was this …. (Quorum). I stated that the promoters of the Bill before the Select Committee skated very lightly over the decision of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, but I recollect having read that decision at the time it was published in the press, and my impression was this: That the Appellate Division had no power whatever to compel a Provincial Council to pass any ordinance and further declared that they were not asked to decide whether such an ordinance was intra or ultra vires the powers of the Provincial Council. That, to the best of my recollection, was the decision of the Appellate Division. Now, in 1942, the City Council, stating that they had exhausted all their legal remedies, decided to promote this Private Bill by 14 votes to 7 in the City Council. Now this was the tenth attempt of the City Council of Durban to obtain powers to establish a savings department of the City Council of Durban. Mr. Howes, the legal assistant of the City Clerk of Durban, said that only one resolution from the Ratepayers’ Association had been received in favour of such a Bill being promoted, and it was also stated in evidence by the father of the Bill—let me call him that—that there had been a public meeting in Durban requisitioned by a number of ratepayers and at which 600 were present, who passed a resolution in favour of the savings department, with only one dissentient. (No quorum). The feeling in the City Council, it was stated, underwent a change after the general election of 1938, where the Savings Bank was made an issue, but no referendum, however, took place on the Subject. The Prime Mover in this Bill, Councillor Smith, made assertions before the Select Committee to the effect that in the 1938 election the Savings Bank Department of the City Council was made a live issue; it was made a plank, in fact the only plank of importance in that election, and everybody who adopted that plank in the election campaign was returned to the City Council. But as I say, no referendum ever took place on the subject, and it is a significant fact that while the Select Committee was sitting here in Cape Town quite recently there was a byelection in Ward 3, I think, in Durban, at which Mr. W. W. Johnson was the successful candidate. The Mercury in Durban publishes all the manifestos of the various candidates, and in all the manifestos, there is not one reference to the Savings Bank Department. One would have imagined then a Bill of this importance was before the Select Committee in Cape Town, that the candidates would certainly have made some reference to the Savings Bank if they were imbued with the idea that such a savings bank was a necessity to the City Corporation, but they did not, and I understand that the election was really fought on a social security code. Now, if this was such a burning question in Durban, one would have thought that at anyrate the official candidate of the Labour Party would have mentioned it in his manifesto, but he did not. And may I say in passing, that the Labour candidate was not successful. I understand that the Burnside Bill, which was before this House last year and withdrawn, was not promoted at the instance of the City Council, but on the initiative of he hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) solely, and not on behalf of the City Council. When Mr. Graham Cook, City Treasurer of Durban, gave evidence before the Select Committee he gave certain reasons for the establishment of this savings department of the City Council and those reasons are five in number—

1. (1) The Council wishes to borrow at favourable rates on call.
2. (2) They wish to borrow from the small man.
3. (3) They wish to form a continuous fund.
4. (4) They wish to encourage thrift.
5. (5) They wish to give Burgesses the opportunity and convenience of paying their municipal accounts out of their savings accounts.

These is no reference there to housing. Now it was also said that the City Council could borrow on call up to a limit of £1,500,000 at 1%. They actually did at one time borrow on call £1,300,000 and the building societies in Durban contributed between £400,000 and £500,000 of this. The Bill which was presented to the House before it went to the Select Committee had this provision in it, that 5% of the deposits should be in liquid cash and that 40% should be invested. And the Council wanted 33⅓% of the deposits for the ordinary capital purposes of the Corporation. Then there was 25% for housing and the reason given for this was that the City Council under the present provision had no power to advance loans for the purchase of houses already built, they could only advance money for the erection of new houses on land owned by the applicant. Now, this 25% is the peg on which the rest of the Bill was hung. It was not the principal reason for the Bill, however, but I repeat that it was the peg on which the rest of the Bill was hung. Counsel in reply to an interjection from myself (when he was leading evidence to show that the building societies not only were advancing sums of £1,500, but also sums in excess of £1,500), said that he wanted to show that the building societies had ceased to become the repositories of the savings of the small man. Not much about housing in that. He was leading evidence and he quoted large figures of advances made by the building societies, and endeavouring to impress the Select Committee with the fact that the building societies were no longer the repositories of the small man’s savings, nor were they advancing moneys solely for housing purposes, but they had become lenders for people who wanted to put up large blocks of flats and things of that sort. May I quote from the evidence given before the Select Committee? These were the questions that were put, and these were the answers: Mr. Cook was giving evidence—

And then I put a question to Counsel—

And then there is the next question which I want to quote—

I cannot see that the figures which I have been referring to had any reference to his statement that the Building Societies had ceased to be the repositories of the savings of the small man. Now, this evidence was led from Mr. Graham Cook to prove this: that the building societies and especially the Natal Building Society, which was established in 1882, had become merely money lenders of large sums for the building of blocks of flats, and large hotels. Yet all the evidence led was as to bonds and not deposits. So it did not prove Counsel’s point at all. All the time his figures simply went to prove that the building societies had simply become large money lenders. Mr. Cook also said that the building societies contended that the requirements as regards thrift were adequate in Durban, yet he went on to say that there was a vast amount of money lying idle in the country waiting for suitable avenues of investment. He was referring to the £62,000,000 in the Reserve Bank of the country deposited by the commercial banks. Presumably these are the moneys he wanted to borrow at low rates of interest and not the savings of the small man at all, as was so earnestly insisted upon. Now, the deposits in the Post Office Savings Bank increased from £18,786,000 in March 1940 to £28,128,501 in November, 1941—18 months. Mr. Cook stated that this was a 50% increase. So much for his arithmetic. And then he went into other figures and he gave us what he called a pro forma income and expenditure return based on deposits of £2,000,000. He stated that the expenses of management would be 11.8% of deposits. By coincidence the average expenses of the Natal Building Society are 11.8%. Durban will have no rent to pay and practically no extra staff—the present staff can take its extra work in its stride and no directors’ fees to pay. There would be practically no increase in the staff owing to the fact that they possessed very efficient machines. And yet the expenses to the Natal Building Society amounted to 11.8%. But they claimed also that the depositors in the savings bank would be able to pay their municipal accounts, that is to say, lighting and rates and deposits on their installations, and their refrigerators and stoves—they would be able to pay these by simply getting a stop order but the Durban Corporation proposes to charge the savings bank £600 for these services, while it was proved by the building societies that they already undertook these payments on instruction from the depositors and made no charge whatever. The depositors get free service from the building societies whereas the City Council proposes to charge £600 per annum. Now, he went on to say: “We get money from the Central Housing Board or in certain circumstances we may have surplus money ourselves. In the latter case we create a debenture which the sinking fund takes up and then we apply the proceeds of the debenture to housing purposes. And the contention was that with the savings departement there would be no need to go to all this cumbersome circumlocution—they could receive these moneys without all this cumbersome trouble. As a matter of fact they proposed not to use the machines but to make book entries. Another declaration by the City Treasurer was this, that the people’s savings should be applied to local needs and thereby reduce the demands on the general public for funds to develop our several undertakings. Local savings should be available for meeting local capital expenditure so far as that could be safely done. It was freely admitted that any moneys that were deposited in the City Savings Bank would be practically withdrawn from the Post Office Savings Bank and that they also wished to get some new money, some money which the City Treasurer characterised as the few shillings which might be spent in the bar or might be lost at the races or at halfpenny nap. I don’t say that those were his words, but that was what could be inferred from what he said. He defintely said: “We ask for powers to borrow up to £9,000,000 if they needed it. The Bill as submitted to the House in the first instance asked for a limit to be placed on the deposits. One could imagine what would happen if the City Corporation of Durban were allowed to borrow up to £9,000,000. One can imagine that to give the City Treasurer £9,000,000 for which no Ordinance is required from the Provincial Council, and therefore that it would not be applied to specific capital outlay, would be placing a dangerous weapon in the hands of the City Council. They were asking for money which they could spend as they liked on any capital enterprise which they might decide to embark upon. With regard to the attack made on the building societies, and more especially the Natal Building Society, I want to refer to a reply by Mr. Cook to these questions. I refer to questions Nos. 415 to 417 of the evidence—

And in connection with that, may I refer to some other paragraphs. I want to read from paragraph 2223: This is the evidence of Mr. Martindale, Natal Building Society. He was asked—

And then he goes on to say that their liquid reserves were not sufficent to meet these very heavy calls due entirely to heavy speculation in sterling. Then the next question is this—

And then he said—

I have the information that the provision in the Ordinance of 1932 was inserted at the instance of the Provincial Council itself. It sought to stay what might have been termed a run on the banks, or on the building societies—it sought to stop a panic and it had that effect. The position was that the City Council might go to the assistance of the Natal Building Society if it was so desired. Well, it did in effect have the result of staying a panic. But this was the interpretation which the promoters of the Bill sought to impress on the Committee, that the building societies had turned to the City Council for assistance. That was not correct. I can quote further from the evidence to prove that that was not correct. [Time limit.]

I move—

I second.

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—31:

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bezuidenhout, J. T.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowker, T. B.

Burnside, D. C.

Clark, C. W.

Davis, A.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Fourie, J. P.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Hayward, G. N.

Klopper, L. B.

Liebenberg, J. L. V.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Molteno. D. B.

Robertson, R. B.

Rooth, E. A.

Shearer, V. L.

Steenkamp, W. P.

Van Coller, C. M.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Wallach, I.

Wolfaard, G. van Z.

Tellers: A. E. Trollip and M. J. van Berg.

Noes—10:

Acutt, F. H.

Bell, R. E.

Christopher, R. M.

Henderson, R. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Marwick, J. S.

Neate, C.

Stallard, C. F.

Tellers: J. G. Derbyshire and L. D. Gilson.

Motion accordingly agreed to.

Motion for the second reading of the Bill put and the House divided:

Ayes—30:

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bezuidenhout, J. T.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowker, T. B.

Burnside, D. C.

Clark, C. W.

Davis, A.

Fourie, J. P.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Hayward, G. N.

Klopper, L. B.

Liebenberg, J. L. V.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Molteno, D. B.

Robertson, R. B.

Rooth, E. A.

Shearer, V. L.

Steenkamp, W. P.

Van Coller, C. M.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Wallach, I.

Wolfaard, G. van Z.

Teller: A. E. Trollip and M. J. van den Berg.

Noes—12:

Abrabamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Bell, R. E.

Christopher, R. M.

Deane, W. A.

Henderson, R. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Marwick, J. S.

Neate, C.

Stallard, C. F.

Tellers: J. G. Derbyshire and L. D. Gilson.