May I draw the attention of the House to a point of order which seems to me of some importance. As one who has been a member of this House for many years, I have always been concerned for the consistent accuracy of the Votes and Proceedings, and I think it is a matter of importance that these Votes and Proceedings shall always be an accurate record of what takes place. In the present instance it is not so much a question of the accuracy of the record as the employment of language in an amendment which is not calculated to express historically or correctly the facts alluded to. I draw the attention of the House to an amendment which was moved by the hon. member for Bloemfontein, District (Mr. Haywood) on the 13th April on the motion for the second reading of the War Pensions Bill [Hansard, col. 5, 884] in which he uses the phrase “the second war of independence of 1899-1902.” Now, as one who has lived in South Africa for the whole of his life, this is the first occasion that I have heard that war referred to as the second war of independence.

What is the hon. member’s point of order?

My point of order is whether it is competent for anyone to use phrases in the records of the House which are not historically correct and not in a form in daily use.

If the hon. member objected to the use of the words referred to he should have taken exception to them when the amendment was proposed. If he wants to raise any point in regard to it now he should give a notice of motion.

I move—

We have now reached the last stage in the passage of this Bill through the House and we have been allowed one hour in which to complete our discussions. We cannot now alter the Bill or improve it. The stages in which we could have done that are passed, and except for a few minor adjustments, the Bill is substantially the same as it was when it was first introduced. Hon. members on this side of the House, and I want to give certain members on that side of the House the credit for having done their best in the different stages of this Bill to make it slightly better and to effect an improvement, but unfortunately we have had to contend throughout with the most stupid obstinancy on the part of the Minister in charge of the Bill.

Order; the hon. member must modify his language.

At the second reading the Bill had a very auspicious start. Although it was generally acceptable, there were a few members on the Minister’s own side who ventured to criticise certain provisions of the Bill, and instead of replying to those members on the merits of their criticisms the Minister imputed the most improper motives to these members. That has been the Minister’s attitude throughout. It appears that his mind is of such a nature that he cannot give anyone except himself credit for any sincerity of purpose, for any desire really to improve the provisions of the Bill before the House. Evidently he sets himself up as the one and only spokesman of the less privileged classes in South Africa, whereas as a matter of fact it appears that the Minister is only concerned with one matter, and that is the material advantage of Walter Madeley.

On a point of order, is the hon. member entitled to say that the Minister is only concerned with the material advantage of Walter Madeley?

Did the hon. member use those terms?

I said that the hon. Minister was apparently only concerned with one matter, and that was the material advantage of Walter Madeley.

The hon. member must withdraw that.

Very well, I shall withdraw that. Hon. members on this side of the House moved amendments which were aimed at obtaining elementary justice for a very large section of the community. Members on this side of the House were not only concerned with obtaining justice for one section of the community, but they insist that any good Government has the duty of seeing that justice is done to all sections of the community, and we contended and showed that this Bill aims at justice only for one section. We moved amendments in an endeavour to rectify that. We moved amendments in an effort to obtain that elementary justice for all sections of the community and we were supported by members on all sides of the House. Members on that side of the House not only supported us but they even went so far as to vote with us, and what was the Minister’s consistent reply? He did not discuss the matter on its merits, he merely said “I want it so, and I am going to have it so.” How different is his attitude from the attitude of the Minister of Finance. That Minister has also piloted not agreed but contentious measures through this House, but with unfailing courtesy and tact he has piloted his measures through in record time. The Minister of Finance as a contrast with the Minister of Labour is tactful and accommodating, he is courteous and he knows his subject and is competent. As I say again, what a contrast with the Minister in charge of this Bill. The Minister of Labour throughout tried to bully the House into accepting his measure. Throughout the Minister tried to bully members into accepting his measure, and I am surprised that the Minister, after thirty-two years, has not learnt that no Minister can bully the House into accepting anything and still survive. I am sure the Minister will not survive in spite of the war. We want to appeal to the Prime Minister, and my appeal is this, and I make it in all seriousness: If it is the Prime Minister’s intention to retain the services of the Minister of Labour, for Heaven’s sake let him appoint another Minister, a Minister who is more competent, more tactful and more courteous, to pilot the Minister of Labour’s Bills through this House. I am sure the Prime Minister can find at least one Minister who is more competent than the Minister of Labour in the notoriously weak team he has at his disposal. The tragedy is that the hon. the Minister of Labour is not even concerned about the essential and the elementary rights of the Afrikaans section of the population. He himself is unilingual, and he treats the rights of the Afrikaans speaking section of the population with contempt. We have moved an amendment, not with a view to giving the Afrikaans speaking section an advantage, but we moved that the Afrikaans speaking section of the population should obtain only elementary justice. We asked that by way of an amendment. The hon. Minister did not reply to that on its merits. He was not concerned about the rights of the Afrikaans speaking public. No, again—as he has done consistently on previous occasions—he imputed the most improper motives to hon. members who raised that matter. At the risk of being called to order, Mr. Speaker, I say that motives such as these can only be derived from an offensive mind. What is the result? We have a piece of legislation on our Statute Book which is not only halfbaked, but it is legislation which will result in injustice to a large section of the population, and will mean very little benefit to the rest of the community. It will be, to put it very shortly and plainly, a piece of legislation that is typically “Madleyian.” I want to conclude by bringing to the notice of the Prime Minister what a former colleague of the Minister of Labour says. He is a man who, for many years, sat on the same Bench as the Minister of Labour, a man probably who knows the capabilities and the competency of the Minister of Labour better than any man in this House.

In what way is that relevant to this Bill?

It is an opinion which is relevant in this way. I have already explained what the result will be of the Bill reaching this stage of the proceedings without having any necessary and essential amendments effected, and I now want to show what the real reason is for the Bill reaching this stage in its present form. I want to say that this comment is by a man whose political knowledge I respect. The comment is this—

The man who made that comment is Mr. Arthur Barlow, an old colleague of the Minister’s. I appeal again to the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister, in conclusion, that if he must have the services of the Minister of Labour in his Cabinet, for Heaven’s sake let him use another Minister to pilot the Bills of the Minister of Labour through the House.

I know that anything I may say now cannot change the Bill. In spite of that I want to say this, that I am just as dissatisfied with this Bill now as I was when it was first introduced. The main object was to produce a measure which would hold the scales evenly. The Minister of Social Welfare did not realise what the object of our proposals was. Some seven or eight of my amendments were accepted, but the object of those amendments was to make the Bill legible and to make provision for gaps and omissions which the Minister had not provided for. In spite of that the Bill is still drafted in such a manner and has been passed in such a way that to my mind it is not a Bill which is worthy of being placed on our Statute books. I also want to say this, that the Minister of Social Welfare holds the view that by this Bill he is going to benefit a certain section of the population. In other words, he is going to see to it that the tenant is given rights which will make it impossible for the lessor to build houses. If in days to come the State has to provide housing for every section of the community, the Minister can carry on with his Bill, but I assume that the State is not going to do so. Experience has taught us in the past that when we were able to undertake housing schemes the State was not ready to do so. The State was prepared to provide the money but it was not prepared itself to build the houses. No individual who has any money he wants to invest will today, when this Bill has been passed through all stages, and is put on the Statute Book, invest a solitary sixpence in housing for other people. We on this side of the House were willing to help as far as we could to see to it that the lessor who, because of the scarcity of houses wanted to force more money out of the tenant than he was entitled to, was prevented from doing so. We were prepared to have something done to keep the lessor in his place. The Minister thought differently and in his wisdom he decided not to avail himself of our assistance. When we realised that he did not want to accept our assistance we tried to the best of our ability wherever the Bill could be improved in minor details, to get amendments passed by this House. In spite of our efforts, however, the Minister consistently refused to accept our amendments. It seemed to me, and I said so, that he was afraid that he might not quite realise what the effect of those amendments was going to be. In the ordinary course of events those amendments would have been placed on the Order Paper, but there was so much work in connection with important legislation during this session that we did not have the opportunity of putting all those amendments on the Order Paper. There was important legislation this session which we had to take part in and we were not able to do so. If we had been able to do so the Minister might perhaps have consulted his Department and he might have found out what the effects of those amendments were going to be. In his wisdom and in the Prime Minister’s wisdom they thereupon moved the guillotine motion, which meant that this Bill was passed with the aid of the steam roller. In other words, they gave us time to go through half of the Bill, and the other half was passed without any criticism whatever. The Bill stands there today with all its defects as they appeared in the Bill as originally drafted, and the responsibility for all these defects rests on the Minister of Social Welfare. It is his responsiblity. The excuse made by members on the opposite side of the House for these defects, and also by members of the Government, is that too much time has been taken up by these discussions, that Parliament wants to close down and that they want to get home. In spite of that not one tittle of evidence has been produced to prove that the amendments proposed by us were not necessary, and that no principle was affected by them. We can come to only one conclusion and that is that the Minister of Social Welfare did not see his way to pilot this Bill through the House without the aid of the steam roller. I only want to say this, that many hon. members opposite, I would say almost three quarters of the members opposite, with whom I discussed this Bill, are all ill at ease, and all feel sore that this procedure has been followed. They all feel that the proper relationship between lessor and lessee is not being maintained in this Bill. I have no objection to protection being extended to the poor tenant, I have no objection even to his being given greater protection than the landlord. The landlord has money and he has the means. But what need is there for protecting the tenant in the way he is protected in this Bill. What need is there for even protecting the rich man who can afford to pay £20, £30, and even £40 per month in rent? We also felt that while the Bill is making provision for the charging of reasonable rents, office and shop rents should also have been included in the provisions of the Bill because the rents of those offices and shops are just as important and the people renting those places are often pressed even more by landlords than the tenants of ordinary houses. Sometimes they are pressed in a manner which they cannot put up with. As a rule there are ample dwelling houses, but so far as shops are concerned the position is a great deal more difficult, and the result is that shopkeepers are often forced to pay a great deal more than they can afford which, of course, is to the detriment of the community as a whole. The Minister, however, did not see his way to amend the Bill in that respect, and the result today is, as the previous speaker said, that we have a half baked Bill here before us which now has to be read a third time. Hon. members opposite have repeatedly said that we on this side are out to make propaganda. To me the cry of making propaganda is a very poor one—it is the cry indulged in so often by hon. members opposite when they do something wrong, and when we tell them that we are going to draw the attention of the public to the fact that they are doing something wrong. Of course it is propaganda. When for instance we behold the Minister siding with the English speaking section and refusing to give the Afrikaans speaking people the rights they are entitled to, when we see the Minister refusing to look after the interests of the Afrikaans speaking section, it naturally is our duty to tell him so, and it is our duty, too, to tell the public that we have a Minister and a Government who are not prepared to give the Afrikaans speaking section in the country what they are entitled to. And that is what the Minister is doing, and of course, it is our duty to draw the attention of the public to it. We are making propaganda there, and it is our duty to do so. I am not afraid to say so. I feel obliged to say that there is something in the Bill I object to. I consider it my duty to draw the attention of the public to it, and point out to them that an injusice is being committed in the Bill, and I am going to tell the public that we have done our best to prevent these things, but that the Minister and his Government have decided to do this or that, and I am going to leave it to the public to judge the injustice that has been committed to them, and I shall ask the public whether they are going to put up with it. It was our duty to do so. The Minister is doing it every day, so why should it be flung at us that we are availing ourselves of those opportunities to bring these matters to the notice of the public and to point out to the public that the Government is committing these acts of injustice? So far as this Bill is concerned I have already said that the Minister is going to put the people whom he wants to protect in a very difficult position. They will not be able to get houses afterwards because nobody is going to invest money in houses if they have to come under the provisions of a Bill of this kind. It is simply going to mean that the man who builds a house may come under the control of the Rent Board, a Board consisting of people occupying the position of a court. The Magistrate’s Court cannot decide on matters in which more than £200 is involved, but this Rent Board will have the right to determine matters in connection with properties, even if they are worth £200,000. In regard to the membership of those Rent Boards we urged the Minister to agree to our proposal that the members to be appointed should be able to use both official languages. We deliberately asked the Minister what sympathy we could expect from the members of such a Rent Board who only knew English if a man who could only speak Afrikaans had to appear before them. I as a lawyer have often had to deal with matters of that kind before our courts. I have even had experience of famous Afrikaans speaking advocates not being able to speak their own language in court, because if they did so people would be prejudiced against them. An advocate in court is not handling his own case. He is handling other people’s cases and he has to do his best in the circumstances. All these sort of pinpricks, all this sort of irritation, is indulged in against the Afrikaans speaking section of the population. I am only going to say this to the Minister. In future we are not going to ask for these things, we are going to demand them, and if the Government refuses to give us our rights we shall leave it to the public to judge, and we shall take care that these things are brought to the notice of the public outside and the Minister will be responsible for the feelings he will arouse. He must not blame us if we do so because he and his Government are committing an injustice to the Afrikaans speaking section of the population, and if they are willing to do so, if they want to commit an injustice to us, then we cannot allow them to remain where they are, and to continue doing these sort of things. Unless we put a stop to it we want to know where it is all going to end. Under the Factories Act the Minister appoints officials who are unilingual. I am not going to say that he is looking for jobs for pals but we cannot blame him for appointing unilingual people to those posts because he himself is unilingual. Still, the fact of the matter is that he is giving those jobs to people who feel as he does, who are of the same opinion as he is, and that is what is going to happen also in regard to these Rent Boards, and we should not lose sight of the fact that the people to be appointed in terms of the Rents Act are going to occupy very important positions. The Minister of Social Welfare has been in this House for many, many years, and yet after all these years he does not understand the feelings of the people. He does not understand their language. Everything has to be translated to him, and no interpretation will ever convey to him what he would have learned if he had been able to follow the speaker in his own language. And now he wants to put those people on the Rent Boards in a similar position. They are to judge the cases of people whose language they do not understand. That is why we feel we have the right to complain, because we feel that an injustice is being done to the Afrikaans speaking section of the population. We also feel that we are not given the right to criticise. We are not being allowed to criticise Bills such as we should be allowed, and such as we should be able to expect under a democratic Parliamentary system. No sound reasons have been adduced to show that our proposals have been unreasonable, we have not been given any evidence to prove that the fight which we have put up on this side of the House has had no substance, and that it was not necessary for us to put up that fight on behalf of our constituents. As a result of the attitude adopted by the Government a spirit has been created in regard to this Bill which is definitely undesirable. A spirit has been created which makes us feel that the Minister and the Government want to follow a kind of steam roller policy towards us so as to prevent us from criticising Bills of this kind. Those methods are going to be of no avail. Do not imagine that the public outside are stupid; they know what is going on, and if this kind of procedure continues all kinds of troubles are going to arise throughout the country later on. We already have these people of the New Order who tell us that there is no difference between the system we have here and a dictatorship. They ask us what difference there is because the Minister has his party behind him, and he uses his party to prevent the Opposition from doing anything at all. He uses his party to prevent the Opposition from amending Bills and even from criticising Bills, and even his own party has to vote as he wants them to vote. It means that the Minister does as he pleases, but what difference is there between this system and a dictatorship? We have always felt that the public are there to put on the brake, and the result will be that if matters continue in the way they are doing today there will be an uprising afterwards, because many people will have no roofs over their heads. If those troubles arise the Minister will be the cause, because he is responsible for the fact that it has been impossible for us to pass proper legislation through this House simply because he has insisted on applying the steam roller process to us.

I am sorry to have to refer again to a question which I brought up during the debate on this Bill, and that is the question of Rent Boards being compelled to give the reasons for their decisions in the event of those reasons being required by either the lessor or the lessee. I did have an amendment on the Order Paper which was to be dealt with at the report stage, but unfortunately the guillotine dropped and my amendment fell away. I have spoken to the hon. Minister on the subject, and I did get a promise from him that this condition would be inserted under the regulations. I do appeal to him again to have this done. He told me that he thought it would necessitate a great deal of work on the part of the Rent Boards, to provide these reasons; but it is only in cases where a lessor or a lessee should ask for the reasons. It would not follow that in every case they would have to give the reasons. I want to say this in support of my plea. When the courts of law give a verdict, the judge or the magistrate, as the case may be, gives the reasons for his verdict, and why should the Rent Board not give its reasons? I do make this final plea to the Minister, that he will have this condition inserted as a regulation.

When the second reading of this Bill was introduced, I was one of those who welcomed this measure because I considered it necessary in the interests of the people as a whole, and I thought that with the goodwill of both sides we would be able to place a good law on the Statute Book. It is absolutely essential that we should have a law to make provision for these matters which are dealt with in this Bill, but it seems to me that the Minister is an enemy of the householder and that he wants to make it impossible for houses to be made available to the community. That being the case, the Minister should induce his Government to undertake a big national housing scheme, because I can see the day coming when the people who build houses today will not be able to meet the demand there is going to be for houses. The Minister will have to persuade his Government to undertake a large national housing scheme. After this war there is going to be a depression, and the conditions which this Bill is going to create will make it impossible for people with money to invest their money in houses. I am also very sorry indeed that the Minister has not included shops in the provisions of this Bill, and I am sorry he has not worried his head about the small man who earns a few pounds a month and who is compelled to go and live in a boarding-house and who is persecuted there, so that he is practically compelled to move month after month from the one boarding-house to the other. It is true that the charges have been fixed— the charges which can be levied in such institutions—but nothing is said about the paying of a bonus. A man may perhaps pay £8, which is the fixed charge, but another man comes and pays £2 bonus on top of the £8, and then the boarding-house keeper takes in the other man. The Minister therefore in all his zeal has lost sight of two important aspects of the matter—he has forgotten the man who has to rent the shop and the man who himself, or with his wife; has to live in a boarding-house. I hope that during the recess the Minister will give his attention to these two questions. I hope he will get up at the end of this debate and will promise us to give his attention to these two matters, and that he will put an Act on the Statute Book so that these people will have some security and will know that they will not be forced to move from one place to another month after month. I also want to lodge my protest against the tendency displayed by the Minister during the discussion of this Bill. He has no time for the courts of this country. On every occasion he introduces a Bill into this country he excludes the courts, and whenever he comes here with his proposals to exclude the courts he always puts up the excuse of expense. There is one thing which the ordinary man in the street very greatly appreciates, and it is this, that if he is done down he can go to the magistrate’s court, or he can go to the High Court, so that eventually he may get what he is entitled to. The Minister of Social Welfare in his wisdom has decided to appoint the Rent Boards, and over and above the Rent Boards he is going to appoint Control Boards. I have asked many lawyers on the other side whether they agree with Clause 12 (1). Let me read to the House what that clause says, because I am sure that many hon. members opposite have not read it—

What does that mean? And then we come to (3), which says this—

This is a very drastic provision. Why has the man not got the right to appear personally before the Control Board? The Minister may be under the impression that it will involve expense if the man is to be represented, but why cannot the individual who is personally interested be allowed to appear personally before the Control Board? The rights of the individual are being interfered with here. There will be no expense if the individual is allowed personally to appear before the court, but this clause now prevents him from doing so—he is not to be allowed to appear. If the Minister does not want him to be represented by a lawyer let him say so in the Bill, but don’t prevent the man who is concerned in the matter from appearing personally. A provision like that is unknown in our legislation, and I want to warn hon. members opposite that this precedent which the Minister is setting here is a very dangerous one. We cannot possibly follow that precedent, and right and justice will not be done in this country if our courts of law are to be cut out in this way, and that is actually what the Minister is systematically doing. In view of the fact that he has no time for lawyers and in view of the fact that he has no time for our courts of law, let him propose in the Other Place that the individual who is interested in the matter will have the right to appear personally before the Control Board.

I know that the hon. Minister will not allow himself to be unduly disturbed by the vapourings of the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman). I think the hon. member for Fordsburg’s remarks were in extremely bad taste, and all I can say for the hon. member is that he is extremely young, and I think he will, in due course, learn that behaviour of that description is not in very good taste. I want to congratulate the hon. Minister for bringing forward this bit of legislation, which I think is long overdue. This legislation, after all, is aimed at the protection of both landlord and tenant. I think hon. members on the opposite side have lost sight of that fact. Both landlord and tenant are protected. The landlord is given a maximum of 8 per cent. on the value of the buildings and a maximum of 6 per cent. on the value of the land. Now I think that is eminently fair and reasonable, and on the other hand the tenant is not required to pay a rent which will give the landlord more than 8 per cent. on the value of the buildings, nor more than 6 per cent. on the value of the land, in addition to certain other allowances. I say again that that is eminently fair, and I feel that this is a bit of legislation that will come to the rescue particularly of the underdog. In congratulating the Minister for bringing forward this legislation, I want to ask him to see to it that we appoint competent Rent Boards. I do not mean the Control Board so much, but I mean, particularly, local Rent Boards, because that is where the principal work is going to be done and if any mistakes are made, the mistakes will be made there; if the Minister appoints inefficient and incompetent members to the Rent Boards, it speaks for itself that there will be numerous appeals, and that the Control Board will be inundated with appeals; this Board will then have all their time taken up dealing with appeals. For that reason I say that the Minister must have special regard to the fact that he should appoint virile, competent and efficient local Boards, so that their work can be done in the first instance in an efficient manner. I say this, too, because I have in my hand at the moment details of a case which took place in Pretoria recently where, if a competent Board had been appointed, this injustice, as I call it, would never have taken place, and certainly an appeal to a Control Board would not have been necessary. I would, if I may, just like to give the House the details of this particular case. This was a case in which eight tenants were involved; they were occupying four double flats and four single flats. The value of the land there was £2,500 and the value of the buildings was £2,650. The following rentals were paid by the tenants. There were four double flats at £8 8s. each and four single flats at £5 10s. each. The total annual rental paid by these eight tenants amounted to £667 4s. Now if we apply the valuations as supplied in the present case we get some interesting facts. I repeat that the buildings were valued at £2,650 and the land at £2,500. These are the Municipal valuations and they were presumably accepted by the Rent Board. Now if we allow 8 per cent. on the above value of the buildings and 6 per cent. on the above value of the land, we get a total of £362 per annum. Hon. members will remember that I said that the total annual rental being paid before application for reduction was made for these eight flats amounted to £667 4s. If we deduct the £362 referred to above there is left a not inconsiderable amount of over £300 in excess of the 8 per cent. and the 6 per cent.

There are rates and taxes too.

Yes; there are taxes, repairs and maintenance and collection charges — the allowances which are set out in the Bill. They have to be allowed for.

They amount to about £120.

Well, if you deduct this £120 from the £300 that would still leave an excess of about £180. One would imagine that the Rent Board concerned would have come to the conclusion, on those figures, that the landlord was getting more than the statutory amount allowed under the Act. But what did the Board do? Not only did it not agree to a reduction of the rental — and here let me explain that the tenants in this case were the applicants — they (the tenants) took the landlord to the Rent Board and applied for a reduction. Not only did the Rent Board not agree to a reduction as asked for but the Board actually imposed increased rentals in all the eight cases. In the case of the double flats they increased the rentals to £10 10s. each and the single flats were raised to £6 10s. each. The net result was that over and above the percentage laid down in the Act the landlord was allowed an additional £457 in rents for his eight flats. Allowing for the rates etc., we still have the position that here we have a landlord being allowed an amount of approximately £320 in excess of what he should get under the Act. My information is and the above figures suggest that the landlord is getting something like 25 per cent. on his outlay. Surely there is something wrong there, and I say, once again, that that would not have happened had competent Rent Boards been appointed. It is for that reason that I have brought this matter to the Minister’s notice, and I want to ask him to see to it that Rent Boards are composed of men who have the necessary energy, ability and integrity to go into the cases thoroughly. I agreed with the Minister when he said, in answer to arguments from the other side, that what he wanted on the Rent Boards were people of integrity with common-sense and with a knowledge of simple arithmetic. We must have men on these Boards who will not allow similar injustices to be done. Now there is one another point I want to make. I hope the Minister will see to it that a sufficient number of inspectors are appointed and that these inspectors are men of energy and ability, because it will be the duty of such inspectors to see that the Act is properly carried out. They will have to go into the highways and byways of our cities and towns, and they will have to find out from the less-privileged classes what their position is—what rent they are paying and so on. The people whom they have to get into touch with are people who do not see the advertisements in the newspapers, who do not know the provisions of the Act, and who do not know that the landlords are overcharging. It will be the duty of the inspectors to go among these people and to bring to their notice the terms of the Rents Act and to find out what rents they are paying. And it will be their duty to bring cases of overcharging to the notice of the Boards. I therefore hope that a sufficiently large staff of competent inspectors will be appointed and that they will get busy immediately. One hears of people today who are called upon to pay £4 and £5 per month rent for miserable, small unfurnished back rooms. It will be for these inspectors to see that these things are stopped at once. That is the object of the Bill. If that is done, if we have efficient Control and Rent Boards and efficient inspectors who are fearless in carrying out their duties, I feel sure this Act will be found to be the kind of legislation which the country will welcome and which will prove a blessing to the tenant class in particular.

The time laid down for the third reading debate of this Bill is very short, and I am surprised that we should have had such a long speech from the other side which has taken up so much of the time laid down for the debate. The hon. member had the opportunity of raising the points he made in Committee, but he did not avail himself of that opportunity. Partly I agree with the hon. member for Pretoria, East (Mr. Clark), who said that the hon. member ford Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman) had used pretty strong language against the Minister, but I want to ask him whether he does not feel that the hon. member for Fordsburg’s wrath had been fairly raised? I think the Bible speaks of this sort of thing. The Bible says, “Woe to him who rouses ire.” I consider that the Minister is the man who is responsible for the irritation which has been displayed in this debate. For days we have been pleading for the rights of Afrikaners, and the Minister has not given in one inch. Yesterday the Minister simply got up to reply to the criticism of the Opposition and practically the only answer he could give was that we were not really in earnest when we stood up for those rights, but that we wanted to make political propanada. I had not expected the Minister of Labour to have made an allegation of that kind against this side of the House. To us it was a serious matter, it was a matter of justice, and I am still wondering whether we cannot induce the Minister to reconsider this whole question, because our cause is a fair and honest cause. The hon. member for Kimberley, District (Mr. Steytler), said yesterday that on the Farmers’ Relief Committees all the people are not bilingual either, and that we did not insist on all the people on those Committees being bilingual. There is a very great difference between the work of the two bodies. The farming population today is in trouble, and strange though it is, it is particularly the Afrikaans speaking people who are in trouble. In spite of that I am convinced that one will hardly get anyone at all on the Farmers’ Relief Committees who does not know the English language, or at any rate who cannot understand it properly. I do not know of anyone. In any case there is a world-wide difference between the activities of the two bodies. Here we have a body which will have to deal with the troubles of the Afrikaans speaking section, as well as the English speaking section. I wonder whether the Minister realises the importance of this Bill, and whether he realises the effect it is going to have on the country. Many of the difficulties facing the tenants will be brought to the notice of the Rent Boards, and large numbers of appeals will be taken to the Appeal Boards. I also want to point out that so far as the Farmers’ Relief Committees are concerned, the magistrates are appointed as Chairmen of those bodies. That is the very thing we on this side of the House have asked for, so that we should at least know that the Chairman of the Board would be fair and just, in addition to which the magistrates are supposed to be bilingual. There is a great difference between the two bodies. The Minister tells us that he does not want to have an exmagistrate on these Boards, nor is he prepared to give in so far as the bilingualism of the members is concerned. Now I want to revert to the promise which the Minister made during the second reading, namely, that if we moved an amendment to include business places, shops, etc., in the terms of the Bill, he would accept it. I do not know whether the Minister realises what a number of the landlords are doing in connection with the rents of business premises, and so on. I had a special instance in my constituency. The lessor knew perfectly well that the tenant was unable to get another place for his business which would answer his purposes, and he put up the rent to such an extent that the tenant found it impossible to pay it. He thereupon first of all said that he was going to give up the business and get another place, but the landlord knew that there was no other place he could get in the dorp, so the landlord said, “Very well, at the end of the month you can get out.” The tenant carried out his threat and left the place where he had been carrying on business for thirty or forty years, and today he has a small shop, but not big enough to swing a cat. The Minister’s Bill does not assist in a case of that kind. Why did the Minister make that promise? Did he know that if we proposed such an amendment it would be ruled out of order? Is he personally interested in shops not coming within the provisions of this Bill? I should like a direct answer from the Minister, and I want him to promise that he will make provision next year in regard to business places. Then I believe that hotels are not included in the provisions of this Bill either.

They are included, which are rented.

But boardinghouses are not included.

Yes, boarding-houses and hotels have now been included.

What I want to emphasise is that boarding-houses and hotels can charge anything they like. Only a few days ago I was staying at a hotel where the charges had been increased tremendously as compared with what they were a few years ago. It may perhaps be said that the cost of living has gone up and that the service has perhaps improved, but the very opposite is the case. In this instance the hotel is much worse than it was a couple of years ago, and the price now is 21s. per day. There is no hotel bus to call for one at the station and one experiences the greatest trouble in getting service of any kind. Cannot the Minister make some provision to prevent people in hotels and boarding-houses being exploited? What is going on today is nothing short of exploitation.

May I reply at once to my hon. friend who has just sal down (Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen) on the question of hotels, boarding houses and shops. The question of the inclusion of shops is at the moment engaging the attention of the Government. That is all I can tell him at present, but in regard to hotels and boarding houses they come within the purview of the old Act. The courts have given a ruling on that point, that hotels and boarding houses are included in the general term of “dwelling”. But that does not apply to their charges. But in the meantime may I inform the hon. member that the Price Controller has that within his grip. He can decide whether the prices charged are correct or not. But that is only to last during the war and six months afterwards, and because of that the whole question is engaging the attention of the Government and in all probability some legislation will be introduced next session.

Immediately?

Not immediately, we are finishing this week.

Well, the war will be over soon.

The Price Controller has that in his hands, so my hon. friend must excuse me if I don’t act; it is his job to act in these matters. Now the hon. member said that I did not reply to criticisms during the Report stage.

What about the shops?

I have dealt with the shops I told my friend that they are having the consideration of the Government, and in all probability legislation will be introduced next year. That is all I can say. I can hold out nothing more than that. The hon. member said that I did not answer criticism. You prevented me from doing so, Mr. Speaker, under the Guillotine Motion. Before I could get very far with my reply my throat was cut, not physically but verbally.

You should blame the Government.

No, I blame some of my hon. friends opposite — not my hon. friend who has just spoken, but some other hon. members opposite. I am only too happy to reply as far as my capabilities permit me to. Of course. I must be allowed completely to ignore the abusive speech of the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman). Now the point my hon. friends want a reply to are the assertions that I was not protecting the Afrikaans people, that I was not paying due regard to the Afrikaans language. Very well, I shall reply to that. I did in Committee draw attention to the fact that those hon. members who were genuine in their desire to protect the Afrikaner and the Afrikaans language were mistaken in their efforts while others were doing it merely to try and embarrass me — they were indulging in electioneering tactics. But I say again my hon. friend from Victoria West is not included in that category; he is included in the category of mistaken members.

Misinformed?

No, misapprehending the possibilities and the probabilities that may result from my not putting into the Bill what they want me to put in it; namely that these people should be bilingual. They want a provision to be put in that the members of the Rents and Control Boards must be bilingual. The hon. member for Fordsburg went further He said they must be proficient. I want to know what is the standard of proficiency to be? It is very difficult to get members on the Rent Boards. You will have to lay down an examination under the proposed amendment for every member who wants to become a member of the Rent Board, and what is the standard of proficiency? Am I proficient in English? It depends on the standard you set.

You will find quite a lot of people proficient in English on this side.

And quite a lot who are not. How would you apply the standard of proficiency of Afrikaans to the English speaking people? So you see the turmoil you get into at once, but I want to say this — it is due to some hon. members over there who have approached this thing in the right spirit — I want to say that so far as is humanly possible the people appointed will be bilingual. If we laid it down as a hard and fast rule that they must be bilingual — if we are going to be bigoted about it — it would mean that thousands of Afrikaners would be turned down because they were not proficient in English and thousands of Englishmen would be turned down because they are not proficient in Afrikaans, so it is for these reasons that I refused the amendment, whatever may be the sneering words of the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman).

You make me laugh.

But will you carry out your promises?

Yes, history proves that I do carry out my promises and I may say the present Rents Act has nothing about bilingualism in it — there has been no complaint none the less about bilingualism there. There have been complaints about the competency of members of the Rent Board — we had a complaint this morning from the hon. member for Pretoria, East (Mr. Clark). Now I have had that case before me and the hon. member for Pretoria, East will be astonished to hear that though the Municipal valuation of that land is £2,600 yet a sworn appraiser — and this is another one of those people whom my hon. friend over there was so keen about — valued that land at £4,000. A remarkable discrepancy, and a matter which is being gone into at present.

He might be right.

Yes, he might be but probably he is not. It depends on who got the sworn appraiser. I want to assure my hon. friend that every effort will be made to get the very best human material on these Boards that will be unmoved by influence. In regard to inspectors, we are already appointing inspectors in every district. I have nothing more to say. I have answered the criticism which my hon. friend for Victoria West and others have brought to bear on this Bill. I can ignore the remarks of other hon. members who deliberately misrepresent …

The hon. Minister must withdraw that. He should not use the words that hon. members deliberately misrepresent.

Very well, sir, I shall …

Order!

Allow me to finish please. I withdraw that. It was not my intention to say that they deliberately mislead, but let that pass. The majority of these hon. members know perfectly well from their experience of me that I do not discriminate between the two races.

In regard to this Bellair scheme we have two recommendations before us. The one is contained in the report of the Irrigation Commission, and the other in the report of the Select Committee which is now before the House. I don’t want either of those reports to be accepted, but if there is nothing for it, and if I am simply knocking my head against a brick wall, then I would prefer the report of the Select Committee to be accepted. If one wants to know anything about this scheme, one has to go back a very, very long way indeed, to the days when this scheme was started. The position is this: that the scheme was started by Mr. Heatlie, Mr. Bekker and Mr. Fullard, who went in for it for speculative purposes. They started it to make money out of it. Unfortunately they succeeded in getting the Government engineers in those days to approve of the scheme in spite of the fact that the scheme was to be constructed in a dry area and in spite of the fact that everybody born in that neighbourhood, or anybody who had lived there for any length of time, knew that it must be a hopeless failure. Whatever the position was, the scheme was started, and they succeeded in inducing the majority of the people who owned land under the scheme to give their consent to the building of the scheme, although others strongly protested against it. The scheme was constructed and it cost about £45,000. It was found immediately that there was too small a rainfall there to fill up the dam, and the whole thing was a failure. The interest accumulated until, in 1929, a Commission was sent out, known as the Fourie Commission, which reported and decided that the scheme should be curtailed to 350 morgen, which was the extent of the land to be issued on the farms Hottentotsdam and Keeskraal; those farms are immediately below the dam. The irrigators lower down protested against this decision, because they found that the water from the dam would be cut down, with the result that the farms lower down on the river would be without drinking water. The Commission thereupon reconsidered the matter and made certain concessions to those people. In this connection I have a letter dated 2nd April, 1930, which I feel I should read for the information of members of the House. The letter was written to me by the Secretary of the Minister of Irrigation, and it reads as follows—

1. (a) That the time has arrived for the application of the provisions of Subsection (2) of Section 5 of Act 21 of 1929, and to cut out the lower riparian farms, but that he is prepared to meet the lower riparian owners and to give them further time to complete their furrows, but only subject to certain conditions.
2. (b) In regard to the use of the water until such time as the canals have been constructed, or the date which he may lay down for the construction of the furrows, he is also prepared to allow the lower riparian owners to share in the use of the water, but again subject to certain conditions.
3. (c) the conditions which the Minister suggest are: That as long as there are twenty-two feet of water in the Bellair dam the water will be distributed pro rata among the irrigators in terms of the existing register of irrigable lands; that as soon as the water drops below the twenty-two foot mark and the furrows are not yet completed, the water will be used only for those lands specified in the second schedule of Act 21 of 1929; and that if the furrows are not completed before the 31st December, 1931, in accordance with the requirements of the Act, the first alternative of the above-mentioned Act shall be applied and the Governor-General be asked to cut out the lower riparian farms.

Those lower riparian owners complied with the Minister’s request. They constructed the furrows and completed them in a manner which was adequate for the distribution of the water over the whole scheme as far as Thyskraal, all of which land had been brought into the scheme. But the people were given a piece of land under irrigation which was smaller than under the original scheme. Now, to come again after all those years and want to revert to the first report of the Fourie Commission, namely, to curtail the irrigable land, and to restrict it to the farms immediately below the dam is asking too much. The Minister may say now that those people have not paid their rates. Why not? I may just as well ask why did not the Minister collect those rates—why did he not demand the money? If I don’t do anything year after year, and people don’t pay me, and my commitments are more than three years overdue without anything having been done about the interest, the debt is written off, and it is not only’ that man’s fault that he has not paid me, but it is my own negligence in not having collected the outstandings. The Irrigation Commission thereupon made certain recommendations to the Select Committee, which amounted to this: that boreholes should be constructed and paid for out of consolidated revenue, en that windmills should be erected for the lower riparian owners. I say again that the scheme is a white elephant and it is of so little use that if I had any say I would not come to this Parliament and ask for a single penny to be spent on the sinking of boreholes and the erection of windmills. We have had many years of experience there in regard to boreholes. In the days of the late Mr. C. W. Malan, when he was Minister of Railways, I approached the Administration—because the railway line runs past this scheme—and I asked for boreholes to be sunk, so that fresh water might be obtained for these people. Quite a number of boreholes were sunk, but they were failures. There was either no water at all or the water was brackish. Now the Minister has again to undertake boring at the expense of the State. If the first borehole is a failure he will have to sink another one, and then he will have to sink a third one. That is the Commission’s report. Perhaps no water at all may be found, or the water may be bracksh and cannot be used. In that way it may mean that it is going to cost at least £500 for every borehole with a windmill. Why go and spend all that money now? I say the matter should be left as it is. The scheme is a failure and a complete wash-out which certain people want to make money out of— and in fact they have done so—and we should not spend any more money on it. It is a hopeless business and we should abandon this scheme now. Hand it over to those people and let them make out of it what they can. It is now argued that large quantities of water are getting lost in the river bed. What has the State to do with it? If any profit is made out of the use of the water the State does not get anything out of it. These people now owe £13,000 on the scheme. Give them the scheme and allow them to distribute the water over the curtailed area. The Minister may perhaps say now that it is against his principle to write off such an irrigation loan, but that sort of thing has often been done in the past. There is another scheme in the neighbourhood of this one, namely, the Prins River scheme, and every penny has been written off on that scheme. It has been handed over to the people there and the Prins River scheme is a very much better one than this one. The only thing the people pay there is what they pay for the administration of the scheme, to employ a water bailiff and for the maintenance of the furrows. We created a precedent there which we should follow in this instance. Other schemes have also been written off. I say that this scheme is a failure and I do not think it wise to go and spend a lot of money on boreholes. I know that I am knocking my head against a stone wall. Perhaps I should not say it. The Minister is a practical farmer and I want to appeal to him to reconsider this whole question. I also want to express the hope that he will allow the House to have a free vote on this scheme, because I feel that the House will then say that not another penny should be spent on it, and that we should tell those people that they must take the water and do what they can with it. I want to mention a few other considerations in regard to this matter. [Time limit.]

The hon. member referred to me as a practical farmer. Well, he is also a practical farmer, and now he asks that we should simply give those people the water of a scheme which has already cost £61,000. He says it is a white elephant. Of course, when the money was asked for the scheme it was represented as a magnificent scheme. In 1929 that scheme had already cost £61,000. Now let me tell the House what is going on there. They take the water from that dam and they lead it for eighteen miles through the river bed, with the result that the irrigator at the lower end gets 3 per cent. of the water, let out through the dam. The rest of the water disappears in the river bed. They have not paid. Now the hon. member says that that is due to the fact that the Minister has not demanded the money. If the Minister had brought pressure to bear my hon. friend would have been the first to have objected, and to have asked for the debt to be written off. The State has a lot of money invested in that dam. Now the Irrigation Commission has reported that instead of the water running down the dry river bed, the irrigation area should be restricted to 300 morgen below the dam and that everyone of the irrigators should get a certain quantity below the dam free of charge. The State has to pay for it. There are 300 morgen under the dam and 150 of those 300 morgen have to be given to the irrigators lower down. How many of them are there?

I believe there are eight.

I understand there are nine and each of them will get so many morgen. They get that for nothing and all they have to do is to pay 15s. per morgen per year in water rates. That water rate on the 300 morgen is intended to cover the debt which has now been written down from £61,000 to £4,000. That also is optional. Those land owners are not compelled to take the land. If they don’t take anything, they have no debt to pay, but those people who take the 300 morgen have to pay the 15s. Surely that is the very least we can expect them to do. I therefore feel that this is an excellent report. The State or the people themselves have never yet had any benefit out of the scheme. As my hon. friend has said, it is a white elephant, and that is why the Commission and the Select Committee have now made these recommendations. We have heard what my hon. friend has said. We have heard that these people have not paid their arrear rates, and that the Minister has not pressed them in the past. Well, I shall accept his advice in future.

I got the Minister to clear up one point on which I was not sure. He said that he was going to give the ground free of charge to these people. That is in the report of the Select Committee. Now I should like to say this to the Minister: The Minister says that the water has been led through the dry river bed. As I have already told the House, after the report of the Fourie Commission the people made that furrow. Those poor people have had to pay for it without any Government help. They built that furrow and in spite of their having done so the position is now being changed. The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) who acted on behalf of Mr. Fullard at the time, because his furrows had washed out the ground too deeply, knows that the people constructed the furrow where it was needed. In a part of the river bed there is a mud bank which does not allow any water to pass, and no furrow has been made there. The engineers themselves visited the place and to the satisfaction to the Commission a part of the river was used through which the water could pass properly, and for the rest the furrow was constructed.

The furrow was so miserably bad that it could not be used.

If there is any water there they use it.

I move—

I second.

Before the House accepts those resolutions I wish to raise a few points in connection with the report of the Select Committee. For the first time this morning the Minister laid the report of the Irrigation Commission on the Table of the House. The result was that the Select Committee did not have the opportunity of considering the Irrigation Commission’s report.

When I laid the report of the Irrigation Commission on the Table this morning I omitted to move that it be referred to the Select Committee on Irrigation matters.

The hon. the Minister will have to wait until this matter has been disposed of.

Then that goes to prove that the Minister has not done what he should have done, and not only he, but also those people who were responsible for the drafting and the compilation of this report. This report of the Irrigation Commission goes to the end of March, 1941. Well, one should have been able to expect that that report would have been drafted very much sooner and that copies could have been in the hands of members of the Select Committee on Irrigation matters, so that they could have considered the report while they were discussing the matters before them.

The hon. member cannot discuss that report at this stage. He can do so when the Minister moves that the report be referred to the Select Committee on Irrigation matters.

Am I not allowed to discuss it in connection with the report of the Select Committee?

The hon. member can only discuss the resolutions which are before the House now, and he cannot discuss any other matters at this stage.

Arising out of the report of the Select Committee I want to say this, that I am of opinion that the report would have been more complete if the report of the Irrigation Commission had been referred to the Select Committee.

The hon. member will have another opportunity of discussing that aspect of the matter.

May I ask the Minister what he intends doing about this matter? He has told us that he is going to accept one of these reports but I want to know whether he is going to accept the report of the Irrigation Commission or is he going to accept the report of the Select Committee on Irrigation matters? I shall be pleased if he will tell us.

The report of the Select Committee on Irrigation matters is before the House at the moment for discussion, and we are asking the House to approve of it.

The motion before the House is that the report be adopted.

Are we dealing with the resolutions proposed by the Select Committee?

Yes.

I move—

That the Report of the Irrigation Commission for the year ending 31st March, 1942, be referred to the Select Committee on Irrigation matters.

I second.

May I discuss this matter now?

The Minister’s motion is that the report of the Irrigation Commission which was laid on the Table of the House this morning be referred to the Select Committee on Irrigation matters. The hon. member can discuss it.

I wish to express my disappointment that this report has only been laid on the Table now, and that only now is it being referred to the Select Committee. The Minister knows that the Irrigation Commission occupies a very important function in our irrigation policy, and it is self-evident that if a Select Committee is appointed to consider and deliberate upon Irrigation matters, that Select Committee is very much better able to do its work if in its deliberations it has before it the remarks made by the Irrigation Commission in regard to irrigation in general, and I therefore feel that the very least we can expect is that when that Select Committee meets it will have the report of the Irrigation Commission before it in regard to the work of the year before, because we must assume that the Irrigation Commission is an independent body which can judge impartially and objectively on Irrigation matters, and can report on them. This Commission was originally established to fulfil a very important function in our irrigation policy, and we must give the Commission the opportunity to carry out the useful work that has been entrusted to it. I therefore want to express my disapproval of the fact that the Irrigation Commission’s report has not been placed before the Select Committee, and that the Select Committee has not had the opportunity of making use of it. As it is only being referred to the Select Committee now, I want to warn the Minister that I do not believe that the Select Committee will have the opportunity of considering this report, and that is why it is so unfortunate that things should be done in this way. The excuse may perhaps be adduced that a new Irrigation Commission has been appointed. The new Commission was appointed in August, and I assume that the old Commission made its report.

Yes, they reported.

The old Irrigation Commission put in their report before they resigned. They made their report to the Minister, and I want to know why that report was not printed in time and placed on the Table of the House in good time? If the Minister wants to make the excuse that paper is so scarce that printing has to be curtailed, then I want to say that that excuse cannot be accepted because, as has been done now, typewritten copies could have been made and could have been laid on the Table of the House, and typewritten copies could also have been distributed among the members of the Select Committee. The Minister laid a typewritten report of the Irrigation Commission’s report on the Table of the House, and it would have been adequate if he had also laid the report of the old Commission on the Table in that form, and if he had placed it at the disposal of the members of the Select Committee in that form. As that has not been done, we can only regard it as a matter of serious neglect towards this House and to the members of the Select Committee through their not having had the benefit of this report during their deliberations, and we hope that the Minister will see to it that it does not happen again. I have had the opportunity of studying the reports very quickly and casually. Quite a number of schemes have been reported upon, and as in former years, I find that it is stated in the report that they have not received the reports from the Director of Irrigation which they asked for. This is a matter which is raised year after year in the report of the Irrigation Commission. They have to enquire into schemes and they have to report on those schemes. Those reports are sent on to the Minister and certain questions are asked in regard to technical aspects of the matter, which have to be answered by the Director of Irrigation, and then the Commission has to report to the Director of Irrigation in regard to those questions which have to be enquired into by the Irrigation Department, and the matter is simply left there and no notice taken of it. If I were a member of the Irrigation Commission I would object to serving on a Commission whose recommendations and finding are treated in that way by the department or by the Minister. I therefore want to ask the Minister to consider dealing with the recommendations of the Irrigation Commission in the way they should be dealt with, and if there is any neglect on the part of the Director of Irrigation in replying to the questions put or in making the report asked for in regard to certain schemes which the Irrigation Commission has to report on, he will insist on a full reply being given to those questions, or otherwise ask for reasons to be shown why those answers are not given. A number of special schemes are mentioned in this connection. The one scheme is in connection with the Meiring River; reports have been made on this scheme for the last ten years, and year after year the Commission simply has to say that it has not yet received any reply to the reports it has put in in regard to its findings, and which have been submitted to the Director of Irrigation for his report. Matters cannot be allowed to continue in this fashion because in those circumstances the Commission cannot carry on its work. This Commission is a useful body, and as the Commission wants to do its work, the Minister must see to it that it is given the opportunity of carryingon the useful work that is expected from it.

I would be failing in my duty if I did not give the Minister the opportunity of denying a rumour that is gaining currency. There is a rumour that the previous Commission has put in its report, but that that report was so unfavourable and that certain charges were made against him in connection with his policy and the actions of his department that he has refused to accept the report. I feel it my duty to give him the opportunity either to deny or admit it. I also want to express my agreement with the previous speaker and say that we hope that now that there is a new Director and a new Commission, there will be better co-operation than used to be the case in the past.

I am very glad my hon. friend has informed me that there is a rumour in circulation about the reports of the old Commission. I can tell him at once that there is not a word of truth in it. This report is the report of the old Commission. I received it two days ago. With the exception of one member the entire Irrigation Commission is a new one, and I can say that the Commission has had a lot of work. That may be the reason for the report being late. I thoroughly agree with the hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. Le Roux) that this report should be handed in early in the session and I can only say that we have a new Commission and that they will see to it, if possible, that the report is in our hands early next year. My hon. friend also referred to the paragraphs stating that certain reports had not been received from the Director of Irrigation, and the hon. member remarked that there was a lack of co-operation between the Director of Irrigation and the Irrigation Commission. Let me tell my hon. friend that the co-operation and the spirit between the Irrigation Commission, the Irrigation Department and the Department of Lands at the moment is a very good one. They do co-operate; they meet together, and they discuss matters and everything is going very smoothly. The position has never been better. We should remember that there was a lot of work to be done, and sometimes the work gets a bit behind when surveys have to be made. I can tell my hon. friend that fortyeight per cent. of the staff of the Irrigation Commission is on active service, and that will make him realise that there is a lot of work to be done. That may perhaps be one of the reasons why these reports have not been put in the hands of the Commission in good time. In regard to these reports, I hope the hon. member will have no reason to complain again.

Motion put and agreed to.

I move—

The House has now accepted legislation which gives effect to all the Government’s taxation measures as announced in the Budget with three exceptions; these exceptions being the Trades Profits Special Levy, the Personal and Savings Fund Levy, and the Fixed Property Profits Tax. It is those three proposals which are dealt with in this Bill. I do not propose at this stage to burden the House by dealing with the underlying principles of these three proposals. I dealt at some length with these proposals in my Budget statement; subsequently I replied to the criticisms of these proposals in my reply to the Budget debate, then I dealt again with these matters in principle on the motion to go into Committee of Ways and Means on the resolutions. Again I dealt with these proposals in replying to the debate on the resolutions. Subsequently, these proposals were dealt with in Committee of Ways and Means. The House as a result of that discussion endorsed the Ways and Means Resolutions. The House has therefore endorsed the proposals before us in this Bill as far as the principle of the proposals are concerned, and therefore there is no need to adduce arguments in support of these proposals. We have accepted the proposals in principle as set forth in the resolutions on pages 538 and 539 of the Order Paper. What we are now concerned with in this Bill is to set up machinery in order to give effect to the proposals which the House has accepted and it will therefore only be necessary for me to deal with the proposals in the Bill creating the machinery to give effect to the resolutions which the House has endorsed. There is then first of all dealt with in this Bill the Trade Profits Special Levy. On that there is not much that I need say. In effect pretty well everything that falls within the scope of this particular proposal was covered by the Ways and Means Resolution on page 538 of the Votes and Proceedings, passed by this House. This Trades Profits Special Levy is an extension of the Excess Profits Duty. It is a tax on the advantage which the taxpayer with a relatively high pre-war standard based on profits enjoys in the matter of Excess Profits Duty over the taxpayer with a low pre-war standard based on the statutory percentage. Taxpayers who are liable or who may be liable for the Trades Profits Special Levy are those who may also be liable to Excess Profits Duty. The type of income on which this tax may be levied is the same as the type of income liable for Excess Profits Duty, and so this tax like the Excess Profits Duty is linked up with the Income Tax Act. The machinery for the collection will be the same as that for the collection of the Excess Profits Duty. The collection of this tax will therefore be a relatively simple matter. Because the tax is linked up in that way with the Income Tax Act, and the Excess Profits Duty Law, provision is made in this Bill in Section 5 for the procedure in regard to objection and appeal which applies to the Income Tax Act, also to apply in relation to this particular levy. Moreover provision is made that in the assessment of this tax account will be taken of the recommendations of the Revenue Advisory Committee which has been set up in connection with the Excess Profits Duty. That is provided in paragraph 4. That is really all that is new in this chapter. The rest we have already discussed and dealt with.

What about the woman with a husband?

That does not affect the Trade Profits Levy. My hon. friend is somewhat premature. Then we come to the Personal and Savings Fund Levy. That is dealt with in Chapter 2. Here again we have accepted the principle and we are only concerned with points of detail and machinery. The Bill as set forth in this chapter gives effect to the principle of the tax as we accepted it after discussion in Committee of Ways and Means. Moreover, we make provision in this Bill, in Section 11, for the rebate of £1 for each child or dependant of a taxpayer, which I promised to do when the resolution was being dealt with at that stage. For the rest, we are merely in this chapter dealing with questions of machinery. Hon. members will notice that in Section 9 we allow forty-two days from the 1st July for the payment of the tax. In other words, this tax will be collected separately from the Income Tax. In Clause 16 we give the Commissioner the power to extend the time for the payment of the levy and we grant permission to accept payment in instalments and waive interest. Then we deal with the estates of deceased persons, and we lay down that such estates will not be liable for the Savings Levy. Then I would draw attention to the provisions in this chapter for dealing with the Savings Fund Levy. Hon. members will be aware that a part of this particular impost will go into the Consolidated Revenue Fund, and part will be regarded as a Savings Fund Levy for the benefit of the taxpayer. We are dealing with the disposal of the amount so set aside for the benefit of the taxpayer in Sections 20, 21 and 22. We propose that in relation to that part of the amount so collected in terms of this chapter where it is under £20 there shall be issued a loan savings certificate. I propose in Committee to change that to “Levy Savings Certificate” to remove the possibility of confusion with “Union Loan Certificates.” We propose that for amounts of over £20 we shall issue stock savings certificates. The Loan Savings Certificate is further dealt with in Section 21. There will be no annual payment of interest paid out to the holder of this certificate, but after three years the holder will qualify for a premium on the redemption of the certificate. He will be allowed to redeem the certificate at any time after six months, and Section 21 sets out the factors which will determine the amount which will be paid to him on redemption of the certificate. If he waits for the full six years’ period then there is paid to him £1 4s. for each £1, which means that he will get just over 3 per cent. compound interest. That accrual of 4s. in the £1, which will be paid out to him after six years, and any smaller amount of accrual paid out to him, if he surrenders these certificates before the end of six years, will not be liable for Income Tax. The taxpayer who has to provide more than £20 for the levy will get a Stock Savings Certificate which he will not be allowed to surrender or transfer for the period of six years. Thereafter it will be negotiable. That certificate will bear interest but that interest will also be blocked. It will be credited to him at the rate of 3 per cent., and at the end of six years the amount that has been paid by him into the levy plus the 3 per cent. interest will become the amount due to him under his Stock Savings Certificate, and that amount including the accumulated interest will be negotiable. The accumulated interest in this case also will not be liable to income tax.

Compound interest?

No, simple interest. It is only reasonable that it will not be liable for income tax, because the holder will not be able to draw his interest. But any interest payable after the end of the six years will be subject to income tax. Then in the next chapter, that is Chapter 3, provision is made for machinery in regard to the fixed property profits tax. Here, too, we have already accepted the principle of this impost, and the rates which were embodied in the Ways and Means Resolutions. The House has also accepted the principle that this tax will apply to the transfer of shares in private companies which derive their in comes mainly from immovable property, or from dealings in immovable property. That we dealt with in Committee of Ways and Means. The first point which arises is the connection how it is to be determined what companies shall be regarded as property companies. The definition is given in paragraph 25, which says this—

In other words, it is left to the discretion of the Commissioner to determine whether a company will be a property company or not, but in Section 42 the right of appeal is given against that decision of the Commissioner, so I think the position in that regard is fully safeguarded. The Commissioner will base his decision on the facts which the company is called upon to supply as to its nature. When the Commissioner has determined that a company is a property company, and in the event of appeal, if and when his decision has been upheld, then notice must be published in the Gazette that such a company is a property company. The company has to notify its shareholders accordingly, and thereafter declarations must be made of all shareholders to the Commissioner, and no company will be allowed to register transfer of shares without the certificate of the Commissioner. In that way I think we have machinery which should work smoothly to ensure that the tax will be paid on transactions of this kind. The next point is to determine the amount on which the tax will be payable. Broadly, the tax will be payable on the difference between the selling price and the cost on acquisition. Now, in determining the selling price, it is proposed that provision should be made for the inclusion of option money which is really part of the transaction. On the other hand, it is proposed to deduct from the selling price in respect of selling costs, for instance, the fees of agents, and in certain cases maintenance and other costs in connection with the property which is not covered by the income derived from the property. Then I come to the cost on acquisition. There we are making allowance for the cost of survey, of transfer and permanent improvements. So hon. members will see that we propose to determine the amount on which the tax will be payable in a reasonable way.

The tax does not apply to land acquired under inheritance.

No, that is excluded under the provisions of Section 39. Provision is also made for mortgaged property, where the property has to be bought in at a lower price than the debt. A number of these matters are dealt with under Clause 29.

When the House rose for lunch I was dealing with the provisions of this Bill in regard to the Fixed Property Tax. I was dealing with the determination of the amount on which the tax is levied. There is only one other point I have to make in this connection. I want to refer to the provision in Section 29 which provides that an allowance may be made in determining the cost of acquisition of a property for the labour and skill of the taxpayer in effecting improvements. That is a point which has been discussed on previous occasions, and I am giving effect to an undertaking I gave the House on those occasions. There are certain exemptions from the scope of the tax which are set forth in Section 39 and hon. members will note that we have excluded the cost of property acquired from an estate for a bequest price. For the most part the exemptions in Clause 39 are with reference to the types of institutions which usually enjoy exemption from taxation. Then there are only one or two other points to which I need draw attention. First there is the definition of transaction. I would make two points there. The first is that transaction is so defined as to include agreement made in pursuance of an option granted prior to the date when this taxation was announced, namely the 26th February. By that the seller bound himself without knowledge of this taxation and therefore it is right that such a transaction should be excluded. On the other hand, we do include sales of properties acquired under certain circumstances by donation, so as to close up the possibility of evasion by donating a property and then getting it sold. Then in Section 26 we provide for the application of the tax to Excess Profits made by intermediaries. That again is a provision which seems necessary if evasion is to be checked. Then a word about the machinery. The tax will become payable normally thirty days after the transaction. Powers are given to the Commissioner to extend that period. The transfer will not be negotiable before after payment has been made. We propose, however, to make the clause more flexible so as to make it possible for the Commissioner to give a certificate even where the payment has not been made in full if he has the necessary guarantees that the payment will be made. I think these are the main points to which it is necessary to draw attention in regard to this particular tax at this stage. I think we have succeeded in surmounting the various difficulties in regard to this particular proposal and that in general what we have put forward here will be held to be reasonable and workable. There is only one other chapter in this Bill with a few clauses; that is Chapter 4. There we have provisions of a general character applying mostly to all three taxes. There is the usual provision for regulations; there is a clause dealing with penalties, and there are provisions for machinery to secure the necessary information. There is also a clause to which I have already referred which will give the power of appeal to the Income Tax Special Court in regard to the determination by the Commissioner of the Status of a company as being that of a property company. I think for the rest the clauses in that particular part will explain themselves.

One’s objection to the taxation proposals of the Minister of Finance are not only against the tendency and the character of these proposals, but they are mainly against the object of these taxation proposals. That is to say, against the use which the Minister wants to make of the money which he will get out of these taxes. The taxes which are proposed here are taxes which, as the Minister has stated, are intended to prevent war profits being made. In ordinary circumstances one would welcome such a tax because one does not want anyone in such abnormal times to make such abnormal profits. But the use that is being made of the money — if one could approve of it one could forgive the Minister for many of the things contained in these taxation proposals. But it is the use that is to be made of the money which forces one to emphasise the nature and the tendency of these taxes. The fact that practically all this money is to be used for war purposes — I don’t want to start a war debate here again — must induce us to oppose these taxes and to scrutinise them very carefully. Let hon. members imagine for a moment what the position would be if we could have used the revenue derived from these taxes, in the interests of the country, and if the money had not to be spent for this mad war. If it had been proposed to use this money for useful purposes …

The hon. member cannot now discuss the use to which the tax is put; he will have another opportunity of discussing that aspect of the question.

Yes, I realise that, Mr. Speaker. I am only mentioning it in passing in order to show why we more strongly object to the tendency and the character of these taxes than we would otherwise have done. It is the object of these taxes which we object to. So far as the taxes themeselves are concerned I first of all want to deal with the tax on Trades Profits. In Clause 2 a levy is imposed on trade profits. Here the Minister in a certain sense tries to rectify the injustice which was committed last year in taxing certain people and not taxing others, and here he also wants to tax the people who were not taxed last year. The question which one puts at once is this: As the Minister is imposing these new taxes, why is he again differentiating between those people who did not fall under the provisions of the tax last year and the people who are now being taxed in this way? Why must the people who come under this taxation and the people who come under the ordinary excess profits tax, be treated in a different manner? In terms of this clause a tax of 6s. 8d. in the £ is paid in respect of occupations or trades subject to the definition of this clause, while in the other cases, namely, those of excess profits tax, it is a tax of 13s. 4d. in the £. On what moral and just grounds can the Minister justify this differentiation in taxation? I want to ask the Minister a further question. Apart from all distinctions that are made here, why is the business man who is making his income out of a business taxed on a more lenient basis than the young farmer who is taxed under the previous tax, assuming he had to pay excess profits tax? Why is the business man who has to pay tax under this clause compelled to pay the levy while the man who draws a salary is not taxed under this clause? That is something incomprehensible. I fail to understand why the man with a big salary, the man who draws thousands of pounds, is not taxed under this very drastic clause. I also want to say that I agree with what has already been said here by members, that even the rentier, the man who draws his income from rents on bonds, so far as I can see, does not come under these taxation proposals. Why this differentiation? No, I say that if one looks at these illogical distinctions which the Minister is making here, then they are incomprehensible, and I want to express the hope that the Minister—I was not here on previous occasions when he discussed this matter—will shed more light on the subject than I feel he has done so far. Now I come to the Personal Tax and the Savings Fund Tax; these compulsory loans imposed by the Minister. Here we find that the Minister taxes an individual with an income of £250 up to an amount of £5.

That is the unmarried man.

Yes, so far as the unmarried man is concerned the Minister can say that it will not affect him too severely. But let us come to the married person now; the man who makes £300 pays a tax of £3. That is a tax which is levied on an individual who for the purpose of ordinary income tax has always been exempted in the past, because it has been realised that a married man with an income of £300 should not be taxed. Those people so far have always been exempted from income tax. But now the man who is married and who earns £300 has to pay £3 in tax, and if he has a child he has to pay £2. Is that fair? Let us put ourselves in the position of a married man with a child. The cost of living is going up. Everything he has to buy is getting more and more expensive, and on top of all the trouble he has to contend with, he now has to pay £3 in taxes if he has a wife, and £2 if he has a child as well. And he has to pay that although the Minister does not call on him to pay any ordinary income tax, because it is unfair to ask people with those small incomes to pay ordinary income tax. I want to make a further remark to show how injudicious the Minister has been in regard to his taxation proposals. I think everyone who studies these taxation proposals will admit that this tax is not only an unjust tax, but in addition to that it is also an injudicious tax. Let me give a little example in this connection. Take the tax which the Minister imposes on the profit made out of the sale of fixed property. When the Minister introduced this tax he apparently only had in mind speculators who speculated on a large scale in land, and who made thousands of pounds in profits. They were the people he wanted to tax. Did the Minister realise what the effect of this tax was going to be on the ordinary poor man? Take the man in the smaller dorps who has bought an erf for £100 or £200. He may be a working man who hardly earns enough to keep body and soul together. There are poor white people on the platteland earning perhaps £60 or £70 per year. There are people in receipt of old age pensions. These people with an income of £3 or £4 per month may perhaps have a small amount of capital of £300 or £400, which they have used to buy a bit of ground inside the dorp, or they may have bought a stand outside the dorp. Now they may perhaps sell that at a time like the present, at a profit of £50 or £100. Now the Minister steps in and taxes that profit. That man’s income is so small that he is not only not assessed under the ordinary Income Tax, but he does not even have to pay Provincial Tax. He is entirely exempted from those taxes. But under these proposals the Minister now comes and taxes 13s 4d. or 6s. 8d. in the £, as the case may be from this small profit of £50 or £100 on the only little bit of capital that man has ever had in all his life. If that man bought that property after the 1st October, 1939, the Minister takes this large share of the profit and he puts it in the Exchequer. What for? Actually to go and spend it on the war. I hope the Minister will realise that he has acted most injudiciously and I hope he will make provision in this Bill so that if that type of man sells his bit of land and makes a small profit he will not come under this tax. If the Minister does not do that then I must accuse him of acting most cruelly in cases of that kind. If the Minister imposes a tax of that nature to catch the land speculators who are makingthousands of pounds out of their speculations one can justify it, because it can be looked upon as a source of considerable revenue which should be taxed, just as other businesses are taxed, but what the Minister is doing here is this: he is taxing the poor man who is making a very trivial profit on his small investment, and that is a thing we cannot defend. I hope the Minister will realise it before it is too late, and I hope he will exempt that type of man from a tax of this kind.

I briefly want to refer to the Fixed Property Tax and particularly to the taxation now imposed on the Land Companies as well as on the individual. Is it not time that we should amend the transfer …

I have already said that we are considering that for next year. We have to consult the provinces. It is a very difficult matter.

It seems to me that the time has arrived to do it now. If this provision is effective it can be made effective to the transfer duty.

It cannot be done here.

I think the Minister may bring it in under his Omnibus Bill. Then I want to refer briefly to the Personal Tax. Though I do not like the taxation of these small incomes because this sort of tax is irksome and difficult to collect I would suggest that it might be possible to throw the onus of collection on the source where the income comes from. In other words, most of these people who have to pay that tax are employees and salary earners, and it would be much easier if it could be arranged that the taxation were levied at the source of income. It is easy for employers to deduct small amounts weekly or monthly and pay lump sums to the Government. I think it would be welcomed by the employees themselves. If that could be done we would have less trouble about collection than otherwise.

I only want to say a few words about these taxation proposals of the Minister, particularly in regard to the Profit Tax on the sale of fixed property. I just want to ask the Minister what really is the object of this proposal? I believe his intention is to stop over speculation. If that is his object then I do not object to it, and the whole House will agree with it, but now the question arises whether the Minister of Finance by these proposals is not going to interfere with the legitimate buying and selling of property. Take the case of a farmer who owns a small bit of ground — too small perhaps to enable him to farm it economically. It adjoins the land of a bigger land owner who may consider it profitable to buy that piece of land. The owner of the small bit of land may perhaps make a reasonable profit out of it, because in actual fact the land is of no use to him. But this proposal of the Minister’s is to all intents and purposes going to stop that man from selling that bit of land because he will have to surrender half of his profit to the Government. I don’t think the Minister really wants to put a stop to transactions of that kind. Now take a house in an urban area. We get genuine buyers of houses. The Minister knows what the position in the Transvaal is, and especially in Pretoria. There are many people there who are compelled to buy houses. They have no homes, they cannot find boarding accommodation anywhere; all the boarding houses and flats are full. The only thing they can do is to buy their own house, and that man’s position is going to be made very difficult now. If I have a house and I can sell it at a profit, I may want to sell it to people like that. But if I run the risk of having to hand over the bulk of my profit to the State then I am not going to sell it. I want to ask the Minister whether he cannot achieve his object of stopping speculation by laying it down that properties bought after a certain date and sold again subsequent to that date will come under the provisions of this tax? It will not affect the legitimate buyer and seller of a property then. The Minister will achieve his object because people will be given the opportunity of obtaining a house but the tax will stop the re-sale. If the Minister were to do that I think he would meet many of the objections at present raised against this proposal. I don’t know whether there are any legal objections to such a proposal. The Minister will be able to tell us. I feel that the Minister will be able to achieve his object if he makes this provision in regard to the taxation proposals — if he tries to prevent speculation without in any way interfering with the legitimate buyers and sellers of houses.

The Minister of Finance has been making history very fast, so fast that we ordinary members have hardly been able to follow him. If he goes on like that he will very soon reach the top of the ladder, but if he starts going back at the same speed we don’t know where he is going to land. Hardly had he taken control of the finances of the country, before he had to come to this House twice in one year—the first time for £14,000,000 and the second time for £32,000,000, and that is how he went on, asking for millions every time. In order to get his first £14,000,000 the Minister even had to go and poke his nose into the ladies’ vanity bags. He poked his nose into their vanity bags, the lipsticks, the perfumes and the lavenders—and he taxed all these things to get his £14,000,000. I was sorry for the women. Surely they wanted their lipsticks to redden their lips. Very well, the Minister has perhaps had no experience, because he never looks at the girls, but he did not stop at that. He came back and had a go at the farmers. Now he is starting to tax the farmers’ land. If a farmer buys land he has to pay 2 per cent. transfer duty, but now the Minister comes along and he says that if a farmer sells land which he bought since the 1st October, 1939, he has to surrender 6s. 8d. in the £ of his profit, and if he bought that land since the announcement of this tax, he has to surrender 13s. 4d. in the £ of his profit. Look at the terrible injustice which the Minister is committing. No, he is going too far, and then the Minister goes still further and introduces this compulsory loan scheme. It sounds very fine, that he is teaching the people to invest their money, and it makes a very nice impression to hear that the Minister is going to use the money he is borrowing in this way. It sounds very fine indeed, and the Minister is turning one of our people’s failings to account. It sounds very fine when he says that he is going to borrow this money and that he is going to repay it to the people. I can also get my money back if I pay a discount of 2s. in the £. I don’t say that the Minister is not going to return that money, but how is he going to do it? He is not going to keep that money in a fund where it is going to earn interest. No, he is going to use that money for his war purposes, and do hon. members realise what the result is going to be? He will have to tax those self-same people again to get the necessary money to pay them back what he has borrowed from them, and yet it sounds very beautiful to simple people. The Minister reminds me of an English saying which I am going to translate into Afrikaans, “Waar onkunde geluk beteken, is dit dwaasheid om verstandig te wees” (Where ignorance is bliss ’tis folly to be wise). He availed himself of the ignorance of the people to borrow money in this way. I have only mentioned these two points. I am very displeased with the Minister. Last year I spoke about the Excess Profits Tax, and I showed him how unfair his proposals were, and I thought he would try to put the matter right. He only just touched it, but he did not do it in such a way as to give any relief. He has come with the most unfair proposals before Parliament. He is taxing the young professional man. He is taxing the young industrialist who has come to the fore and who has been making a profit during the last couple of years, but the old professional man and the old industrialist, the people who reached their zenith before the war and who could never make any more money than they have made in the past, they get off much more lightly. It is the young man who is being taxed. What encouragement is there for these people, and are they going to try and go ahead in those circumstances? No, it is not to be wondered at that many of those people feel that they do not want to do any more. They feel that they do not want to get ahead because the Minister is going to tax them out of everything. Why is he doing it? Because he wants to get more money to carry on the war. The Minister is compelled to look for money and where he is forcing the people to pay Excess Profits Tax we tell him that he should treat everybody alike. Last year I discussed this matter with the Minister. I discussed this matter with him privately, and I really thought he was going to listen to me, but he has failed to do so.

I just want to point out with reference to the taxation proposals in this Bill, and especially with reference to the resolution which is piously called a Savings Fund Tax, that it is a tax which will necessarily be the most unpopular in the country. The unpopularity which the Government has already gained will be doubled as a result of this tax. The nature of the resolution really reminds one of the Middle Ages. It reminds one of King John of England when he compelled the public in those days to contribute to the Treasury in that manner. After that stage the Minister introduces this resolution, and I want to protest most strongly against it, because this tax will be a great burden, especially on the poorer section of the community, which will find it extremely difficult to pay this money. In the second place, I have referred on a previous occasion to the dangerous principle of the tax on the sale of fixed property. On a previous occasion I showed that it would be nothing else but the thin end of the policy of a land tax with which a start is made here. The tax in itself is just as unfair as the previous tax which I mentioned. The average young farmer who in these days of revival in which we live, has to pay this tax on land which he sells in order to improve his position, is hit very hard by this. I firmly believe that this tax to which I have referred was not originally contemplated by the Minister. I firmly believe that this is the idea which the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) brought over when he came from Australia, where he went in order to fetch all the good points of Australia and New Zealand in order to apply them to South Africa. He then pointed his finger at the Government and said that he was ashamed of South Africa insofar as taxes are concerned, when he makes comparison with Australia and New Zealand. I have indicated that that continual comparison of conditions in South Africa with conditions in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, do not hold water. It is a sin against South Africa that we should expect South Africa, which has experienced so many setbacks, to keep pace with the tax enthusiasts and war enthusiasts of Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Once again I want to protest most strongly against the type of tax which is contemplated in this Bill.

May I anneal to the Minister to realise the involved character of the taxation that is being imposed on taxpayers — taxation of this kind renders it highly necessary for taxpayers to have a simplified form of taxation arithmetic issued for their guidance. I hope the Minister will understand that these taxation proposals involve serious mathematical problems so far as the majority of the taxpayers are concerned. They are difficult to understand by those who never went to school at all and by those who left school a long time ago. I think the Minister should put out a simplified statement which the ordinary plain man can understand and which will enable him to realise what his liabilities are under the taxation measures and how he should avoid committing contraventions of the Act. He may easily slip into an offence without being aware of it, and I hone the Minister will bear that in mind with the very able staff he has on the taxation side of his department. With regard to the tax on Profits on Immovable Property I wish to say that the Minister of Finance seems to have imposed this tax very largely on the expert opinion that stands behind him in his department, and without sufficient consultation with the farmers or those who will have to pay the tax. This tax is regarded as a very unfortunate one in the province to which I belong. The Natal Province lends itself to the sub-division of land, and the owning of land is becoming a popular matter with us. We were attracting to the ownership of land a very large and wealthy class of people who would have assisted greatly in the development of agriculture and intensive farming. But the Minister of Finance by his tax has made it a very unpopular matter to acquire land at all. He has frightened away a very large and helpful band of purchasers who would in the ordinary course have become owners of land and who would have been proud of it. It is going to be almost a disreputable business to buy land if there is a profit attached to it, and the Minister’s method is going to be very unpopular with people who are burdened with heavy bonds. For years these people have struggled to make ends meet and to save their land from the ruin that is imminent through the land being heavily bonded. A resolution has been sent to me from my constituency by the Richmond Agricultural Society, indicating the dislike of the farmer for this type of tax. A somewhat similar resolution was passed by the Highflats Farming Association. Although the latter do not condemn the tax, they condemn the severity of the levy. The Eston Farmers’ Association condemns the tax very much on the same lines as the Richmond Agricultural Society. I understand that it is too late for the Minister to reconsider the imposition of this tax, but I think that one year’s experience of it will be sufficient for him to realise that he is doing a great deal of harm to the future of the farming industry of this country. It is unavoidable that every farmer should see in this tax the possibility of a land tax. I am going to deal with the land tax, but in this measure the farmer considers a land tax is foreshadowed, and there is nothing that would lead to a greater stampede from the land than that. If the farmers were to have a land tax imposed on them, it would not be very long before you would not have a single farmer left. Already the drift to the towns is very considerable, and I hope the hon. Minister will stay his hand before speeding up the drift from the farms to the towns with any greater momentum. I hope the hon. Minister will consult the farmers of every province in regard to this matter; and I feel sure that he will realise that it will be far better to avoid a perpetuation of this tax, and although it is unavoidable for this year, I hope that when the next Budget is introduced, the Minister will be in a better frame of mind and relieve the farmers of this burdensome tax.

There are only two cases which I want to bring to the notice of the Minister in connection with Fixed Property Profit Tax and these two cases are in connection with Civil Servants. The first case which was brought to my notice is that of a Civil Servant who is in Cape Town. He bought a property after the outbreak of war. Now he is being transferred to Pretoria. He has to sell his house here and go to Pretoria and get a house there. He sells his house here at a profit, but in Pretoria he has to pay very much more for a house as a result of the rise in prices in that town. Now he has to pay this fixed property tax, although in existing circumstances he will have to pay a higher price in Pretoria for a house. Then I mention this case: An official bought a plot of ground here and thereafter he built a house for himself on it. He is transferred to Pretoria and has to sell here. He makes a small profit on the sale, but when he gets to Pretoria he has to pay a higher price for a house, because houses are very scarce there. I should like the Minister to meet the Civil Servants. Otherwise, it will hit them very hard when they are transferred by their departments from one place to another. I do not think the tax was intended for that purpose, and I hope that the Minister will issue instructions that the tax will not be applied to Civil Servants if they are transferred on the decision of their departments.

I will not detain the House for more than a few minutes. I want to say a few words about the Fixed Property Profits Tax, and I refer particularly to Section 31 (b), which says, in effect, that this tax is payable within a period of 30 days after the date of the transaction. That is, it is payable after the deed of sale has been completed. Now I want to ask the Minister whether he has taken into consideration the case where property is sold on the instalment system, that is, where property is sold on terms. Let us take the case of a property, for instance, which is sold, for argument’s sake, against a deposit of £50 cash and thereafter £10 per month. In that particular case the seller may have made a profit of £50 or £100, as the case may be, and the purchase price of the property is not paid in full until a period of ten or fifteen years has elapsed. As this section now reads, you may conceivably have a case where a seller would have to pay more in taxation than he received by way of deposit, because you have many cases where property is simply sold on the instalment system and where no deposit is paid. You might very conceivably have a case where you have an unfortunate seller who has made a small profit on his property, but that profit is spread over a period of ten or fifteen years. Now he has to find 13s. 4d. in the £ on this paper profit, and he has to pay that tax within 30 days. I am simply taking the ordinary case of many people who find that they cannot sell their property for cash, and who sell it on easy terms. There are thousands of cases where property is sold on the instalment system. On the Reef, particularly, the bulk of the houses are sold on terms.

Practically everywhere.

In terms of this section, if the seller has to pay this tax on his paper profit within a period of 30 days, you may have the position that the seller has to borrow money in order to pay the tax. I think the House will agree with me that some provision should be made to meet this case, and I want to suggest for the consideration of the Minister that the tax should be payable within a period of 30 days after the date of transfer, and not within a period of 30 days after the conclusion of the sale. I understand that the Minister has foreshadowed that he will meet these cases, if the tax on the profit is guaranteed, if payment has not been made, but where the profit is guaranteed to the satisfaction of the Minister. If the profit is guaranteed, then I think the House will agree with me that the transfer can be passed, and the date of payment of the tax should then be within 30 days of the transfer and not within 30 days of the date of the transaction. The Minister will agree with me when I say that it is the practice of the Commissioner for Inland Revenue that if fixed properties are sold on terms spread over a period of ten or fifteen years—as a matter of fact it is the law—that Excess Profits Tax, for example, has to be paid immediately when the sale is concluded, although it may take ten, fifteen or twenty years before you get that property in hand. In other words, you pay on an expectation of profit. I do not want to detain the House any longer, but it appears to me that this is a real difficulty which the Minister ought to meet.

I should like to draw the attention of the Minister to this so-called savings system. What will the poor man have to do? He is being forced under this system to make his contribution to the prosecution of the war. According to his income, he has to contribute to the Treasury. Has the Minister thought of the position of the poor man who cannot afford to put aside the Savings Certificates? He will have to pay this amount, but will immediately have to hand in the certificates he got and lose 3s. in the £ on them. That is the amount which he will have to contribute to the war. Is it fair to tax the poor man in this indirect manner? Then with regard to the tax on fixed property, the Minister says that it was primarily intended to prevent speculation in land. But to me it seems very much like someone saying, “You may not steal, but if you give me a portion of the money, you may steal.” The Minister is opposed to people making a profit on land which they bought after a certain date, because he fears that the price of land will be driven up. But in certain circumstances he does allow it, namely, if you make a contribution of 6s. 8d. or 13s. 4d. to the Treasury. Then it may be done. The principle is wrong. The Minister should rather introduce an Act prohibiting speculation altogether in that case. I am in favour of something being done to stabilise prices, but to say “You may not do this, that it is not in the interests of the country, but if you give me a portion of the profit, then you can carry on with it”— that is quite wrong. I want to ask the Minister whether he cannot alter the tax in such a way that it is only levied on land which was bought after he made his announcement in this House. Can he not do it in such a way that only such cases will fall under it? As it is at the moment, everyone falls under it who bought land after the 1st October, 1939. In many cases they did not buy the land specially with a view to making profit. I know of a case where a man has two plots of ground. He is a bona fide farmer. He bought one of them after the 1st October, 1939. At present he has too many cattle for these plots of land, and he would like to sell these two plots and buy a big farm. He cannot do so because the one plot was bought after the 1st October, and out of the small profit which he will make on it he will have to forego 6s. 8d. in the £. In these circumstances he cannot expand his farming. Is the Minister not prepared to meet such cases?

I do not want to occupy a great deal of time, but I just want to point out practical difficulties which I see, and I want to ask the Minister to give consideration to the matter and to see whether it is not possible to exempt landowners from the tax, who are compelled by financial pressure to sell land. I think the Minister primarily had in mind the case where a person makes a big or a fairly big profit on the sale of land. But I can give the Minister the assurance that numerous farmers are already taxed very heavily and are struggling very hard to pay the interest on their bonds. During the past few years when large sums were released by the Native Trust for the purchase of land, and when a large number of transactions in land took place, the number of purchasers of land increased to a large extent, and people found it very difficult to get hold of land. On the other hand people, where buyers were to be found, sold their land or a portion of it which they could spare, in order to reduce their bonds in this manner. Hon. members who represent farming constituencies will agree with me that there were farmers who sold portions of their farms in order to reduce their bonds.

That does not fall under the Bill.

But you find cases where people bought land during the past few years to a greater extent than in the past, and there are some of them who were hit hard by the drought last year.

They do not fall under this tax.

The hon. member does not understand my point. I want to ask him what the position is of a man who bought land after the 1st October, 1939, with the intention of farming on it. Last year, owing to drought, he lost a large number of his cattle, and suffered such a setback that he realised that he would have to sell half or a portion of the land again, in order not to become bankrupt. What is the position of that person? Hon. members cannot convince me of the fact that such a person will not have to pay 6s. 8d. in the £ on the profit which he makes on the land. As a result of this tax, this person is not enabled to improve his capital position, and to reduce his debt. The Minister takes onethird of the profit if the land was sold before this Act came into operation, and two-thirds if the land was sold after the Act came into operation. I think the Minister should consider to what extent this measure will be responsible in putting a stop to all sales of land, and to what extent it will be a shock, resulting in the decline of the price of land to such an extent that no farmer will be in a position to sell land any longer, even though he has to sell.

It is practically tantamount to freezing the prices of land.

That is precisely what I am trying to explain, that as the result of the action of the Minister, he will put off people who still wanted to buy. He makes it practically impossible for land transactions to take place, and I want to ask the Minister whether in these circumstances he will not consider what was suggested by the hon. member for Brits (Mr. Grobler) and others. Can he not introduce the Act with operative effect from the date on which he made this announcement? There are many of these people who entered into transactions not with a view to making profits, and many of them are placed in a difficult position if they now have to pay 6s. 8d. and 13s. 4d. tax on the profits on such transactions. The Minister must bear in mind that the farmers have experienced, and are still experiencing very difficult times. We have a drought in this country which has not yet broken, and which has lasted since last year. The farmers are suffering in these circumstances, and in those cases where it can be satisfactorily established that they did not buy land only with a view to making profit, cannot the Minister give exemption? Can he not abandon the tax in those cases? Why should people who are compelled to put land on the market for financial reasons, be hit so hard?

The hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) will pardon me if I say that the speech which he made this afternoon would perhaps have been more appropriate on earlier occasions. Perhaps he did not have an opportunity then of taking part in the debate. But I just want to point out that we have already discussed our taxation policy in the first instance at the time of the Budget debate, and in the second place, when we submitted a motion to go into the Committee of Ways and Means on taxation proposals. That was really the proper occasion on which to raise these various matters, and what I am now saying of that hon. member’s speech, I can say of the majority of the speeches which were made here this afternoon. Hon. members will pardon me if I do not again deal with all the matters of principle which they raised, because we have already decided on the matters of principle. The House accepted the taxation proposals in principle, and we are now engaged in considering the machinery.

We are dealing with the practical application of it.

Yes, but the hon. member cannot revert to what was decided by the House in the Committee of Ways and Means. I shall, however, briefly reply to the question of the hon. member for Waterberg. I have done so on previous occasions, but perhaps he was not here, or otherwise I did not satisfy him on those occasions. In the first place, he asks why the special levy on trades profits was fixed on the scale of 6s. 8d. while in the case of Excess Profits Tax the scale is 13s. 4d. The reply is fairly obvious. In the case of Excess Profits Tax, we tax additional income which was not made prior to the war. It is therefore quite correct that a higher tax be imposed on that. The special levy on trades profit is a tax on the pre-war standard of income, or in other words, it means a reduction in the income which the individual received before the war. It would therefore not be fair to apply the same rate in the second case as in the first case. What we are doing here is that we are extending the Excess Profits Tax to a certain extent inasmuch as we are taxing the benefit derived by the individual with a high prewar standard. That is practically my reply to the hon. member for Ceres (Mr. J. J. M. van Zyl). In the past he complained that the Excess Profits Tax especially hit people who have new businesses with a low prewar standard, whilst people with a high pre-war standard are favoured. To a certain extent we are now getting away from that by means of this resolution, and we are now specially taxing the person with a high pre-war standard. In other words, we are also reducing his pre-war standard of profit and income. We apply this extension of the Exess Profits Tax to the same type of income as that to which the Excess Profits Tax itself is applicable; in other words, to income which was derived from commerce as defined in the Income Tax Act. For this reason it is not applied to salaries or to the income of rentiers. There are good reasons for it. Generally speaking, commerce flourishes in time of war, but the income of a rentier is decreased. The income of the rentier from interest on investments has fallen and his income from companies has already been reduced as a result of our tax on companies. Generally speaking, the rentiers are in a less favourable position than they were formely. People who engage in commerce are in a more favourable position, and for that reason it is fair, if you have to impose special taxes, to impose the taxes on people engaged in commerce and not on rentiers, nor on the salaried person whose position is no better than it was before the war. With regard to Personal and Savings Fund Tax, hon. members pointed out that we were now taxing married people with incomes of less than £300 for the first time. That is perfectly correct insofar as direct taxation is concerned. In the past these people paid indirect taxation, of course, and also direct Provincial taxation. But the position is simply that today we have to collect a much bigger amount by way of taxation than formerly, and the amount must be spread as evenly as possible over the various groups. I do not think that we can any longer defend the proposition that people with incomes of less than £350 should be entirely exempted from paying taxes. I now come to the Fixed Property Tax, to which a good deal of attention has been devoted by various hon. members. The object of this tax is twofold. In the first place, the object is to collect money, but in the second place the object is to discourage speculation in land. I admit that as a result of this tax certain people will make less profit than they would otherwise have made. There may also be hard cases. I want to concede that some people may not be able to purchase property as easily as they might have done otherwise, but generally, this tax is not only a tax for the collecting of money, but it is a tax in the interests of the community as a whole. It does not apply in the least to the farmers themselves. I think that we took a very important and valuable step in introducing this tax in order to put a brake on the upward trend of land prices. I was asked by hon. members to confine this tax to authentic cases.

Just the reverse.

Yes, to exclude authentic cases, and not to apply it to cases where property was not bought or sold for profit. If hon. members want to place the responsibility on me of deciding whether or not a transaction took place for profit, I am not prepared to take that responsibility upon myself. The special case of civil servants has been mentioned, but this is not a hard case which is only confined to civil servants. There are other persons who are in the same position and, generally speaking, as has already been said, the community will derive benefit from the steps which are taken here in order to counteract the upward trend of fixed property prices. The hon. member for Hoopstad (Mr. J. H. Viljoen) is not here, but he wants to allege that the paternity of this resolution is really due to the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell), and that in this case we are copying Australia and New Zealand. I do not even know whether there is a similar tax in those countries. The hon. member can console himself with the thought that this is a South African tax which we thought out ourselves. I am the father of it myself.

†Then the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Trollip) has raised a question in regard to the Fixed Property Tax. He has referred to the fact that the tax is payable within a period of 30 days after the date of the transaction. I think he has overlooked these words in Clause 31 (b)—

So we have the power to take into account special circumstances such as those referred to. The hon. member for South Peninsula (Mr. Sonnenberg), apart from raising the question of transfer duty insofar as it affects private companies, a point which is receiving attention, made the suggestion that the Personal Tax should be collected through employers. Well, not all people who will pay the Person Tax are employers, so that would not provide a complete method of collecting the tax. Indeed, it may add a certain amount of confusion. It would have certain advantages from the point of view of the person paying the tax, but in reality the collection of this tax will be comparatively simple, just as it is in the case of the Provincial Personal Tax. Then the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) spoke of the dislike of farmers for this tax. Well, I would again repeat that this is not a land tax, it is a tax on the profits on the sale of land, and I would ask the hon. member and other hon. members to take a long view of this matter. It is perfectly true that the imposition of this tax may prevent some people from getting profits which they would otherwise have got. But insofar as this tax tends to check an undue increase in the price of land, it can only be to the benefit of the country.

I want to move a further exception, and for that reason I move the following amendement—

I do not know whether it is necessary to say much in regard to this. The co-operative agricultural associations sometimes lend money to their members. They are permitted by the Act to borrow money on the outstanding crop. They do that as a branch of their business, and they are under the supervision of the Registrar of Co-operative Societies who has more extended powers than this Registrar of Banks, because he can send auditors to examine their books regularly. This is not a large part of their business, and to require them now to make all these statements will mean that they will have to appoint half-a-dozen clerks. Many of them experience great difficulties, and for that reason I feel that we need not include them under this. I do not know of a co-operative society which received deposits from its members and which was not in a position to repay them. I feel, therefore, that the Minister of Finance ought to accept this motion. I really feel that I have a right to ask this, and I shall be glad if he will accept this amendment.

I hope my hon. friend will not insist on this amendment. The Select Committee went very far in laying down which institutions would be regarded as deposit-receiving institutions according to this Bill. The Select Committee amended the definition. Deposit-receiving institutions are described as persons, which of course includes bodies, who carry on the business of accepting deposits of money. In sub-Section (2) it is further defined as follows, that a person shall not be deemed to be carrying on the business of accepting the deposits of money for the purposes of this Act unless he accepts, as a regular feature of his general business, deposits from the general public or from members in the case, of a co-operative society, or unless he advertises or solicits for such deposits. Then there is a wide limitation in the new subSection (2) of this sub-section. I think that it is a reasonable compromise which the Select Committee accepted. It goes further than I personally would have gone. I am prepared, however, to accept this compromise, and I hope that my hon. friend will be prepared, and that this Committee will be prepared to accept what the Select Committee proposes. The co-operative societies fall under the Co-operative Societies Act, of course, although they might also fall under the provisions of this Banking Bill.

I would like to tell the Minister why I insist on my amendment. I insist on it because I know that this Bill will not remain law for long in the form in which it is at present. This Bill was ostensibly framed with that object, but it will not contribute much to the protection of the public. It is the object, according to the technical advisers of the Minister, as they stated to the Select Committee, to get hold of figures which he has not now got, with the result that he could not draft an adequate Bill, They think that after this Bill has been in operation for a year or two they will be in a position to introduce better legislation. That is of course, a wrong procedure. If they did not have the information at their disposal, it would have been much easier to appoint a commission to get that information. We cannot accent this as an excuse for a Bill which was drafted so loosely. This Bill will be amended, and I should like to insert this provision so that it will be in the Act when those amendments are made. Nor do I think that such co-operative societies fall under the Act at present, but I should like it specifically laid down so that it will not again be necessary to do so when the Act is amended. We must lay this down in express terms in the Bill. It will then not be necessary for us again to argue the matter at a later date. There are no co-operative societies which make it their business to lend money. Where would they get it. We ought to insert these words.

Amendment put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—27:

Bremer, K.

Conroy, E. A.

Dönges, T. E.

Erasmus, F. C.

Fouche, J. J.

Hugo, P. J.

Le Roux, S. P.

Loubser. S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Malan, D. F.

Naudé, S. W.

Schoeman, B. J.

Schoeman, N. J.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. P.

Swart, C. R.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Venter, J. A. P.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Warren, S. E.

Wilkens, Jacob.

Wilkens, Jan.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

Tellers: J. J. Haywood and J. F. T. Naudé.

Noes—56:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Blackwell, L.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Clark, C. W.

Collins, W. R.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

Derbyshire, J. G.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Hayward, G. N.

Henderson, R. H.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Humphreys, W. B.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Klopper, L. B.

Long, B. K.

Marwick, J. S.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Moll, A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Pocock, P. V.

Quinlan, S. C.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Smuts, J. C.

Solomon, B.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Sonnenberg, M.

Stallard, C. F.

Steyn, C. F.

Strauss, J. G. N.

Sturrock, F. C.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Van der Merwe, H.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

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

Amendment accordingly negatived.

On the motion of the Minister of Finance, the Chairman put the new sub-section (2), proposed by the Select Committee.

I move—

I move—

I move my amendment as printed. I accept the decision of the Select Committee, in regard to the application of the Usury Act to commercial banks, but I do not think that the Select Committee meant to go quite so far as this clause does. I am indeed satisfied that they did not. If we simply delete the clause, all our banks, including the Reserve Bank, will have to put up a board outside to say that they are money-lenders. I don’t believe anybody wants that.

It is true, is it not?

I don’t think anyone wants to put them in that position, therefore I do not think that Section 10 of the Usury Act should apply to these banks.

Afraid of the truth?

I move—

I move—

I move—

I move—

I object.

Amendments to be considered on 15th April.

In accordance with Paragraph (1) of the resolution adopted by the House on the 30th March, the Supplementary Estimates of Expenditure to be defrayed from Revenue and Loan Funds during the year ending 31st March, 1943 stand referred to the Committee.

When this debate was last adjourned I was replying to the criticism which had been levelled against the Vote of the Department of Lands. I was shewing what the policy of the department was in regard to settlements. In that connection I was explaining to the House that the basis of our settlement is that they are established for the rehabilitation of the poor, and to provide those people with holdings, which can be economically worked by the particular families settled there so that they can give an economic existence to such a family and to such a family only. I also explained that unfortunately since the policy was first of all put into effect in years gone by, since it was started by the Department of Lands, since that department started with the rehabilitation work, it had unfortunately not always been very strictly carried out and in a number of cases a number of families had congregated on some of those holdings, where grown up sons had stayed with their parents and parents had stayed with their sons, and sometimes other members of the family as well. The result was that sometimes two or three families were living on one holding, so that the whole position degenerated and did not answer its purpose with which these people were originally settled on these holdings. I again want to say that if we allow those conditions to develop on our settlements the Department of Lands instead of rehabilitating those settlers and enabling them to get on their feet again will be contributing towards a condition of affairs which is going to lead to the increase of the number of poor whites on a scale much greater than it was in the past, much greater than it was before those people were settled on those holdings. I want to give a few instances to show the position which was created on some of these holdings to indicate how the position degenerated in certain cases. There is one instance of a holding of seven morgen in extent which was allotted to a settler with his wife and two children. The father and the mother also came to live with the settler. The father was seventy-five years of age but he had seven children, the youngest of whom was two years of age. So that they had nine children and four grown ups on that holding. In addition to that a widow and four children came to live with them so that altogether there were thirteen children on the holding.

That was a small colony.

Yes, it was a small colony, and you can quite understand, Mr. Chairman, that it was the intention to hand that holding to one person with his family so that they would be able to make a living on it. There was another instance of a farm; three people were settled there. Two of them each took in two married sons. The third one had a bywoner with a family of four. The result was overcrowding, and it practically led to a slum area developing there. If the Department of Lands is going to allow that sort of thing it means that all the money the Government spends on land settlement and irrigation works connected with the settlement is simply so much money wasted, because it will tend to the fostering of poor whiteism, and that is something I am sure none of us can possibly approve of.

But surely the Minister has always had the right to say that these sort of things are not to be allowed, so why should they be allowed now?

Unfortunately Ministers did not stop it, because these conditions which I have referred to have been in existence for the last few years. The department’s policy is, where these holdings are issued to certain people, to try and rehabilitate them. These holdings are allotted to those people and their families and we cannot allow this overcrowing. We have already had complaints, even across the floor of this House, about the holdings being too small and about the people living below the bread line. Well, if we do not strictly enforce this policy and if we allow families to congregate on these holdings, we are going to get uneconomic conditions and we are going to get the type of malconditions which I have just described. The result is that the department has now laid down the policy that if the Department of Lands is to perform the functions for which it has been established, that policy must be strictly enforced, so that if a grown-up son comes to live with his parents on the farm he has to be told to try and find some other place to make a living.

What about the old people?

Yes, in regard to the old people I want to say this: That it is not correct that we are applying the regulations in regard to the removal of old people like a law of the Medes and the Persians. It has been said here that it is a good trait in a young man’s character if he wants to look after his people who have reached an old age, but if you want to look after your parents, you have got to do it out of your own pocket and not out of the pocket of the Government, when the Government has put you on a holding where you have to make your living. In the second place I want to point out that the Government does make provision for pensions for aged people and if people are semi-fit, or if they have no roof over their heads the Government looks after them, and the Government sees to it that they have a roof over their heads.

But who has to take care of these old people? Who has to look after them?

The Department of Social Welfare is there to look after these people. They can apply to the Department of Social Welfare and it is the duty of that department to see to it that these people have a roof over their heads and that they are able to live. Then we have our sub-economic housing schemes, and two years ago an amount of not less than £22,000,000 was placed at the disposal of the Minister concerned to attend to housing questions.

Have those houses been built?

That work does not fall under me, it is the function of my department to rehabilitate people, and other departments are there to look after old people and semi-fit people. If I allow aged people with six or seven children to live on the settlements, and if in addition to that we also allow grown-up sons with their families to live there, then it is quite impossible for me to carry on any rehabilitation work; it simply means that that class of work will be completely frustrated, and instead of helping people along and improving their condition, we shall be dragging them deeper into the distress of poor whiteism. But as I have already said, this is not a law of the Medes and the Persians. Every case is considered on its merits. I can, for instance, conceive of the case of a widow whose husband has died; that is to say, the man who was settled on a holding has died. If the widow carries on on that holding and she has a son, we would naturally in such circumstances allow the son to stay there, but as a matter of general policy we intend carrying out the principle that grown-up sons must look after themselves and make their own living. A feeling is gradually developing among the people that if a man is a settler on a settlement, or on an ordinary farm, then his children must also become settlers, and that from generation to generation the Government must take them over as settlers and look after them. That is a feeling which has been gradually developing and we are trying to wipe out that feeling, to do away with it. If we once take up a man as a settler we do so with a view to rehabilitating him. His children receive free education and if they are grown up and are of age, they have to be independent citizens and they have to look after themselves and find their own way in life. There was a great fuss made when we started putting this policy into effect, when we put into effect the policy which had as its aim that the Department of Lands was to be a rehabilitation department. Some of the settlers thought that we were hard and inhuman, but I had the privilege recently of meeting some of these young fellows in Pretoria and Johannesburg—young fellows who had been on those settlements and who also thought that we were very hard and inhuman. These young men came to me and they thanked me for the fact that we were putting that policy into effect. They said that when they were living on the holdings they did not even get a kaffir wage and they were pleased that the Government had stepped in. It is self-evident that if you have two or three of these young fellows on these holdings, the one holding allotted to the settlers cannot carry all of them, and the natural consequence is that the settler is living below the bread line. We get that to a very large extent and these people are not living on an economic basis then. If we allow the children to remain there with their people, it becomes quite impossible for us to rehabilitate them, and it means that all the money that has been invested in these settlements is so much waste. Just to show what the position is which has been developing there, I want to quote from a letter which I received from an old settler. He writes and tells me that I should allow him to keep his son on the holding, and he says that it is natural that he, the settler, cannot himself walk behind a plough, and that he must have his son to walk behind the plough. “I only pay him a kaffir wage.” That is exactly what he writes. “And when the department presses me for arrear interest and redemption he still gives me a little bit to assist me.” That is a condition of affairs which we cannot allow. It is the function of my department to rehabilitate people and if you want to do that sort of thing you must be convinced of two things; the one is that the holding on which a man is settled is big enough and that he has been settled there on an economic basis, so that he can make a living there if he is hard working and careful, and can put a little bit aside so that he may have a future in life and some prospects in life. If the department has done that, then the department has answered its purpose. Hon. members know that during the past two years we have repeatedly written off amounts that were owing to the State. Another large amount has recently been written off again in respect of the Karos-Buchuberg Settlement. Some of those holdings were on an economic basis and we have enlarged them and put them on an economic basis. Once the department has done that and is convinced that the settler who is on the land is there on an economic basis then the department is going to see to it that that man does his duty in the way he works his holding, and if in those conditions a man goes under then I say that it is his own fault. If in those circumstances he goes under it means that he is unable to make a living even on a holding which is laid out on an economic basis. That is the policy which we are carrying out. Only this morning we were dealing with the question of writing off debts; we are continually enlarging those holdings, but having done so we are going to see to it that our inspectors are going to keep in close touch with the people on these settlements. We are there to help them to advise them and were going to have inspectors who are competent to advise them, men who can show them how to cultivate their land and what to do. In that way we should be able to achieve something. We may then be able to hope that some of those people — that the majority of those people — will become independent citizens of the State, but the greatest difficulty I have had during the past few years in connection with settlements has been that in many cases those people were not able to make a decent living. The liability, the burden resting on those holdings, was too big and in many instances the holdings were uneconomic. But I think that an even greater difficulty was the politicians.

Of your own party.

My own party has never gone to a place like Brits for instance to hold braaivleis evenings there, and Ossewa-Brandwag functions, to which those people flocked in their masses. That was what happened at Brits and Vaalhartz.

Vaalhartz?

No, KarosBuchuberg. At Vaalhartz we did not have that trouble.

What was the trouble?

As soon as they want to make propaganda they bring a crowd of people together and they have their braaivleis evenings, two or three times a week, and a number of those people who are living below the breadline are exploited because they are called on to contribute to the funds.

You appointed a special political agent.

That is untrue. And that was the greatest difficulty I have had to contend with. At KarosBuchuberg they proudly declared that 92 per cent. of the settlers belonged to the OssewaBrandwag, and one could not get those people to pay attention to their work. But as I have already said, I only hope that the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys) who is not here and who is so keen on sending out pamphlets is not going to say that he had compelled and obliged the Minister to write off, and that he had compelled him to do this, that or the other. Now that is the policy of the department, not only in regard to Karos-Buchuberg but in regard to all other settlements. We have had complaints from Brits that in some cases the same condition of affairs prevails there as at Karos-Buchuberg. I want to give an assurance here that the policy which has been carried out in regard to Karos-Buchuberg will also be carried out in regard to Brits; where there are holdings which are uneconomic an investigation will be made and a very thorough investigation at that.

Does that also apply to Indwe?

The hon. member for Brits said that I was systematically dragging politics into my department, and he particularly mentioned the appointment of members of the Land Board.

One case.

I can mention another case as well. He said that I dragged in politics by the way I made my appointments. I only want to say that where I have made appointments to the Land Board I have only made appointments of people who are prepared to carry out the policy of this Government, and I have not appointed people who will do any subversive work or who will commit acts of sabotage. I further want to say in regard to the appointment of members to the Land Board that I do not want to have a family Land Board.

What do you mean by that?

In the past it was mostly people’s relations who were appointed.

That is untrue.

I can mention a few names. We don’t want to have any family Land Boards. I appoint people who are competent and fit to carry out the Government’s policy and who do not act in conflict with the Government’s policy. Another case mentioned by the hon. member as an example of the introduction of politics was the case of Mr. Wentzel who was not reappointed as a member of the Board. Let me say, and I have said it before, that Mr. Wentzel has rendered many services to this country.

But he is not a S.A.P.

Let me just say that as soon as he was not reappointed to the Land Board he was sworn in as a General with one of the subversive bodies in this country. I think that is a sufficient answer in connection with this matter.

Your information is wrong. He is not even a General.

He was appointed a General and sworn in as such. I have all the details.

Did you get your information from the khaki knights?

I know nothing about the khaki knights. I don’t know them, I don’t belong to them, and I do not want to have anything to do with them. The hon. member says that I dragged in politics when I did not reappoint Mr. Wentzel, and that is the greatest sin I have committed. It sounds very peculiar coming from the hon. member for Brits when he says that because I have not reappointed a certain person I have therefore dragged politics into my department. He belongs to an organisation which does not hesitate to say that it wants to throw our Constitution overboard, and that it will do so if it ever comes into power, and that it will throw everyone out of his position and that it is going to clean the Augean Stable. The Leader of the Opposition (Dr. Malan) holds the same political views. He even wants to go so far as to disfranchise us. They have told us what they are going to do to us; they will not even let us have the vote any longer—leave alone give us positions on the Land Board. And because I did not reappoint a certain man I am now accused of having dragged in politics. We have had a taste of what may happen if the hon. member’s party, the New Order, should ever come into power—which, of course, will never happen. At Kakamas they have a government of the Labour Colony there, which practically constitutes a government within a government. Now let me tell the House what goes on there. The Labour Colony consists largely of members of the Ossewa-Brandwag.

Fine!

The State subsidises the Rhenosterkop Settlement below Kakamas which to-day under the control of the Labour Colony is being cleared for settlement purposes.

With public money.

Four-fifths of the salaries and wages which are paid to those people come from social welfare.

Money of the taxpayers.

I wish hon. members would allow me to proceed.

If hon. members do not refrain from interrupting I shall have to take other steps.

The major portion of the wages is paid by the State for the clearing of the ground and for the purpose of putting the settlers there. Until recently eighty of the holdings had been allotted to settlers and seventy-two of the eighty were members of the Ossewabrandwag. Only eight of the eighty were people who supported the Government’s policy. The State has also built houses there for aged people, and plots of land have been allocated to people which they can irrigate. Until recently, of the twenty-five families of aged men who had been settled there, eight were Government supporters and seventeen belonged to the Ossewabrandwag. The Government pays subsidies and we recently received a letter from the Superintendent there to the effect that a certain man named De Wet who was a foreman there had complained that a man by the name of Carelson —who was a Government supporter—had been caught reading a newspaper during working hours and that this set a very bad example to the other people there. We were asked to take the man away from there and the Superintendent strongly recommended us to do so. We had an investigation made and we found that De Wet, the foreman there, was in the habit when the people had to be paid, and when they were standing in a queue to receive their pay, of reading the Constitution of the Ossewabrandwag to them, and of telling them how they could join up.

He was a fine fellow.

Yes, in my hon. friend’s eyes. De Wet tells them that it will cost them 3/to join the Ossewabrandwag, and that Steenkamp—I think that’s the name—is present to take their names if they will pay 3/-. Then they get their pay and they proceed to join the Ossewabrandwag. That is what has been happening there.

It looks very much like the stop order system.

I am mentioning this as an example. I am criticised because for very good reasons I did not reappoint a certain person, but here we find this kind of thing going on, and this gives us a taste of what is going to happen if ever hon. members opposite should triumph, which fortunately will never happen. If they should ever get their opportunity there will be no hope for us in this country. The hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) is not present. Last year, and this year again, he raised the case of Mr. Piet Villiers who is generally known as Piet Mof. He is known everywhere throughout this country.

He is an old jackal.

No, he is one of my friend’s heroes. And they want me to kick him out, and what are their reasons? The reasons is that Piet Mof does not want to be a member of the Ossewabrandwag. There can be no other reason.

You know better.

There is no other reason. But hon. members opposite are always on the look out for heroes. Do hon. members know that Piet Mof is one of those Afrikaners who have done more than the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys), and more than many other hon. members opposite.

Even more than the Minister.

I really should not have any great sympathy with him because he shot at me.

When?

Peit Mof was one of those who in 1914 with the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Genl. Kemp) trekked into the desert and suffered many privations there. He is one of those who was subsequently put in gaol together with Commandant Stadler who came from Kakamas. They were in precisely the same position, but unfortunately Stadler had been wounded and he succumbed to his wounds. Hon. members opposite are always turning up old graves and always searching for heroes. They even dug up Stadler’s grave again.

What has that to do with settlement?

I am only trying to point out that we have two people here in exactly similar circumstances. Hon. members opposite want me to drive out the one man—I am not even allowed to rent him a piece of land, while the other man is held up to us as a hero. That is the position. The hon. member for Marico (the Rev. C. W. M. du Toit) is one of those who is continually making propaganda with this kind of thing, and he is the man who went there to dig up Stadler’s bones, and to make propaganda and to work on people’s feelings, and when Stadler’s body was dug up, he opened up the body and he looked at the bone where the bullet hole was and he showed people the hole made by the bullet. I am only trying to show that we are dealing with two identical cases here. Piet Villiers, because he does not support hon. members opposite is not allowed to get a piece of land from me, but the other man is proclaimed as a hero. I am told to kick Piet Villiers out. I don’t like that sort of thing. The hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) raised the question of the two farms. I want to say that Piet Villiers made application for the hire of these two farms. There is no contract, there is no agreement, and nothing has been done so far.

Why has he fenced off the farm?

I shall enquire into that and I shall also make an enquiry into the question of the cattle which are alleged to be on the farm. I know nothing about it, but he has made an application and does any hon. member opposite want to say that we should not give Piet Mof a chance in his old age?

Nobody has said so.

I did not say so. I simply asked the Minister to enquire into the matter. I did not make any charges. I am surprised at the attitude the Minister adopts.

The hon. member says that he made no charges. Does it not look like a charge when he says that Piet Mof is alleged to have taken money to assist somebody to get land?

I said that I had a letter which I was prepared to show the Minister.

But you say now that you made no accusations against him.

Personally I made no accusations against him.

The hon. member for Brits made an allegation against me to the effect that we had about 2,000 holdings lying vacant; and the hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Olivier) said that Riet Rivier alone had cost £1,000,000 and that it was lying there and producing nothing. It was further stated that Vaalhartz was also largely lying idle.

Disgraceful.

Let me first of all explain the position. The hon. members for Gordonia, Kuruman and Brits all made those charges against me. Now let me be allowed to quote something from “Die Burger.” That is where they got their information from.

I did not.

Let me read what was stated in “Die Burger” for the information of hon. members—

Is not that a fact?

I shall tell the hon. member. “Die Burger” is simply incompetent to put the matter in its true light. They have to distort everything; they cannot help it, and this statement is just as distorted and untrue. There are two lies in this paragraph and the one is this, that his own Press made that remark. That is definitely untrue. The newspaper which made that remark and which wrote that “disgraceful” (skurkagtig) remark was the “Rand Daily Mail.” We have just as little in common with the “Rand Daily Mail” as we have with “Die Burger.” I want to defend what I am saying and to remark that that article of the “Rand Daily Mail” was a disgraceful article in which they distorted in a scandalous way what I had said. None the less they were decent enough to come to my office to apologise for having misrepresented me. “Die Burger” would never do a thing like that.

The “Rand Daily Mail” did not do it publicly.

The second point is this: that the “Rand Daily Mail” by this article has done just as much harm to recruiting as “Die Burger” has done in this country. Well, that is enough so far as the “Rand Daily Mail” is concerned— the paper which “Die Burger” refers to as my own Press. Now, what is the position in regard to those 2,000 holdings which are lying vacant? A large proportion of those holdings on the various settlements are still densely covered with bush and trees. A large proportion is thickly wooded and has still to be cleared, and the work is a very big one. Last year, however, my Department started early in the year to cultivate those holdings, they started putting in seed and planting and preparing the land for the day when it would be allocated.

For the day when the soldiers return.

I have put aside £38,000 on the Estimates for the planting and sowing of these holdings. At Pongola 2,000 bags of potatoes have been produced and 2,000 bags of wheat; on the Vaalhartz scheme we have produced 15,000 bags of potatoes a large proportion of which, of course, belongs to the settlers; but it was on our recommendation and on our advice that they planted those potatoes and they made good money out of them. At Loskop they started with 2,000 bags of potatoes. We have now made preparations to extend that and about ten tractors are at work there and at Pongola 600 oxen are beingused, and the work is being done by the State. At Pongola we expect to produce 90,000 bags of potatoes this year and 6,000 bags of wheat, and 1,500 morgen will be planted with mealies. On Vaalhartz we hope to get 25,000 bags of potatoes, and 42,000 bags of wheat. At Loskop they expect 1,000 mude of potatoes and 10,000 bags of wheat. They expect 3,030 bags of mealies.

But it seems to me that you are now going to compete with the farmers.

On the one hand we are being accused of allowing the land to lie idle, and now we are told that we are competing with the farmers. It is unnecessary for me to repeat that we are not going to allot any holdings during the war. That is our definite policy.

What is the Government to do now? It does not matter what the Government does, you are still dissatisfied.

Well, that is the answer to that distortion, not only the distortion by “Die Burger” but also by my hon. friends opposite. The hon. member for Brits (Mr. Grobler) asked me a question about the position in regard to the houses at Geluk and about the water-logged plots on that settlement. My Department has not only got plots at Brits but also at Karos-Buchuberg, and an investigation is being conducted into the whole matter. If there are settlers on plots which have become brack or water-logged, the department takes them away from where they are and gives them another plot where they are able to make a living. In regard to the development of brack on the plots, the Department has taken expert advice. We are now making experiments and we are trying to put those experiments into operation to see whether they will have the effect of removing the brackishness. If they turn out to be a success we shall proceed on that principle to try and remove the brack from all the settlements. The hon. member also asked me what about the Consolidation Bill. Well, the Bill is drafted and it was the intention to introduce it this year, but as the hon. member knows there has been no opportunity of doing so. We might perhaps have had the time but the Parliamentary draftsman were not quite ready. We hope, however, to introduce the Bill next year. In regard to the question of houses we shall go into that.

The hon. member for Weenen (Mr. Abrahamson) asked me whether in settling returned soldiers on the land, we will take particular care that they are not put there on an uneconomic basis, and he also suggested that we must put on the land only those people who can farm, and that they should get a certain amount of training before we put them on the land. Now I have on various occasions told the country and this House, that it is the intention of the Government in placing these people on the land when they come back from the war, to see to these points. My hon. friend, the member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) says it is only an experiment, it will not last, and they will go as they did after the great war. Nothing of the sort. The people we have on the settlements today did not know anything about irrigation settlements, I do not think one per cent. of them did, we had to train them and teach them and avise them. My hon. friend knows that my colleague the Minister without Portfolio is in charge of a committee which is looking after this re-absorption business. They have appointed a sub-committee. This subcommittee has a record of every returned soldier who comes back, and they are classifying these men. It is not every man who wishes to go on the land, that we deal with. Some of them may be men who have been on the land before, and these, of course, get preference. The sub-committee has to classify these people and endeavour as far as possible not to put square pegs into round holes. They will try and put men on to the land who will be suited to that life. It has been suggested that some of them might be sent to agricultural colleges, but the agricultural colleges would not be adequate for the purpose, and besides there is no time for a college training for these people, whom we want to get out on to the land as soon as we can. The policy of the department in regard to this settlement plan is that we shall tighten up very considerably our system of inspectorship, and my friend will find that Piet Mof will no longer fill the bill. We are going to put men with an agricultural degree, men of experience in charge who will keep in close contact as possible with these settlers who have been put on these farms. These men are not going to be left to themselves, we are going to help them, guide them and advise them in every possible way in order to ensure that they make a success of their farms. Moreover, no man will be put on a holding whether closer settlement or pastoral unless my department is satisfied that it is an economic holding, that the man will not only make a decent living, but will have an opportunity of making a little more than is necessary for his bare living. The department is also going to apply the probationary system which we have on the closer settlements. Let me describe that. We are going to apply that to the pastoral areas. That system is this. The Government lays out a settlement, buys up all the land, builds dams, makes canals, builds houses and makes everything ready for the settler. By the time that has been completed that holding which is allotted to a settler may have cost the Government, taking everything into account £2,500 or possibly £3,000. If you put a settler on that and ask him to pay that price, it will be quite impossible for him to make a living. The Land Board then comes and values the property, in fact makes a calculation of what would be an economical price for the settler to pay for that holding, and at that price it is given to the settler, regardless of what it may have cost the Government. Then when the settler is there, he is under probation, but he must take up the land within ten years. He is also subsidised by the Government, so much for the settler and so much for each child up to a maximum of £5 per month. His house is equipped, het gets his cattle and his farm equipment, and everything is prepared for him. Then at the end of his probationary period, he gets two years for nothing and 65 years to pay off. Now that is a sytesm which has been applied up to now only on closer settlements, and we are now going to apply that system also to pastoral areas. Let me explain that the department has already purchased a big block of land in the North-Western Cape, which is going to be run on this sytesm. Then we have a large block of land in the Waterberg area close to Nylstroom, which has already been cut up into something like 40 farms, and houses have been built. We are giving them boreholes and dips, and when these people come there and the Land Board decides that the farm has cost the Government £3,000 and the settler can only pay £2,000, he is going to get the farm for £2,000. That is to say, we are going to apply the same system as we are now applying to the closer settlements. So that I think, taking all that into account, I can give the House the assurance that as far as closer settlement is concerned, we are not only now trying to put right those people that are presently on uneconomic holdings, but we are going to make assurance doubly sure that no man is put on a holding that is uneconomic. Then with the assistance that we are going to give him, if that settler does not make good we know it is his own fault, and he will have to go and make room for somebody else, because once we have done that we are satisfied that it will be his own fault if the settler does not succeed. I don’t think I can say very much more on that point, but perhaps I might add that the department is very anxious to have as much land available for settlement, for post-war settlement, as possible, and we have been looking round to see where we can get land for settlement which will give the settlers the most security, a good rainfall area where the soil is good and where they will not be subject to all the droughts we experience in some parts of the Union. I want to say that we have been turning our eyes to the coast of Natal right down to the Cape. Along that coast there is a good rainfall, good soil, and there is really no reason why if we make the holdings economic ones, you cannot put a settler there who can make good with a little mixed farming, dairying, fat lamb raising and anything like that. We have been exploring that position because we believe there is an opening there for these settlers. We have also approached the sugar people in Natal. You know the sugar industry in Natal is very prosperous and gives a good return to the people engaged in it. We have approached these people, and I want to say here that the gratitude of the Government is due to them for the wonderful spirit in which they have responded to our appeal for the purpose of helping us to get land, and a quota of sugar for the benefit of settlers. We believe that we can come to some arrangement in that direction, and it will be possible for us to put a large number of settlers along that coast where they may be able to grow sugar, which will give them a sure income.

What about people who need land at the present juncture?

I cannot repeat it again. I have dealt with it at least thirty times. The hon. member for Hoopstad (Mr. J. H. Viljoen) asked me a question about co-operation between the various departments, the Department of Agriculture, Land and Irrigation. In regard to co-operation between the various departments, especially between the Irrigation Department and the Department of Lands, and in cases where we call in the assistance of the Agricultural Department—we always get such co-operation. And I think the position is excellent in that respect; the State is greatly benefited by this close co-operation between the various departments. The hon. member also spoke about land board valuations having developed into a bargaining business, and I believe that he referred to this point, that if the Land Board had made its valuations and they were handed to the Minister the Minister had to accept those valuations.

Yes.

But I refuse to do so; I am not a rubber stamp. The Land Board is an advisory body and there is no obligation on the Minister to accept their valuation.

But does not the Land Board possess more information than the Minister does?

Yes, and the Land Board places that information at the Minister’s disposal.

They cannot put their intelligence at the Minister’s disposal.

Yes, that is done. We have a good and very sensible Board. The hon. member also referred to fodder banks, and asked whether fodder could not be made available for the farmers. When we come to the Irrigation Vote I propose telling the House what other policy the Irrigation Department can introduce to try and convert every farm into a fodder bank for its own farming purposes. That is the policy we are going to introduce.

The hon. member for Cape Flats (Mr. R. J. du Toit) asked me whether it was not possible to put some land at the disposal of coloured people as well as Europeans, and he was taken to task very severely by the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) because it is the biggest crime in the world to suggest making land available for the coloured community. Yes, we are moving in that direction. He was quite right when he said that the coloured people of this country have had a very raw deal in the past. Hon. members, if they know the history of the country in the early days when the Orange River area, which is now such a flourishing area with millions of morgen of valuable land, was overrun by the Korannas, who made periodical raids into the Cape, carrying off stock. The European settlers south of the river made an arrangement with the coloured folk that if they took up land along the river and kept the Korannas out they could keep that land. They went there and kept the Korannas out, and what happened? They were eventually driven away from those areas, and now there is a fairly large number of them right back on the Kalahari, on the borders of South-West Africa. The department has proclaimed 300,000 morgen of that land as settlement for the coloured people. The country is undeveloped, it is true; water is very scarce but the Government is now assisting these people and in time we will cut the land up into holdings. The proposal is not to drill holes because the result of that is very doubtful. But these people are being encouraged to make wells, and the Government is subsidising them. The more wells they make the more subsidy they earn, and the Government is helping them to get water. The Government is also prepared to give them a certain amount of money for buying sheep and a few cattle. Mr. Speaker, you will be surprised if you go down there and see some of these people, how they are making good. They are clean and have their schools. It will do your heart good to see how they are making good in those areas and the time will come when you will find a big community of coloured people there. The Government is also trying to see whether it is not possible to provide a certain amount of irrigable land to these coloured people. When I was in Natal recently, I had a deputation from some coloured people to see me, they were educated men, and they said: “We are not beggars, but we are not happy here as we are subordinate to the native chiefs; is it not possible to get a piece of land so that we can get out?” At the time I made an arrangement with the Provincial Administration of Natal to get some land for these people, 25,000 or 30,000 acres. We are going to set this aside for them and settle them. The land there is very much more valuable than that in the Kalahari. So much for the coloured people. The hon. member for Cape Western (Mr. Molteno) asked me about the bathing beaches at the Strand and the sub-division between the Europeans and the coloureds, about which there has been considerable trouble. Let me say at once that as far as the coloured people are concerned, they do not want to mix with the whites, and they are not asking for that, they do not want to have any social intercourse with the whites. But what they do ask is that if bathing facilities are given for both sections, they want the same equal facilities as the Europeans.

Is this matter not sub judice?

No, the committee is busy with it. When the Minister is asked to proclaim certain areas for white and coloured, the local authority, which in some cases is the divisional council, has to give the Minister the assurance that the facilities which they propose for the coloured and whites are equal. That assurance I had from the municipality, but we found afterwards that the facilities were nothing like equal, and that is why the trouble arose. I have since appointed a committee to go into this matter, and I believe we will find a solution on amicable lines, and I hope that people will be satisfied.

*The hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) referred to holdings being too small. I believe that I have dealt with that point very extensively. He also said that we should not issue any holdings if the water was not adequate. The only case I know of where the water is inadequate is Kaffer River. I don’t know whether there are any other cases. Perhaps the hon. member can tell me. My hon. friend will notice that at Kaffer River we have written off repeatedly, and I believe that we have now put the whole position on an economic basis. Let me say at once that I am of opinion that one of the biggest mistakes that was ever made was to establish the Kaffer River irrigation scheme; it should never have been done. The hon. member for Vryburg (Mr. Du Plessis) and the hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Olivier) asked me the same question in regard to the payment of the claims of the Provincial Administration against the Vryburg and Kuruman Divisional Councils for the books supplied to the children of settlers at Vaalhartz. I have nothing to do with that, but I recognise that if the Divisional Council has to continue paying that amount the position will become impossible and I have made representations to the Provincial Administration to make some change. They will have to make a larger contribution and claim less from the divisional councils. As soon as the settlers at Vaalhartz are passed out, their holdings will become subject to taxation and the provincial administration will then be able to tax them and they will then be able to get part of this amount back from the settlers. Then I have only one more matter to deal with and that is the case raised by the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick). He asked me what arrangements we had made at Hluhluwe, at the Hluhluwe Game Reserve. Well, in June, 1941, I went to the Game Reserve and there I met the representative of the Game Board, the Deputy Director of Veterinary Services, and the representative of the Native Affairs Department, with a view to seeing if we could not find a solution of Ngana, which has been a dreadful menace to the settlers in that vicinity, and as a result of our discussions we came to this conclusion, that we would abolish the Mkuzi and the Umfolosi Game Reserves. We want to extend the Hluhluwe Game Reserve by adding a block of Crown land to the South, generally known as the Corridor. I think the hon. member knows that part. We are adding that to the Hluhluwe Game Reserve and the extent of the added portion is 40,000 acres. We have put up certain fences and the precautions in regard to fly catching will be carried on. As much game as possible, particularly the White Rhino, are to be driven into that extended portion of the Reserve and then the area is to be fenced in. We are deproclaiming the Mkuzi Game Reserve and there is a triangle bit of Crown land which we are handing over to the Native Trust. That, I think, is the answer which the hon. member wanted and I believe that where Ngana has been a dreadful menace in days gone by if you can deproclaim these other areas and the game reserve is double fenced there will be a neutral zone round the game reserve and the other reserve, whether it is Native area or Crown land, or whatever it is—there will be this neutral zone in between for the purpose of preventing the fly from getting in and at the game, and I think we shall have gone a long way in the direction desired.

So far as those parts of the country are concerned where the rainfall is fairly large and regular we know that the surface is very uneven. There are mountains, kloofs and valleys and randjies. And our rainfall even in those areas is very erratic. While we often have droughts in one part of the country other parts of the country have floods. The rainfall comes in torrents, and water runs away to the sea so that the country does not get the proper benefit it should have from it. This sometimes causes erosion, and that kind of thing leaves the country poorer than it was before these heavy downfalls took place, and before the erosion took place. We know that our surface, the top of the land, is thin; the surface is not deep and in consequence of the thin surface of our land we find that the soil dries out very much more quickly. If we look at other agricultural countries in the world, for instance in Europe, we find that the surface is very even, and that the rainfall usually comes in soft showers, with the result that it is much more penetrating, and those areas consequently benefit very much more from the rainfall than other parts of our country where the rainfall is even as regular as it is here in these areas. In view of these facts we can render no greater service to South Africa when the rainfall comes down in torrents in these uneven areas, than to catch the water in catchment dams and in irrigation schemes. That undoubtedly is one of the best things we can do for the country with a view to South Africa’s future, and with a view to the wellbeing of coming generations. It increases the fertility and the productivity of the country enormously. It also gives many of our people a stable existence. It gives expression to the urge for independence among our people because we know that the nature of our people is to go in for farming, to be on the land, and to make an independent living. It is not only in the nature of the Dutch-speaking Afrikaners, in the descendants of the Voortrekkers, but also in the English-speaking Afrikaners, the descendants of settlers who came to this country in 1820. It is also in the nature of the Germans and others who took refuge in South Africa and who settled on the Cape Flats and in other parts of the country. Between 500 and 600 young men from my district have gone to the Front and between 200 and 300 young women have gone to the Front, not to speak of the hundreds of coloured men from my constituency who are serving in this country’s Defence Force. I contend that it is a record for a platteland district to have between 1,000 and 1,200 people at the Front doing their duty to their country. And it is because of this fact that I contend that a district which has done so much in these critical times, and has made such great sacrifices, which has come forward so spontaneously to do its duty, is deserving of special consideration. These young men immediately answered the call of duty. They went forward and they are frighting today. Many of them have excellent prospects, but they are doing their duty to their mother country today. Many men who have been sowing on shares and dozens of land owners are serving in the Defence Force today. Many of those people will return to other professions and will not return to the land, but others will return to settle on the land again, and to make their living there according to the training they have already had in agriculture. This may apply to many other districts as well and especially to the Western districts of the Cape, but I can say openly that it applies particularly to the people of Caledon; they in particular are agriculturists. Caledon is essentially an agricultural district and the people of Caledon who are at the Front in the majority of cases spring from the agricultural section of the population. The inhabitants of the Western Province are not prone to move to other parts of the country. Nobody likes to trek from the one district to another district, but it seems to be a character trait of the people of Caledon rather to be in want in their own district than go and live in some other part of the country. It is an inborn quality which we find among them. They are attached to their district. Perhaps one finds the same quality in other districts but it applies particularly to my district. These people were born there. They are accustomed to conditions prevailing there; they have grown up among those conditions. They have lived in a beautiful climate, a climate which is so beautiful that anyone who wants to give up business can do no better than come and settle in that ideal district. I even want to express the hope that the Minister of Lands, who is one of the most competent Minister of Lands we have ever had, will seriously consider, if one day he abandons his difficult portfolio, to come and settle among this very fine type of person in the Caledon district. Because of that, and bearing all this in mind, I want to put up an earnest plea with the Minister once more to consider the question of the River Sonder End scheme. This question has been under consideration for a long period of years—it was raised in the days of his predecessor. There are ideal places in the river to build dams, and I should like the Minister personally to make an investigation. There are three or four places where a dam could be built and where enormous quantities of water could be stored. There used to be technical difficulties in connection with this matter in the past but a man of the Minister’s powers of preseverance is not going to allow himself to be stopped by these technical difficulties which are not insurmountable. I should like the Minister to pay a visit to these natural storage places and I should like him to investigate the potentialities for himself. He should bear in mind that this river is close to Cape Town’s big markets which can take an enormous quantity of our products. We have a railway and we are close to an important harbour which can export our products to the European market. We have the markets and we have the transport, and at the same time it will bring with it stability in the production of those commodities for which there is a market. In passing I want to remark that practically anything can be produced in the Caledon district. Let me mention a few things which the climate is suitable for. We grow wheat, oats, barley, rye, lucerne, grapes, fruit, tobacco, vegetables, wool, fat lambs, dairy products; we have poultry farms, pig farms, and in addition we produce enormous quantities of onions. Apart from the thousands of morgen of timber forests in the district and all the other products produced there the district of Caledon produces three-quarters of the country’s onions. Between 300,000 and 400,000 bags of onions are annually produced in Caledon. The Minister knows that so far as the production of onions is concerned a man can make a decent living on a small piece of land so long as he has a good market near by. I doubt whether there is any product out of which a better living can be made on a small piece of ground than out of onions. The ground must be suitable, and the climate must also be suitable so that the onions can be kept for the fag end of the season; and the district of Caledon is more suitable for that purpose than any other district in the Union, which has been proved by the fact that three-quarters of the Union’s onions are produced in Caledon and that our onions can’ be kept over until the fag end of the season when the commodity becomes scarce and the price goes up. Hundreds of families are making a living out of onion farming. Along the Bot River, along the River Sonder End, and along the mountain rivers which run into those other rivers, hon. members would be surprised to see the number of families making an independent living out of onion farming. They hardly ever came to the Government in the past to ask for anything to be assisted to make a living. In view of these facts I fail to see why this irrigation scheme should not be undertaken to give an expression to the urge for ground and the establishment of closer settlements. We have developed a first class export market over the last few years, and it is our intention to maintain that market in days to come—we want to maintain it in a way that we have not had in the past. [Time limit.]

I am afraid I cannot follow the Minister in his display of lack of sympathy to the aged and poor, and of hatred to his old colleagues and loyal officials. I am using these words deliberately because the Minister this afternoon made a speech in this House which we can only describe as unsatisfactory, because all it has done is what I am going to say: I cannot follow him in his display of lack of sympathy to the aged poor and hatred to his old colleagues and loyal officials who have served him faithfully. I come to the first point, namely the point in regard to the aged poor. The Minister says this: “Look, if the children stay on the holdings at their own expense, one may allow them to stay there but not at the expense of the State.” Now let me analyse those remarks. These settlers were placed on land which was bought under Section 11 of the Act. The land had been bought for them under Section 10 and they are not there at the mercy of the Minister, but they pay for the land. If they pay for their land then what right has the Minister to say that by keeping their parents there and giving them a roof over their head they are doing acts of charity at the expense of the State? Is the Minister sincere when he says these things? Does he really mean it when he says that these people must be removed from those holdings, so that the Department of Social Welfare will have to come to their assistance? The Minister in his fury this afternoon used expressions which in his calmer moments I am sure he will sincerely regret. In the part of the country I come from we have many aged poor, we have many of that type of person there which put up a hard fight to render this country fit for civilisation; they are people who for three long years with their rifle in their hands were in the field to fight for their country. They are people who lost their health there, people who got old before their time simply as a result of the services they rendered their country, and these are the people whom the Minister wants to hand over to the Department of Social Welfare and to the mercy of that department — he wants to take the roof from over their heads.

Are they not supplied with houses?

Social welfare have no houses to give them. Where does one find suitable houses which can be given to those people so that they can go and live there? There is nothing of the kind for them.

Do you want to turn the Department of Lands into a Department of Social Welfare?

It is unworthy of the Minister to put that question to me because he knows I cannot answer him. I am only telling him that social welfare cannot look after those people. Those children look after their parents on those holdings and they are meeting all their obligations to the Minister; what right has the Minister then to push these aged people off those holdings and put them on the street? The children are meeting their obligations, they are meeting all the requirements made on them and in spite of that the Minister wants to push out all these aged poor and put them in the street. I go further. The Minister got up here this afternoon and held forth against his own colleagues. Why did the Minister do that sort of thing? There were other Ministers of Land in this country before him, men with a very clean record, men who sacrificed their lives for their country, men with a life of sacrifice behind them — why does the Minister get up here in his capacity of Minister of Lands to throw mud at his predecessors? I believe the Minister sneered at ex-Minister Grobler when he asked the hon. member for Brits (Mr. Grobler) if he wanted a family Land Board to be created. Was not that a sneer at ex-Minister Grobler? Will the Minister tell us whom he was sneering at when he made that remark?

Yes, I was referring to him.

Does the Minister know that that self same ex-Minister Grobler re-appointed the old S.A.P.’s to the Land Board? Is not that a very fine example for the present Minister of Lands to follow? He re-appointed the former member Hottentots-Holland (Mr. Fourie) and he re-appointed Mr. Scott. There is not one member here who can get up and say that ex-Minister Grobler discharged those people when he took over the Department of Lands. No, I can say this to the Minister, that there was even trouble in the Nationalist Cabinet because ex-Minister Grobler refused to dismiss S.A.P. men in order to replace them by Nationalists.

No, because they were so competent.

There we have an admission. Does the hon. member want to say that those people were not re-appointed because they were not competent? There was only one relative of ex-Minister Grobler who was a member of the Land Board, and that was Mr. Loots. Do hon. members opposite want to tell me that that man was incompetent, and has the Minister the right to say that a Land Board consisting of the Minister’s relations was appointed simply because one relative of ex-Minister Grobler happened to be a member of the Land Board? And then the Minister made this distasteful remark about the Chairman of the Central Land Board, Mr. Lodewyk Wentzel, my predecessor in Delarey. That remark will always stand to the Minister’s discredit. This official loyally served the Minister until he put on his hat and walked out. The Minister cannot say that Mr. Lodewyk Wentzel ever stabbed him in the back. He cannot say that he ever did anything that was not in the interests of the department while he was in the service of that department. Why does he come here now and drag that man’s name across the floor of the House, and why does he slander him? I only want to say this: the Minister protested so violently against having been awarded the “Rand Daily Mail” prize. After the speech he made here this afternoon, on behalf of the Opposition, I want to award him the “Rand Daily Mail” prize again. He has fully deserved it because he has proclaimed the biggest lot of nonsense that we have had to listen to the whole of this session, and he has therefore Qualified for being awarded the “Rand Daily Mail” prize.

Is that the best you can do?

Anyhow it is more than you can do. I want to plead here this evening on behalf of the people who have no land and who are looking to the Minister to get land for them. The Minister says that he has bought up land, but that he is not going to allocate it during the war. The Minister wants to hold that land until after the war, so that he can allot it to returned soldiers, which is something that I consider not to be in the interests of the country. If the Minister wants to do it, he can settle the returned soldiers after the war on settlements, but why should he allow a large area of country to lie vacant, and why should he stop a large number of competent farmers from producing simply by refusing to give them their own land on which they can produce? Why should the Minister hold up the country by simply locking up the land? Why does he not allot this land to people who deserve to have land allotted to them? Let us help those people to produce what the country needs. The farmers are continually being appealed to to produce more. I am now making an appeal to the Minister not to exclude those farmers who are considered to be entitled to become settlers. The Minister can select them if he wants to but give them an opportunity to select land so that they may be able to produce. We are faced with shortages in the near future, and I therefore want to make this very earnest appeal to the Minister. I hope that he will not allow these side issues which he has dragged in to lead him so far astray from his responsible position of a Minister as to allow him to do things which are unbecoming and which are unworthy of him. Although he has said those things, I hope none the less that he will behave himself in a manner befitting a Minister.

I want to say a few words more on the subject of these young fellows who live on the holdings with their parents. The Minister told the House that he was not prepared to alter his policy because he wanted to keep these holdings on an economic basis. We are in entire agreement with him that these holdings must be kept economic. If the Minister takes up that attitude, then we can only tell him that we do not expect him to allow an accumulation of people to these holdings with the result that they will become uneconomic. We certainly do not expect that, because if that sort of thing is allowed, our whole settlement policy will eventually result in complete failure. But if an unmarried son, even though he is of age, has been allowed to live on a holding, it does not necessarily mean that such a holding has become uneconomic. On the contrary, as I said in my previous remarks, it means that that young man can help his father to run the holding economically, and to make it a payable proposition. The Minister did not deal with that aspect of the matter. I don’t say that he deliberately avoided it, it may have slipped his mind, but in view of the shortage of labour it is absolutely essential that he should give his attention to cases of that kind where the son can be of assistance to the father. If it appears that the farmer needs assistance and is unable to get labour, then the Minister should deal with instances of that kind on their merits. Another aspect of the matter which the Minister did not reply to is this—one comes across cases where the father has reached the end of his days, and the son will probably at some future date have to take over the plot. Is there anything wrong with such a son being allowed to live on the plot to help his father while the father is still farming there? Surely it is the policy of the department to allow the son under certain conditions to take over the father’s holding? I again want to emphasise that we do not expect the Minister to allow a number of families to settle on the one holding. No man of common-sense would expect a thing like that, but so far as the parents are concerned, my hon. friend on my right has dealt with that position I only want to draw attention to one point. The Minister said that the Department of Social Welfare would assist those people. I have given the Minister some figures and he knows that at the moment there are only about two hundred holdings on the three settlements of the Department of Social Welfare; seventy of them are vacant and of those seventy, sixty only recently became vacant, because those holdings, those small farms, had been lent to the Department of Defence. To be exact, seventy-one are vacant on the three settlements which have been established by the Department of Social Welfare, and the Minister knows that this number is by no means adequate for the purpose. Without expecting the Minister to turn his department into a charitable institution we want him to give careful consideration to this aspect of the matter. Let the Minister give us the assurance that if a son is prepared to meet all his obligations he will be allowed to keep his parents with him.

We cannot allow two settlers to live on one holding.

There are any number of cases where the father is no longer able to work; he may perhaps be in receipt of an old age pension which enables him to buy his clothes. The little bit of food he gets from his child surely does not amount to very much. These old people are not settlers in the strict sense of the word on these holdings, and they do not share in the profits that are made out of the holding. They live with their children and all they get is a little bit of food. Surely the Minister does not begrudge them that. It it were a question of them farming the same holding with their children then I would agree with the Minister, but that is not the position in these cases I am referring to. Now there is another small point I want to mention. It relates to appointments to the Land Board. I really feel that the attack which the Minister made was unworthy of him, but I shall leave it at that. In regard to Mr. Wentzel’s case the Minister made a charge that immediately after he was notified that he was not to be re-appointed Mr. Wentzel joined the OssewaBrandwag. But what Mr. Wentzel did after he had left the department could not have influenced the Minister when he decided not to re-appoint him. I should like to know from the Minister whether Mr. Wentzel gave him any reason, any cause, during his period of service, to give the Minister the right to say that he dragged in politics or that he was disloyal to the department in connection with the work he was doing there. If the Minister can bring any evidence to prove that that was the position then I am prepared to say that the Minister was quite right in his attitude. But to come here and to say that after Mr. Wentzel left the department he was appointed as an officer of the Ossewa-Brandwag, and that that was the reason why the Minister had not re-appointed him is surely too ridiculous for words. In regard to the so-called Ossewa-Brandwag meetings at Brits I want to tell the Minister that I attended one Ossewa-Brandwag function at Brits. The Minister, therefore, cannot say that I have been attending Ossewa-Brandwag functions at all times and that I have been agitating the people there. The second point in regard to gatherings of the Ossewa-Brandwag is that they are not usually held during working hours; they are usually held on Saturdays and if officers’ meetings are held they are usually held in the evenings. Apparently it is a sin to the Minister’s way of thinking to be a member of the Ossewa-Brandwag. I want to say most definitely that an Afrikaner has just as much right to be a member of the OssewaBrandwag as hon. members opposite have the right to be members of the Caledonian Society. I want to say a few words now in regard to these vacant plots. I did not raise that question in the spirit in which the Minister apparently took it; I raised the question with the object of getting some information, and I am pleased that we have succeeded in getting this information from the Minister in spite of his aggressiveness. The Minister can become as cattish as an old woman. The Minister says that it is the Government’s policy not to allot any plots or holdings at the present juncture. Very well, that is the Government’s policy, but if that is so why cannot those plots be given out on lease temporarily until the end of the war? Surely there are large numbers of people who are perhaps not fit to join the army or who are too old to join the army. Why not let those plots to such people until the war is over? Then they will be able to apply for plots after the war.

No, they must go and fight.

But if a man is not fit to go and fight; if he is medically unfit? Why cannot those people be allowed to rent the ground temporarily? Why should the Government produce various commodities on these lands and be in competition with the farmers? These people could be allowed to work there under proper supervision. I received a letter the other day from a man in my constituency. He happens to have two sons in the army. So far as I know he does not support us on this side of the House. I can show the Minister the letter. He asks that I should put up a request to the Minister so that he may be allotted a piece of ground. I accept the statement that it is the Minister’s policy not to issue any land and not to allot any holdings, but surely he can let plots to people on a temporary basis? [Time limit.]

It was a pleasure to me to listen to the speech of the Minister of Lands this afternoon because his remarks did give me a hope for the future. To listen to a man who has vision to a man who looks to the horizon, to a man who can move the clouds away a little, is like a cool breeze on a hot day, and it was a particular pleasure to listen to the Minister because he is one of the biggest farmers in the country. It was a pleasure to listen to a Minister who since his childhood days has been a farmer, and not a clerk, one of the biggest farmers in the country, a man who understands the problems of the farmers and has sympathy with them, a man of sound common sense, who can make suggestions and who does not quarrel with people and call them names, but who makes practical suggestions to save the farmers and uplift them. I want to mention a few things. The Minister spoke about the land becoming brack. For thirteen years I have represented a constituency where there is one of the largest irrigation works in the country. I am referring to the irrigation scheme along the Oliphants River and Groot River. Years ago it saddened me to see the magnificent orange orchards there, and to see how hundreds of magnificent orange trees had perished as a result of the land becoming brack. I felt sore at heart to notice that magnificent areas of land had been deserted and had become brackish along the Oliphants River. I complained of it; I and others and the Minister had an investigation made. Last Friday I visited the Oliphants River again and I rejoiced to see a man whose farm had become brack in the past now growing grapes of a size reminiscent of the land of Canaan. There was a piece of land there which I myself used to own, a large part of which had become brack and useless. People are now producing again. The Minister is a practical man with common-sense; he does not worry his head about small minded things but he wants to save the country and the people and he wants to solve their problems. Therefore, on behalf of thousands of people in the North West, I want to express my sincere thanks to the Minister. There is another thing that made me rejoice. Years ago I made a certain remark in this House but mine was a voice calling in the wilderness and nobody took any notice of what I said. I remarked that our coastal areas had the biggest rainfall and that they were not as subject to drought as the interior was. I asked why the coastal areas with their regular rainfall were not used to a greater extent, and I pointed out that where one had a big rainfall the ground was usually poor, and I therepuon drew attention to the magnificent limy soil which one finds at Vredenburg near Saldanha Bay, and I suggested that if the trains could move that soil, if they were not full up with other work, they should move it systematically to the poorer soil so as to make it sweet. Nobody listened to me and I gave it up in despair. Tonight, to my great joy, I heard the Minister say that he was considering giving out that land for settlement purposes. The conditions are no longer what they were when my father and his father farmed on twenty thousand and thirty thousand morgen of land. Today the land is divided among the children and the grandchildren, and the farms are small and on small farms in a country where the rainfall is irregular people are bound to suffer hardships, which result in dire poverty. I therefore want to thank the Minister for having held out the prospect of people being settled in areas where there is a regular rainfall I also rejoice over another thing, and I don’t care what people say about it. I am a man who feels that righteousness exalteth the people, and I am glad the Minister told us that white, coloured and black must be given a chance to live in the country in which they were born. Our friends opposite who all day long proclaim their hatred of the coloured and the native people cannot get away from the fact that half of the people who were murdered at Piet Retief were coloured people, Agterryers, and that at Bloukrans half of the people who were killed were also natives and coloured men. No monument has ever been erected in their memory. In silence they gave their blood for the cause of freedom. I should like to know what would have become of our farming population, of the old Boers, had it not been for the Cape Coloured people and the Transvaal natives? Let me remind hon. members over there that their leader, Hitler, once remarked in his own “Schwarzes Korps”, “I am going to take South Africa, I am going to take the farms because the people there have stolen them from the natives.”

You are taking nonsense.

The hon. member who has just interrupted me has never talked anything but nonsense in his life.

Order, order!

I feel that if the hon. member says that I am speaking nonsense, I am entitled to take some notice of him; I only looked at him, which I think is a very considerable concession so far as I am concerned. I rejoice at the fact that the Minister is doing justice to whites, coloureds and natives in giving them all a chance to live. I do not want to speak at any length. As a matter of fact I speak very rarely. What surprises me, however, is the sense of ingratitude which is fostered among our people by hon. members over there. I have sat here for four months listening to them.

You are never here to listen.

Because I have more work to do than you have.

Order, order.

I just want to draw attention to the ingratitude that has been fostered among our people. Years ago I addressed a meeting at Buchuberg when the big Buchuberg scheme was under construction, and there were feelings of hatred and vindictiveness against the Nationalist Party Government. After that the Coalition Government came into power and everyone of those people there were given a house to live in, better than their forefathers had ever had to live in, and they got a magnificent bit of land under irrigation and they had to level the land, and they were paid for doing so by the State, and then they cursed the Coalition Government. And today they are cursing this Government just as much, in spite of the effort which the Minister is making on their behalf. There is the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. Labuschagne) for instance. I was really flabbergasted when the Minster told us about the thousands of mudes of wheat and the thousands of bags of potatoes that are being produced on those schemes, and while I was rejoicing at what the Minister had told the House the hon. member over there got up and said: “Yes, but now you are taking the bread out of the mouths of the farmers by allowing those people there to produce.” In heaven’s name, what is the Minister to do then? If he does nothing he is doing the wrong thing, and if he does the right thing he does evil. What is the Government to do then? The poor people are being helped there and now we are told that the Government is competing with the farmers. What is one to do? Just one final point. I am glad that the Minister has told us that he is going to reserve land for returned soldiers. Let me tell the Minister that 150,000 of the cream of South Africa are today giving the biggest thing they have, the only thing they have—they are giving their lives. They are prepared to sacrifice their lives for the sake of the existence of our people, for our freedom. If, when they return, the Minister fails to give them the consideration they are entitled to, if he does not think of them first, but if he first of all considers a crowd of cowards who have taken refuge behind the blood of those people who have gone forward, then I shall look down with contempt at the Minister, and so will all posterity. I therefore want to say this to the Minister: First think of the returned soldiers so that they will not be forced to roam about the country like beggars. See to it that they have a decent living to return to.

It is not often I speak on the Lands Vote, but there is one matter to which I would draw the attention of the Minister, and that is a certain abuse practised by certain land companies in connection with the relaxation of restrictive conditions attaching to the title of land on the Witwatersrand. Some two years ago I introduced a motion asking for the appointment of a Select Committee to take evidence and enquire into this matter. The only complaint that some members had was that the ambit of my motion was not wide enough. My motion was originally framed to deal only with abuses that existed within the magisterial area of Germiston. The Minister of Labour moved an amendment making it wide enough to deal with the whole Witwatersrand. Another Minister, the Minister of Mines, supported the motion, and the House agreed unanimously to the appointment of the Select Committee. That committee sat and has made a report, and I want to refer to that report, which is brief, and to ask the Minister to give effect to the recommendation made by the committee. The report says—

1. (a) The conversion of leasehold into freehold title and the abuses, if any, connected therewith; and
2. (b) the question of the compensation to be paid by township owners for the mineral rights in land proposed to be laid out as townships.

I saw the present Minister of Lands, who promised me that a Commission would be appointed, but so far …

The matter has been taken over by the Provincial Administration of the Transvaal.

The Minister now tells me that it has been taken over by the Provincial Administration. But what are they doing about it? I would like the Minister to tell us more than that; this matter has been hanging fire since 1940, and at one stage the Minister promised me he would appoint a Commission, and he undertook to discuss the personnel of the Commission with me, but so far nothing has been done. I am not trying to make a charge against the Minister, of course, but I would like him to tell us that a Commission is being appointed. Here is a serious state of affairs, and the Government ought to do something about it, and I would like to know if the Provincial Administration are going to have a Commission to enquire into it.

Just a few words arising out of what the hon. member for Calvinia (Dr. Steenkamp) has said to the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. Labuschagne), who is unfortunately not here at the moment. I have only got up to remove a misunderstanding. The hon. member for Calvinia has told us that the hon. member for Delarey objects to settlers being placed on the land and being allowed to produce there. That is the greatest nonsense in the world. What we object to is that settlers are not being put there, and that the Government is farming on that land. But the hon. member represented us as having said that we objected to settlers being put on that land and producing there.

It may seem peculiar that a member representing a purely urban area should rise to speak on lands, but I have a little matter to ask the Minister. For a long time East London has been endeavouring to get land allotted to them at Litjies Bay. A Select Committee last year recommended that this should be apportioned to the municipality, and this was subsequently approved of by Parliament. The municipality is anxious to have full control over this land for very obvious reasons. They want to control camping sites, sanitation and so on. What I want to ask the Minister now is, why is it that the municipality has no knowledge of what has happened? They do not know what is being done, and I would like to know what actually the position is. The municipality told me last week when I was down there, that they knew nothing about it. Are you going to get a move on and get this fixed up?

The title to the land is now being registered.

That is something on the way to achieving our object, and I want to know that the Minister will give all assistance to carry out that work.

I want to congratulate the Minister on the policy which his department follows, and his statement that they will strictly carry out the function for which the Department of Lands was established. I particularly want to congratulate the Minister on the assurance not to allot land during the war. I agree 100 per cent. with the Minister, and the people also. I think it would have been a shameful crime against the people if the Minister had followed another policy. Hon. members on the other side are very concerned about the matter, and the fact that the Minister is carrying out the policy which was laid down in the Land Settlement Act, namely, that one plot was intended for one settler. I also understand the difficulties of settlers. If there is an old man who has a son on the farm, then he likes to keep him there. I pleaded with the Minister last year, and I am glad to learn that this is being done today, namely, to deal with each case on its merits and to make a concession in such cases. But if you allow sons and parents-in-law and relations to live on the plots, as hon. members on the other side desire …

Who said that?

That was said by the other side. I think it would be false charity towards the settlers if their sons and families were permitted to remain there. I want to say again that I expect that the Minister will be consistent and will carry out this policy. The hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus), although the Minister has so frequently stated his policy, once again tried the other evening to distort it, and I am glad that the Minister again explained it when he was present. The Minister stated that his policy was not really to keep land open for soldiers, but to see to it that in any case the soldiers get an equal opportunity with others in the country. The hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) accused me of having said last year that he told lies here. I have Hansard in front of me, and if he wants to take trouble to read it he will see that I said that he came here last year with the story that the Inspector of lands in Gordonia is alleged to have promised these people that if they paid him he would see to it that they get plots. He told the Minister that he had certain letters. When the Minister challenged him to furnish evidence, he failed to do so. As far as my knowledge goes, he has failed to do so up to the present.

I offered to hand over the letter.

The fact is that the hon. member made the accusation, and twelve months have elapsed and he has not yet furnished proof. It is a very serious matter to accuse an official of corruption.

When the House adjourned at 6 o’clock, I was saying that the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) has not yet furnished proof in support of his accusation after a whole year. I do not regard this matter as a personal one, but I regard it as an accusation against our Department of Lands and against the Civil Service, and all the more since the accusation was made against a man like Mr. De Villiers, the Inspector of Lands of Gordonia. As far as I am aware, Mr. De Villiers is a man who has worked under three different Ministers, and if he really is as he was described by the hon. member on the other side, he must by this time be an habitual criminal. As far as my knowledge of Mr. De Villiers goes, he is one of our honourable citizens in the country, and I take off my hat to him. I am told that during the Boer War he left his country and fought with the Republicans, together with the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister. Thereafter, in 1914, again he considered it his duty, according to the light given to him, and he fought against that Government. If we hear what hon. members on the other side say, we must regard him as a hero, and I regard him as such too. But merely because he does not agree with that Party today, his character is blackened and besmirched in this House, and as an Afrikaner I take exception to it. I think he is an honourable citizen of the country.

I just want to bring to the notice of the Minister the question of the Addo Elephant Reserve, in connection with the provision of water for the elephants. The position is that during droughts there is a shortage of water, and as a result of the shortage of water the elephants break through the fences and go to the neighbouring farms. They drink all the water on the farms and they do a great deal of damage in the plantations. I know that the Minister has this matter at heart, and efforts have already been made to provide more water for the elephants, but I should like to ask the Minister whether steps cannot be taken to bore more water, or to have water pumps in a central place in the park. Then I want to express my appreciation to the Minister for the fact that he will follow a policy under which the coloured people will also be given an opportunity of being placed on a settlement. This side of the House accepts the view which the Minister holds. And then finally I just want to plead with the Minister to make some plan, with regard to that institution, Piet Mof, so that in his old age he will have an opportunity of getting hold of a piece of land from the Department of Lands. If the Minister does that a very large section of the community and especially the community of Gordonia, will be very grateful.

I just want to reply very shortly to the point raised by the hon. member for Germiston (Mr. J. G. N. Strauss) in regard to the question of the land titles of land companies on the Rand. I was under the impression that the matter should have been dealt with by my department but I am informed that the Provincial Administration of the Transvaal has to deal with the matter. I believe that we have put the matter up to them at once again with the Administration, and if they are not going on with it, or if it is not within their sphere I shall consult my hon. friend and take the necessary steps to see that the matter is dealt with. The hon. member for East London (Mr. Bowie) also raised a matter, the answer to which is that the question is now being dealt with by the Deeds Department in Kingwilliamstown to give the title deeds to the land which the hon. member has asked for. In regard to Addo and the elephants there, we are taking considerable interest in the matter and my department is prepared to give every assistance to the Park Board in order to provide water for the elephants, which is very necessary.

I cannot agree that the Minister of Lands, however much he is praised by members on that side of the House, is such a first class Minister of Lands. As he indicated to the House this afternoon, he devotes more attention to politics than to his portfolio. I know that he would have liked to reply on certain matters which I brought to his notice during the last discussion of this vote, but he was so overwhelmed by politics today that he did not give his attention to it.

Do you mean in connection with the books?

No, not in connection with the books. The Minister replied this afternoon, when he spoke about the school requirements of the children at the Vaal Hartz irrigation scheme, that he was under the impression that Kuruman and Vryburg should bear this burden of the settlements, which fall under all parts of the Union. He is under the impression that these two divisional councils have to bear the burden. It is not those two divisional councils; it is only the Divisional Council of Vryburg which has to bear the burden.

There is apparently keen competition between the hon. member for Kuruman (Mr. Olivier) and the hon. member for Vryburg (Mr. du Plessis).

No, there is no competition. That is simply the position. Notwithstanding that, I am glad to hear now that the Minister will use his influence with the Provincial Council to see to it that a stop is put to that injustice. But I really rose in connection with another matter which is of great importance, and which I again want to bring to the notice of the Minister. Today the hon. Minister was so taken up with his politics than he did not reply to it. I refer to the question of Crown land titles. I brought it to his notice yesterday that irregularities were taking place in his department in connection with the grant of Crown land titles. He is denying the settlers a right which the Settlement Act grants them, namely, after having effected certain improvements to their plots, after having occupied them for a certain period, and effecting certain improvements, they are entitled under the Act to get Crown land titles and to give a bond to the Department of Lands for the balance of the purchase price. Where these people have an opportunity to give those bonds to his department, the Minister refuses to accept them. I can only come to one conclusion; I do not want to say that the Minister places to much value on the power he possesses, but he must not forget that he is not there as a person who has to exercise authority over those people; he is there as the father of the settlers, and he ought to see to it and go out of his way to give those people what they are legitimately entitled to. Now I should like to know from the Minister why he does not want to grant bonds in certain cases where the value of the property altogether justifies it. I should like to hear what the Minister has to say in regard to that.

I wish to thank the Minster for having sent the Irrigation Commission to Natal to investigate the irrigation possibilities there. The Commission spent quite a time in Natal and thoroughly went into the matter. I hope the Minister will consider their report when he has the time to go into it, and that as a result of that investigation he will send officials of the Irrigation Department to continue that work. I wish to say that other provinces of the Union have had a great deal of money spent, I may say millions, on irrigation projects in their areas. As far as Natal goes we have some very old irrigation schemes there which were built before Union, and those irrigation schemes have proved an unqualified success, and they have never had to go to the Government for assistance, either in the way of writing off loans, or for assistance in other ways. Those settlements have been self supporting and are today in a flourishing position. The people have done very well there and we have a very thriving community on these settlements, there have been no new schemes since Union. In Natal we have what I would call wonderful rivers which have not got the drawbacks which rivers in other parts of the country have, that is they are permanent rivers; we have not got the trouble of silt and all these other drawbacks which other parts of the country have. Apart from that we have very good soil there and we have main lines of railways running through these areas, we have factories which give a market at their door for the products of the farmers in these areas. The Commission had an opportunity of seeing all these things.

How is the land?

There is plenty of good land. It is owned by private individuals, but the land has not been brought under irrigation, and a lot of this land is available for settlement, and the Minister, if he wished could buy a great deal of that land, at a very cheap price, so that it would become available for settlement. If settlements were started in those areas — we have condensed milk factories there and bacon factories, cheese factories, and in fact there is an outlet for the farmers’ products very near at hand, and good local markets, ideal conditions for settlements. And I am sure that when the Minister goes into the matter and has the possibilities investigated he will be satisfied that this is a field where prosperous irrigation settlements can be brought into existence, where the settlers would make a good living, and they would not have all the troubles which so many other settlements have had to face. In speaking about irrigation, I know that I cannot tell the Minister much about his policy in regard to irrigation, but I should like to stress the importance of doing something to deal with the big problems which we have on our present irrigation schemes, especially in the Cape Province. As hon. members know most of these dams which have cost millions of money are faced with the problem of silting, and in the short time they have been in existence more than half the storage capacity of these dams has been filled with silt, and the life of these dams is a very short limited one indeed. And not only has the Government spent millions on these schemes, but the men who have been settled under these schemes have also spent hundreds of thousands in developing the land. The result has been that the Minister and his department has had continuous demands made to them to increase the storage capacity of these dams to provide adequate water. Of course you can do a certain amount in that direction, but the time is not far off when you will not be able to raise the walls of these reservoirs any more or prolong their lives. I hope the Minister will adopt a policy, so that before he builds any further big schemes of this sort he will first deal with the question of silt. It has been proved in America and other countries that if you build erosion works in the catchment areas above irrigation dams you can prolong the lives of these dams. I believe the Minister is going to try out the system of building erosion works to stop silting in the Lake Arthur area. But the trouble is that these works should have been built before the dam was built. Today more than half the dam is silted up and even if he builds erosion works in the catchment area today he cannot get rid of the silt which is there at present, but I feel that by these erosion works he will not only stop the silting of these dams, but he will reclaim all the valleys which are in the catchment areas of these reservoirs, and he will restore these valleys to what they wert before erosion took place. We have many of these beautiful places in this country within the catchment areas of these dams which have now been eroded, and instead of having beautiful valleys we have nothing but a network of sluits, which are becoming bigger and bigger, particularly as a result of heavy rains after droughts. When the Commission was in Natal recently they were taken into the foothills of the Drakensberg Mountains where most of our big rivers begin, and they were shewn thousands of morgen of land which originally were huge vleis holding up the water — they were natural sponges which used to feed our rivers and kept the streams permanent, but through human agencies these vleis have been cut through and drained purposely in many cases, so that the farmers could plough these vleis. I am glad to see that another department is today tackling that problem, and that some of these vleis are now being restored to what they were. I hope the Minister will adopt the policy of erosion works in catchment areas when he starts any new schemes under his big programme —I hope he will first start anti-erosion works and build these works to hold up the silt, so that when he builds the dams the silting process will be diminished very much, if not entirely stopped. If he does that we shall not have this continual outcry about the capacity of the dams being diminished and we shall not have these demands for write offs. [Time limit.]

I would like to deal briefly with the position of the irrigators under the Buffelspoort dam. As the Minister apparently knows, this is a matter which has received attention for a considerable time. This matter was brought to the Minister’s notice for the first time on the 30th June, 1940, or shortly before that. I do not know whether the present Minister was already Minister at that time.

Yes.

Then this matter was brought to the Minister’s attention. As a result of representations which were made to the Minister, he issued instructions that the Irrigation Commission should investigate this scheme and meet the farmers. That was on the 30th June, 1940. The Commission then went out and met the farmers. I was present. After a very long discussion in which the farmers had an opportunity to air their grievances, the meeting eventually broke up. At the meeting, the Chairman of the Commission submitted a certain scheme which primarily amounted to this, that the settlers should pool the water. The Chairman of the Commission then requested the Board to submit the proposal to the irrigators. That was done at a meeting which took place shortly thereafter, and at which it appeared that the proposals were rejected by about 90 per cent. of the interested parties. Thereafter, the position systematically became worse, as the Minister knows. These people got more and more into arrear, with the result that the Minister then decided, as a result of representations which were made to him, to visit the irrigation scheme personally. The Minister then met the farmers on the 1st September. I was unfortunately prevented by circumstances from being present, but the irrigators submitted the matter to the Minister.

When was I there?

On the 1st September, 1940. As I said, I was not present at the meeting. I was unfortunately prevented by circumstances from being present. In any event, the Minister was there. As a result of the visit of the Minister he decided to send the Irrigation Commission there again. That was the new Commission, and on the 19th October, 1941, it again went to Buffelspoort. At first the Commission did not want to hear the grievances of these people again, but eventually they did get an opportunity of airing their grievances. But this Commission, too, as in the case of the previous Commission, urged that the farmers should pool the water, and until such time as that was done they were not prepared to take steps with a view to assisting these people. The Minister will recollect that I put a question in this House as to why he deemed it necessary that the water should first be pooled before he could take steps with a view to assisting these people. The Minister did not reply to that question, and I shall be glad if the Minister can explain this evening what the reason is for that condition which he imposes. After the visit of this Commission, these people heard nothing further until approximately the 4th September, when they received a notification from the Department of Irrigation that the department and the Minister, on the recommendation of the Irrigation Commission, had decided to apply certain recommendations, which were made as far back as the 30th August, 1940; in other words, shortly after the visit of the first Irrigation Commission. That notification stated, inter alia, that the department expected the irrigators immediately to take steps with a view to pooling the water. I do not want to go into the proposals. I have not the necessary time at my disposal to do that now. The Minister knows, however, what those proposals are. But let me say what the attitude of these people is. They adopt the attitude that they have to pay a good deal too much, having regard to the productivity of the land, and that this is not a fair tax. It is not a big irrigation scheme; it is a comparatively small irrigation scheme, and in the two years, from 1939 to 1941, these people paid £5,000 in taxes. I think that shows, in the first instance, that these people did everything in their power to carry out their obligations. In the second place, I think it belies the remark which the Minister made in his reply to questions which I put, namely, that there are settlers who simply do not want to pay. I take it that in a group of persons such as that, he will find a very small number who will not be prepared to pay as they are expected to do. But as against that I maintain that the fact that in two years they paid £5,000 and the fact that it is a comparatively small community, is adequate proof of the fact that the greater majority are fully prepared to pay to the best of their ability. The argument underlying the contention of these people that the tax is too high amounts to this, that in comparison with other schemes it is relatively high.

What is that?

I have the whole series with me. I shall not deal with them on the floor of this House, but I shall give them to the Minister.

I put the question because your point is that the tax is too high.

I say that that is the attitude of these people, and it strikes me that there is a good deal in that argument. As I have already indicated, although there may be exceptions, these people are prepared to pay, and within the space of two years they have already paid £5,000. They base their case on this, that pro rata they are expected to pay more than is expected from irrigators on other schemes. In reply to my questions, the Minister gave certain figures, and I want to advise him to go into those figures. He will notice that in certain respects they pay more than the irrigators in other schemes. Their lands are not all new lands, as is the case in many other schemes. To a certain extent the land is exhausted, and, furthermore, they already had a certain claim to the water. In the first place, therefore, they feel that pro rata they are paying too much in water taxes. The other point is this. I am fairly well acquainted with the irrigation schemes in the Transvaal, and in how many cases have considerable amounts not already been written off? [Time limit.]

I do not want to traverse the same ground as the previous speaker, but in so far as the last point is concerned, I would like to support him. One half of the irrigators at Buffelspoort are in his constituency, and the other half in mine, and pro rata the farmers under the Buffelspoort scheme are paying very much more than is paid on other schemes; in comparison with the irrigators under Hartebeestpoort and Olifantsnek, for example. If we go into the position we will find that pro rata they are paying very much more, at least 50 per cent. more. It is only right, since they are equally citizens and taxpayers, that their water taxes should be reduced relatively, and I hope the Minister will do so. I want to plead here this evening for a new dam in my district. We heard from the hon. member for Weenen (Mr. Abrahamson) that the irrigation schemes in other parts of the country, especially in the Karoo and in the midlands of the Cape Province, are inclined to silt up, and as a member of the Select Committee on irrigation matters I too have discovered that from the tens of thousands of pounds which have to be written off because those schemes do not pay. Now I want to plead with the Minister and his department to investigate the question of a new dam at Vlieëpoort in the Crocodile River, fifty miles below Hartebeestpoort. There we have an opportunity to build a bigger dam than at Hartebeestpoort. There is valuable land below that dam. And since Rustenburg is very excellent for the production of wheat and tobacco, we can establish the proposed scheme and put thousands of people on land where they will be able to make a good living. There is another aspect of the matter, and it is this, that the dam to which I refer, if it is built, will be at the iron mine where Iscor takes out its ore. The normal stream of the river from Hartebeestpoort to Vlieëpoort is pumped as dry as dust. Water is led out, and Iscor pumps out all the remaining water. There is a case pending before the Water Court in Pretoria because the corporation is applying for permission to pump out even more water, up to a quantity of 500,000 gallons per day. When that happens, the river lower down will be a dry sluit, and not only the farmers under the existing settlements of the Department of Lands, bordering on the river, will be in a parlous position, hut everyone who is dependent on the river water. Those people bought land at a high price, and when the water dries up or is pumped out, they will be left with dry farms in respect of which they will then have to pay practically 100 per cent. too much. In the interests of those farmers, in the interests of Iscor and in the interests of the whole district, it is necessary to investigate the question of building that dam. Now I want to touch upon another matter, and that is with reference to boreholes. Today the policy of the department is to have two holes bored for every applicant, and an amount of £70 is then allowed in respect of the dry borehole. Cases have occurred in the north-western parts of the Transvaal, where we have the hard stone formation, where holes are bored costing £400 to £500, and the farmers still have no water. There is a rebate of only £70. The farmer has to pay the balance, and he must still make continued efforts to get water. I want to urge that greater assistance should be given. If a farmer has two holes bored and he still has no water, he must have a third hole bored, or he has to surrender his farm. I want to ask that up to two dry holes should be written off altogether. It becomes an unbearable burden to the man. I know of a case in Rustenburg where a man was practically ruined in trying to get water. He could not abandon the farm, and he had to see that he got water. I therefore want to ask that the Minister should take this into serious consideration. I know why that policy was followed in the past, that is, because there were people who misused Government bores. These farmers remained on the farm for four, five or even six months, while the next applicant could not get a chance. I want to plead, however, that up to two dry boreholes should be written off completely.

Although the Minister of Lands is a cattle farmer, I know that he has a good knowledge of irrigation, because in those areas in which he lives the farmers did a great deal to develop the natural water resources with boreholes etc. I also know that the Minister is favourably disposed towards our natural water resources which have to be protected by preventing veld fires and such things. I think that our whole irrigation is practically dependent upon the Water Conservation Act. A very great deal must be done for water conservation in this country. We have various settlements and large dams. Every party in every government can be congratulated on the works which they constructed in the past, but not sufficient has been done yet. In our country, where we continually have droughts, every river ought to be dammed up, so that the water cannot flow away. Some of these water works may pay, and some of them will not pay. But that does not matter. Those rivers must be dammed up. We spoke today of a scheme such as that at Bellair. That is the prize scheme of the Cape Province! This scheme has now been curtailed, and it will keep a few people going at any rate.

Especially if they get the land for nothing.

All this helps in developing the land. But I say that there are still many dams which can be constructed, and I am thinking especially of Aspoort. We have fought for many years for that dam. It has become a hobby, because every time there is an election the question of that dam is raised. The Minister’s predecessor dealt with the matter, and made promises left and right, and when another election comes the Ministers will probably make promises again. They go there and say that this dam must be constructed. Well, it is a dam which must be constructed. Apart from the fact that that is a favourable place to construct a dam, there is a beautiful stream of water which flows into the sea year in and year out. There was some objection on the part of these people that a portion of the land was brackish. There is brackish land, but that is the exception, but there are also thousands of morgen of good land which silted, and there are various rivers which can be properly developed if this dam were constructed. All that has to be done is that this dam must be constructed and furrows must be made. It is also said that that area is sparsely populated. That is so, but the people will come once there is a dam. I think the Minister promised that that dam would be brought into line with a fodder bank. That is a very essential thing, especially during the dry years in the NorthWest. There is another matter too. There are a few hundred thousand soldiers who will have to get a place after the war. The Minister can put them there. These are people who will make a success there. The experience of previous years has taught us that the soldiers make a success of these undertakings at our settlements! The soldiers we have at present are not foreigners but Afrikaners, and they will make a success of it. I hope that the Minister will make a start with this work. He promised to give us a fodder bank, but up to the present he has not carried out that promise. I admit that there may not be any money now, because the war takes up everything. But notwithstanding the fact that the war has taken up everything, we must not only think of the war. In addition to the war we must give attention to things of this nature which are essential, and which the Minister wants for his returned soldiers. Then again I think of Buffels River. The Minister said that he was not going to build that dam. It looks as though he has developed the complex of the Director of Irrigation, that all those dams are going to silt up. This is a dry river with a good flow during the winter months. Last year this river flowed for six months, and it was particularly strong in the Roggeveld. If the dam had been completed it would have been full of water, and it would have lasted for years. I hope that the Minister will give attention to that. Then there is another dam. As a result of the curtailment of the Prins River scheme, the people were told at that time, not by the present Minister but by his predecessor, that a dam would be constructed along the Touw. That dam has not yet been built. The Irrigation Commission went to inspect it, but no report has yet been submitted. Every time there is an election, the Commission is there; the previous Minister of Lands, Col. Reitz, was also there during the last election. He travelled all over the place in that area, and these people were glad and they said that this dam would now be constructed. I do not know whether there will be another election, but if there is another election, I suppose the present Minister of Lands will make an inspection. I mention these few matters to remind the Minister again of the promise which he made in connection with Aspoort, and I hope that he will assist these people. With regard to Bellair, we experienced great difficulty, but the Minister was friendly enough to promise to give these people the land for nothing, and to divide the water. I hope he will also put the other schemes right, so that these people can be satisfied.

I am glad of having the opportunity to thank the Minister of Lands for the concession in connection with the Potchefstroom irrigation works. We Afrikaners in the Transvaal know how to give thanks where thanks are due. Other people are not accustomed to doing that. For 35 years every Minister of Lands of every Cabinet in the days of self-government, and later in the days of the Union Government, made promises to those parts of the country, but this Minister is the first who got so far as to send the Irrigation Commission there, which investigated the matter fully. We never heard anything further in regard to that investigation. This Commission did good work. The matter is still under discussion insofar as they are concerned, but I want to say this, that I give praise to the Minister, which he thoroughly deserves. What I also want to bring to the notice of the Minister is the settler schemes in our area. Those settler schemes were overlooked by the department in the past. I am talking of settlements which were established there during the years 1905 and 1906. Those people were granted water rights and land on certain conditions. The water supply was altogether inadequate, however I just want to express the hope that when the Commission submits its report, and whatever may happen, the Minister will give his attention to this matter, so that he can assist those people in getting more water. Those people who have the land get too little water, and we must try to give them sufficient water under this scheme. I also want to say this, that we in those areas, namely, in the Transvaal, are not in the position which was described here by the hon. member for Ceres (Mr. J. J. M. van Zyl), that the rivers are continually silting up the dams. We have 30 and 40 years’ experience there, and the dams did not silt up; so that if the Minister introduces those beautiful and grandiose plans to which he referred in Another Place, and for which I admire him, then I want to suggest that in carrying out those schemes he should give more attention to the Transvaal than to other parts of the country. We do not experience that difficulty with our dams and rivers. In the area from which I come there are people who are trained in intensive farming. They have been engaged on irrigation for years, and they are experienced. The people we will require for our farming in the future, especially for irrigation schemes, are those people who are familiar with intensive farming. It is all very well to give a person 30 or 40 morgen under water, and to tell him to farm. There are very few people who understand intensive farming. They may drown the land and experience difficulties in connection with brack, as hon. members on the other side have already pointed out. In those areas from which I come the people are experienced. There is an opportunity for the establishment of irrigation works; there is suitable land and there are people with years of experience, and for that reason I plead with the Minister when considering those schemes in the future to bear in mind the fact that it is those very people who will be able to make a success of these schemes. I just want to tell the hon. member for Ceres this also, that I was glad to hear that he has confidence in our soldiers, that if the Minister gives them farms under irrigation works they will make a success of it. That pleased me very much. It is so strikingly different from what the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) said here, namely, that the returned soldiers have never been successful with that type of thing. I hope that since there must be intensive farming under our irrigation works, the Minister will continue with that policy.

I am sorry that I am not in the position of the hon. member for Potchefstroom (Mr. H. van der Merwe), that I can thank the Minister for the great services which he rendered to the farmers under the Schweizer Reneke dam during the past few years. I want to point out that in 1940 the Irrigation Commission was specially sent there, and after they had recommended that certain steps should be taken, according to which writing-off would take place under certain conditions, the Minister deemed fit to reject the proposals of that Commission. I pointed out last year what the position was, and I do not want to go into the whole matter again. I want to point out, however, that the Minister promised me last year, and he promised this House, that he would visit this scheme and that he would invite me to be present when that was done. I am not aware of the fact that the Minister was there. The Minister shakes his head, and I therefore take it that he was not there. I take it, however, that that promise still holds good. I have always found that when a Minister makes a promise to this House, then he always tries to carry it out. Since the Irrigation Commission was already sent there in 1940, and since the Minister promised to investigate the matter again, I hope, in view of the fact that he made that promise last year already, that the matter will not be further postponed but that he will pay that visit this year and will cause this matter to be investigated. I hope that the Minister will see his way clear to give his attention to this matter this year. We hold the Minister to his promise, and we hope that he will carry it out this year, that he will carry out the promise which he gave to the irrigators under the Schweizer Reneke dam.

Mr. Chairman, what I have to say has nothing very much to do with irrigation, but rather with the people who are on the irrigation settlements. We have recently had a very important meeting here of one of the committees of the Nutritional Council, when an important memorandum was submitted by an individual who had made a very careful survey of the living conditions and welfare of the people living on these irrigation settlements. He drew particular attention to that which we had learnt previously, namely, that there is considerable malnutrition, strange as it may seem, amongst the people who are living on land given to them or leased to them in order to improve their well being. I think it is very important to draw the attention of the Minister to this point because at the present moment we have seen indications that there is apparently an expanding policy with regard to irrigation settlements. In the Other Place the Minister has announced a twelve-year plan in connection with irrigation. We heard him refer also to another important matter. He announced that on the Vaal Hartz scheme the advice of the department had been taken by settlers, and that they were now growing vegetables and concentrating on dairy products. That, sir, is a very important indication and one which I think should be adopted as a general policy. It is along these lines that we can hope to deal with the serious malnutrition of this country. Therefore, it seems to me that on a vote such as this, attention must be drawn to the fact that the social welfare aspect of the irrigation schemes should not escape attention. While we realise that one of the objects of the irrigation policy of the Government is to find suitable land for settlers on which they can progress and find economic relief, we must not at the same time lose sight of the fact that as important is the well-being of these people placed on the land. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will see what he can do to provide facilities whereby the shortcoming to which I have referred can be eliminated. It can be done in several ways. I think it should be one of the conditions on land being granted that a certain amount of it is allocated for the growing of the necessary domestic foods. Settlers should also be encouraged to keep animals, cows, etc., which will help supply their needs of the domestic dairy products. Finally, and perhaps most important of all, they should receive education with regard to the value of protective foods. We have, I understand, an elaborate organisation which concerns itself with the training of these settlers with regard to the actual produce they are to go in for. I maintain that it is as important to teach them also that in addition to producing marketable products they should produce articles which are essential to their well-being.

I just want to draw the attention of the hon. Minister to a position which demands his serious attention, and that is in connection with water boring. Since the Minister took over the post of Minister of Irrigation, he devoted his attention to irrigation works. I want to give him credit for that. He went about and effected improvements where he thought they were necessary. But it seems to me that water boring has been overlooked in the interim. The greater portion of the Union is dependent upon boreholes for a living. The greater portion of the farmers are dependent upon boreholes, and since we have made good progress in the case of irrigation, and new methods and systems have been applied, it seems to me that in so far as Government bores are concerned, we are still following the old Milner system. They still trek from farm to farm in the same manner. They still put up their bores in the same manner, they still work as they did formerly, and it still takes two days to dismantle their bores. The Minister is helpful in so far as boreholes are concerned where no water is found, and he makes concession there up to an amount of £70. But I seriously submit that there are numerous farmers who have to spend up to £1,000 in getting water for their land, people with established farms. They find themselves in great difficulties with regard to water, and I should like the Minister to come to the assistance of this type of farmer until he gets water on his farm. I understand that a certain number of bores are idle in the country. I do not know whether that is still the case today, but surely we cannot prejudice the country in this way and allow bores to be idle. The Minister knows that if there is one thing in South Africa which promotes soil erosion, then it is if cattle have to be brought from one corner of the farm to another for drinking purposes. They tramp out the farm. If farmers can get water in the various camps, they can practically double the carrying capacity of their farms. I know that time is limited, and that the session is well advanced, but this is such an important matter, and as it requires immediate attention I feel that I must raise it here. At the same time I want to associate myself with the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) in making an appeal to the Minister for further concessions with regard to dry bore holes. But in any event I want to urge strong action in connection with the shortage of boreholes in our country.

The hon. member for Weenen (Mr. Abrahamson) mentioned the possibilities in Natal and he spoke of the wonderful rivers which they have, and that they are not worried as much with silting as people are in the Karroo. At the request of the hon. member and other Natal members I sent the Irrigation Commission through the whole of Natal, and they made an investigation of all the possibilities of building dams and settlement. I have the report and I assure the hon. member that as far as possible Natal will get proper attention, and they will get their proper share of irrigation settlements. He also mentioned the silting up of the dams in the Fish River Valley, Lake Arthur and Grass Ridge. During the last session of Parliament I told the House that the Irrigation Department had adopted a plan for saving the position in regard to the silting of these dams. They appreciate that there are some of these valleys where we have a very big population, where tremendous sums of money have been sunk, and it is up to the Government to see that these communities do not go under through the silting up of the dams. As far as the Fish River Valley is concerned the Department is working out a scheme of raising these two dams, that is Grass Ridge and Lake Arthur, and ultimately, when they are silted and there is not sufficient water to supply the valleys, to build other dams. If that programme is carried out progressively, it will safeguard the valley for at least 100 years. I think if we can give the people the assurance that this policy is carried out they will be safeguarded for at least 100 years.

*The hon. member for Brits (Mr. Grobler) raised the question of the Buffelspoort scheme, and he wants to know why before we do anything for these people we insist on them first of all pooling the water. The position there is a peculiar one. That scheme in the Rustenburg District is probably one of the oldest irrigation schemes in the country. One of the Pretorius family, one of the old Voortrekkers, started this scheme in the early days.

It will be an honour to you to improve on it.

We are doing our best to improve it, and we are determined to improve it if the people will see reason, and if they will accept advice wherever we can give it to them. The water has since the olden days been taken out of the river by means of canals. On their title deeds of the farms, and they are very old title deeds, the rights of those people are registered to the normal flow from the river. Subsequently to that the dam at Buffelspoort was constructed. Hon. members will realise that we have two types of water in that dam. We have the normal flow which has run into the river and which the riparian owners are entitled to, and in connection with which an endorsement has been made on their title deeds, and then there is the catchment water. We knew what the normal flow was in normal years, and those people were entitled to seven cusecs of normal flow. They were entitled to certain quantities of water — they have been entitled to that water since the very early days —but gradually they have started doing more irrigation work, with the result that when we built the dam, and when we stored water for other settlers, these old settlers claimed more water than the normal flow. They were only entitled to seven cusecs, but since the dam has been built they have ben taking seven cusecs and they have not been taking it from the dam but lower down over their irrigable lands. Hon. members will realise how much water that meant. The position now has developed to such an extent that these people are claiming ten cusecs, with the result that they have been taking far more water than they are entitled to, and the only solution there is is to say to those people: “We are prepared to give you a reasonable share in the water, we are prepared to assure you of seven cusecs, but then you must pool the water and come in on the same basis as the other settlers. That is the only solution for the difficulty. I myself met those people and explained the position to them. I also told them that we were prepared to meet them so far as their rates were concerned, and that they would not be called upon to pay any more than the ordinary settlers were paying — and that is not much — I believe it is about 10s. We even went further and we suggested making it 5s. That is not too much, and no one can complain of it. Those people were prepared to agree to that, but unfortunately there is a type of farmer in that area who for many years has had title to the water rights and one cannot induce him to give up those rights and to take his legitimate share in the water in the dam instead. They had practically agreed to accept the suggestion but I made one condition. I said that I would send the Irrigation Commission to explain the position further to them, and to try and find a solution, and I added that if in the meantime they changed their minds and refused to come into the pool, they would still be able to do so. The Irigation Commission went there and the people turned round completely and refused to pool. They demanded ten cusecs to which they are not entitled, and they want the water to be delivered to them at the lower end of the scheme. As I have said, the only way for the department to find a solution of the trouble is to let them have their seven cusecs but to get them to come into the pool.

When was it fixed at 7 cusecs?

That was before the dam was constructed. We want to give them 7 cusecs, but after that the Irrigation Commission visited the place and told them that we would give them the water they were entitled to, but that it would be measured up. The secretary thereupon refused to allow them to go and measure up the water. We are now going to measure up the water ourselves and give them their legitimate share, and if a drought comes about and the normal flow does not come they will have to be satisfied to take less.

Is the department going to take control?

The department is going to take control of the water until such time as these people have come to realise that the solution which we have suggested is to their benefit. And the solution is that they will surrender those registered rights as set out on their title deeds, and the hon. member would do a good day’s work if he were to advise those people to accept that offer. It would be to the interest of those people, and it would be to the interest of the department and everyone concerned if they were to pool the water. That is the only solution.

Is the Minister still prepared, if the department takes control, to reconsider the question of their water rates?

We have made a proposal. We said that we were even prepared to reduce the rates to 5s.

For new irrigators?

We are quite prepared to meet those people in any way possible; we don’t want to do any harm to them, we want to assist them, but they cannot have it both ways. They cannot have title to 7 cusecs and then at the same time demand to be given 10 cusecs. The hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J, M. Conradie) spoke about the scheme at Vlieëpoort Dam. We have made an investigation into the suggested scheme and we cannot build a dam there.

Cannot you build it lower down?

No, 35 miles higher up. It is possible to put up a scheme there, and the matter is being enquired into. I cannot say anything more about that at the moment. In regard to the request for more water bores and the demand for an increased amount in respect of dry holes— to increase the amount of £70, I shall go into that at the same time as I go into the whole question of water bores, which was raised by the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. Labuschagne). Let me say first of all that in regard to our water bores at the moment hon. members will know that a large proportion of our people are on active service. Forty-eight per cent. of the staff of the Department of Irrigation are on active service, and the result is that we have a number of bores which we cannot operate at the moment because we have not got the available staff, but 82 of those bores are still in operation at the moment. I myself, as the head of the department, and the department with me, are fully aware of the necessity of having more than one borehole on a farm. If you have only one borehole on a farm, the veld around that borehole is trampled to death. You may have some good veld left in many cases but you cannot get to it. I also realise how a condition of affairs like that leads to erosion. The department is also determined, if we are spared and we have peace again, to give the farmers more boreholes. When the war is over …

How much longer is it going to last?

Let hon. members over there predict the end of the war. They told us some time ago that it would be over in six months.

Will you just tell us what the department’s attitude is in regard to private bores?

We are continuing with those in the same way as we did in peace time. We are still subsidising them to the extent of 50 per cent. There are 82 Government bores which are still in operation. Last year, over a period of twelve months, we paid out £27,800 in subsidies for private bores, and the average subsidy which we paid for a borehole was between £14 and £15. That policy still holds. If the hon. member says that the old bores are not satisfactory, then I want to say that it is clear that the “jumper” bores are no use, and that we must use the “combines.” But in regard to the oldfashioned bores I quite agree with the hon. member for Delarey that the position is impossible. It is almost impossible to transport them. It requires a whole convoy. It costs too much, and there are many farmers who cannot use them because they cannot transport the things. It is the department’s policy, when the war is over, to secure new bores. We can construct those bores which are lighter and which run on their own power ourselves, in our own workshops. At the moment iron and steel are practically unobtainable, but we have a five-year plan under which, when the war is over, we intend getting rid of all our old bores and replacing them with new bores running on their own power.

How about a larger rebate?

We are meeting the farmers up to an amount of £70 for dry holes, and at the moment we cannot go beyond that. The Irrigation Commission has suggested that we should try to get preference in regard to oil, petrol or power paraffin, and that we should try to get a cheaper rate for transport over the railways — that we should try to get one or both. The department will try to do so, and if we succeed it will mean a considerable concession to the farmers.

We are writing off thousands of pounds. Why could not some concession be made in regard to this particular matter?

We cannot keep on writing off. The hon. member for Ceres (Mr. J. J. M. van Zyl) has been putting up a strong plea for Aspoort and Buffelspoort, but I am afraid that so far as Buffelspoort is concerned we will get the old history all over again and that after a number of years it would stand there again as a white elephant. It cannot be done. How often have we not enquired into this scheme? We have done our best but our expert advice is that there is no opportunity of building a dam there. It is near Laingsburg. I assume that that is the scheme the hon. member has in mind. What the department is doing now is to make further investigations to see whether the farmers cannot be helped in some other way. Those people are settled along the river. According to the advice we have received it is not possible to build a dam there—unless I act directly in conflict with the advice of my experts. Well, that I cannot do. This is a river with a very strong subterranean flow and these people are pumping water all along the river, and my department is now enquiring into the question whether it is not possible to give those people some assistance so that they can get more water, and so that they can continue their work by pumping water along the river. We are going to take expert advice on that question. In regard to Aspoort, there I have the same trouble. I imagined that that would have been the very type of place where we could have established fodder banks for those parts of the North-West, but the advice of my experts is that the ground is going to become brack. There are hardly any people there today.

They’ll go there.

Just let me say this, that later on in my speech I shall mention all the schemes which we have in mind, and it is quite possible that the Aspoort position may eventually also be fitted into the whole plan. In regard to the hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Wentzel) he said that I had promised to visit Schweizer Reneke. That is perfectly true, and I shall repeat my promise. I shall go there as soon as I can, but so far it has been quite impossible for me to pay that visit. I know that the position there has been critical for many years and the people there are not paying us a penny. They are doing the same thing as the people at Bellair are doing; they are not paying anything. The hon. member says that I have refused to accept the report of the Irrigation Commission. I could not accept the report put up by them. I shall look into the matter myself.

Then you will have to accept it.

The hon. member for Yeoville (Dr. Gluckman) spoke about the growing of vegetables in the various settlements. I want to say at once that the type of people that we have put on these various settlements are people who are pastoralists. They are not people who come from urban areas, they are not people who have been on irrigation settlements. They know nothing of agriculture, and we people who live right in the back of beyond, if we have a piece of meat and a cup of coffee and a bit of bread, that is all we want. If I tell hon. members that I have gone through some of these settlements and I have had lunch with friends of mine there and they have given me vegetables, and they have told me: “We have bought these vegetables and brought them a couple of hundred miles,” they will realise the position. It is most difficult to get these people to go in for the growing of vegetables. I have told the House that 18 months ago we tried to impress upon people the necessity of growing vegetables, because we know there would be good markets, but the only settlement which has responded is Vaal Hartz. And I can tell the House that there are settlers who have made as much as £1,200 out of vegetables out of their holdings. I know of a settler who made £230 out of a crop of cauliflowers. And now they are going in for it. It is quite true that you want to teach these people to eat more vegetables and to grow more vegetables, and we have been trying to impress upon our settlers that they must do so—they must grow more and more vegetables all the time, for the purpose of canning.

What, canning vegetables?

Yes, there is now a process of drying vegetables. If we can get these settlers to go in for sufficient vegetables so that we can go to a private enterprise to put up a factory it will be a very excellent thing. There are a number who are quite prepared to start a factory in any of these settlements. I suppose Vaal Hartz would be the first, but they will have to go in for growing vegetables in a greater measure. Any kind of vegetables —potatoes, onions, beans, peas—anything. And if they do that this new process of drying can be undertaken.

But you must not fix any more maximum prices.

Don’t let us get off this point, it is an important matter. As soon as we can guarantee a sufficient supply we can have a factory put up at any of these settlements, and that is all in the direction which my hon. friend wants.

I want them to eat more vegetables.

If they grow to sell they will certainly have enough to eat.

I hope so.

Now I want to deal with a very important policy which the Department of Irrigation wants to follow. In the past, and hitherto, it has been the Government’s policy and it is still so today, and it is going to continue to be so in future, as far as possible to dam up all the water which is running into the sea today. But in the past, and hitherto, it has always been the policy when building a dam in a river to have a settlement close to the dam. That is the system which is in force. One has to have a settlement there to use the water. We have reached the position today that so far as settlement is concerned we have got to the saturation point. You cannot establish any more settlements, and my reason for saying so is this: This is wartime, and in wartime, of course, one can sell as much as one can produce, but in normal times one can only produce as much on the various settlements as one is able to sell, and if one continues to produce, one will eventually reach a position when the markets will not be able to absorb the commodities that are produced. Furthermore, complaints are coming in from the farmers that the products which the farmers are producing on the settlements are products which to a large extent are subsidised by the Government, and the farmer says this: “I have to compete with this subsidised product. What chance is there for me to do so?” Well, the position is this, that either we have to discontinue constructing dams for our settlers or at least until such time as the position has become such that there is a demand for those products—or else we have to go steady so far as settlements are concerned. I do not think we can establish any more settlements. Are we now to stop building dams? No, we shall continue to build dams.

Are you going to continue building dams during the war?

No, there are many smaller schemes which we are proceeding with, but we are now preparing our plans for the post-war period. We have now decided that we shall continue to dam up the rivers, but instead of having settlement there we are going to build a dam and we are going to supply water to only so many farms as we can by building canals and leading sufficient water to enable the farmer to irrigate 20, 30 or 40 morgen of land. We are now going to dam up the water. It will, of course, take time, but that is the department’s policy. Experience has taught us that where we have settlements many of those canals have not been cemented with the result that the canals have silted up and the water has become brackish. In future our policy will be immediately to line the canals with cement. Of course we shall have to have very many canals. Take a settlement such as Vaal Hartz, if you establish a settlement there as we have done you have to uproot a whole lot of farmers who are settled there. You have to buy them out and in some instances you have to pay terrific prices. I believe that at Vaaldam alone we paid £870,000 for the land. As I say, you have to uproot those people and it cost a tremendous lot of money. Once you have done that you have to write off and you put a man there whom you have to subsidise. Now our policy amounts to this, that the cost of the canal will be less than the amount spent on the buying up of the land to uproot those farmers. We have now made an investigation. There are various parts in the different provinces where a start will have to be made. We have made an investigation and in the Free State we have already made considerable progress with a scheme of this kind. When I make these remarks I hope my hon. friends are not going to say that the Minister has made a promise that a scheme is going to be introduced; but this is our policy, and we are going to try and carry it out. I may at once say that the scheme in the Free State is on the Caledon River. That is a river which runs terribly deep along its banks and every drop of that water runs away into the sea. If you dam up the Caledon River with a canal you take the water out and we shall be able to supply water to 1,500 farms, and most of those farms are situated in the Winburg, Ventersdorp, Senekal, Excelsior, Marquard, Theunissen, Virginia, Bultfontein and Bedford areas. If we find that it is possible to give effect to this scheme it is our intention to make a start with it a year after peace has been declared.

That means another 25 years hence.

Yes, if the war lasts as long as that. Apparently that is what the hon. member predicts.

No, it will be after the dry dock is finished and that will take another two and a half years.

My idea in regard to this policy is this, that if it can be carried out it will convert those districts which are now subject to terrible droughts into a veritable paradise.

Then you should start now.

My intention is that if we can give effect to it we shall start with it a year after peace is concluded. There are many areas—and while I am saying this, the idea has also come into my mind whether a scheme of this kind could not also be started at Aspoort. If one can have an extensive scheme of this kind it seems to me that it will offer a solution of the problem as to how to make the best use of the water. We have been talking about silt. The Orange River is one of our biggest rivers. You cannot build a storage dam there, but you can use the water of the Orange River for this scheme.

Are you going to take the scheme as far as Calvinia?

No, it is not going as far as that.

Which river do you want to dam up?

The Caledon River; the intention is to dam up the Caledon River and to take it for 21 miles through the mountain side by means of a tunnel.

Is the tunnel to be 25 miles in length?

Yes. But hon. members should remember that under that scheme it will be possible to supply water to 1,500 farms and it will therefore be worth while.

How many morgen of land is it intended to irrigate by this Caledon scheme?

Together with the Caledon River there are two other dams on the Vet River. We can put the Caledon River water into those dams, but the hon. member has just asked me how many morgen we shall be able to irrigate. We shall be able to irrigate between 50,000 and 60,000 morgen. That is the position. I felt that I should tell the House what our future plans are in regard to the water which is today running into the sea, and I thought I should inform the House that we were going to change our policy completely. As we are now being appealed to to supply the farmers with fodder banks, I think that this policy will solve that question, because every farmer will be able to provide for his own requirements.

We have been fascinated by the Minister’s picture of gigantic postwar irrigation schemes, especially the one on the Caledon River, O.F.S., which will provide water for 1,500 farms from a 21-mile tunnel, and I hope that the smaller demands of individual farmers will also be satisfied. I hope some of these schemes will extend to the thousands of morgen of deep alluvial soil on the lower reaches of the Great Fish River, where farmers have spent many thousands of pounds on gravitation and pumping schemes and have had no assistance from the Government, although they have been handicapped by volumes of brak water brought down by the present system of conservation and irrigation. I feel that if the Minister will build the proposed dam on the Baviaans River it would relieve Lake Arthur, which is more than half silted up, by satisfying the needs of the Long Hope and Middleton scemes, and it would also freshen up the present brak water in the river for those men who are pumping and who have gravitation schemes on the lower reaches of the Great Fish River. I do not think that the Minister or his department appreciate the quantities of deep alluvial soil on the lower reaches of the Fish River, where we have a longer summer, better weather conditions, practically no frost, and soil from 30 to 50 feet deep, all rich alluvial Karoo silt. I have lived my whole life on the Great Fish River and I feel that the present system of creating lakes which are rapidly silting up is doomed to failure, if we do not aim at restoring what was the earlier natural condition when these rivers were permanent streams. We should rather take a lesson from nature and put our rivers back into their original conditions, when they were a series of lagoons, such as historians have described, and the extensive oyster beds and hippo skeletons and tusks confirm. That condition might be restored if we commenced soil erosion schemes on the upper reaches of our rivers and built a series of silt dams and reservoirs. We would then have a perennial stream which would break the force of floods and do away with this brak water, which is an absolute curse to rivers that have their sources in the brak areas, like the Great Fish River. I do not want to criticise the Irrigation Department, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. It is not only the lower reaches of the river that are suffering from brak, but the upper reaches as well, and that brak water is reducing the fertility of the soil now, and within a given period most of that soil will be ruined for good. I feel that the Minister should make a promise tonight that he will, after the war, visit the area of Professor Schwartz’s wellknown scheme. We would like him to investigate the feasibility of that scheme. I am not a crank myself, but I look for the day when the waters of the Okavango and the Chobe will be entirely restored to their lakes and swamps, and rivers will again run in the now waterless Kalahari. I do not say that it will improve the humidity of our atmosphere, but I have no doubt that it will increase our underground water, on which our Government has spent so many thousands of pounds in bringing to the surface. I do hope the Minister will give that undertaking tonight. I feel that the present system in the Fish River area is only a temporary expedient, and it is only a question of time when these schemes will silt up and millions of pounds will have been wasted.

I only want to say a few words.

To waste time.

We are so accustomed already to hear of settlements and more settlements, that the speech by the Minister of Lands this evening has come as a very pleasant surprise. I am pleased that the Minister has shown us what the intentions for the future are. I want to say that I have made a study of the greatest irrigation works in the world, and it was only after I had listened to the Minister’s speech here this evening that I could fully understand a number of the points which had not been clear to me. I was in America, I was in the desert State of Arizona. They have an irrigation scheme there which has a canal 200 miles long, and all along the canal, as far as I went, I did not see a single settlement. I saw dairies with 5,000 cows and I travelled miles and miles through lucerne lands. The people were farming there with milk and honey. I was told that the farmers liked producing honey because their neighbours would never touch their beehives. But as far as I went I did not see a single settlement. There were only farms, and the Minister put forward the same idea here this evening, and I must honestly say that it was an eye-opener to me, and at the same time I rejoiced at what the Minister told the House. Let me say this to the Minister: I don’t want to flatter him because I don’t have to flatter anyone in this world, but I am convinced that if the Minister is spared and if circumstances are favourable to him so that he may be able to carry out this scheme, his name will go down in history as that of one of the greatest benefactors South Africa has ever had, perhaps even as that of its greatest benefactor.

I only want to …

You are wasting time.

If the insinuation is that I want to get up to waste the time of the House I want to tell the hon. member that I am not going to allow myself to be put off by him. I don’t want to waste the time of the House, but this is an important matter. He have had to sit here for days to listen to the political nonsense proclaimed by hon. members opposite, but now that we come to this important vote we are not to be allowed to say a word about it. I am very pleased at the important policy announced by the Minister this evening; this announcement again goes to prove that at long last the country has a Minister who is a practical farmer and who knows what has to be done. He is making history and we want to congratulate him and to assure him that we stand by him. I hope, however, that he will give his special attention to our Karoo schemes and that he will do his best to restore the balance. It can easily be done by damning up the Karroo River. I am particularly thinking of a scheme in that area, the Beervlei Scheme, which to my mind would be an ideal scheme. In the past we have had this position, that it was found that most of those schemes would prove unpayable. But there we have a scheme which will help us to meet the people’s needs, namely, to establish fodder banks. What we can produce there is not oranges, or something which will come into competition on an already overloaded market. We can grow lucerne and wheat there. Now I very briefly want to say a few words on the question of private bores. Unfortunately in certain parts of the country the permission in regard to the use of bores has been abused, and proper care has not been taken for the correct depth to be recorded, with the result that the State has suffered damage in consequence of which a promising young Afrikaner has taken his own life. I hope the department will take note of this case and that it will take care to prevent similar malpractices from occurring in future.

I want to ask for the privilege of being allowed to speak for half an hour, and I want to move at once—

I am doing this because I want to protest in the strongest way possible against the unheardof manner in which our judicial system is being violated today by the Minister and his Government. Never before in our history have we had the things happening that are happening today. Never in all the years of our existence have we found people being detained in our gaols for months, and having to sit there like criminals without a charge being made against them, and without being tried. I say that no such incidents have ever been recorded in our history. Hon. members speak of right and justice, but the scales of justice are not held evenly. There is no such thing as right and justice today in connection with these matters; it is the greatest scandal that has ever been perpetrated since Union in regard to our judicial system. We have this system: The Minister of the Interior has people arrested and he has them cast into the internment camps, but we are told that they are in gaol. And then the Minister of Justice again puts people in the internment camps and says that they are in gaol, but the Minister of Justice comes here and arrests people and puts them in gaol and treats them worse than people in the internment camps are treated. He treats them worse than criminals. They are kept in gaol for months and months without being allowed to consult their legal advisers or receive their friends, and they are kept under arrest, they are tortured and their relations outside are tortured. I asked the Minister a question so far as the Free State was concerned. The hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) asked the Minister a question in regard to the Transvaal, but no reply has yet been vouchsafed to that. In regard to the Free State the Minister answered that at the moment there were thirtyeight people in the gaols at Bloemfontein, Ficksburg, Senekal, Kroonstad and Harrismith, some of whom were arrested as long ago as January, while others were arrested in February. Some have been in gaol for almost three months and others for nearly two months, and up to the present day no charge has been formulated against them and they have not been allowed to consult their legal advisers. I asked the Minister another question about these special courts which are set up—I asked against how many people who have to be brought before special courts charges have actually been laid. So far no charges have been made against a single individual. Can the Minister tell me what the object of this cruel torture is to which these people are being subjected? One of the first requirements of our judicial system is that when an individual is detained by the State a charge must be lodged against him within a reasonable space of time, and that is actually laid down by a law passed by this Parliament—our Criminal Law Procedure Act. Clause 97 of Act No. 31 of 1917 says this—

A murderer, a thief, a scoundrel, the greatest scoundrel in the country can be visited by his friends and his legal advisers, and one of our first principles of justice is that if a man gets into trouble and is detained by the State, he is entitled to legal advice. The other provision of our Act, namely, Clause 16 of Act 13 of 1911, in regard to our gaols—and these people are detained in our gaols—says that people who are in gaol awaiting trial are entitled to receive at the proper times food, bedding, clothes or otherwise—consequently the murderer and the thief and the scoundrel is allowed to have food and clothes and other commodities. In this case these were decent people against whom the Minister in some instances had no evidence at all, but he simply put them in gaol. They are honourable men, yet they are not allowed to see their friends; they are not allowed to see their legal advisers, and they are not allowed to get clothes and other things from outside. At Bloemfontein the public turned to the charitable institutions with a request to send food to those people, but the Minister of Justice prevented it. What was his reason for doing so? And why are these people treated worse than murderers? It is a disgrace. These privileges are allowed under legislation passed by this House of Parliament; they are allowed to be given to the worst criminal in the country, and yet the Minister steps in and he treats honourable citizens of this country in this manner. It does not matter what they have done, it does not matter whether they are guilty or not. If they are guilty take them to court, and if they are found guilty punish them, but do not treat them as if they are worse than thieves and murderers. These people are only detained for interrogation, yet some of them have been in agol for almost three months. Are these the Russian methods, the methods of allies of members opposite, to keep people for months in gaol for interrogation in order to break their spirit so that they will eventually make some confession? In Russia people detained under such conditions eventually made the most remarkable confessions so that they might be released from the misery in which they found themselves. I as the legal adviser of some of those people am not allowed to go and see them, but the Minister sends other people there, or he gives them leave to go there. I have a letter here from a man at Ficksburg. Somebody approached the parents of people who are in gaol and those parents write to me as follows: The letter says that the individual who approached the parents said this—

And then the letter goes on—

It was Senator C. J. van Schalkwyk who wanted to call on those people. I asked the Minister in this House whether he had given him permission to do so. Senator Van Schalkwyk is a man who recently resigned from this Party, and I asked the Minister whether he had given Senator Van Schalkwyk his consent to call on those people. He answered “Yes”. I further asked him whether he had given Senator Van Schalkwyk permission to discuss with the prisoners the charges that were made against them and the conditions of their eventual release, and the reply was—

I have in my hand the permit which has been given to the parents of a young fellow who is in the Ficksburg gaol; they are allowed to go and see him under police supervision. I have the original letter in my hand and it is clearly stated in this letter—

A Senator who is a political person can go to the prisoners and discuss their detention and can discuss anything, bur the child’s father or mother are not to be allowed to discuss these matters. What kind of thing is this? It is a scandal. I have many instances before me which I could refer to tonight and I could keep the House busy all night—if I were allowed to do so. Here I have the case of a young fellow who has been kept in gaol for seventeen days. He was not allowed to get clean clothes. He was in his working clothes when he was arrested, a pair of khaki trousers and a shirt. He had to sleep in those clothes and those clothes were in rags eventually. His relations were not allowed to bring him clean clothes. Only after seven days was permission given. The parents write to me as follows—

But a man who is acting as a political agent was allowed to go there! I myself was asked by the parents to attend to that child’s interests and to act as his legal adviser. I am not allowed to see those people. I am not allowed to have an interview with them, to try and get statements in order to prove their innocence. Now I want to know from the Minister what the object was in sending Senator Van Schalkwyk there to go and see those people, and I want to know why the legal adviser of these people is not allowed to call on them? Will the Minister allow me to go there? The parents are not allowed to speak to their children, to try and get statements to prove their innocence. What are they doing to those people in gaol? There is one young man who has been in gaol for two and a half months. In my own constituency a man was arrested on his farm. The foreman was arrested first of all and was put in gaol; afterwards he himself was also arrested. The woman was an invalid and the doctor certified that she could not be left alone. She begged and prayed that her husband should not be put in gaol, but no, he had to be put in gaol. She told me personally that during the whole of that period when the sabotage was alleged to have happened her husband had not been away one single night. Let such a man be given the opportunity to prove that he is not guilty. That man has to be in gaol for two and a half months. He and his foreman are in gaol and the invalid wife has to remain alone on the farm. I would be ashamed if I were the Minister of Justice, if such things took place, and if the law was allowed to be violated in that fashion. These detentions are unparalleled. Now I also want to ask the Minister this: The House is going to prorogue within a few days and it is quite possible that these people may be kept in gaol without trial for another six months. They are going to be exhausted there; their spirit is going to be broken, all in an attempt to get a confession from them. I asked the Minister when the special court was going to sit and his reply was as follows:—

It is impossible for the Minister to say whether the court will sit in June, July or December, or whether it will ever sit. The only answer we have had from the Minister is that it is impossible to say anything definite. The Minister further said this:—

I further asked the Minister whether the people who have been detained would be allowed to see their legal advisers, and his reply was:—

But some of these people have been in gaol for two and a half months, and no charge has been served on them yet. When will they be allowed to discuss matters with their legal advisers? One really does not know what to say about actions of this kind. I know many of those people personally; they are prominent people. If you can prove that they are guilty put them in gaol but do not treat them in that way. The special court was announced months ago, but not one of them has been tried yet. I am accusing the Minister and I am saying to him that he has no evidence against those people. I am pertinently charging him with detaining them without evidence, and I am saying that he hopes to be able to get evidence or to get people who betray them, with a view to getting them into trouble. He hopes by means of treacherous actions or otherwise to get confessions. We have attorneys, lawyers and barristers in this House whom I personally have a very high opinion of. I should like to know from them what they think of the Government’s attitude on this subject. We don’t want to keep innocent people in gaol and we are pleading in all earnestness with the Minister not to detain these people in this fashion. It is in conflict with the very first principles of right and justice as laid down in our Statutes and passed by this House of Parliament. It is in conflict with all conceptions of humanity, and then hon. members speak of the Gestapo, of Nazi methods and of Stalin’s Ogpu, which simply throw people in gaol and leave them there to lie and rot, and do not care what becomes of them. It is sheer cruelty, and we wonder what has come over the Minister. Is it cruelty, is it vindictiveness, is it hatred? What is the reason, what is the cause of the Minister doing these things? A Government which descends to such a level can only be described as being mad in its political actions. The Government is acting like a lunatic, because it does not care what it is doing and how it tramples on the people’s rights. What are the Minister’s intentions? Before this House prorogues he must tell us what we are to tell the parents of these people, what we are to tell the children and the wives of those people who have been put in gaol. I am continually getting letters from them and when I visit those areas these people come to me and they cry, and they ask me “For God’s sake, help us; my child, my husband,” or whoever it may be who is in gaol—“We don’t know what they are charged with.” I want to know from the Minister what we are to tell those wives, children and parents? Is he going to continue those inhuman and cruel methods? Or is he, as Minister of Justice, going to do his duty and do justice? Is he going to see to it that justice is done to those people? A special court has been established for the special purpose of trying those people. Let that court try those people? Punish those who are guilty? I am not in favour of sabotage but I am opposed to innocent people being detained, and I tell the Minister that innocent people are in gaol today, detained by him. I am convinced that if the Minister had the slightest evidence against those people he would long since have brought them to court, but now he is sending politicians to see them in gaol.

How can you say that he is sending politicians to see them?

He himself has admitted it. He has admitted that he allowed Senator C. J. van Schalkwyk to go there and he told him that he could discuss anything with these people. I pertinently asked him whether he had allowed him to go and whether he had been allowed to discuss the conditions of their eventual release and the reply was in the affirmative. He had been allowed to go and see those people and to discuss anything he wanted with them.

All I want is that you should not make any insinuations.

What I said was said on the grounds of the Minister’s own reply, and because of what Senator Van Schalkwyk had told the parents of this young man, as a result of which the father would not allow Senator Van Schalkwyk to see his son because he felt it was treachery. It is because of that that I make my accusations and these are facts which cannot be denied, and I say again that we in this House cannot express ourselves too strongly about the Minister’s attitude.

Does Senator Van Schalkwyk happen to be a relation of this young fellow?

No, he is not a relation, and we want to know from the Minister why he refuses to allow these people’s legal advisers to visit them, while a politician like Senator Van Schalkwyk is sent to see them. Now we come to the whole question of the police. We have so many matters that we want to discuss—the sins of the Minister’s are so many—that we don’t know where to start and where to finish. We could discuss those matters the whole night long. Now take the position in regard to these hundreds of policemen who have been arrested. I understand that hundreds of them were arrested because their names were found to appear on certain lists. I was informed that some of these people did not even know that their names were on these lists. Someone simply thought that a man was a good Afrikaner or that he had certain political convictions, so he put his name on the list and the Minister thereupon stepped in and had all those people arrested. Well, the result was that he had to release them again after he had put them in the internment camp. I am mentioning this to show how easy people can get into trouble, and how casually the Minister had them arrested. Those policemen were not guilty. They were not in any way responsible for their names having been placed on those lists. More than 200 members of the ordinary police were released, including railway police, and prison guards. They were arrested although they were not responsible for their names having appeared on those lists, which meant, of course, that they had innocently been put behind prison bars. Now I also want to know why the Minister sent those police to an internment camp? What were they to do there? The Minister of the Interior has told us that he had nothing to do with them, so we want to know from the Minister of Justice why he sent the police to the internment camp. So far as the police are concerned, I want to say a few words about this matter which shows that they have been reduced in rank—I want to show how these members of the police are being persecuted. I am going to mention this arising out of Breytenbach’s case. I don’t want to say too much about this particular matter because the Minister knows all about it. The court decided that he had been wrongly dealt with. I understand that justice was done to Breytenbach after the decision of the Court. But there are other cases where the same thing has happened, so I asked the Minister whether those other cases which were identical to Breytenbach’s would be dealt with in the same way as his case was dealt with. The Minister’s reply was that only cases that were pending, cases of a similar kind, would be dealt with in that way. What about the cases of those people who were treated in exactly the same way as Breytenbach and whose cases are no longer pending? These are men who were summarily suspended and who were reduced in rank by the Commissioner of Police. That injustice was done to Breytenbach. He took his case to court and he won his case. The Minister now says that it is only cases similar to Breytenbach’s case which are still pending which are going to be dealt with in that way. I want to make an" appeal to the Minister to deal with cases like Breytenbach’s, cases which have already been disposed of, and to have them taken into review so that those people may be restored to their rank, because there are instances of people who have been similarly reduced in rank by the Commissioner of Police. I shall give the Minister the names that I have obtained—there may be others as well—and I am going to ask the Minister to see to it that justice is done to those men. I fail to see why the man simply because his case has been disposed of should be made to suffer. Surely the court has given its verdict that those people have been wrongly dealt with, and it is the Minister’s duty to see to it that justice is done to the police, and it is his duty to give them the same right of redress that was given to Breytenbach. It is unfair to say that only those people whose cases are still pending will be dealt with in that way. It has been decided once and for all by the highest court in the land that the Commissioner of Police—I assume that he has done so in good faith, but it does not alter the fact—that the Commissioner of Police exceeded his powers when he reduced those people in rank, and so to speak punished them twice. I don’t want to go into any of these cases individually in this House but I have four letters here in regard to similar cases. I am prepared to hand those letters to the Minister if he is willing to go into them. So far as the police are concerned I further want to point out to the Minister what happened in Cape Town when a crowd of Chinese had to be deported and when they attacked the police. A violent fight took place in this town and quite a number of constables were injured. The Chinese knocked out a number of policemen with any object they could get hold of, and the police did not shoot. The Minister in reply to a question said that they were armed and that they could have shot but that it was not necessary for them to shoot. That is what seems so strange to us. Here we have a crowd of Chinese, foreigners, who attacked and ill treated the police, but the police were not allowed to shoot. But a man like Johannes Van der Walt was allowed to be shot although it had been stated that he was not dangerous and that there was no need to intern him. He was shot, but in another case where the police were attacked by Chinese and knocked out by Chinese they did not shoot. There is no need for me to quote from the report showing the way the police were handled. Let me just refer to what appears in the Press:—

But the police restrained themselves because they knew that the rules and regulations were very strict and that they were not allowed to shoot. Perhaps that is quite right in many circumstances. The police obeyed their regulations but in contrast with that we have this one case where the police let go quite easily and fired on an Afrikaner. In the one case they are knocked about and they don’t fire, but in the other case they don’t restrain themselves and they let fly. I could mention quite a number of other instances of the same kind, but I want to say that we feel that two standards are adopted in regard to these matters in this country, and our contention is that the scales of right and justice which should be balanced are loaded against the one section of the population. The man who does not agree with the Government’s policy has no hope, there is no mercy for him. You may have been a man of good character all your life, you may have been highly respected all your life, but once the Government suspects you you become so much dirt, and you are thrown into gaol without any trial, and you can stay and rot in gaol. Well, the Afrikaner is not going to put up with that sort of thing. The Minister and his Government will have to pay very dearly for these things. They will have to pay very dearly for the attitude they are now adopting. Now there is another matter I want to touch upon and this also is a case where to my mind the Minister has committed a serious blunder. I am referring to this Emergency Regulation under which imprisonment without the option is laid down for an assault on soldiers. I am not in favour of soldiers being assaulted; the Minister, however, passed a regulation providing that anyone who assaulted a soldier was to be sent to gaol. What happened? The soldiers assaulted each other, and one immediately had a whole heap of cases of that kind, so much so that the Minister got a fright and he thereupon proceeded to appoint himself as the only judge of appeal to determine who should go to gaol and who should not.

He could not have found a worse judge of appeal.

Is that right? Is that justice? Surely it is not right that one person should have that power conferred upon him? Surely we have our courts in this country? If the Minister wanted to do the right thing he could have said that those decisions must be reviewed by a judge or by the Supreme Court, exactly as he has done in other cases. The judges have to review cases of imprisonment every day, so why should they not do the same thing in regard to these cases? No, the Minister appropriates these powers unto himself. In the one case imprisonment is approved of whereas in other cases it is not. How can the Minister expect anything else but that the public would say that his policy is one of gifts and favours, and that right and justice are not being done. The Minister reserves unto himself the right to do as he pleases. Why does he place himself in this unenviable position, that he as Minister of Justice has to occupy the position of a judge to say when an individual is to go to gaol and when not? It is in conflict with our whole judicial system, that a political individual like the Minister, however good he may be, should take that power unto himself and should take up the position of a judge of appeal, and that he alone shall have the right to say “yes” or “no” in such cases. [Time limit.]

I wish to refer to a matter which has caused a tremendous commotion throughout South Africa. The matter is one which has already been referred to in this House, but I want to mention it more particularly now as we are dealing with the Minister of Justice who has to account for the actions of the police. I am referring to the shooting of Johannes Van der Walt. I said that this matter had caused a tremendous commotion throughout the country, particularly because Johannes Van der Walt is a well known figure in the sports world of South Africa, a man of friendly nature, a man who is known all over the country, a man who has not only upheld the name of Afrikaner but the name of South Africa in the sporting world, not only in South Africa itself but in other countries as well, and above all a man regarded by everybody who knows him as a true and honest Afrikaner. Johannes Van der Walt was arrested on certain charges. One of those charges was that he was in possession of an unlicensed firearm, namely a revolver. There were other charges against him as well but those were all charges of a kind which we look upon as political crimes. He was arrested and he escaped. As a result of certain information given to the police by certain people Johannes Van der Walt was trapped in the house where he had found shelter as a fugitive. On this point there is a difference in the statements as to what actually occurred. According to the statements which the Minister made in this House and which he subsequently repeated in the Senate Johannes Van der Walt was supposed to have appeared in front of a window; he was supposed to have been warned three times, and he thereupon aimed a revolver at Sergeant Fourie who then fired at and wounded him. That is the story which the Minister told us in this House, and which he repeated in the Other Place, As the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) remarked “That’s his story and he’ll tsick to it.” The question is whether he is going to stick to it. Now I want to give another statement, the statement of what actually did happen on that occasion. I have received my information from a responsible source and the position is this, that the police at 4.30 in the morning arrived at Mrs. Venter’s house where Johannes Van der Walt had taken refuge. That is the house in which he was born. Mrs. Venter opened the door and asked the police what they wanted. They first of all said that they were looking for somebody else and then they said they had come to search the house. While Mrs. Venter turned round to go and dress herself she heard somebody call out: “There he is, Sergeant,” and immediately after she heard a shot. Mrs. Venter exclaimed, “What has happened?” and the man who replied was the same man who had fired the shot, namely Sgt. Fourie, and his reply was this: “One of my fellows became scared and shot.” That is the statement from the man who actually fired the shot. Van der Walt’s statement of what happened was this: That he woke up; he was sleeping in the right hand front room. He heard voices and he immediately thought that it might be the police, so he went to the window. The window was a very narrow one; it is only 18 inches wide and, as the Minister of Justice knows, Johannes Van der Walt is a big man, well set up. He tried to climb through the window. He found it very difficult to get through owing to it being so narrow. He had one leg outside and was climbing out when he was shot. He was shot by Sgt. Fourie who was standing on the stoep 4 ft. away from the window. The position in regard to the window was this— and it is interesting to note that it is not a window which can be moved up and down, but it opens at the side: The sergeant was standing on the other side of the window where it opened, and Van der Walt was busy getting out of the window; when he was half way through he was not in such a position that he could aim a revolver at the police, and the policeman shot Van der Walt at a distance of 4 ft. through the window. In other words, and that is the important point, the window was between Van der Walt and the policeman. He could not get at the policeman because the window was in between them. It was not a window which could be moved up and down, and Van der Walt was shot through the glass while he was actually in the act of climbing out; he fell outside the window to the left hand side. The bullet penetrated his lung from behind as far as the kidneys, practically up to his backbone. I want to add this, that Van der Walt’s statement is to the effect that he never had the slightest intention of shooting, and that actually he was not in a position to shoot, because it was all he could do to get through the window. His intention was to run to a small plantation of trees some 14 or 15 yards from the house and to hide there. If the facts are as I have stated them, and the man was shot in his back from a short distance while he was climbing through the window, then it looks very much as though the police deliberately tried to murder him; and that is the charge that is made against the Minister and against the police. The hon. member for Winburg (Mr. C. R. Swart) has already pointed out that we are not dealing here with scoundrels and murderers and evil doers, but we are dealing with honourable men; and the same applies to the case that was mentioned by the hon. member for Winburg. We are dealing here with people who rightly or wrongly have committed certain acts because of their convictions. In other words, we are dealing here with political prisoners and nothing more. We are dealing here with people who have done certain things for political reasons. They are not in the same position as ordinary criminals, and the Minister himself knows what Van der Walt’s reputation is throughout the country. Van der Walt is not a murderer; he is not even a dangerous man. That is a fact which was clearly proved in the case against Venter, who was charged with having harboured Van der Walt. The case was tried in Krugersdorp and this is what the report says:—

When the International difficulties occurred Gen. Hertzog, who was Prime Minister at the time, uttered a serious warning in this House and that warning was addressed to those who had taken over the Government and he said that one could expect a serious reaction in this country on account of feelings being so divergent that they must necessarily clash with each other. I have not got up to try and make political capital out of the events which have occurred since that time, but I have got up to make an appeal to the Minister of Justice and to ask him in all fairness and justice to take heed of the position of those people who are kept in our gaols today. Large numbers of our young men are in gaol today. In their enthusiasm they have committed offences and they have broken our laws. Some of them have committed acts of sabotage. We admit that. I would be the very last to encourage anyone in these troublous times to commit acts of that kind, but I want to ask the Minister in all seriousness to bear in mind the fact that large numbers of those young men are being kept under lock and key, some of them for two or three months, and others perhaps for a longer period. Does not the Minister think, and does not the Government think, that those young men who have committed those offences have been punished sufficiently for what they have done in an ill considered moment? Does he not think that the time has come that these young men should be released? Does he not think as Minister of Justice, and as a man belonging to the same race, that he should try and think what the psychological condition of these young men is who have committed these offences? I am not talking of lawlessness but I am putting up the plea, and I am asking the Government to realise that when these diffifulties occurred the Government should have expected these things to happen. You were warned. There was a certain amount of defiance and challenge on the part of those who were in favour of the war, and because of this defiance and challenge the Government should have expected that those who were opposed to the war would commit offences. Clashes had to come—they could not be avoided. I hope the Minister will bear this in mind and put an end to it as soon as possible. I do not know whether he did send a member of the Other Place to interview these young fellows who are kept in gaol. He will no doubt reply to the charge which has been made across the floor of the House. I only want to say that I feel that the member of the Other Place went to these people because he was concerned and worried about the conditions that were prevailing among them.

I did not make any charge.

If that man went with the object of getting them released then all credit is due to him, and these young men and their parents will be grateful to him for what he has done. I personally do not believe that he went there as a political agent.

I did not make any charge against him; my charge was against the Minister.

I believe that he went there because he was worried and concerned about the lot of those young men, and I hope that he will submit his information in all honesty and in all fairness to the Minister so that these people may be released as soon as possible.

I had nearly finished when my time expired, but there are still a few matters to which I want to draw attention. I want to point out that according to the statement of the magistrate Van der Walt was not regarded as a dangerous person. This was his finding. He said—

In these circumstances one might well put the question why it was necessary to send a large number of police there, and try to trap Van der Walt in that manner, and to shoot him when he came out of the window. I should like to know from the Minister what his instructions were to the police. How must the police act? Are the police expected to shoot under any circumstances? If the facts, as I have stated them, are correct, that Van der Walt was engaged in climbing out of the window, then it was impossible for him to aim a revolver at the police. Were the police, in the opinion of the Minister, entitled in this case not only to shoot, but to shoot to kill? Because according to the opinion of the doctor under whose treatment Van der Walt was, it was only due to Van der Walt’s outstanding bodily strength and health that he has pulled through so far. It was only Johannes van der Walt who could suffer that and still be alive today. Any other person would have died. And a further question: Is it a fact that Sergeant Fourie who shot Van der Walt is the same man who shot Erasmus on another occasion? I should like to have a reply to this question. It seems to me that if that is the case, we are here dealing with a man who is not slow to use his revolver, and that in this case the use of the revolver was certainly not justified. I also notice this in the evidence which was given in the Venter case—

Now I want to ask the Minister whether it is correct that such an offer was made to Van der Walt. If so, by whom was the offer made, what was the offer, and what were the conditions attached to the offer? What were the conditions which were put to Van der Walt by the Minister or the police in the event of his giving himself up to the police? One of the conditions, apparently, was that he would not be interned, and that he would only appear before the court on a charge of possessing an unlicensed firearm. I want to know from the Minister whether there was any other condition, of a totally different nature. I hope that the Minister in replying this evening or tomorrow will take the House into his confidence and tell us what the conditions were which were put to Van der Walt. I hope that we will get a clear statement from the Minister in regard to this matter. I can give him this assurance— perhaps I travel about in the country a little more than he does, and come into contact with people more than he does, and I can give him the assurance that, since the shooting of Jopie Fourie, there is possibly nothing which caused a greater sensation and more indignation throughout the country than the shooting of Johannes van der Walt. In view of the facts I have mentioned, and the circumstances in connection with this matter as set out by me, I make the accusation against the Minister and his police that they had no right, in the circumstances, to act as they did, and that he owes a reply to the House and the country in connection with what he did.

There is a certain matter which I should like to bring to the notice of the Minister. I am not certain whether it comes under this vote, but I take it that this is the case. This is in connection with the Hollanders in South Africa, of whom a number have already been called up by the Netherlands Government in London for military service overseas. I think this falls under the Minister of Justice because his department, I assume, is responsible for arrests in cases where Hollanders refuse to go. I just want to deal briefly with the circumstances which gave rise and may still give rise to these arrests, and I do this particularly because I very clearly want to bring to the Minister’s notice that he would definitely act wrongly, and that he would act in a manner which will be no credit to South Africa, if he were to lend his ear to authorities of another country which ask his department to arrest certain people. I say this especially because I have proof that the treatment meted out to Hollanders who were not prepared to go overseas was decidedly anything but praiseworthy. On the contrary, I go so far as to say that they were scandalously treated. Let me deal with the position in this country today. The Minister is fully aware of the fact that the Netherlands Government which is in Great Britain today appointed a person here as military representative of the Netherlands Government in South Africa. This person is apparently very well known to the Minister. He is Lt.-Col. Dr. Koch. He acts here on behalf of the Netherlands Government, and it is his duty to call up Hollanders in South Africa for military service overseas. I want to explain what the attitude of Dr. Koch is. I am sorry that I have to do so, but I feel that I would be neglecting my duty if I were not to do it. What was the attitude which this person adopted with reference to the Hollanders? On the occasion of the departure of 70 of these people recently, he addressed them on board ship in the harbour, just before they sailed. I do not want to deal with everything he said, because most of what he said was too ridiculous to mention. But inter alia he said — this is definitely authentic—

I mention this because the Minister will now apparently take action against those people who, up to the present, have refused to go. These are the words used by that gentleman in connection with the person concerned, Van der Zwam. I mention this case especially because I have all the information in connection with it, and I feel that the Minister ought to be informed of the circumstances which will possibly result in people beingarrested by his department. The facts which I have given are correct. In the first place, Van der Zwam was turned down in Holland in 1937 as unfit for military service. I have here a copy of the certificate which was issued to Van der Zwam in 1937 in ’s-Gravenhage—

He was therefore declared absolutely and permanently unfit. In other words, it was accepted that he could not recover sufficiently so as to become fit for service again.

Was he arrested?

He will apparently be arrested. If the Minister gets up and says that he will not be arrested, I shall immediately sit down. For all I know he has already been arrested. But if the Minister will say that he will not be arrested, I shall say nothing more. But the House will adjourn within a few days, and these Hollanders will be arrested, and for that reason I regard it as my duty to bring this matter to the notice of the Minister. In 1937 Van der Zwam was definitely turned down. Now he is being called up here, and when he submitted this certificate to Dr. Koch he was told that it was invalid. Dr. Koch stated that the certificate was altogether invalid. The Medical Board found him unfit, and what right has the Minister to act on the instructions of Dr. Koch and his lieutenants and to arrest such a man? As I understand, Van der Zwam eventually decided to obey, and he came to Cape Town, but before he took his departure he applied for an extension because his wife was seriously ill and had to undergo an operation. He had a certificate to that effect. That was refused. Whilst he was in Cape Town he received notification from Johannesburg that his wife’s condition had become more serious, and he again applied to Dr. Koch to be allowed to return in order to see his wife, but this was again refused. What reason was there for Dr. Koch’s refusal? He said—

Because Van der Zwam stood his ground, Koch refused. The result was that this man took off his uniform and said “Now I am going back.” Now I just want to add that Lt. Notendorp granted him leave, and he was prepared to give Van der Zwam a ticket to Springs. When this was brought to the notice of Dr. Koch, his reply was “Whoever is for you, is against me.”