I move—

The object of this motion is at this late stage of the session to take up all possible time, so that we may finish our business as soon as possible. The Government still feels that we may be able to finish the session towards the middle of the month, or perhaps the day after, but if we want to do so we have to use whatever time is at our disposal, and the question has arisen whether we should also use next Saturday morning in order to get more time. The general feeling, however, is that we should rather sit on Friday night than on Saturday morning, and I am therefore making this proposal in accordance with the general wishes on both sides of the House.

I second.

I should like to know from the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister in regard to this motion, whether the Government intends introducing any new Bill which is not yet on the Order Paper.

Only the financial Bills and the small amendment of the Patents Act.

May I ask whether the Banking Bill is still going to be proceeded with?

Yes.

I should also like to know whether the Government is still prepared to stand by its promise to give the House time for the private Bill in regard to the Durban City Council which is still on the Order Paper? Hon. members would like to know whether the Government is going to give any more time for that? I understand now from the Prime Minister that there is no intention to sit on Saturday?

No.

Then I also want to ask the Prime Minister to explain what is still puzzling us. Why is the Government in such a hurry? It seems that they have suddenly become very hurried—it has been going on for the last month. We are only in the first week of April. What reason is there for us to try and finish up so soon? Is there any special reason for it?

There is no special or mysterious reason to expedite our business, or to conclude the session very quickly. The hon. member knows that more than a month ago the Government was asked when the session would probably finish, and the middle of April was indicated, and that was the prospect held out to members. Members have made their arrangements very largely with that date in view. Consequently, it would be most inconvenient to members if we went much beyond the middle of April, and it is the Government’s intention as far as possible to keep within that time. Of course, if it is necessary to sit longer, public interests will come first, but in the interests of members we want to try and do what we held out to them, namely, to finish the session as near the middle of April as possible.

Previous sessions have lasted much longer.

Now the hon. member asks whether any other business is to be brought before the House. No, I don’t know whether there will be any time left for private Bills—I doubt it. It seems to me that the time we have left will be more than taken up by Government business. In regard to new Government Bills, I do not believe there is anything else, except the Bill on the subject of mortgage bond interest, which the Hon. the Minister of Finance has referred to, but that will only be introduced if there is agreement between the parties. It is too late to bring such an important matter before the House and to deal with it unless there is agreement. If there is no agreement, it will have to stand over till next session.

Are there any important Bills on the Order Paper which will not be proceeded with? There is, for instance, the Natural Oils Bill.

It is not proposed to proceed with the Insurance Bill.

It is proposed to proceed with all the Bills, with the exception of Nos. XIII and XIV, on the Order Paper.

We are very anxious to proceed with the Natural Oils Bill and the Base Minerals Bill, because they may perhaps become of the utmost importance. The Base Minerals Bill particularly may soon become of the utmost importance.

Then, of course, there is also the Finance Bill, the so-called Omnibus Bill.

Motion put and agreed to.

I hope that after a few days of meditation the Minister will be in a more receptive mood today. I can see by the pleasant expression on his face that he is going to accept quite a number of essential and reasonable amendments. In that case I think the discussions will be considerably shortened and the Bill will have an easy passage through the House.

Well, that’s a good start anyhow.

I want to move—

The reason for this amendment is very simple. At present this Board is supposed to be a Board of Review and Control—it is also an Appeal Board, but at the same time included in the functions of the Board is this, that it will be able to give general directions to Rent Boards in connection with the exercise of their functions. That means that through this Board the Minister will be in a position to give any Rent Board instructions as to how it should act in a particular case, and I do not think that that is a function which should be allowed. I do not think the Control Board should be in a position to give an individual Rent Board instructions as to how they should deal with, and what decisions they should take on particular matters on which they must decide.

What wording do you want to substitute?

I merely want to delete “give general directions”, and the clause will then read—

I think that is quite sufficient. It is not necessary to enable the Control Board to give directions, especially when one sees that among the other functions the Control Board can also review a decision of the Rent Board and call upon a Rent Board to submit its decisions for review, and require a Rent Board to submit reports on the administration of the Act, and so on. This Control Board already has very wide functions-. It not only can review decisions, but it can advise Rent Boards and it can call upon any Rent Board to submit its decisions for review and from time to time require any Rent Board to submit reports on the administration of the Act. One must be very careful, especially in a case such as this, when there is no appeal to a court of law, not to give excessively wide powers to the Control Board, not to allow the Control Board to become the puppet of the Minister. The Board may be there merely to carry out the desires and the instructions of the Minister. One should be very careful that the Board does not develop into such a body. I do not think the deletion of these words will materially alter the purpose of the Board.

I want to move an amendment. I move—

As the clause stands here it means nothing, because it only says that the Control Board will try to do something. If it does not do this duty it stops at that. That is quite wrong. The clause should read that any decision of the Rent Board can go to the Appeal Board. If it is stated there that they may, or can, enquire, it simply means that it depends on them whether they are going to do their duty, yes or no. It means nothing; they are not compelled to go into the matter. That is why it is necessary to accept this amendment. Surely we appoint a Board to do the work, but as the clause now stands they can take the money and do nothing. In order to make the clause possible of being carried out the Minister has to accept the amendment. There are a few other amendments which I shall move later.

In view of the fact that the honourable member wants me to reply now I had better do so. May I reply to the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) first? We have not yet reached human perfection, and therefore I do suggest to my hon. friend with his ripe experience that it is very unwise to tell a Board that they “shall” ensure the correct working of the Act. You are asking them to do an impossibility. All you can do is to ask them to endeavour to do so.

What does it mean—it means nothing.

It does, it is holding it before them. Just the same as when the farmer puts an ostrich egg before the hen and says: “Now, do your best.” I suggest that the hon. member has not considered this carefully. You cannot tell anyone that they “shall” ensure the proper working of an Act. All you can say to them is “Now do your best.” I therefore propose not to accept the hon, member’s amendment. He also wants me to agree to the deletion of “may” and the substitution of “shall,” making it obligatory on them They are not to use their discretion. Therefore, if a thing is passed for review, possibly vexatiously, the hon. member will have it that this Board must willy nilly review that particular case, although the circumstances to the knowledge of the Board may be such that they do not want to bother about reviewing it. That is only one instance. It will then read under the hon. member’s amendment: “Shall, in its discretion.” That is a contradiction in terms.

I want to move the deletion of “in its discretion” too.

In any case I do not think the hon. member is earnest in pressing the matter.

You must not say that.

Oh, I am sure the hon. member is earnest in moving it but not in pressing it, and I must ask the Committee to decline that amendment. Now the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman) wants to cut out the words “give general direction,” because forsooth he, with his suspicious mind, sees me hovering over this Rent Board and sees me say: “You must instruct such and such a Rent Board to do such and such a thing, I want it.” Surely my hon. friend is not serious. The very wording which he proposes to delete completely conveys the opinion that it is a general direction to all rent Boards, and having no particular application at all. In other words, it is setting down the lines of examination that Rent Boards should conduct their operations on. I think my hon. friend will agree that it is unnecessary to delete these words. I cannot accept the amendment.

In regard to the Minister’s reply, I want to know why it is necessary to empower this Board to give general directions to Rent Boards when you already have the power to furnish advice and assistance?

That is not obligatory.

It is not obligatory in any case—they say they “may.” If he accepted the amendment of the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) that the word “shall” be inserted, it would be obligatory upon the Control Board, but at the moment it is merely in their discretion. I do not think the hon. Minister has stated what type of general direction he envisages the Control Board should give the Rent Board. In the original Act there is no provision whereby the Minister or any court of law is empowered to give general directions to the Rent Boards. Now suddenly this provision is inserted. It is not that I am of a suspicious frame of mind, but I feel that this is a matter which is open to abuse, and one must also bear in mind that it has been—I might almost say—the grievance of the hon. Minister, for instance, in regard to the Wage Board, that he has not been able to give the Wage Board general directions as to how they should act in any particular case. I am merely using this as an analogy to show that the retention of these words is open to abuse, and I do not see any necessity for retaining the words “and give general directions.” They may, but if those words remain it means that the Control Board has the power to compel any individual Rent Board to act in a certain way and to give certain decisions; and I do not think that is the object of the framer of the Act, namely, that the Control Board should have these wide powers. The Control Board is already in the position that it has the power to review the decision of the Rent Board; it has the power to rescind the decision of the Rent Board. Why should they also have the power to give the Rent Boards general directions? There is already ample provision in the whole of this clause. It means that your Rent Board will not only be subject to the Control Board— to which we have no objection—but at the same time you have a Board there which can become merely a puppet in the hands of the hon. Minister. The Minister can tell the Control Board to instruct the Rent Boards how they should act in particular cases. I think in order to remove this provision, which is open to abuse, the hon. Minister should accept this amendment which I have moved. In regard to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Swellendam, I want to say this. You appoint a Board and give it very wide discretion, but at the same time you want that Control Board to do certain definite things; there are certain matters you expect them to carry out; they must justify their existence and they must justify the expenditure involved in appointing a Board of that description; and therefore you cannot merely appoint a Board which entails a large amount of expenditure and then leave things in the air by not giving them definite instructions. The hon. member moves that the Rent Board “shall” do certain things. That is their purpose in being created. They “shall” furnish advice and assistance and give general direction to Rent Boards in connection with the exercise of their functions. Then they “shall” require any Rent Board to submit reports upon the administration of this Act in the area of jurisdiction of that Rent Board. It does not say that they “shall” require the Rent Board to submit reports, as the sub-paragraph now reads. Then you have a Control Board in the nature of a supervisory body at the same time. Without being empowered to give definite instructions, they can see that the Rent Boards carry out their duties efficiently. Next, they “shall” employ any competent valuator or other technical adviser to assist them. The last clause is very important. It is important to make it obligatory on the Control Board, when there is any doubt in regard to the decision of an individual Rent Board, to employ a competent valutor or other technical adviser to assist it. I take it that that Control Board will consist of three laymen, probably three men who have no knowledge of property values, men who have never been property owners, possibly, and surely in every case when they have to review the decision of a Rent Board, it should be obligatory upon them to employ a competent valuator to assist them. This comes back to the amendments we moved in the previous clauses. The Minister would not accept them. Now we want to make it obligatory on the Rent Board, in cases of review, to employ a competent valuator or technical adviser to assist them. And I think it is no more than right that they should do so. When they have to come to a decision, they will only have a few documents before them, and on those documents they must base their decision. It will be extremely difficult for them to come to a decision in the normal course of events, and if they have no technical expert to assist and advise them, it will be even more difficult. I think if the hon. Minister accepts the amendment of my hon. friend, that, amongst others, the Control Board shall review any decision of a Rent Board when such review is sought; that they shall from time to time require any Rent Board to submit reports upon the administration of this Act in the area of jurisdiction of that Rent Board; and that they shall employ any competent valuator or any technical adviser to assist them—if the Minister accepts this amendment he will do a very wise thing. I want to press the hon. Minister to accept this amendment. It will not materially alter the intention of the clause, and apart from that it will be of considerable assistance to the Control Board in carrying out its functions properly, and in addition to that, it will make this Bill much more workable.

I was prepared to suggest to the hon. Minister that the insertion of the words “and give general directions” was of no value to the clause in view of their ability under this sub-paragraph to give advice and assistance to the Rent Boards. Listening to the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman) I am more satisfied now more than ever that every argument he has used to reinforce the appointment of a valuator on the Control Board, or that they shall have technical advice from a competent valuator, makes me more convinced than ever that “general directions” is a necessary power in the hands of the Control Board. One of the general directions which must be presumed will be given by the Control Board is that no decision of the Rent Board shall come to the Control Board unless there is evidence before it as to the value of the property.

That is embodied in the Act already.

I merely assume that the Control Board will be required, because of the very arguments suggested by the hon. member to support the appointment of a valuator, to give general directions to these Rent Boards which are working under the advice, assistance, and general directions of the Control Board. I ask the hon. Minister not to accept this amendment. Nor can I accept the amendment moved by the hon. member.

It seems so peculiar to me that hon. members opposite cannot see what a mess this Bill is. How can we have this Appeal Board if it is at the same time going to be in charge of the Rent Boards? Surely the object is to have independent Rent Boards which will decide on matters, and then we have this Control Board which is to be a Board of Appeal, but now the Minister is giving them the power to “boss” the Rent Board. Why have two bodies to do the one job? Why not have only one body? The proposal of the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman) is intended to make the Rent Boards into independent bodies, and for the Control Board to be a real Appeal Board. That will be the right way to deal with the matter. The Minister, however, appoints the Control Board for the purpose of giving general instructions to the Rent Board. The more we read this Bill the more we realise how impossible it is, how weak it is, and how badly drafted it is. Look, if the Rent Board decides on a reasonable rent for a particular place, it has to decide as an independent body, and if it cannot do so, appoint a Control Board to decide on it. If I think that the Rent Board has treated me unfairly I can appeal to the Control Board. I can tell them that I think my rent is too high, or if I am the lessor I may tell them the very opposite. The Control Board then decides finally, and I cannot go to court. This is playing with people’s rights. The Minister talks all day long about freedom, about fighting for freedom, yet here he comes with a Bill which constitutes an interference with people’s rights. Naturally, I don’t ask the Minister to see things in the way I see them. He has not had any experience of these things, while I have been dealing with these matters for the last thirty years. If we read this clause further we see that the Control Board has to try to see to it that the objects of the Bill are carried out. It is a ridiculous state of affairs. If we put a body there to carry out an Act, then it must carry it out, or otherwise we have to put another body in its place. We cannot say that a body must endeavour to carry out a law. I have never seen a thing like that in my life yet. It does not seem to me that the Minister can be in earnest when he says that all these things have to be left to the discretion of the Control Board. He says that it must be done because some people may appeal unnecessarily. If a magistrate gives a judgment in court and no appeal is lodged, how can we then give the judge of the Supreme Court the right to say that an appeal must be lodged because the magistrate may have been unduly weak in his judgment? People are being deprived of their rights and liberties, and the Minister sits there and laughs. I also want to move this amendment to omit paragraph (c). As the clause now reads, it means that the Rent Board decides where there is a difference of opinion and it fixes a reasonable rent. Both the lessee and the lessor are satisfied and do not appeal. Then the Minister may perhaps go to the Control Board, and he may say that the man is a friend of his, and he may ask the Control Board to interfere, and the Control Board then has the right to review the decision of the Rent Board, although no appeal has been lodged. It is ridiculous to put such a thing in a Bill. It means that we are appointing two bodies to deal with one and the same thing. The Control Board can give a finding without an appeal having been lodged. This sort of thing is in direct conflict with all the rights of the public, it is in conflict with all rights and justice. We are not going to have any finality, and we shall never know where we are. That apparently is the sort of thing the Minister wants, because eventually the result will be that nobody will invest a single penny in the building of houses. The Government will then have to build houses, and we will then see whether the Government will submit to provisions such as those contained in this Bill. For these reasons I move my amendment. I have another amendment as well which I want to propose, but I don’t know whether I am going to move it because I don’t think it will be any use. It is stated here that the Control Board may employ a competent valuator. Competent is translated as “bevoegd”. Who is going to decide whether the man is competent—is the court which appoints him going to decide that? Assuming a man who is not competent is appointed? It may result in the Control Board being taken to court. Then there is talk here of a technical adviser. What is that? I have never heard of anything like that in a law yet. We can talk of an adviser. Here this Bill speaks of a valuator or a technical adviser, but both may be needed. Well, it seems to me that it is no use moving amendments to assist the Minister to get a good Bill. I am not going to make my proposal, and if the Minister gets into trouble he will only have himself to blame.

I must ask hon. members to confine themselves to the clause before the Committee.

I don’t think you have the right to say that to me. I have not gone beyond the scope of the clause. If we look at paragraph (e) we find that it is provided there that a competent valuator or a technical adviser is to be appointed. How can the Chairman say that I must confine myself to the clause? I am dealing with the clause. I feel that if the clause is passed as it now stands there is going to be confusion, and the Government will have to bear the blame for it. I know that the Government itself feels that this thing is not right, but the Government will have to bear the responsibility if the Minister of Social Welfare makes a mess of the Bill. We can only do our duty by showing him what the difficulties are. As I said, I have intended making a proposal, but in the circumstances I am not going to do so. An impossible position is going to be created, and the Minister will have to bear the responsibility for it.

I feel very sorry for the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren). He is so wrapped up in his Parliamentary duties that I fear very much that he did not have a very good holiday this Easter. I think he spent that time poring over this Bill of mine to see what words he could find fault with. It is very evident that he is rather anxious to embarrass me and to impede the passage of this Bill. For instance, he raises the point of what is a competent valuator? For that matter, what is a competent lawyer? Who is to tell? He asks what is a competent valuator. Again, I retort, who is to say what is a competent lawyer? You would not have it by insinuation that you could call him an incompetent valuator; surely it is necessary to insert the word “competent”. The hon. member, from his legal experience, knows that it is necessary to use clear and unmistakable language in a Bill. I hope he will not go through the Bill so meticulously with the object of seeing what fault he can find with it. I want the Board to have the discretion to call upon any Rent Board from time to time to submit its decisions for review. That is what the Control Board has been installed for, and I hope the House will recognise that as a fact to be attained, and assist me in turning down the amendment of the hon. member.

The hon. Minister’s reply to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Swellendam is that he wants the Control Board to have the discretion to call upon a Rent Board from time to time to submit its decisions for review. He wants it, and that is why he had it drafted. In other words, that is his final reply to any amendment that will be moved by this side of the House. The hon. Minister wants it in a certain way, and he is going to have it in a certain way. Well, it is obvious that he wanted everything which is contained in this Bill; that is why it is here. We do not doubt his “wanting”, but we want to persuade him that what he wants is quite wrong in the majority of cases, and we are doing our best to persuade him to see the error of his ways. Evidently the Minister is going to persist in his attitude that he wants the clause to read a certain way, whether his arguments are good or not, he is not going to accept any amendments moved by this side, because he wants it a certain way. In regard to this amendment, he says that is his purpose in creating this Control Board. He wants the Control Board to have the discretion to call upon any Rent Board to submit its decisions for review. I do not know why he wants that power for the Control Board. Surely it is sufficient if that Board is there as a Review Board. That Board is there in order to take the place of the courts of law. Under the old law, any lessee could immediately appeal to the court if he was dissatisfied, but no framer of any previous Rent Act has ever thought it advisable to ask for this power. It has never been done. That principle could very easily have been embodied in the original Act. I think that we are all assured of the fact that we would be more satisfied with the decision of the magistrate’s court than we would with the decision of the Control Board, the members of whom we do not even know yet. In the previous Act no body has ever been placed in the position where it can call upon a Rent Board to submit its decisions for review. The Board may now call upon a Rent Board to submit its decision for review, even though both the lessee and the lessor are perfectly satisfied with the decision given by the Rent Board. No body has ever had the power in a case like that to call upon a Rent Board to submit its decision for review, and I cannot see why this Control Board should have the power now. What is going to be the effect of the Minister’s insistence? Any decision by the Rent Board can now be reviewed by the Control Board, whether or not there has been an appeal. This matter is open to grave abuse, and the purpose of this amendment is to endeavour to remove all those provisions that are open to abuse. We know that 99 per cent. of the legislation which is placed on our Statute Book usually has tremendous loopholes. We want to try and close those loopholes. We do not want to leave the clause in its present weak form; I say that it is open to abuse as it stands here. The Rent Board might give a certain decision. Take the case of a tenant who appeals against an unreasonable rent. The Rent Board decides that the tenant’s complaint is vexatious and that they are not going to grant a reduction in the rental. Now the Control Board steps in and says we are very concerned about the position; the tenant might be a man whom we cannot very well afford to place in a position where he is dissatisfied, and consequently the Control Board will now have the right to rescind the decisoin of the Rent Board without an appeal. I think that matter is open to abuse, and that the hon. Minister should accept the amendment providing for the deletion of this clause. With regard to the other amendment, I heard a remarkable argument from the hon. member for Cape Town, Central (Mr. Bowen). He said that at first he was disposed t6 support my amendment, but after listening to my arguments, he decided that it would be in the interests of the Bill to retain the words “and give general directions.” He says the reason for that is that the Control Board will now be be empowered to instruct the Rent Board to employ competent valuators. It is a pity the hon. member is not here at the moment, because I wanted to show how little water his arguments hold. I wonder if the hon. Minister will agree with that argument that he will now compel any Rent Board through the Control Board to employ a competent valuator, before giving any decision. I make an appeal to the hon. Minister to accept the three amendments moved by this side of the House.

I want to make an appeal to the Minister. I know that he has no time for legal principles and legal procedure.

Nor has he any time for legal justice.

When we in this House make an appeal to him to have justice done he does not take any notice of us. Now he wants to be a dictator in regard to these matters, and wants to import principles which are absolutely unfounded and which are foreign to our judicial system, the control board can now come and demand that all the decisions of the various Rent Boards are to be reviewed by it. What is going to be the principle they are going to act upon? It is going to create a state of chaos. Here in Cape Town we get decisions form the Rent Board from time, to time and then the Control comes and pokes its nose into their decisions while a totally different procedure may perhaps be followed in the Transvaal. If I am dissatisfied with a decision of the Rent Board I can appeal to the Control Board. Now they can automatically ask for the decision to be reviewed. It is going to create a condition of fluctuation.

If the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) to make it “shall” is adopted then it will be automatic.

I make an appeal to legal men opposite. Why are they keeping so quiet. Where is the hon. member for Cape Town Castle (Mr. Alexander). Surely he will not allow a thing like that? What is the object of it? It is not going to bring about uniformity. The Minister will find that he is going to get this sort of a position, that a decision will be taken in Natal which will be totally different from a decision taken in the Cape Province. Decisions taken in the Cape will differ from those in the Transvaal, and from those in the Free State, and you will have a State of chaos. And when another Minister comes into office he will have to clean up the Augean Stable. The Minister wants to take terrible powers unto himself. I think that if he were Minister of Justice he would do away with magistrates’ courts and perhaps with all courts. Anyhow I want to ask what a competent valuator is? Now the Minister comes here and says how does anybody know whether somebody else is a competent lawyer? An attorney or lawyer has to pass his examinations, very difficult examinations, and after that they have to serve a time as a clerk in an attorney’s office. But there is no examination demanded of valuators. If the Minister goes into the question he will find that the courts in many instances have concluded that valuators are incompetent. I can cite a case which happened at Somerset West a few years ago and which resulted in a court case. All this was connected with the work of a valuator, who put an increased valuation on a property. The court found that the valuator had acted male fide. I want to ask the Minister not to use arguments like that; we don’t like them. This side of the House wants to help the Minister to get a good Bill and the Minister should be reasonable, but the Miniser of Labour is so obstinate in regard to whatever legislation he introduces that although he has only been Minister for a few years he has to introduce amending Bills very shortly after any Bill of his has been passed.

The hon. member must confine himself to the clause.

I only want to point out that if the Minister adopts that attitude he will have to come here again next year to amend this Rents Bill which we are now dealing with.

The hon. member has appealed to me, but I want to say that hon. members are not going to secure any success with their amendments. Take this question of “shall” or “may.” The hon. member knows perfectly well that it is immaterial what word you use. The courts have held that in certain cases “shall” means “may” and in other cases that “may” means “shall”. We are wasting time by trying to alter this wording—it will not improve the Bill. Then with regard to valuators — some are more competent than others, hence differences of opinion. Just the same as with attorneys or advocates—the one man’s opinion is taken more often by the courts than the other’s, but both are competent.

First amendment proposed by Mr. S. E. Warren put and negatived.

Question put: That the word “may”, proposed to be omitted, stand part of the clause.

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—52:

Abrahamson, H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Collins, W. R.

Conradie, J. M.

Deane, W. A.

De Wet, H. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Hare, W. D.

Henderson, R. H.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Lawrence, H. G.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Molteno, D. B.

Neate, C.

Pocock, P. V.

Reitz, D.

Robertson, R. B.

Rood, K.

Shearer, V. L.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steyn, C. F.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Tothill, H. A.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

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

Noes—28:

Badenhorst, C. C. E.

Bekker, S.

Conradie, J. H.

Du Plessis, P. J.

Fouche, J. J.

Fullard, G. J.

Hugo, P. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Liebenberg, J. L. V.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Schoeman, B. J.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. P.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Viljoen, J. H.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Wilkens, Jacob.

Wilkens, Jan.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

Tellers: P. O. Sauer and C. R. Swart.

Question accordingly affirmed and the second amendment proposed by Mr. S. E. Warren dropped.

Question put: That the words “and give general directions”, proposed to be omitted, stand part of the clause.

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—53:

Abrahamson, H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Collins, W. R.

Conradie, J. M.

Deane, W. A.

De Wet, H. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D

Gluckman, H

Goldberg, A.

Hare, W. D.

Henderson, R. H.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Lawrence, H. G.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Molteno, D. B.

Neate, C.

Pocock, P. V.

Reitz, D.

Robertson, R. B.

Rood, K.

Shearer, V. L.

Smuts, J. C.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steyn, C. F.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Tothill, H. A.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

Warren, C. M.

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

Noes—29:

Badenhorst, C. C. E.

Bekker, S.

Conradie, J. H.

Fouche, J. J.

Fullard, G. J.

Hugo, P. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Liebenberg, J. L. V.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Schoeman, B. J.

Serfontein, J. J.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. P.

Swart, C. R.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Viljoen, J. H.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Wilkens, Jacob.

Wilkens, Jan.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

Tellers: F. C. Erasmus and P. O. Sauer.

Question accordingly affirmed and the amendment proposed by Mr. B. J. Schoeman negatived.

Question put: That paragraph (c) proposed to be omitted, stand part of the Clause.

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—52:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Christopher, R. M.

Collins, W. R.

Conradie, J. M.

De Wet, H. C.

Deane, W. A.

Du Toit, R. J.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Hare, W. D.

Henderson, R. H.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Lawrence, H. G.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Molteno, D. B.

Neate, C.

Pocock, P. V.

Reitz, D.

Robertson, R. B.

Shearer, V. L.

Smuts, J. C.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steyn, C. F.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Tothill, H. A.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

Warren, C. M.

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

Noes—30:

Badenhorst, C. C. E.

Bekker, S.

Conradie, J. H.

Erasmus, F. C.

Fouche, J. J.

Fullard, G. J.

Hugo, P. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Liebenberg, J. L. V.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Rood, K.

Schoeman, B. J.

Serfontein, J. J.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. P.

Swart, C. R.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Viljoen, J. H.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Wilkens, Jacob

Wilkens, Jan.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

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

I want to move—

This is known as the Nosey Parker Clause among members of the House. It is a clause which contains a very peculiar provision. First of all the clause provides for the powers and duties of Rent Boards. It provides when the Rent Boards should institute an enquiry and under what circumstances such an enquiry should be held. And among other things it says that when the Rent Board receives a complaint in writing from the Lessee that he has been required to pay an unreasonable rent, they can enquire and take a decision. It also says that an inspector can lodge a complaint. That is quite right—an inspector should have the right to lodge a complaint with the Board in regard to unreasonable rents, but then there is this provision that a complaint can also be lodged by any person other than the lessee concerned. That means that any person, any Dick Tom or Harry, can go to the Rent Board and lodge a complaint about rents charged, and that complaint may not even he a reasonable complaint, it may not be based on facts—it may be a complaint lodged out of vindictiveness. We have many cases where there is considerable jealousy between property owners, and the one property owner will do everything in his power to depreciate the value of the property of another owner. He may cause him any amount of trouble and embarrass him as much as he can. The Minister now proposes to give him the power to do so. If there is any provision in our legislation which boils down to the institution of a spy service it is this one. I cannot understand what the Minister’s motive is in inserting such a provision. Probably he said to his Department that he wants it, and that is why it is there. But I want to appeal to hon. members on the other side who are so subservient now and who are not saying a word, to object to this. Even the Dominion Party are now silent. They have relinquished the small degree of independence which they showed when we were discussing this matter before. And evidently the Government Party have seen to it that the hon. member for Pretoria City (Mr. Davis) will not be here when this matter is being discussed. The Minister does not want to be embarrassed, but he is quite prepared by a provision like this to embarrass any property owner. Say the Miniser is the owner of a property—I am putting a hypothetical case — I may be another property owner. I can instruct any person to lodge a complaint against the Minister. That complaint may be vexatious and it may be only lodged with the intention of embarrassing the other man. A Rent Board Enquiry is held, the property owner has to go before the Rent Board, and the Lessee has to appear before the Rent Board. The proceedings may take any amount of time, and that on the complaint of an outside party who has lodged his complaint merely from a spirit of vindictiveness, or with the object of embarrassing the owner of the property, or even with the object of embarrassing the tenant. I do not think this is a provision which should appear in a Bill of this kind. Confine it to the Lessee or to the Inspector. Any lessee who is charged an unreasonable rent can go and complain and any inspector has the right to lodge a complaint, but surely the power should not be given to any Dick, Tom and Harry to lodge complaints about rents charged in respect of properties. I trust the Minister will in this case see that this amendment, which is both constructive and necessary to the smooth working of the Bill, is accepted.

I move the amendment standing in my name—

1. (i) the lessee himself; or
2. (ii) an inspector; or
3. (iii) any other person duly instructed by institution, society, organisation or public body recognised by the Minister”.

The effect of this amendment is that the obnoxious line to which the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman) objects is deleted, and in its place Sub-clause (3) is inserted to the effect that any other person duly instructed by any society, institution or public body recognised by the Minister, can lodge a complaint. I think the Committee will agree that the substitution for the Dick, Tom and Harry to which the hon. member for Fordsburg spoke about, by a person who has been duly instructed by an institution, society or public body, recognised by the Minister, will meet the difficulty of the hon. member. The original intention of inserting the provision in the clause that any person other than an inspector or lessee can object is, I understand, that there are certain social welfare workers who interest themselves …

They can get an inspector to do the work.

They go about and, in the course of their duties, investigate cases and they consider that they should have power, if they find a tenant is overcharged or exploited, to go to a Rent Board and lodge a complaint. We know there are many cases where the poorer class of tenant is afraid to go to the Rent Board and lodge a complaint. They are afraid of victimisation. By some means or other the landlord can get his own back on the tenant, and that is why this provision is inserted to enable the tenant who is being exploited to any extent to have redress through the assistance of some social organisation. That is why I move that these organisations, through some officer, should have the right to lodge complaints with the Rent Board.

May I raise a hitherto silent voice in support of the point made by the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman). And, in doing so, may I say that I am not enamoured of the means which the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Trollip) has suggested to overcome the difficulty propounded. It may well be that the various bodies which would have a right to interest themselves on behalf of ignorant or illiterate persons would not be actuated by the same motives as the vindictive individuals to whom the hon. member for Fordsburg refers. One can safely assume that they would be actuated by the best of motives. But the result might nevertheless be the same. The institution which receives a complaint from some poor person is not in a position to sit in judgment upon that complaint. They would send it on in the form of a complaint to the rent board, and it might well be that there was in fact no substance in the complaint and the institution would innocently and no doubt unwillingly be a party to doing the same mischief which the vindictive person would do in the circumstances described by the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman). I can well appreciate the need for some assistance to persons who cannot help themselves, but that surely is met by the fact that you have an inspector whose prime purpose seems to me is this, that with his assistance you eliminate those cases coming before the board which are not worthy of being sat upon in judgment, which do not call for investigations because the facts all point the one way, in short where there is no prima case, the inspector by a preliminary investigation determines that there is no substance in the complaint, and therefore it does not come before the rent board, and the other consequence follows that you do not do harm to an innocent landlord who could, by having matters brought before the rent board in which there is no substance, be prejudiced in various ways. Since you have an inspector to whom your institution can in the first instance refer the matter, I fail to see the necessity for giving to the institution the right of going direct to the rent board. Let the social welfare institution invite the assistance of the inspector; let him then make the investigations, and if he finds there is a prima facie case calling for investigation and determination by the rent board, he can himself bring the matter before the Board by way of complaint.

I would like to move the following amendment to this clause—

My reason for bringing this up is that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction in the country due to the arbitrary manner in which the rent boards deal with these matters by refusing to give a lessee or lessor any reason for their decisions. I saw a report a little while ago in a newspaper to the effect that a tenant of a flat had complained to the Rent Board about the rental he was called upon to pay. The Rent Board examined the block of flats and came to the decision that the rent charged generally for these flats was not unreasonable. Nevertheless, the board decided to admit the complaint of this particular tenant and accordingly reduced the rent. As we all know, if you reduce one rent in a block of flats, you have to reduce the rent in respect of the whole lot. But the complaint was that the Rent Board refused to give a reason, after deciding to reduce the rent. I ask the hon. Minister to be good enough to accept this amendment, so that the lessor or the lessee will know the reason for any decision taken by the rent board.

I hope my hon. friend the member for Stamford Hill (Mr. Acutt) will not press his point of view too strongly. His worry seems to be that there will be a tremendous number of complaints filed by the nosey-parker type, and that the institution, say the social welfare institution or some other institution, has not the time to investigate itself, and in consequence frivolous objections to rents being paid will be filed, and consequently the Rent Board is in danger of being overwhelmed by the number of vexatious complaints. What is his remedy? He says now you have an inspector. Let them go to the inspector, and let him then make the preliminary investigations. In other words, make him the judge.

Make him the Rent Board.

I have been inundated with requests not to give too much power to the Rent Board, and later on I was inundated with requests not to give the control board too much power.

Are you replying to my amendment? It seems that you are dealing with the speech of the hon. member for Umlazi (Mr. Goldberg).

Yes, I made a mistake. I was dealing with the speech of the hon. member for Umlazi. I do suggest that the inspector is the wrong man to make such an investigation. If he is satisfied, according to my hon. friend’s contention, that there is a case to go before the board, then it goes before the board and in consequence, in part if not wholly, he prejudges the issue.

But he is not a member of the court.

No, he is only an official; he is not the judge. The board is set up for the purpose of dealing with complaints, and I should have thought, judging by the method of examination my hon. friend has brought to bear on this matter up to the present, that he would have resented that outlook. Apart from the fact that I do not want to give the power to the inspectors to be the deciding factor in these matters, our social welfare workers have found that in the vast majority of cases, if poverty is not actually actuated by extreme rent, it is certainly accentuated by an extreme rent. Surely the right people in cases like that, would be the social welfare institutions.

Which probably pays the rent.

When hard cases are represented to me, that is the source of rent income. I also want the trade unions to be able to cooperate through their organizations; I want them to have the right to make representations on behalf of their members when an extreme rent is being paid. But I am impressed by the fact that we should not allow the nosey-parker to interfere. The hon. member gave us a very lurid picture of one property owner trying to depreciate the value of the property of another owner.

A property owner is no different from other people.

Except that he may be a little bit worse. My hon. friend drew a picture of a very bad relationship existing between property owners. I am quite prepared to accept the amendment of the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Trollip). He eliminates the noseyparker. He lays it down that only an institution may make representations through its accredited delegate, and there I would submit you have sufficient safeguard and sufficient control.

Are you going to define “institution”?

My hon. friend wants the institution itself defined.

How can we define it?

Well, the Minister will have the right to recognise an institution, and unless he recognises it as such, it will not be regarded as an institution for the purposes of this Act. My hon. friend, the hon. member for Stamford Hill (Mr. Acutt) wants the Rent Board to give its reasons in writing for any ruling it makes. On the face of it, there seems to be a great deal in that contention, and I would like to think about it if my hon. friend does not mind. I do not want to accept his amendment now, nor do I want to reject it now. But it seems to me that it would throw a tremendous amount of work on the Rent Board and I would like that matter to stand over so as to consider it. I have to move an amendment myself, in the Afrikaans text.

The Minister is honest insofar that he tells us that he wants to give the Trade Union a chance to take action. If he has an inspector then he has a man who is very much more competent to judge whether an application is reasonable or not. None of the trade unions and other institutions, such as charitable institutions that I know of— because I have been working with them for the last thirty years—are competent to give a fair judgment on matters of this kind. The result is that there is going to be a mess. Now they can go to the inspector. I assume a fair-minded person will judge whether applications are well founded or not. If an individual is not satisfied with the inspector’s judgment he still has the right to go himself. It seems strange to me that a large number of institutions are to have the right to raise objections, to lodge complaints. Not only does it seem unnecessary, but if we read the clause further we find that the person who lodges the complaint can get £5 for his trouble even if he has had no expenses. Now the trade unions and the other bodies which the Minister approves of—whichever the Minister approves of, and we know that he will go out of his way to assist the workers, and I can assume that he will approve of labour organisations and also of the various charitable organisations—and those people will all get £5 for the complaints they lodge, with the result that they will be encouraged to lodge complaints. If a man demands an unreasonable rent, let him be taken to court, but we are also going to get unreasonable applications from people who are half mad, like the case we had to deal with yesterday. Those kinds of complaints will be lodged, and then those people will not be called upon to pay costs. They can only be compelled to pay costs if their applications are malicious. It does not seem as if the Minister wants to maintain the balance fairly and evenly between the lessee and the lessor. He is a labour man and he imagines that the labour organisations consist of poor people. There are hundreds of people who are poorer than those members of the trade unions. They are the people who suffer hardships and they have no union to act on their behalf, and they are the people we want to help. The organised workers can help themselves, and as a matter of fact they do not ask for any help, but there are many poor people who are not able to help themselves and those are the people we want to help. I have studied this whole thing. The Minister thinks that I should take a holiday because I have been working too hard. I have not worked hard yet. I worked much harder in my life, but I feel it is my duty as a member of Parliament to scrutinise these Bills and if I feel that there is something wrong in these Bills then I have to put the position before the House, and neither the Minister nor anyone else is going to stop me doing so. I have a few amendments which I want to move on this clause. Now Clause 5 (1) (a) says this—

Here the word “unreasonable” does not mean the same thing as what unreasonable means in the definition laid down in this Bill. There we have a definition of what reasonable rent is and provisions are made as to what a reasonable rent is. The word “unreasonable” in this clause does not mean the same thing as it means in the definition. It is used here in the ordinary sense, I assume, and that is why we should put the clause differently. I therefore move the following amendment—

If a complaint comes to the Rent Board, it is provided that it has to send a copy of the letter to the Lessor and in this connection sub-section (b) provides this—

I have moved an amendment on that point too. I want to make sure that the lessor receives the copy.

Has the inspector to be used for that? Has he to take it round?

If he cannot do it then the Rent Board can get somebody else to deliver it. It does not matter to me so long as I know that the man will get the letter. Under this provision it is not definite that he will get it. Then I am also moving another amendment to omit “in its opinion” and to insert after “him” “concerning the subject of the investigation”. It is perfectly clear that if the Rent Board makes an investigation into the question whether a rent is reasonable or not, both the lessor and the lessee should have the right to make statements. The provisions contained in this Bill are found in no other part of our laws. I can subpoena any witnesses if I think they have information to give in connection with my case, and I don’t even have to ask for the leave of the court. If a man has reasonable information then I have the right to subpoena him and I fail to see what right the court can have to decide whether I shall be allowed to do so or not. Clause 5 (2) (b) provides this—

I have an amendment on that point too. It means that the questions are only to concern the subject of the investigation. We should remember that if an individual gives a wrong answer he can be put in prison. I therefore provide that the questions and the investigation must be relevant to the matter that is being dealt with, Those are the ordinary rules of any court, and it appears to me that it would not be right to allow all kinds of questions to be put to a person if they do not concern the matter under investigation. I therefore move these amendments. [Time limit.]

Contrary to the hon. Minister, I can be persuaded, if the arguments of the other side are sufficiently sound, and if I see that they have a strong case. I have been very impressed by the argument of the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Trollip) with regard to giving all and sundry the right to make complaints to the Rent Board; but I am not quite convinced that his amendment meets the case. His amendment still leaves the door very wide open. It may mean hundreds and hundreds of different societies, institutions, organisations and public bodies can all submit complaints to the Rent Boards. His argument was that it was mostly social workers who come into contact with the poorer people and who know those people are probably exploited, and that therefore they should have the right to lodge a complaint with the Rent Board. I am inclined to agree with him, that where social workers continually come into contact with the poor people, and since it does frequently happen that the poor people have not the courage to lodge a complaint with the Rent Board, they should have the right to lodge the complaint. I think if that is the intention, we should confine the provision to that particular class of person. I propose to move an amendment on the amendment of the hon. member for Brakpan, namely—

Then you confine this to the social workers. I do not think that even the trade unions should have the right to lodge complaints. If you grant that right to the trade unions, you should grant it to all the other bodies.

The Church Council, for example.

The Church Council would be covered by my amendment. I feel that people who know what the conditions of these people are should have the right to lodge a complaint whenever they feel that poor people are being exploited, especially as it often happens, they do not know the provisions of the Rent Act. For that reason I move as I have done.

I am afraid the main purpose of this Act, that of securing a reasonable rent, is being lost sight of by hon. members. It has been the general experience that when lessees have made complaints the lessors have been so fertile in their methods of victimisation, so subtle, and so clever, that almost invariably they have been able to victimise the tenant who has complained. And the object of this portion of the clause is to make it possible for complaints to be lodged before the Rent Board and avoid the lessee being victimised.

He can still be victimised afterwards.

No. The lessee will not be making the complaint.

He can still be pushed out.

I think my hon. friend misunderstands the position. Once the rent has been reduced the defendant is secure in his occupancy.

Unless the landlord wants it for himself or one of his family. My experience is that in 99 cases out of 100 that is the plea.

They will watch that very carefully. Therefore, we propose that anyone who is a member of a trade union shall be able through his trade union to lay a complaint. He can go to the secretary of the trade union and say: “I am charged £9 per month whereas in my opinion I should only be charged £7.” Then the secretary of that trade union can go along and lay that complaint. And there are other organisations too which will have that right.

Which organizations?

I cannot give a list at the moment. These organizations will come up before the Minister at the time when they have to be given recognition. I cannot accept the amendment of the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Warren) and I pin my faith to the hon. member for Brakpan’s (Mr. Trollip) amendment. Now the hon. member for Swellendam wants to delete the words “by prepaid registered post” and he wants to insert the words “personal service”. Does he realise the tremendous organisation, the very costly organisation that we would have to build up if we have to have officials all over the place used almost exclusively for delivering notices? I think even the Magistrate’s Court Act makes provision for serving summonses by registered post, and I am rather surprised that the hon. member did not have that fact before him. No, I cannot accept that amendment.

There is no provision in the Magistrate’s Court Act for the service of criminal summonses by post.

Well, I am advised that there is. Is there no case where a summons can be served by registered post?

Yes, there is.

There are such cases where summonses are served by registered post. Well, if you can serve summonses by post surely a simple notice that a complaint has been made can be delivered by registered post. I must repeat what I said earlier in the day—I am afraid that my hon. friend has been finetooth-combing this Bill to find words to alter, and thus hold up the passage of the Bill. Now he wants the person laying the complaint also to be summoned. Again I must remind hon. members that that is cutting across the secrecy we want to maintain. If a lessee lays a complaint he can be summoned, and his hand is exposed, and he is in turn exposed to all the victimisation methods which they know so well how to employ.

Well, even if he goes to a society they can only take it up with his consent.

Yes, that is so, but then the information is between them. Then the hon. member wants the words “in his opinion” cut out. Well that is carrying investigation a little too far. I do not propose to accept that. Then in line 23, he wants after the words “may interrogate” to insert “concerning the investigation”. Surely that is unnecessary? What on earth is a fellow interrogated about? Is he going to be interrogated about what he has had for dinner, or what sport he goes in for? He is summoned to be interrogated on the rent. The rent is complained about. I ask my hon. friend to try something better—and better still, try nothing at all.

For the second time the Minister has thrown this gibe at me. I am replying to him in English so that there can be no misunderstanding. I want to say again that I have just as much feeling and I have done just as much for the poor people of this country as what he has done, or ever will do.

I am not holding myself up.

I have their interests at heart as much as he has. I have not just one class of the poorer people at heart, I have them all at heart, and I want to tell the Minister again that if he thinks this is obstruction, that we have examined the Bill carefully, because we want to obstruct the passage, I can just tell him this, that he had better make another guess. Anything I try to do I try to do as thoroughly as I can, and I say again that this Bill is not only badly drafted, I say it is a disgrace, and it should not be allowed to become part of our legislation.

Now tell us what you want to say.

I am telling the Minister. I have had thirty years’ experience of this sort of work.

I wouldn’t think so.

And I reckon that if anybody is able to speak I can speak.

Really!

I want to disabuse the Minister’s mind that I am doing this in order to stop this Bill from going through.

You are dissembling your love very well.

I want a Bill which will do justice to everyone, and if possible I want to give the poorer man a chance of better protection. But this Bill is not protecting the poor man. It is also protecting the rich man. It does not matter whether a man pays £5 per month rent or £50 or £100 a month rent he still has to come under the provisions of this Bill. I said at the outset that it was unnecessary.

I believe you have said all that before.

This is the only country where this is happening. In other countries, at any rate, there is a limit. In other countries where they feel it is necessary to protect the poor they have made a limit and beyond that limit each man has to fight his own battles. In South Africa we are fighting the battles of the rich. I don’t know what my hon. friend over there has said about accepting this. The Minister is obstinate and refuses to accept any improvements.

No, if it is an improvement I am prepared to accept it, but it is not an improvement.

Just imagine my being subpoenaed to appear before any of these Boards and being asked all sorts of ridiculous questions. What does it all mean? I should only be asked questions on the one subject. I have a letter in my room now where a man told me that he was called before one of those Boards and he was treated like a dog. We don’t want that sort of thing. The Minister cannot blame us for objecting. He wants his own nominees on these Boards, people who think as he does. And if decent people appear before the Boards they are going to be subjected or they may be subjected to all sorts of insults. The Minister says that it is silly to put in an amendment like the one I proposed, but he will find that very same provision in every Act that deals with the taking of evidence. It is one of the first principles, that one can only be asked questions about the subject on which one is called to give evidence. It is one of the first principles of law, that extraneous matters must not be brought in. That is all I want. Now the Minister comes here and says “we want to obstruct the passage of the Bill”.

And don’t you?

No, I don’t. I am prepared to give the Bill as easy a passage as possible and I want to protect every poor man from rack renting, but I don’t see any necessity for putting in unnecessary provisions. I cannot see any objection to members of a council or members of an institution going to an inspector and letting the inspector make the complaints, if there are any. The Minister’s attitude is wrong. When one tries to make improvements one is gibed at and told one should go and have a holiday.

I never said that.

Well, you said something like it. I have another six or seven amendments here, but if that is the sort of treatment we are going to receive from the Minister then I don’t know whether it is worth while moving them.

You better move them.

Very well, I want to add at the end of Clause 5 (2) (b)—

At present they can put any questions they like. Everyone has to be bound by the Board. This seems to me to be a dose of the Bolshevism which we are going to get.

This is only a very mild dose.

And then in Clause 5 (2) (a) I want to move to insert some other words. There, again, you want this Board in its discretion to have the right to call any witnesses they like. No one else has any say. The Board is to decide what rent the landlord has to receive and how much the lessee has to pay. Nobody else is to have any say. Well, the lessor should be entitled to prove what is a reasonable rent, and the lessee should have the same right. I also wish to insert after “inspector” the words “or other person who lodges a complaint”. Now listen, Mr. Chairman. We authorise anyone to lodge a complaint—any man, whether he is a Nosey Parker or not, whether he is a member of an organisation or not….

We have cut out the Nosey Parkers.

Do you say that a man, because he is a member of a trade council or of a trade union, is not a Nosey Parker? Don’t you make any mistake. The man who sets the ball rolling, who does everything, is not even to be called to appear before the Board. What sort of thing is this —it is a sort of secret society, a sort of Ogpu.

When the Committee adjourned I was busy reading out the amendments which I want to move. There is another one I desire to move, and that is to Clause 5 (3) in lines 33 and 34—I want to delete all the words there and insert other words. I move—

I want to say in passing that it is rather a pity that the Minister has seen fit to make two completely unwarranted attacks on my hon. friend from Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren). The Minister has continually imputed improper motives to all members who have ventured to differ from him. The Minister, I recollect, during the second reading imputed improper motives to the hon. member for Vereeniging (Lt.-Col. Rood) and the hon. member for Pretoria City (Mr. Davis).

I don’t think the hon. member should continue in that strain.

No, I am just referring to that because of the motives which he imputed to the hon. member for Swellendam. Because the hon. member for Swellendam moved an amendment the Minister attacked him in an unwarrantable manner—he accused him of deliberately delaying the passage of this Bill. Well, after thirty-two years the Minister should have learnt that no Minister can bully the House into accepting anything. If the Minister were more tactful and less, shall I say arrogant, in the attitude he adopts, I am sure both he and his Bill would have a smoother passage.

I think the hon. member should come back to the clause now and keep to it.

Yes, I am coming to it. I am dealing with the amendment which I have moved, and the argument which the Minister has raised for not being prepared to accept my amendment. One of the reasons why he was not prepared to accept it was that I only moved this in order to delay the Bill.

I never said that.

My contention is that if the Minister adopts that attitude he is deliberately delaying the passage of his own Bill. I have already said that if the Minister were more tactful and prepared to accept some of these amendments the Bill would go through much sooner than it will now. I moved an amendment to the amendment of the hon. member for Brakpan (Mr. Trollip) and I said clearly that I am quite prepared to agree to social welfare workers investigating and lodging complaints with the Rent Board, but that it was a very dangerous procedure to allow all and sundry and representatives of any institution or organisation to act in the nature of a spy— to act in the way the Minister proposes, merely for the purpose of lodging complaints. To meet the Minister’s objections I was prepared to amend my original amendment and to lay down that representatives of social organisations should have the right to lodge complaints, but the Minister is not prepared to accept that. My hon. friend over here has moved a number of very important amendments, and they are amendments that are absolutely essential. One of these amendments to which the Minister objects is that when a witness is interrogated he should only be interrogated in regard to the matter under investigation. At present that is left open. I think any lawyer will agree that it frequently happens when a witness is on a stand and is cross-examined he is crossexamined not only on matters relevant to the case, but on all sorts of things. It is quite likely that when you have a witness being cross-examined, in order to damage the witness in the eyes of the Board, everything about him may be raised. That is not in the interest either of the witness, the enquiry or the tenant. Such procedure should not be allowed. My hon. friend suggests that the witness should only be cross-examined or examined in regard to relevant matters. Evidently the Minister does not agree with that. I think the amendments which have been moved are absolutely essential for the smooth working of this Bill once it becomes law. The Minister has not replied to the last amendments. I hope he will see his way clear to accept some of them.

I want to say at once that the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) has moved one amendment which in my poor opinion is quite a useful one. He wants to delete the word “unreasonable rent ” and substitute “rent that is not reasonable”.

The Minister has already agreed to delete these words. That comes in the general deletion.

I have moved it as an amendment to an amendment.

Oh, don’t keep on. I cannot accept it because it is only a nice shade between the two— there is hardly any difference. It is no use going fiddling about with it again. I have indicated that I was prepared to accept it but in view of the general deletion I am asking my friend not to press it. It is only straining our minds and my mind is not too difficult to strain today. Having indicated my desire to agree to it, but not being able to accept it, I hope the hon. member will agree that I cannot agree. He also wants me to delete “any person other than the lessee concerned”. I cannot agree to that. Then I cannot agree to the deletion of “prepaid registered post”. Then he also wants to put in “the person laying the complaint”. For the reasons given I do not ask the Committee to accept that. Then he wants me to delete the words “in its opinion”. I cannot agree to that, because I want them to have an opinion. Then he wants me to agree after the word “interrogate” to insert “concerning the investigation”. I cannot agree to that either. It is an instance of overloading the Bill with unnecessary language. Then he wants “document or thing which has any bearing on the subject of the enquiry.” Surely it is obvious that that follows without putting it in. And then I come to the most important, and with all due respect to the hon. member, the most machiavelian effort on the part of the hon. member—his object being to defeat what I have said I want. He wants to delete the whole of the proviso from the word “private” inclusive. The whole proviso in sub-section (3). The object is that he wants the enquiry to be held in public, and he wants the contesting parties to be represented. Represented just how they like, I presume? That brings back the old argument of hon. members opposite which I have resisted all through —that we should so top weight the unfortunate tenant who is always the poor man in that he cannot afford to have representation, so to top weight him as to make it impossible. I say it is unfair, decidedly unfair. And while appearing to be assisting the tenant we are in reality preventing the tenant from getting his rights—that would be the position if I agreed to his proposals. I hope the Committee will support me in refusing these amendments.

I am glad the Minister has replied. This Rent Board is going to be some sort of a secret society. They sit there and someone raises an objection, and they do as they like. Whether they are capable or not, there is no need for them to have any qualifications. The persons interested are to have no say. They are not entitled to bring their case forward, they are not entitled to interrogate witnesses, and they are to answer any questions, whether those questions have a bearing on the case or not. This is how it reads: “And require him to produce any book, document or thing in his possession, or custody, or in his control.” That is to say, any person has to bring anything he has in his control, whether it has anything to do with the enquiry or not. I have had hundreds of years of experience.

That seems a long time.

Well, I have had thirty years’ experience in the courts—where do you see a thing like that? It does not say that it is limited to the Act.

Yes, it says so.

There is nothing there to say it.

“Which has any bearing on the subject of the enquiry.”

Let the hon. member read it, it says “call upon him to produce any books he has in his possession” whether it has anything to do with the trial or not.

Have you read A?

Yes, I have read A and B, I have read them backwards and forwards; I have read them more often than the Minister has done.

I am afraid you have—mostly backwards.

The position is simply this, that the Minister has decided that he will accept nothing. Very well, he takes the responsibility. Let us take the next one. At this trial only the witnesses that the Board desires to be called may be called. You ask the Board to subpoena so and so. If in their opinion they don’t require him, then they simply don’t subpoena him. It is their opinion and you cannot force them. It rests with them and if they don’t want to hear him, well, they don’t. I can only point out the dangers there are, and if the Minister depends on those who sit behind him simply to vote because they are on his side—well, they can do so, it is their risk. Now you get this representation on the Board—you get these people who are making complaints, members belonging to Labour organisations. They lodge a complaint— they don’t care whether there is an objection or not. The poor landlord may be mulcted in costs if he comes with a vexatious claim. Any court of law or any other Board would be only too pleased to go into all the circumstances, but here nothing of the sort. You would think that they would want to arrive at a just and equitable decision. But this Board can do as it pleases. There is no appeal from them. They are not tied by rules of evidence. I have never heard of any board having these powers. Even the boards which control the prices of farmers’ produce have not got these powers. The powers of these boards are unlimited. They can call whom they like and ask what they like, but let me tell hon. members that this sort of thing is going to redound against the lessee, the man you want to protect. He has no say. What sort of a board is this? It can do just as it pleases. If hon. members opposite are prepared to swallow this let them do so; they will swallow anything.

Order! Order!

I have tried to explain to the Minister. You have a definition of “reasonable rent” but you have no definition of “unreasonable rent”. The Minister’s argument is that if it is unreasonable in terms of this definition then it is not reasonable. If it is reasonable—there is a definition of “reasonable”, but there is no definition of “unreasonable.” It is ridiculous for the Minister to say that if it is not reasonable it is unreasonable. Unreasonable means something entirely different from not reasonable—as defined. Because you put in “un” before reasonable, it does not mean that “unreasonable” is the opposite to “reasonable” as defined in the definition. I have tried to do my duty and I have tried to show the country that the Minister is not reasonable. In this case unreasonable and not reasonable is the same thing. No matter what the Minister brings before Parliament, it has to be swallowed. I am sorry for hon. members opposite. They have to do as they are told although they sometimes call him ugly names.

What do they call him?

Never mind, I don’t want to tell tales out of school. Well, if that is the sort of legislation which we are going to have let them get on with it; they are digging their own graves.

I must ask the hon. member not to continue in that general strain.

Surely I can say these things?

The hon. member cannot, we are discussing a particular clause.

I am saying that they will have to pay the price eventually. Well, anyhow, the Minister is not prepared to accept any amendments from this side of the House. We know that that is the position. This is the sort of wishy washy thing drawn up with his consent. He still has the right to say that any organisation, if it is not a Trades Organisation, can appoint representatives to lodge complaints, so long as he recognises them. I take it also that his representatives on this Council will only be Labour people, because he has the idea that the Labour people are the only poor people. There are thousands of people outside the Labour organisations who are poor and require his assistance.

That is why I won’t accept the limitation.

You won’t accept the limitation because you are too obstinate. You think you are strong but that is not strength, it is weakness.

Order, order!

Yes, that is all very well, but I feel that the man who is going to suffer is the poor man. The poor man is not usually educated, not trained to speak for himself. The wealthy man can pay for it. In my amendment I purposely did not put in a lawyer, I left it that he could be represented by an intelligent person. I felt that my amendment would meet the case, but, of course, the Minister refused it. He simply says “I want this” and “I want that” and he is going to have what he wants, and he is not going to listen to anything we on this side of the House say. And then he accuses us of obstructing the passage of the Bill. He is doing his own obstructing.

I want to suggest a slight amendment. The Minister’s object is perfectly clear and reasonable. He wants every document or thing which has a bearing on the enquiry to be produced. Perfectly right. It is quite evident that he wants the same thing in (b), but it is left out there. I think if we were to put the word “such” there it would meet the case. It makes the position clear. I would move the insertion of the word “such.” I move—

In line 23, before “book” to insert “such.”

The hon. member for Cape Town, Castle (Mr. Alexander) has made a very gallant attempt to solve the difficulty, but I do not think his amendment will make any difference at all. I am only a layman. I wonder if the Minister could explain to the Committee what is the necessity of having paragraph (b) of sub-section (2). I read in sub-section (1) that the Rent Board can summon the lessor and the lessee, and the inspector who lodged the complaint, and at the same time that they can be compelled to produce any book, document, or thing as referred to in paragraph (a). That provides that the Rent Board can summon the lessor, the lessee and the inspector, and compel them, can compel the person concerned with the investigation, to produce any document, etc. That is provided for in subsection (a). That person can be compelled to produce any book, document, etc. Now first of all in sub-paragraph (c) and again in (a) of sub-section (2) it is provided that the lessor, the lessee and the inspector who lodged the complaint, and any other person who can give any information whatever with regard to the matter under investigation can be summoned, and that all these persons can be compelled to produce any document, etc. Then we get (b) of sub-section (2). Now, this must be read not necessarily in conjunction with sub-paragraph (a). This is a completely different paragraph. I am sorry that the layman has to explain this matter to an eminent lawyer. Evidently this paragraph has no bearing on paragraph (a). This deals with a different group of persons altogether. I would refer the hon. member to those clauses. It says there that any person present at the investigation who was, or may have been, summoned in terms of this section, may be interrogated. The hon. member for Cape Town (Castle) says that in inserting the word “such” this matter will be covered. No, it will still deal with a separate class of persons. What is “such”? There is no meaning attached to it. That amendment would not serve the purpose.

I wonder whether the hon. member who has just spoken is as stupid as he wants the Committee to believe he is? These paragraphs (a) and (b) of this clause are a perfectly common form of putting into any Statute when an official or a board is given investigating powers. You have similar language in the Insolvency Act. The Master has similar powers.

He has not.

Similar powers. It is a common form of provision. With regard to the classes of persons mentioned in (b) and (a)—those in (a) are persons who will require to receive special notice. Those in (b) have not been specially called, but they are people who happen to be present.

Who are these people?

People who happen to be there. But the difficulties raised by hon. members over there, particularly by the hon. member for Swellendam, indicate, or rather lead one to doubt whether they are really concerned with making this the best possible Bill, or whether they are not more concerned with seeing that the passage of this measure is blocked, and in doing so they are taking upon themselves a very grave responsibility, more especially the hon. member for Fordsburg, who represents one of the poorer districts in Johannesburg.

I think the last speaker was trying to be funny, that is all I can put it down to. He says similar powers are given under every Statute. He cannot show me the same wording anywhere.

I said similar.

Yes, similar. In every instance documents and evidence have to be germane to the case.

Of course.

Yes, of course, but it does not say so. Neither I, nor the hon. member for Fordsburg, desire to hold up this Bill. We are trying to get something decently reasonable. And it is my duty to do so. My responsibility to my constituents makes it necessary. I am sorry I cannot accept the other amendment proposed in place of mine, the word “such” would mean nothing. It is a different sub-clause. The amendment moved by me merely repeats the word in sub-clause (a). I am pleased to see that at least one of the lawyers opposite have been able to see the difficulty. The others have seen it but they are afraid to get up. They have had such a raw deal from the Minister …

We get no encouragement from you, all you can do is be abusive.

If the hon. member would propose an amendment which is acceptable we would withdraw ours. We cannot do anything more. We have raised these points as best we could. The Minister says this is obstruction. I can assure him that it will not be many years—if he is still there—when he will introduce an amending Bill.

I move—

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—61:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Collins, W. R.

Conradie, J. M.

Deane, W. A.

De Wet, H. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Henderson, R. H.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Moll, A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Neate, C.

Pocock, P. V.

Quinlan, S. C.

Reitz, D.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Robertson, R. B.

Rood, K.

Shearer, V. L.

Smuts, J. C.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Steenkamp, W. P.

Steytler, L. J.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Tothill, H. A.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Van der Merwe, H

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

Warren, C. M.

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

Noes—34:

Badenhorst, C. C. E.

Brits, G. P.

Conradie, J. H.

Dönges, T. E.

Erasmus, F. C.

Fouche, J. J.

Geldenhuys, C. H.

Grobler, J. H.

Hugo, P. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Malan, D. F.

Naudé, S. W.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Rooth, E. A.

Schoeman, B. J.

Serfontein, J. J.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. P.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Venter, J. A. P.

Viljoen, J. H.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Wilkens, Jacob.

Wilkens, Jan.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z

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

Motion accordingly agreed to.

The first and second amendments proposed by Mr. S. E. Warren were put and negatived.

With leave of the Committee, the first amendment proposed by Mr. B. J. Schoeman was withdrawn.

Question put: That the words proposed to be omitted from the amendment proposed by Mr. Trollip stand part of the amendment.

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—61:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Collins, W. R.

Conradie, J. M.

Deane, W. A.

De Wet, H. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Hare, W. D.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Moll, A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Neate, C.

Pocock, P. V.

Quinlan, S. C.

Reitz, D.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Robertson, R. B.

Rood, K.

Shearer, V. L.

Smuts, J. C.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Steenkamp, W. P.

Steytler, L. J.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Tothill, H. A.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Van der Merwe, H.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

Warren, C. M.

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

Noes—35:

Badenhorst, C. C. E.

Brits, G. P.

Conradie, J. H.

Dönges, T. E.

Erasmus, F. C.

Fouche, J. J.

Geldenhuys, C. H

Grobler, J. H.

Hugo, P. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Malan, D. F.

Naudé, S. W.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Rooth, E. A.

Schoeman, B. J.

Serfontein, J. J.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. P.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Venter, J. A. P.

Viljoen, J. H.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Wilkens, Jacob.

Wilkens, Jan.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

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

Question accordingly affirmed and the amendment proposed by Mr. B. J. Schoeman dropped.

The amendment proposed by Mr. Trollip was put and agreed to and the amendments proposed by Mr. S. E. Warren in lines 78 and 79 were put and negatived.

The amendment proposed by Mr. S. E. Warren in line 2, page 6, was put and the Committe divided:

Ayes—35:

Badenhort, C. C. E.

Brits, G. P.

Conradie, J. H.

Dönges, T. E.

Erasmus, F. C.

Fouche, J. J.

Geldenhuys, C. H.

Grobler, J. H.

Hugo, P. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Le Roux, S. P.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Malan, D. F.

Naudé, S. W.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Rooth, E. A.

Schoeman, B. J.

Serfontein, J. J.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. P.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Venter, J. A. P.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Wilkens, Jacob.

Wilkins, Jan.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z

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

Noes—61:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Blackwell, L.

Bowen R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

Deane, W. A.

De Wet, H. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Hare, W. D.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Moll, A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Neate, C.

Pocock, P. V.

Quinlan, S. C.

Reitz, D.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Robertson, R. B.

Rood, K.

Shearer, V. L.

Smuts, J. C.

Solomon, V. G. F

Steenkamp, W. P.

Steytler, L. J.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Tothill, H. A.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Van der Merwe, H.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

Warren, C. M.

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

Amendment accordingly negatived.

The amendment proposed by Mr. Acutt was put and negatived.

Question put: That the word “in its opinon” in line 9, proposed to be omitted, stand part of the Clause.

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—61:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Blackwell, L.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

Deane, W. A.

De Wet, H. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Hare, W. D.

Henderson, R. H.

Heyns, G. C. S.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Moll, A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Neate, C.

Pocock, P. V.

Quinlan, S. C.

Reitz, D.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Robertson, R. B.

Rood, K.

Shearer, V. L.

Smuts, J. C.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Steytler, L. J.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Tothill, H. A.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Van der Merwe, H.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

Warren, C. M.

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

Noes—33:

Bekker, S.

Conradie, J. H.

Dönges, T. E.

Du Toit, C. W. M.

Fouche, J. J.

Geldenhuys, C. H.

Grobler, J. H.

Hugo, P. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Le Roux, S. P.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Malan, D. F.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Pirow, O.

Schoeman, B. J.

Serfontein, J. J.

Strydom, G. H. F.

Strydom, J. G.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Venter, J. A. P.

Verster, J D. H.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Wilkens, Jacob.

Wilkens, Jan.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

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

Question accordingly affirmed and the amendment proposed by Mr. S. E. Warren negatived.

The amendments proposed by Mr. S. E. Warren in lines 14 and 22 were put and negatived.

With leave of the Committee, the amendment proposed by Mr. Alexander was withdrawn.

The amendment proposed by Mr. S. E. Warren in line 24 was put and negatived.

Question put: That the words from “private” in line 33 to the end of sub-section (3), proposed to be omitted, stand part of the Clause.

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—55:

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Blackwell, L.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowie, J. A.

Bowker, T. B.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

Deane, W. A.

De Wet, H. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Hare, W. D.

Henderson, R. H.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Moll, A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Pocock, P. V.

Reitz, D.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Robertson, R. B.

Rood, K.

Shearer, V. L.

Smuts, J. C.

Solomon, V. G. F

Steytler, L. J.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Tothill, H. A.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Van der Merwe, H.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

Warren, C. M.

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

Noes—29:

Bekker, S.

Conradie, J. H.

Dönges, T. E.

Du Toit, C. W. M.

Erasmus, F. C.

Geldenhuys, C. H.

Grobler, J. H.

Hugo, P. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Le Roux, S. P.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Malan, D. F.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Pirow, O.

Schoeman, B. J.

Strydom, J. G.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Venter, J. A. P.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen J. H.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Werth, A. J.

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

I move—

In terms of notice I would like to ask the Committee to delete this clause. The purpose of this clause is to deal with the position which is arising today in regard to goods taken on board which are not securely packed. Under the law, as it stands at present, the master of the ship, that is in effect the shipping company, is liable for customs duty in respect of goods on board taken by them, but only where it is done on a bill of lading. In view of the difficulty in regard to packing goods today, it was proposed to delete these words. I find, however, on further consideration that that will give rise to several difficulties and I therefore propose to drop that clause for the present and give further consideration to the matter with a view to possible legislation next year.

Mr. Speaker, since the House adopted this amendment the Law Advisers have pointed out to me that in its present form the amendment is very unsatisfactory. The suggested use of the word “exclusive” is so restrictive that it covers all the activities of the Corporation in regard to amenities for the employees, and they urge me to retain the original wording. I can assure the House that the Corporation will not abuse their rights under this clause, and I will go still further and say that I will consult the Law Advisers and see whether they can find any suitable form of words, which I can move in the Other Place. Therefore I recommend the House not to accept the amendment in the Bill as printed.

Question put: That the words “may seem to the Corporation” in line 20, proposed to be omitted by the Committee of the Whole House, stand part of the Bill.

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—55:

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.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Conradie, J. M.

Deane, W. A.

De Wet, H. C.

Du Toit, R. J.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Hare, W. D.

Henderson, R. H.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Marwick, J. S.

Miles-Cadman, C. F.

Moll, A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Neate, C.

Pocock, P. V.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Robertson, R. B.

Rood, K.

Shearer, V. L.

Smuts, J. C.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steytler, L. J.

Sturrock, F. C.

Stuttaford, R.

Tothill, H. A.

Trollip, A. E.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van der Merwe, H.

Van Zyl, G. B.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

Warren, C. M.

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

Noes—28:

Bekker, S.

Conradie, J. H.

Dönges, T. E.

Erasmus, F. C.

Fouche, J. J.

Fullard, G. J.

Geldenhuys, C. H.

Hugo, P. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Malan, D. F.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Rooth, E. A.

Schoeman, B. J.

Serfontein, J. J.

Strydom, J. G.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, J. H.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J.

Werth, A. J.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

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

Question accordingly affirmed and the amendments proposed by the Committee of the Whole House dropped.

I move—

I object.

Bill to be read a third time on 9th April.

In accordance with paragraph (1) of the resolution adopted by the House on the 30th March, the Estimates of Expenditure on Capital and Betterment Works and the Supplementary Estimates of Expenditure on Capital and Betterment Works of the South African Railways and Harbours, for the financial year ending 31st March, 1943, stand referred to the Committee.

Mr. Chairman, may I make use of the half-hour? Contrary to general expectations I am not going to move a reduction in the Minister’s salary.

What a pleasant disappointment.

Well, Sir, my reasons for not doing so are very simple. I have said on a previous occasion that I do not grudge the Minister a little bit of comfort in the last days of his life, and to reduce his salary at this time will be rather severe on the hon. gentleman. Now the Labour Department has two primary functions. Firstly, it has to administer a number of industrial laws and secondly one of its most important functions is to find work for the unemployed. The Labour Department as such cannot regulate or fix wages, but it must administer industrial laws and in the second place it must find employment. The Labour Department is not empowered to regulate or fix wages. Wage fixing machinery is embodied in a number of industrial acts, the most important being the Industrial Conciliation Act and the Wage Act. The first provides for fixing wages by way of collective bargaining between employer and employee, and the second provides for fixing wages by way of the Wage Board which is directly under Government control. Apart from this the most important industrial acts in regard to labour conditions are the Factories Act, Shops and Offices Act, the Apprenticeship Act, the Workmen’s Compensation Act, and the Electrical Wiremen and Contractors’ Act. My purpose in mentioning these industrial Acts is this. All these industrial acts were placed on the Statute Book before the auspicious advent of the hon. Minister of Labour to the present Cabinet. True, he has introduced certain improvements in the Factories and Workmen’s Compensation Acts. It has, however, been admitted that in both cases amendments were contemplated by the previous Government. In fact, I believe the new Factories Act had already been drafted. I repeat, therefore, that all these industrial acts were placed upon the Statute Book before the advent of the Minister and that the improved industrial acts for which he has been responsible during the last 2½ years were contemplated by the previous Government. We find, therefore, that in the past 2½ years the Minister has not introduced one single original industrial Bill into this House, not one industrial Bill that he can really call his own. He has complacently followed the footsteps of his predecessors. In spite of being a Socialist and in spite of preaching socialistic doctrines for 40 years, he has done nothing radical, nothing original, but has complacently followed in the footsteps of his predecessors. It must be borne in mind that the Government usually acts upon the advice of the Labour Minister, and" especially it should be remembered that in this particular Government the Minister could have wielded a tremendous amount of power and a very large amount of influence. The Labour Minister is after all responsible for the submission of a labour policy to the Cabinet. He has also the power to exert tremendous pressure on the Government in regard to the adoption of sound Labour policies. The hon. Minister has, however, done one thing, one that is very important to a very large body of workers. He has probably been instrumental in granting approximately 19,000 labourers who are directly and indirectly under his control as subsidised and nonsubsidised workers earning from 4s. to 8s. per day, he has been instrumental in granting to them a meagre cost of living allowance of from 3d. to 10d. per day. That is the one prestige that the Minister has gained during the past 2½ years. But there has been no increase in their substantial rate of pay; no increase in their wages as such. Only this cost of living allowance. Their general conditions have not been improved. The Minister has also not proclaimed one single scheme which might prove a solution of the unemployment problem. Unemployment is a chronic condition in our society and it must be treated as such and dealt with as such. But during the last 2½ years we have looked in vain to the Minister. He has not introduced one measure which might prove a solution of that chronic problem, except, of course, to push all and sundry into khaki and in that way endeavouring to solve this problem. In spite of the fact that we are fighting a war, that recruiting is very intense and people are practically compelled to enlist, we have still hundreds of unemployed walking our streets; fit, semi-fit and elderly men. It is one of the tragedies of our social life that when a man reaches a certain age he is regarded as not fit for any employment; the door is closed to him. From 55 until he reaches the age when he is entitled to an old age pension, he is really an outcast from society. For these men nothing has been done. Hundreds of such men are walking the streets, most of whom have not registered at the Labour Bureau. There are hundreds of young people who have left school, and for whom there is no employment. Even if there were no unemployed today, that would not mean that a solution has been found for the unemployment problem. It would merely mean that the problem is in abeyance. The chronic unemployment problem is still there but has been slightly alleviated through some unforeseen circumstances. When one remembers that at the close of this war there will probably be over 200,000 returned soldiers demobilised for whom employment must be found, the outlook is not encouraging. The Minister has probably given it a lot of thought, but the fact remains that he has done nothing. He has introduced no measure or proclaimed no scheme that would prove a solution of this chronic unemployment problem. The Minister has merely been letting things drift and hoping for the best. He has, however, gained considerable prestige in another direction; a direction which is the direct opposite to that well-worn labour path which the hon. Minister has trodden for so many years. He has introduced two changes in labour policy, two changes which are the direct antithesis to everything that the hon. Minister has stood for and preached in the past. Firstly he is responsible, I take it, for the appointment of one who is known as a Controller of Man Power, a Controller of Labour, in plain words a dictator of labour. Secondly he is responsible for a far-reaching proclamation in regard to the settlement of labour disputes. The Minister will probably reply that this was done in the interest of the war effort. That brings to my mind what another Labour man said at the conclusion of the last war. He was also a member of this House. He said that the South African Labour Party had shed more principles than any other party to see the war through. That was said by a prominent Labour member at the conclusion of the last Great War. I think at the end of the present war, another Labour Party member will be able to say that the Labour Party had shed all its principles, lost all its self-respect, and jumped at all the well-paid jobs going to see this war through. On the 9th July, 1941, the Controller of Man Power gave a broadcast address. He announced, inter alia, a far-reaching decision in regard to the engineering trade. He said he had fixed a minimum of 54 hours and a maximum of 64 hours per week in that industry. He also announced a very far-reaching interference with the rights of the workers when he said that he would exercise the right to move workers from one factory to another, whether it was against their wishes or not. These far-reaching steps were soon imitated by private undertakings, and local authorities. They followed the excellent example set by the Government. For instance, the Johannesburg Municipality has compelled its workers for the last two years to work overtime without being paid for it. They have worked a considerable amount of overtime. Clerical workers in the Johannesburg Municipality have worked a considerable amount of overtime. Some time later the Controller of Manpower announced that wages in the engineering industry would be frozen; that is to say, that no employer would be entitled to pay any employee higher wages than they were getting at that time. That was ostensibly for the purpose of preventing workers going from one factory to another. It now appears that that was the most stupid step that could possibly have been taken. It meant that the Government immediately took away the right of the worker to sell his labour in the highest market. They had the power to control the movement of labour from one factory to another, and they exercised that power by preventing any higher wages from being paid. The result of that was a trades union resolution of no confidence in the Controller of Manpower. This was eventually retracted after an explanation, and another resolution was substituted to the effect that the powers referred to should only be exercised where one employer was deliberately trying to obtain the services of a certain employee. Not satisfied with these far-reaching steps in regard to the powers exercised by the Controller, another proclamation was issued on January 28th, 1942, which suspended the most important provisions of the Industrial Conciliation Act, the Act which is regarded as the magna charta of the workers. I want to deal with one or two of the provisions of this proclamation. It says whenever the Minister is of the opinion that a Labour dispute exists or may arise, and that dispute may affect adversely the effective prosecution of the war, he may appoint one or more arbitrators. First of all, it must be understood that this can be done when the Minister thinks a dispute may arise. It makes no difference what the nature of the dispute is or what the cause is. He will immediately appoint an arbitrator. Now who will that be? Not a man selected by the disputing parties. Not a man appointed by the workers or by the employers, but an officer of the public service or a member of the Wage Board. Then, after the arbitrator has given a decision, there are certain definite penalties provided for a disregard to the decision. If either party disregards the award of the arbitrator, there is a penalty of a £500 fine provided for. It all amounts to this. First of all, a dispute may arise, and immediately the Minister, before the parties have discusssed the matter at all, appoints an arbitrator. The arbitrator is not a man selected by the parties concerned, but is a public servant under his control, or a member of the Wage Board, which is also under his control. In other words, the Minister and the Government, who have the most to gain by an immediate settlement of the dispute, appoint a man who must decide on the dispute. It must also be remembered that there is no appeal from the decision of this arbitrator and consequently even if the award is unfavourable to the workers they have just got to submit. They are compelled to submit to less favourable conditions if necessary, otherwise they will probably be hauled before the court. The maximum penalty provided for is a fine of £500. I will now show what the provisions of the Industrial Conciliation Act are in regard to disputes. First of all, it is provided that when a dispute arises, a Conciliation Board shall be appointed, consisting of equal representation of employers and employees. Then on application to the Minister by the Industrial Council or the Conciliation Board he may appoint a mediator. Those are the provisions of the Industrial Conciliation Act when a dispute arises. Then it is provided that the parties may refer the matter to an arbitrator, with or without assessors. It is provided that in only one case can the Minister act independently. There are numerous provisions in the Act dealing with disputes, but except in one special case, the Minister can never step in. Only in one case can the Minister act independently, and can appoint an arbitrator, against the wishes of the parties if necessary. That is only when there is a dispute between a local authority and its employees concerned in the performance of work connected with water, light or other essential services. Only when they cannot settle the dispute themselves and have made use of all the conciliation machinery, and cannot come to an agreement, only then can the Minister step in and appoint an arbitrator. But now he suspends the whole of that machinery by way of proclamation, and takes the power unto himself to appoint an arbitrator, who will be a Public Servant, or a member of the Wage Board, without consulting the parties concerned, even before the dispute actually arises in certain industries. Strikes are absolutely illegal. The only and ultimate weapon of the workers he takes away by proclamation and he provides for a £500 fine. This is done by a democratic Government and an ultra democratic Minister. He will probably reply that it is all in the interests of the war effort. If they want to assist the war effort, if they want to advance the war effort, they can never do it by compulsion. They can never do it by taking arbitrary powers and compelling people to do things against their wishes. Probably they might be able to do it by persuasion, but not by compulsion. This will probably retard the war effort. You cannot compel men to work, especially if you take away by proclamation rights which have been hard won and fought for. Instead of assisting the war effort thereby, it will be the very reverse. Now, I want to deal shortly with the probable post-war position. That is one of the most important problems we have before us today. It is a problem which is very immediate; it is a problem which can arise any day now; it is a problem in regard to which the Government should have a very clearcut and definite plan. I will begin with the skilled workers. At present there is a very acute shortage. That is perfectly natural. As the war material manufacturing industries are expanding and will continue to expand, the shortage which has been acute will become aggravated. The result is that a start has been made with a very big scale dilution of labour. The Controller of Labour announced that in his broadcast address on the 9th July. He announced that a large amount of emergency labour would be employed. This emergency labour consists of untrained men and women, employed to do the work of trained men. They receive fairly good wages. It is not in a few isolated cases where this emergency labour is employed, but as announced by the Controller of Labour himself, it will be on a very large scale. These untrained men and women are and will be employed to do the work of skilled artisans. The rate of pay will be for men up to 2s. 8d. per hour, and for women up to 1s. 9d. per hour, which works out at £1 1s. 8d. for men and 14s. per day for women—fairly good wages. It was also announced by the Controller of Man Power that there would be a virtual suspension of the Apprenticeship Act in regard to certain trades. The suspension of the provisions of that Act will enable them to rope in more apprentices, and at the same time to change the conditions of apprenticeship. Then, lastly, there is the basic technical training scheme instituted about 18 months ago which provides for an intensive 6 months’ training course in a number of skilled trades. A basic training period of six months. I understand that up to now over 8,000 have been admitted to that course. Now the artisan class has always been a privileged group in South Africa; they have received high wages, new entrants have been rigidly controlled, and only certain numbers have periodically been admitted to their ranks, after a certain number of years of training. Usually they insisted on a period of training of from five to seven years. The result was a continuous shortage of skilled workers, and that shortage has been acutely felt by industry. This policy, that is the rigid control in regard to the ranks of artisans and skilled workmen, that policy has always been subscribed to by the Minister. I understand the Minister is still a member of one of the trade unions, the members of which are skilled tradesmen. Now, bearing that in mind, I want to know from the Minister whether at the cessation of hostilities he is again going to endeavour to apply that policy in regard to your skilled workers which he preached in the past, which he supported, and which has been followed for so many years in South Africa —that is, that the artisans will be a privileged group? In other words, whether the closed shop principle will again be applied, and that only a certain number of new entrants will be allowed periodically, new entrants who have gone through a period of training of from five to seven years. If that is the policy which the Minister is going to adopt after the war I want to say that there is a definite and distinct danger in this policy of a large scale dilution of labour. The result is going to be that at the cessation of hostilities you will have large numbers of semi-trained men who have for some time done the work of skilled artisans and who have been receiving good wages. There will be at the same time an immediate contraction of industries. Numbers of secondary industries will not immediately be able to be converted into domestic article producing industries. Of necessity there will be a contraction of industries. And then, together with that, we shall have a few hundred thousand demobilised soldiers among whom there will be large numbers of skilled tradesmen. Summarising the position thus, we shall have this situation at the cessation of hostilities—fewer industries, large numbers of semi-skilled workers, large numbers of fully trained journeymen who have been demobilised. The mere replacement of women by men will not be a solution of the problem. And therefore I want to ask this question: If the Minister is still there, how is he going to endeavour to solve the problem of having hundreds and hundreds of semitrained men, probably thousands of skilled journeymen, and at the same time less industries in which to find employment? Is he again going to adopt the policy of the past, of merely replacing women by men, closing the ranks of the skilled workers and making it as difficult as possible for anyone to enter those ranks? Will he again apply the closed shop principle to the ranks of the skilled workers? We must bear in mind that the war may end before the next session of Parliament, and I think the House is entitled to know what the post-war employment plans of the Government are. All that we know at present is that the Government has appointed a Cabinet Committee under the chairmanship of the Minister without Portfolio. That is a Committee under Treasury control. The remuneration which the members receive appear under the Treasury Vote. Then we have a number of local Committees under the Department of Labour. I take it that there is some measure of collaboration between the local Committees of the Department of Labour and the Cabinet Committee. But we have heard nothing as yet, except that they have held a number of meetings. We have heard nothing as yet of what they are going to do to solve this problem. I have dealt with only one aspect of the post-war employment problem, namely, that in regard to the skilled workers. There will also be thousands of other workers demobilised; thousands of semi-skilled workers, thousands of unskilled workers and thousands of clerical workers. We want to know what the plans of the Government are in regard to this most important matter. My time is up. I trust the Minister will for once reply not in his usual frivolous way, but will give us a clear exposition of what the plans of the Government are. This is a very important question, and merely by the holding of meetings and discussing the matter through the medium of Committees, Cabinet Committees and Local Committees, is going to offer no solution at all. We must bear in mind that the war may come to a close before the next session. They cannot stretch out the demobilisation of returned soldiers over a period of ten or fifteen years. It is a problem they will immediately have to contend with. We all know what chaos there was after the last war. We do not want a repetition of that. The Minister should tell us what the plans are, if they have any plans for the solution of this problem. How they are going to deal with these large numbers of soldiers coming back.

I have listened with a good deal of interest to the remarks of the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman), and while one appreciates his criticism and his concern for the future, one also recognises that his criticism has been in the main destructive criticism and not constructive. I think one is entitled to expect that when a member who takes a leading role in the criticism of a Minister and his department gets up he should not only criticise destructively, and should offer some constructive suggestions to the Minister as to how he should better the working of his department. I myself think that the House and the Minister concerned are entitled to expect some suggestions, some ideas of better working from any member who sets himself up as a critic of the calibre of the hon. member for Fordsburg. Now he criticised the Minister for not having introduced new legislation. He says that during the time the Minister has occupied the office he holds, that despite the socialist ideas he has held and preached for many years, he has not introduced anything new into the Labour Department, he has been content to bring forward legislation which was already compiled and prepared by the previous Government. I am afraid the hon. member for Fordsburg does not quite realise how injudicious he has been in making that statement, because while he is slapping the Minister of Labour in the cheek for not having introduced something new, for having been content with what the previous Government, the United Party Government, had introduced he is patting the United Party Government on the back for being as much labour as the Labour Party itself. Does he realise that? Does he realise what he is giving us to go to the country with, to tell the working class constituencies how we have prepared legislation which has been acceptable not only to the Minister of Labour but to the Labour Party themselves, but to the trade unions; I do not think he realises the implications of his remarks, and to say the least of it I think he made a little slip when he spoke in the manner he did and when he made a speech of that kind. I do not propose to deal with all the hon. member said, it is rather difficult to do so in ten minutes when he had half an hour. He says there are large numbers of semi-fits who are unemployed, and hundreds of fit men are out of employment. There was another omission, he did not tell us where one can find these large numbers of semi-fits and fit men who are unemployed. With regard to the semi-fits, I think everyone knows who takes any interest that the department has a scheme of subsidisation to public bodies for the employment of semi-fits. I know in Port Elizabeth there are quite a few who are engaged by the Municipality, who receive, I think, 75 per cent. of subsidisation towards the payment of their wages. And there is no doubt about it that that does afford some measure of relief. Personally I am not in love with that scheme, I do not think we should compel many of these men who are obtaining work under that scheme—I don’t think we should compel them to work at all. I have seen some of these men out in bad weather, in wet weather, nasty cold winds blowing, when I am positive that they were really not fit to work, and I should like to see them subsidised to stay at home, rather than go out to do work which could be done better by able-bodied men. I don’t think that is really a good scheme, although it undoubtedly does assist the semi-fits to obtain a partial living, if I may call it that. Then he also said that there are hundreds of ablebodied men who are walking the streets. I do not know much about the other large towns of the Union. I have not done much travelling during the last few years, except in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. I don’t see them in Cape Town, and I know from my own experience that they are not in Port Elizabeth, because when they are there I suffer from their attentions and I have suffered from the attentions of no able-bodied men for at least eighteen months. I think if an hon. member comes to this House and makes a statement of that description, the House is entitled to expect him to tell them where these people are to be found. I have not heard any member of this House claim that he has been worried by out-of-works, whereas during normal times, or supposedly normal times, prior to the war, that was one of the penalties of being in Parliament, to try and find work for large numbers of ablebodied men who could not obtain it themselves, and I think that the position is not so alarming as it has been painted by the hon. member for Fordsburg.

Have you read the report of the Department of Labour?

That is very old, you are going back to the year dot. That is a long time ago.

Now the Minister has also been charged—it has been a reproach put up against him—that he has shed his principles. I do not know that that need worry me, or any other member on this side of the House. I have always found the Minister to stand on his own feet and to be able to answer that type of criticism, and may I just be allowed to say that I have not noticed very many principles of the hon. member scattered about the floor of the House. Possibly I have missed them, but I do know this, that the Minister is able to meet the trade unions, he is able to meet trade union members and receive congratulations from them, rather than condemnation, and I am very positive that when the Minister has to travel the countryside and answer for his good deeds and misdeeds, he will get more condemnation than adverse criticism.

What, for his misdeeds?

I leave that for you to tell us. Then the Controller of Manpower has been pilloried. The hon. member seems to think that his only function is to prevent an increase of wages to the detriment of the workers. I think that I am as good a defender of trade unionism as any man, but I realise that if some steps are not taken to control things during a war of this description everything will go sky high, and we shall have the state of chaos as we had in the last war, and I think the Government is to be congratulated on having kept their fingers on this sort of thing to the extent they have done. It is inevitable for there to be some increase in the cost of living, but if the Government had not taken the steps they have taken, that increase would have soared far and away beyond what it has done up to the present. And one of the functions of the Controller of Man Power, if it has had the effect of keeping down the cost of living, has been well worth his employment.

But he was not employed for this purpose at all; you seem to forget that.

Evidently that was part of the purpose for which he was employed.

No, never.

I realise that the Controller of Man Power was brought into being largely to control the workers in the engineering and building industry.

And the employers, too.

Yes, quite. The employers are also under the Controller of Man Power.

And they have to be.

They also have to obey what he tells them to do, if he thinks it is necessary in the interests of the conduct of the war. And any industry which has to contribute to the war effort comes under his control, and rightly so. After all, this is an all in war.

Quite.

This is an all in war, and whatever the cost may be, whatever the result may be of his control of labour, we have to pay that price to win.

To what?

To win. That is absolutely essential. The hon. member seems to forget that we are going through abnormal times. You cannot make a comparison between the times and the conditions which we are enduring today, and the times either before or after the last war. We have always to bear that in mind when we criticise what the Government is doing. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth North (Mr. Johnson) who has just sat down, started by making a complaint against the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman). He complained that our criticism was destructive and not constructive. He says that we should tell the Minister what ought to be done in order to improve conditions. But we considered a Bill here today in connection with which hon. members on this side of the House got up and put forward good ideas and good suggestions, but the Minister simply ignores those suggestions because they come from this side of the House. It is no use our making proposals or giving suggestions because the Minister will take no notice of them. We simply have to accept what the Minister proposes and if we on this side make any suggestion it is turned down. It is no use the hon. member for Port Elizabeth North telling us that we should put forward constructive suggestions. We know what we want to do for the working classes when we come into power. We know how we are going to rule the country but, of course, the Minister is so taken up with his war spirit that he forgets that when he sits there he not only represents the people who want to wage war, but also people who are against the war; but if people are opposed to the war and if they look for work and they are more than eighteen years of age he simply says “No, we have no work for you, you can join up.” I do not know what right the Minister has to differentiate between one section of the community and other sections of the community. If a man who is opposed to the war approaches him and looks for work and there is an opening for that man the Minister should give him work. People should not be prevented from getting work simply because they are opposed to the war and do not want to join up. Another complaint I have against the Minister is that our semi-fit men who for many years have sacrificed all they had, men who have sacrificed their health for the country, men who have helped to develop and civilise the country and who are today in a state of ill health, are being treated in such a stepmotherly fashion by the Minister. So far as I know they are working today for 5/6— at any rate for less than 6/per day. They work in gardens and at Government buildings and so on. These are people who have sacrificed everything for the country and now they have to work for 5/6 per day. When we approach the Minister about various matters he tells us “I am just as anxious as you are to give a little more, but I am powerless.” Why does he not leave the Government if he has to do things in conflict with his principles? Now, there is another point I want to deal with. As I have already said, the wages paid to people today are scandalous. These wages are nothing but charity — everything these people get is an act of charity. That seems to be the idea. I want to ask the Minister of Labour whether he has ever approached the Minister of Finance and said: “These people who are earning 5/6 are suffering great hardships, they are getting little enough; don’t deprive them of the small amount they are paid in pensions simply because they are earning a few shillings while working for my department.” I consider it to be the Minister’s duty to draw attention to this fact so that the old age pensions, or the invalidity pensions which these people get, are not reduced simply because they earn a few shillings. It is the Minister’s duty to see to it that the pensions paid under such circumstances are not cut down. I consider that the State today is the greatest sinner of all so far as wages are concerned. The Minister sits there and passes laws and lays down how much every factory and how much every employer has to pay, but when it is a question of what the State should pay its employees he neglects his duty. In my honest opinion it is the Minister’s duty to see to it that the State should set an example. Anyone who wants to work and is physically fit to work should be paid a wage on which he and his family should be able to live decently, a wage on which he can feed, clothe and house his family. The Minister as a Socialist knows that the real wealth of the country does not consist of the gold and the diamonds that we have here, but of the disciplined labour forces of the citizens of the country.

He is an ex-Socialist.

I don’t want to say anything about that. I do not want to accuse the Minister of being a Communist, but his whole attitude shows us that he wants to help the Communists to win the war, and I am afraid therefore that when the war is over he will be more Communist than Socialist. I want to warn the Minister and tell him that the attitude he takes up in this House towards the workers will be responsible for the fact that after the next election he will no longer be the member for Benoni. The people are taking heed of what he is doing. They have always voted for him because they imagined that if he got the opportunity he would see to it that they were given proper work and proper wages, but what does he do? He sits there among the capitalists and they tell him what he has to do, and he dances to the tune they play. The other point I want to say something on has been raised by the hon. member for Fordsburg, who complained of people having to work fifty four hours instead of the old forty eight hours. What does the Minister do to ensure that these people get sufficient recreation? That they have sufficient leisure to spend at their homes, and to look after the education of their children? The Minister knows as well as I do that the mother does whatever she can in that respect, but we say that the father should spend a good deal of his time at home to see to it that there is proper discipline. We have the case for instance of young fellows who want to learn a trade. Today they go to the State and they have to sign on for six months, but they also have to take an oath that when they finish their training they will go anywhere they are sent to fight. My experience has been that so far they have always had to go North. I can assure the Minister that this policy of his is going to cause him a lot of trouble yet; he is going to get strikes, the one after the other, as a result of his weakkneed attitude in this capitalistic Government. The hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman) asked what the Minister was going to do to remedy the position when the war was over. I want to put the Minister’s mind at rest at once. He need not worry his head about that, because I am convinced that neither the Minister nor the Government will be in a position to have any say. There will be another Government, and they will give the people what they are entitled to, and that other Government will not simply take up the attitude of saying to the people “We are sorry, we agree with you but we cannot do anything.”

I wanted to call the Minister’s attention to a question of policy that has been raised on various occasions before, and as to which we have still had no satisfactory answer. We have had certain answers from the department that sounded satisfactory, but they have not issued in any satisfactory action. I refer to the recognition of native trades unions. It is four years now since this matter was first raised in this House, and on that occasion the Minister, not the present Minister but his predecssor, promised us that he would consider some means of recognising native trades unions. He expressed the opinion that the organisation of native industrial workers had reached a point of development where it was imperative that the Department of Labour should take cognisance of it and decide upon a policy towards that movement. We are still in exactly the same position as we were when that promise was made. Native trades unions are still unrecognised by the law of this country and by the Department of Labour. Now, sir, that does not mean that native trades unions cannot come into existence. They can, and they have come into existence in increasing numbers and with increasing membership; but the fact that they are unrecognised means, first of all, that these organisations may not participate in the business of collective bargaining, that they may not operate under the Industrial Conciliation Act to negotiate their own conditions of employment. That right is not only conceded but is pegged by law for European employees. But it is refused to non-European labour. That means secondly that employers refuse to recognise organisations of native workers, on the ground that the Government does not recognise them, and so they refuse to negotiate with them. Both of these disabilities are, we contend, unjust in principle and unsound in practice. I am very anxious that the hon. Minister should give me his attention.

You know that I know all about it.

I know, but that is not exactly the point. I am very anxious that the Minister should give me his attention. I think there are aspects of the question on which we have had new light on the last year of two, and we would like to present these to him. We feel that it is unjust that one section of the labour force should not be allowed the admitted right of labour to participate in the regulation of its own position. I think the Minister, as a trade unionist himself, entirely admits that principle, and I think we have his sympathy when we contend that it is unsound in practice that such unions as have come into existence in the unorganised field, should not be able to get the recognition of their employers as a channel for the expression of opinion of the workers themselves. The Wage Board has done an enormous amount of work in the last two or three years in laying down conditions of employment which are a very great improvement on the conditions which have existed hitherto. The Board, in its operations, has brought within the scope of the Department of Labour great numbers of workers who had never been touched directly by the activities of the department heretofore. Now, sir, the difficulty arises in administering the provisions which the Board lays down when that Board has done its work. I believe it is practically impossible for the Labour Department, even if it could get an extended personnel, which it cannot do at the present time, to make the regulations of the Board effective unless there is co-operation with the worker. That is, unless the workers are in a position to approach the employers, state what they consider are their rights, and carry to the Department of Labour any infringement of those rights which come to their notice. I am going to give the Minister my personal experience in this matter. In the larger centres, say Port Elizabeth, where the employers are already conditioned to trades union activities, there is little or no tendency on the part of the employers to refuse to recognise or to listen or negotiate with trade unions, and a strong office of the Department of Labour is there to receive and act upon the representations of trade unionists.

Representations can be made to the department at any time.

Yes, the Department of Labour and the Wage Board are always perfectly open to approach by the unskilled labourer, whether organised or unorganised. But that is not my point. My point is that in administering Wage Board determinations in any centre it is essential that the workers themselves should know the conditions of their employment, and know what their rights are. Now it is almost impossible for the type of employee who constitutes our unskilled labour force to know what are the privileges and the rights which the Wage Board has established in their regard unless there is a union which will pass on that information to them, and which in turn will carry back to the Department of Labour information as to where those rights and privileges are being infringed. In the smaller towns, where employers have it more or less all their own way, there is a definite tendency on their part to resist any organisation of unskilled labour, and to turn round upon any such organisation and say to the workers, “We are not going to recognise your union, the Department of Labour does not recognise it.” The Minister knows that that has happened; it happened last year even in Johannesburg in a now famous strike of coal distribution workers, when the employers refused to negotiate with the workers’ trades union because, they said, the Government did not recognise it, and they, the employers, were therefore not going to deal with it. The department has since put things right in that case; and it can be put right in the larger centres; but in the smaller centres that I represent, there is no Labour Department official and the employers turn round to the natives and say, “We don’t recognise trade unions. The Government does not give you any recognition.” These people say to me: “How are we to ensure that we get the benefit which the Government regulations lay down?” And when I say to them “Organise” they say: “If we organise, what then? The employers turn round and say: ‘Get out; we don’t want agitators here. You have no rights here. The Government does not recognise you, and therefore we are not called upon to recognise you’.” That is the point I am trying to make. The department should decide whether it is going to give recognition to these trade unions or not. It is in the interests of the work which the Government’s own officials are doing through the Wage Board that this recognition should be given. I am hoping that the Minister is going to tell us what the difficulties are in the way of this recognition, and that whatever these difficulties are, they are going to be overcome. That seems to me to be the essential corollary to our industrial development; and I feel it is not wise to delay it much longer. The native trade unions are getting on their feet. They are beginning to know their strength, and they are resenting the failure of our industrial machinery to give them a recognised place. Now, there is one practice of the department which I would be glad if the Minister would discontinue so long as native workers are not recognised as employees under the Industrial Conciliation Act. Under that Act, the Minister himself has the power to extend to all workers the conditions of an industrial agreement, whether those workers have been party to that agreement or not. We know the reason for that. It was that these unrecognised employees should not be used to break the conditions of employment of other groups. I know the Minister himself tries to see that these industrial agreements do make some provision for improvement in the position of the native worker, but even with that, I think the Minister will admit that the position of the unskilled workers under Industrial Council agreements is not the best possible in the world. Are we then justified not only in imposing on the unskilled worker terms which are not the result of his own bargaining, but the cost of administering these terms. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman) has given us a re-hash of what we are accustomed to from him during the last two years, whenever the Labour vote comes on. But he made one point which apparently shows that he and his party—I take it he is speaking for the party—are beginning to see the light of day. He told the Minister and the House that he wanted to know what the policy of the Government is going to be in connection with Labour matters next year, because according to him, the war is likely to end before the end of the next session. He knows perfectly well that any Labour policy which exists can only exist on the basis of an Allied victory. On the other hand, on the New Order theory that the Allies must lose the war, why should he ask the Minister of Labour what the policy of the Government is going to be? In case the war is lost, we will have a Nazi gauleiter here applying the economic conditions which are applied in Germany and elsewhere, where wages have been lowered, the standard of life has been lowered, and where the health of the people has deteriorated to such an extent that the German Official Year Book …

What do you know about it?

We have read it. The point, Sir, is this, there is a division between the parties opposite, the hon. member for Fordsburg now realises the possibility—we consider it to be a certainty—that the Allies will win the war, and that then it will be necessary for the Minister of Labour and the present Government to say what conditions shall apply to the workers. The only other point that the hon. member for Fordsburg really made was that there was nothing actually in the new Labour legislation that has been passed by the Minister of Labour. Well, Sir, in the first place, we must accept the position that the industrial policy of this country is based on the principle of co-operation between employers and employed, and to that extent the legislation already in force has been very much improved since the Minister has been in power. There has been a tremendous improvement in the legislation affecting the conditions of the workers. But all industrial legislation, as indeed all legislation, depends a great deal upon the Minister and his administration, and how expeditiously and efficiently the legislation is administered. The hon. member referred to the 19,000 workers who have received a cost of living allowance of 3d. a day, but he seems to have overlooked the fact that during the last two years from December, 1939, to September, 1941, almost 100,000 additional workers have been brought under wage determinations and industrial agreements which have brought increased wages and better conditions of employment, as well as other facilities like holiday pay. A great deal of this is due to the efficient and expeditious manner in which the work of the department is being carried out. I don’t say there is no room for improvement, the Minister will be the first to admit that there is room for improvement, but the fact remains that a great deal has been done, and something like 100,000 workers have received not only cost of living allowances, but increased wages. The other point which I think should be emphasised is that we are in the midst of a war, and the trades union movement has passed a resolution that the Government must go all out to win the war, and all classes of the people must be prepared to make sacrifices.

You had better join them again.

It is due to that fact, which is the all-important fact, that although much has been done, more has not been accomplished by the Minister of Labour and Social Welfare and the machinery which he controls. In spite of the difficulties of the position, a great deal of good work has been done, and that in the aspect which the hon. member refuses to take into consideration, and I think that is because he and his friends still have a speaking sympathy with the new orderites in their desire for a German victory. If that should ever take place, farewell to the position of the workers and my friends opposite.

Here is the point I still wish to make to the Minister. I feel it is not just to impose on the unskilled section of the labour force covered by industrial council agreements the cost of administering agreements to which they have not been parties. I refer to the deductions from their wages of amounts to pay the cost of the Industrial Council. The Minister can impose upon the unrecognised workers that section of any agreement if he pleases. He can do so or not, as he likes. Under the powers given him in the Act, he can decide to include these workers in the operation of the section of an agreement which lays down the deductions that may be made from their wages to defray the costs of the Industrial Council. Now I consider this most unjust. I know of one particularly glaring case. It comes from Kimberley, where the commercial and distributive workers are controlled by an Industrial Council agreement and not by a Wage Board Determination. There, sir, the native worker is called upon to pay 6d. a month towards the costs of the Industrial Council out of a miserable wage of 24s. a week. I feel that that is quite unjustifiable and that it has only to be brought to the notice of the Minister for him to agree that, until the native worker is given full rights as an employee under the Conciliation Act, it is not fair to call upon him to share the cost of Industrial Council agreements out of the kind of wages that he has been able to wring from his employer. I ask for immediate consideration of that point, and I trust the Minister will also give us the assurance that our native workers are going to be recognised under the Conciliation Act.

The Minister of Labour for years has been pretending that he is the champion of the workers in this country, the champion of the less privileged classes. For years the Minister has been putting up a fight for those people, and we expected that if one day he got the reins in his hands he would do something for those less privileged classes, but now I notice on the Estimates that the amount set down for people who are physically semi-fit has been reduced by £15,600 this year. If there is one section of the population whom we should have the greatest sympathy for it is the semi-fit workers. I think I am expressing myself badly. I think that these people are dead tired of sympathy—they don’t want any more sympathy. If there is one section which needs help it is those semi-fit workers in the country. For years now we have been considering their case and we have felt that the people who cannot look after themselves should be assisted by the State. For years we have been feeling that the State should step in and look after those people so that they may be given the opportunity at least of leading a somewhat civilised life, a life offering them certain amenities and conveniences. But now we find that there is a scheme under which the municipalities can employ semi-fit workers, and if the municipalities employ them, they are subsidised to the extent of 75 per cent. I am afraid, however, that the only use that scheme has is to boast of it at meetings, while in actual fact those people are dying of starvation. I am particularly thinking of the little town of Zastron in my constituency. The municipality there employs nothing but white labourers there, but Zastron is a dorp which, as a result of circumstances, has a very large percentage of poor people there, aged people, a very large percentage relative to the total number of its inhabitants. All the municipalities get a certain quota of unfit workers. Zastron already has its full quota of semi-fit workers, but after Zastron had employed its full quota there was still a considerable number of semi-fit workers left in the surroundings of the town. The municipality has been begging the authorities to allow them to employ more of those people but their request has been turned down. I myself have made representations on their behalf. The Municipality has begged and prayed for permission to employ more of those semi-fits but they are not allowed to do so, with the result that some of those persons have to go to other towns and places to try and earn a living. It means that many of these aged people who are semi-fit, who are in bad health and who are invalids, are now dragged away from their homes, and have to go hundreds of miles to look for work, so they have to keep two homes going on a meagre 5/or 6/per day. We know it is humanly impossible for them to do so. These people prefer to stay in their home town and to live on charity rather than go away. There is no sphere of life which can absorb them. They are old, and in many cases in ill health. Even if we were to force them to do military service it would be impossible because they are unfit. These people hang about the town. The Municipality would create employment for them, but the Municipality is not permitted to employ these semi-fit men at a salary less than what the subsidised workers get. We know that the cost of living has gone up. We know that these people cannot possibly live on the small earnings they can make out of daily labour, and in these small dorps they get an opportunity occasionally to do casual jobs, but today they cannot live on what they earn out of work like that. Their earnings are far too small. Yet the Municipality is prepared to employ more of those people, but the Minister refuses, and by doing so he is administering a death blow to that class of individual — he is reducing his vote dealing with those people by £16,500. Some places are inundated with semi-fit workers. The position is a serious one and I contend that the world will only be able to talk of civilisation when an action of this kind is punished not by the loss of a seat but by death. Is it right that our own people in this country should be allowed to die of starvation? They cannot possibly make a living on their meagre earnings when the cost of everything has gone up in the way it has done. They are in bad health, they are indigent. The opportunity has been created to give these people employment by paying a subsidy to the Municipalities, and yet with the condition being as precarious as it is the Government allows that subsidy to be cut down by £16,500. I want to protest against it, because it is an inhuman action in times like these.

I wish to raise the question of low wages and their effect on national welfare. The hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman) asked what has this Government done. He says it has spoken about bad conditions, but what has it done? I think the record of this Government will compare very favourably with that of the former governments, and I think the Minister of Labour is to be congratulated on his influence on the Government and on the many improvements which have been effected in the conditions of employment of the workers. But it is quite noticeable that the Government are not satisfied with the present position, although it is improving. Take the position in regard to the Railways and Harbours and we find that material improvements have been made, not only in wages, but also in living conditions.

Is this Minister responsible for that?

Well, the Minister of Labour is a member of this Government, and therefore he is responsible in part for any improvements that have been effected by the Government as a whole.

Are you serious?

I want to make that point clear. I want to remind the House in the short time at my disposal of the concrete evidence that this Government is in earnest in regard to the further uplift of the under privileged section of the community. We need only refer to the speech of the Minister of Native Affairs in which he said that “the public will have to realise that until they reconcile themselves to paying natives better wages both in the rural areas and in the towns this problem will not be solved.”

And then he went on to say—

Then the Minister of Railways, speaking in another place, said this—

He made the same reference in regard to European unskilled labour, and if there is a Government which is going to do its duty by the unskilled labour class of South Africa, irrespective of race or colour, this is the Government that will do it.

This is a Government that will not do it.

It has never done it yet.

This is the Government which is representative not of one section of the people, but of all sections of South Africans …

Stop talking nonsense.

A Government which is determined to bring about not a New Order but a better Order for the whole of South Africa.

A better order for themselves.

And that is why we on this side of the House are supporting the Government. Not only that, but we have the declaration of the Prime Minister on economic planning. An hon. member says “What about this Minister who sits in the position of Minister of Labour.” Well he (the Minister) declares that he will not rest satisfied until there is a minimum of 10s. per day irrespective of colour. He says that is what we are to aim at. What I want to put to the Minister and the country is this: While we are discussing all these matters and theories, the question of commissions and the cost of living, and the theory of South African economics, the people concerned are waiting for an additional 6d. per day. That is what I am concerned with today. We may have our Planning Councils and Commissions, but in the meantime I would urge the Government particularly in respect of their own employees to set an example and not to say “the public will have to realise this, that or the other.” What we want to say is this: That this Government, the best Government which this country could have, should set a lead in regard to its own employees.

What a hope.

My hon. friend may laugh. I make that statement in the full assurance that this Government will continue its good work and it should have the support and not the ridicule of hon. members opposite.

Mr. FOUCHÉ: It is a “Harmansdrup” Government.

Members of the Government having made these statements will look to the Minister of Labour as the head of the particular department for the implementation of all that is implied in this assurance.

It is common cause here and throughout the country that we must aim, not only aim but give effect, to the desire, to the resolve, that the lowliest section of the community shall at least be able to live and have a share, a fair share in the good things of life.

Hear, hear.

And the final judgment which will rest on any nation will be the manner in which they treat the lowliest, the under privileged section of the population. It is there that we shall find the real merit of any Government. But while we talk about the basis of wages for the unskilled labourers of this country, we find ourselves often led into a maze, a maze from which we find no outlet at the moment, and that is due to the fact that wages are based on service, and not on the needs of the server. In other words, if a job is going at a wage of 3s. 6d. per day the married man has to take this low basis of wage, which while suitable for a single man, is insufficient for the man who has a wife and family to support. That is the reason of the fundamental evil in our wage system.

Who said that?

I hold this view, that, in a perfectly ordered society, wages, that is bare subsistence wages, should at least be founded on the needs of the worker, and having secured that basic rate of pay, you would grade the pay upwards according to the services rendered. Otherwise there is no hope for the man who is married, nor for his wife and children. In our poorer classes you have the bread-winner coming home with a single man’s wage, and we expect his wife and children to live in clean and healthy conditions, with the food and clothing required to make for happiness and good health—we expect the man to provide for that. What happens when these men are underpaid, and when they have their wives and children to keep? Take the cases of the wives and children of the workers who live in locations—they have to adopt other methods to increase their income, and because of certain of which we are developing a criminal element in the heart of the most civilised centres in South Africa. The sooner we face this basic question the better. I want to emphasise the point made by the Minister of Native Affairs. If the wage paid to a man is £4 and £4 10s., and the bare necessities of life require £6 10s. per month, how are you to cover a difference between that low wage, which might satisfy the single man, and the cost of living of the married man with a wife and family? There are three or four alternatives which one could suggest. The first is a rise in wages to enable the married man to support his wife and children, and that should be applied immediately in our Government departments. Secondly, if we cannot secure that immediate rise—and one has to be careful that, in giving that rise of wages, one does not decrease the real value of the wages which you have enhanced. [Time limit.]

It is rather interesting to notice the auction sale that is going on in this House with the misery and distress of the poor. It is interesting to note the way the one party after the other, by its participation in the debate, wants to tell the people that it really is the best party in the country, and that it will do most for those people when it gets into power. But when it comes into power it finds that it cannot pay anyone much more than he is worth. I know that there was a time when the Minister of Labour as a member of the Opposition indulged in a lot of threats, and told the Government that it must see to it that every man, if only he picked up a tool to do any type of work, should be paid a minimum wage of 10s. per day. But now that the Minister has to give practical effect to what he used to say in those days, he finds that he can no longer proclaim that doctrine. We all agree, however, on all sides of this House that it should be made possible for every man in the country to make a living, and we feel that it is the Government’s duty to see to it that every man lives decently—that every man can maintain his family decently and can look after his children as they should be looked after.

That is the New Order.

No, it is a very old Order; it is an Order that has been preached ever since the days of Christ. It is not a New Order at all such as proclaimed by that group over there. The New Order they proclaim is nothing but a programme to catch votes, although they pretend to us that they don’t want votes. I want to point out to the Minister that there is an item of £200,000 on the Estimates in respect of the scheme for the supply of cheese and milk to people who cannot afford to buy these commodities. We know that when this amount was originally voted it was £250,000. Last year it was still £250,000, so that this year there is a reduction of £50,000. What I want to draw attention to is that this reduction of £50,000 has occurred at a time when prices have gone up, so the value of that £50,000 is not just £50,000; it is a good deal more than £50,000. This is a matter I feel very strongly on, because it is a matter which affects child life in our country. The less privileged children are supplied with milk and cheese. I want the Minister to tell us on what grounds he has reduced this amount. Is the position so flourishing that those people no longer require so much assistance, or what is it? To my mind we require a great deal more than £250,000 at a time like the present for these services. Even though there is a little more money in the country the increase in the prices of products has to be taken into account, and if we bear that in mind, the figures for this particular item should have been higher instead of lower.

I want to bring a matter to the Minister’s attention. I am very glad to see that the Workmen’s Compensation Act is at last going to be put on a proper footing, and I hope that the Commissioner under the Act will have specially large powers and also a large heart, a heart large enough to take into consideration those very estimable ladies who so far have been neglected in the Minister’s schedule of people who might be affected owing to the nature of their work. A lot of the nurses in the hospitals are in constant danger of getting diseases which cannot be proved to have been picked up as a result of their particular occupation. Often they do contract such diseases. There was a very sad case brought to my notice the other day. It was the case of a probationary nurse in a Far East Rand Hospital. After a couple of years’ service she contracted Infantile Paralysis. This poor girl is now totally incapacitated from doing any work. She has suffered tremendously. Her parents are not too well off, they are farming people in the Oudtshoorn district. They have so far paid out in doctors’ expenses over £350 in an effort to get their daughter recovered to her ordinary health, and all the compensation which that girl has received from the Hospital Board is three months’ pay, a matter of £14 odd. I think the Minister will agree that this is a particularly hard case, but it is one of many. Not so much that it will affect the Workmen’s Compensation provision to any great extent, but it is one of those cases which I must bring forward. I do not think it is right that we should allow these ladies to risk their lives in the service that they are rendering to us and to the whole nation in the way we are doing, without making some proper provision in the event of their contracting a disease. The services of these girls are very badly required. Only last night we were told by the Minister, whose estimates were being considered, that before long we would require a large number of nurses to administer many of the things which would come under Public Health. And yet we put all these difficulties in the way of these ladies. Today, if a girl gets ill or falls out all she gets is three months’ pay, and if one considers that a probationer’s pay, even in her last year, is only £5 per month, it must be realised that it amounts to very little. Under the provisions of the Workmens’ Compensation Act there is room to remedy this. There is a schedule which the Minister can use to put other diseases on. He has done so in the case of other people. Men who contract silicosis under certain conditions can be provided for under this schedule as if they had contracted that disease in the course of their work. I ask the Minister to include these nurses if they get tuberculosis or infantile paralysis—I ask the Minister to include them in the schedule and give them a chance of getting something in case they are totally incapacitated. It will not amount to much, because the highest wage which a qualified Sister gets is only £200 per year, and after all these ladies are fighting disease just as our soldiers are fighting the enemy, and they are just as liable to contract these terrible diseases as our men are, and if we are giving these men something up to £400 surely these ladies are deserving of much better treatment than they are getting now. I urge the Minister to instruct his Commissioner to take a more favourable view.

I want to ask the Minister of Labour when he proposes prosecuting the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry for the open and arrogant contravention of an Act for the carrying out of which the Minister of Labour is responsible. The other day, when the Forestry Vote was under discussion, I put certain questions to the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry. I asked him: “Is the Factories Act which we passed last year being carried out in regard to the Government’s sawmills throughout the country?” The answer was “No.” I again asked him then whether he had obtained exemption in terms of Clause 54 of the Act and he again replied in the negative. I then asked him whether he knew that he was contravening the Act. To this he replied “Yes,” so I asked him how long he intended continuing to contravene the Act, and he replied that he intended doing so as long as the Minister of Labour allowed him to do so. Here we therefore have an open and arrogant contravention of a law for the carrying out of which the Minister of Labour is responsible, and I now want to ask him when he intends doing his duty. Last year we imposed a duty on the Minister; we passed a law and we instructed the Minister of Labour to carry out that law. Now here we have a colleague of the Minister’s openly admitting that he is not taking any notice of that law. Now we want to know from the Minister how long he, in his capacity as Minister of Labour, intends to neglect his duty in this respect? I can say this to the Minister, that the Factories Act is being contravened. The Factories Act provides that an employee of a factory shall not work more than 44 hours per week, and if he works longer he has to be paid overtime. These people work more than 50 hours per week and they do not get a penny overtime. They have not been given the benefit of the leave privileges provided for in the Act. The Act has been contravened, and I can mention other respects too in which the Act has been contravened. The Minister knows now that the law is being broken and the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry has admitted it. Now I want to know from him how long he, who is a member of the Government responsible in this particular respect, is going to allow an open and arrogant breach of the law by his colelague? I can say this to the Minister, that the Government’s sawmills are nothing but factories in terms of the Factories Act, and as a matter of fact the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry has admitted it. In that same town there are factories run by private individuals. Those people are compelled to carry out the law. What impression must it give people who are employed by the State in those factories? What are they to think if they find that while the Factories Act is being applied to private individuals it is not being applied to the Government? Surely we want the Government to be a model employer. I hope the Minister wants that too. We want the Government to set an example to private individuals and show them how to run a factory. In George we have private factories where the Factories Act is applied to the very finest detail, but there are Government factories here as well as there, but the Act is not applied. What one objects to is this: If there is one type of factory which is making money today it is the type of factory which is handling timber. I have the report of the Department of Forestry here, and in that report the Director of Forestry says that he has raised the price of timber practically to the price level of imported timber. There is no reason for it, except that the Government in its plantations has not got sufficient timber to supply everyone, and to give a few people timber at cheap prices and not to supply it to others at the same prices he does not consider fair. So without any reason being given the price of timber is raised to what is, practically speaking, the price level of imported timber. That timber is cut in the sawmills. The wages have not been put up by a single penny. Those poor people are still getting 5s. 6d. per day, although the price of the timber has been more than doubled, and in many cases it has gone up even more than that. There is not the least justification for the Act not being applied to Government factories. I just want to tell the Minister that it is admitted that the Factories Act is not being carried out in this particular instance. The Minister of Agriculture has told us that he is going to continue breaking the Act as long as the Minister of Labour allows him to do so. And now I want to know from the Minister of Labour when he intends doing his duty to compel the Minister of Agriculture to carry out the law so far as his factories are concerned.

Before I was interrupted by the time limit I said that the practical question to be solved was whether the gulf between £4 and £6 10s. could be bridged and the menace of underpaid labour removed in the case of married non-Europeans. It seems to me that the solution of the problem lies in the considerations covered by the following alternatives. First of all by a direct rise in the payment of non-European unskilled labour, especially in Government departments. Secondly by providing amenities for unskilled labourers and their households at sub-economic rates calculated to increase the purchasing power of their wages. A third alternative would be a combination of both— a combination of a smaller increase in wages with the assistance suggested by providing amenities for unskilled labourers and their households at sub-economic rates. The only other alternative that comes to mind at the moment is to differentiate between the earnings of single and married unskilled labourers throughout the country. We are perfectly aware that the Government does in certain respects differentiate between the wages of single and married men. The hon. member for George knows that the Government provides quarters in respect of the men whose case he was bringing to the Minister’s notice just now. In regard to the second alternative, that is to say, trying to make up the difference between the requirements based upon need and that of payment for service, or the difference between the £4 and the £6 10s. in the case of native labourers, it would mean that the Government would have to undertake to cover all the essentials of life required by four or five persons as compared with one. The non-European in urban areas is faced with a standard of life that is on a European basis, and that makes it all the more difficult because every commodity he has to purchase is influenced by the market which is run on a European basis. A combination of both alternatives must therefore be regarded as being most capable of meeting the position. It has been the policy of the Government to develop along the line of providing amenities—and when we speak of these amenities we must not overlook the primary one, that is, housing, and this Government has continued and has extended on the lines adopted by the former Government—the housing of the poorer section of the people of the sub-economic basis. The Minister of Railways in particular is to be commended for the measures he has taken along those lines. He has developed in the Railway Administration the system by providing for the improvement of the purchasing power of the wages of the unskilled labourers by special rationing, by housing, by cost of living allowances, etc., and all these conditions are calculated to improve the purchasing power of the low wage which we in our heart condemn so much. The Government has certainly moved forward. I want to impress upon the Minister the necessity for speeding up the tempo. We shall not solve the problem by any revolutionary method, but it must be dealt with along scientific lines, and I have no doubt the Social and Planning Council which has been appointed will take this into consideration. I am not justifying this principle of subsidising low wages, but it is the only way in which we can deal with a married man with a family who is earning wages based upon the single man’s requirements. We have to take things as they are and make the best of a bad job. While we have the present system, we must continue this method of palliation and the cost of the palliative must be borne by those who are benefiting under the competitive system of our society. I think we have arrived at the stage when we shall have more co-operation. I believe that the co-operative spirit is increasing amongst the people, but until it is fully developed we have to provide for these people at the cost of those who are able to pay for them. There is no doubt about it that if you provide a man with a £2 house at the price of £1, you are doubling the value of that portion of the wage he is earning. Another suggestion is that of socialising the purchase and distribution of essential foodstuffs, particularly in places where people are segregated and where it is possible to confine the purchase and distribution of a commodity such as mealies among the poorer people of our community. If this can be controlled, so that those whom we wish to benefit, and those alone, get the advantage of such a system, I think we should at least make an experiment. You have the cooperative system in relation to the sale of kaffir beer, and the profits therefrom are intended for the provision of amenities for the native people. We may have some doubt in regard to the merits of that particular trade, but there is no doubt that the cooperative system, if it were applied to the poorer sections of the people, where they are to a certain extent localised, it would have a beneficial effect upon their living conditions. I do put the idea forward as one worth consideration. Now I want to emphasise the necessity for the Government setting an example to the whole country. Hon. members over there seem to be amused, but there is nothing amusing in this. On this side we criticise the Government whereever we can along constructive lines, and we know that the Government will accept that criticism. We are not “yes” men. We try to do our duty to the country, and the first consideration for us is the underdog, the unskilled labourer, and the record of this Government would prove that we have advanced considerably beyond the point reached by former governments, represented by the hon. Leader of the Opposition when he was in the Cabinet. The position today has considerably improved under this socalled capitalist government, a government influenced by the Minister of Labour and those members of the United Party who think along with him in the matter of raising the conditions under which the poorer sections of the people live. We may appoint commissions and refer questions to committees, but what the country is waiting for and what I think the public is looking to the Government for, is some substantial advance in the living conditions of the unskilled labourer. I am certain that this matter will have the support not only of the Minister of Labour, but of the whole Cabinet, and that some steps will be taken shortly which will give evidence of the intention of the Government to proceed still further along those lines.

It was rather interesting listening to the speech of the hon. member for Roodepoort (Mr. Allen). In the first part of his speech he said that the Government is going to look after the needs of the poor workers. Well, when the Minister of Labour sat on this side of the House he was the greatest champion of the cause of the worker and of the cause of the poor man. He has now been in the Cabinet for three years and in those three years he has done nothing yet to satisfy me that he has tried to do anything to give relief to the terrible trouble and suffering of the poor man in South Africa. It is easy for the hon. member for Roodepoort to make the type of speech which he has just made. He said it was high time the Government set its own house in order. I quite understand. He expects an election ere long, and as sure as the sun shines so sure will the public outside settle with this Government. The poor man and the poor worker is no longer satisfied with the way they are being treated by this Government. This Government is needlessly spending millions and millions of money, but it cannot afford to spend a single penny on the uplifting of the people of South Africa. There is one small matter which I wish to bring to the notice of the Minister, to the notice of the man who is supposed to have such a warm heart for the poor man, the Minister who is supposed to have such a very soft spot for the poor widow living below the bread line today, the poor window who has to live on what the Department of Social Welfare allows her. I have brought a few cases personally to the Minister’s notice, and in one instance he listened to me but immediately afterwards the poor woman was again deprived of the money that had been granted to her, solely because she lived free of charge with people at Marquard whose children she was temporarily looking after when they went to school. That was the only roof she had above her head and because she was living with those people free of charge the grant that had been made to her was taken away again, and that was done by those people who tell the world outside that they are busy putting their house in order, that they are creating improvements in the position of the poor man. The eyes of the people have been opened and the soft soaping talks of the hon. member for Roodepoort will not be listened to. They know hon. members opposite. Hon. members opposite have been marked. The day of settlement is at hand.

As a representative of many thousands of unskilled workers, I want to say a word of appreciation of that speech which was made earlier by the hon. member for Roodepoort (Mr. Allen), whose views I hope are generally shared by members of his party. The Minister will not be surprised to hear that I am also going to say something on the subject of unskilled wages. As the hon. member for Cape, Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger), said a little earlier, the Wage Board has been doing a lot of work amongst the unskilled workers during the last few years, and there have been considerable improvements. During the years 1937 to 1940, over 40 per cent. of the workers covered by wage determinations were Africans. During 1940 73 per cent. of the workers covered were Africans. Moreover, the practice has been resumed of making references to the Wage Board to make investigations of general unskilled wage rates in various centres. The general unskilled determination for Durban was the first of this character, since that made for Bloemfontein many years ago—in 1928. A similar determination now applies to Port Elizabeth. General unskilled investigations are at present proceeding in relation to conditions in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Kimberley, and East London. All this definitely represents a move in the right direction, but having said that, I have some criticism to offer. The first is that, generally speaking, unskilled wage determinations are far too low at the present time. In 1940 the average wage laid down by the Board was £4 2s. per month. I should like to say here that, although I am glad the Minister of Native Affairs made the speech he did the other day, I do join issue with him on the question of the average African wage being £4 10s. per month. Really it is less than £3 a month if the average of the whole country is taken; £4 to £4 10s. per month is the average for the limited number of workers covered by Wage Board determinations in Johannesburg. As I said in the first place, the Wage Board determinations are too low, and there appears to be a tendency for those determinations to fall below the standard set a year or two ago. In the commercial and distributive trade in the areas of Port Elizabeth and Cape Town, the wages laid down by Determination 70 were 30s. a week, yet in industry there have been a number of recent determinations—I am referring to Cape Town—in which wages lower than 30s. a week have been laid down. That is below the minimum level of £6 10s. on which th Minister of Native Affairs said the other day was the lowest wage a native family could live. In the light of the rising cost of living, particularly for the poorer classes, and also in the light of recent social investigations, the minimum requirement for an unskilled worker’s family is £2 a week. I want to ask the Minister what the Government’s policy is as to the employment of natives in industry generally. The tendency used to be to discourage the employment of native workers in secondary industries, and to confine them to agriculture and mining. This has not been found altogether practicable, because there are a large number of natives now employed in secondary industries, and that idea has been definitely and decisively challenged by the third interim report of the Agricultural and Industrial Requirements Commission. That report we have referred to before, and we shall continue to refer to it because we regard it as in a different category to all other Commissions’ reports there have been in recent years. This was a Commission of very highly qualified people, and they were charged with the task of laying down a definite industrial and economic policy, and I am sure every member of the Government, including the Minister of Labour, will agree that their conclusions should be treated with the utmost respect. In paragraph 173 they say—

I hope that the Minister will give the assurance that it is no longer the policy of the Government to discourage the employment of natives in secondary industry. But the position of Africans in secondary industry will remain insecure if the gap is to continue between the wages of the African workers in industry and the wages which the Government pays. I would appeal to the Minister to use his utmost influence to see that the various departments of the Government pay proper wages. At present the average unskilled native worker in Government employment is paid at the most £4 a month, a wage which is far lower than that recognised as sufficient to meet the minimum requirements of a family. The native’s position in industry is bound to be insecure if, when he loses his employment, he is bound to accept wages of the lower kind. When I asked the Minister earlier in the session to include natives in the scope of the Unemployment Benefit Bill, he said it was unnecessary because these unemployed workers would be provided with work by the Government, but my point is that the Government provides that work at a wage which is lower than private employers are compelled to pay under wage determinations. I want to emphasise the point that the general investigation into native wages is confined to the large industrial areas, and what requires attention just as urgently is the wage rate in the smaller towns. Wherever I go in the smaller industrial areas, the wages are deplorable, 2s. and 3s. a day, and this ever-widening gap between the standard of wages in the smaller towns and that of the larger industrial centres, I do submit, should be dealt with. I have had requests from Worcester, Vryburg, Mafeking and Upington for Wage Board investigations into unskilled work.

When the Minister addressed this House on a previous occasion I unfortunately was not here. He then replied to a matter I had raised and I understand from other members that he said that what I had said was not accurate or was an untruth—I do not know exactly what his words were. I am surprised that the hon. Minister should have used those words seeing that he has always called me his charming lady friend. I fail to understand why he should have turned against his charming lady friend and said such things about her, and that behind her back. He has spoilt my character in this House of Parliament. I want to bring another matter to his notice today. The Minister will remember that the Johannesburg City Council has dismissed a large number of unskilled relief workers; all of them had to be medically examined so as to find out who of them were medically fit to go and fight. The unfit ones were allowed to return to work but those who were found fit received word that they could join the Army and that they could find work in that way. I am not just making a loose statement, but I ascertained at a Labour Office that that was the position. I made enquiries, and I ascertained that that actually was the position. Those people were simply told that they must go and fight. Those who do not want to fight are forced to do so by hunger. Is that sort of thing right or fair? These people cannot just consider themselves, they have to consider their wives and children, and that is why some of them have been compelled to do things against their will. It is an unheard of state of affairs. It is tyranny to treat those people who do not want to fight in this way. It is not only the City Council who is responsible for doing these things. If one goes to private business firms one finds exactly the same position. If a man applies for work and he cannot produce a certificate of medical unfitness he cannot get work, he has to go and fight. I have approached the Public Service, I have approached Government Institutions, and there, too, people are asked to produce their certificate of medical unfitness and if they cannot do so they are not employed. They have to go to the Front. I believe that the Minister last year speaking on this point said it was not true. I can give him names of people and we can investigate if he wants to. Now I want to make an appeal to the Minister. He is the man who has always pleaded and always urged that a worker should start at a minimum wage of 10/per day, and I want to ask the Minister to try and induce the Minister of Railways to pay particularly the married man in his service a minimum of 10/per day; with a small allowance they get today and the increased cost of living these people cannot possibly come cut. I have a whole crowd of them in my constituency and I am in touch with them a great deal. I see the poverty and the misery in which they live. If we think of the winter which is ahead of us one cannot but feel the greatest sympathy for those people; they have no money to buy wood or coal, leave alone proper food and clothes for their bodies. As the Minister has always stood for a 10/minimum for every white unskilled labourer I want to ask him to act on his convictions and to give effect to what he has always told us he stood for. I have always believed in the Minister of Labour but since he has said that I did not speak the truth I do not think so very much of him any more.

The hon. member will still like me because I did not say it.

I hope the Minister does not take up the attitude that these people must get into uniform, even if they don’t want to. I hope he will not force them through economic need to do these things against their will.

There is a matter which I have brought to the Minister’s notice on former occasions, and I consider it my duty to do so again. I refer to the question of apprenticeships. Last year I told the Minister that it was extremely difficult for the youngsters to get into trade schools as apprentices. The Apprenticeship Committees in the towns keep the positions almost exclusively for themselves and their children in the towns, with the result that if one has a young fellow who has been attending a trade school, one finds that he cannot get work because he has not passed his apprenticeship under a proper journeyman. This matter is becoming more and more serious. The Apprenticeship Committee has practically complete authority, and these young fellows from the platteland who come to the towns find the door shut to them. Ever since the present Minister has been Minister of Labour, he has failed to do anything in the matter. I asked him how much time every apprentice had to serve; some have to serve six or seven years. The Minister told us that he would see whether the time could be reduced, and he promised to go into the position of the young fellows coming from trade schools, especially from the trade schools on the platteland. We who represent the platteland cannot do anything. One gets a young fellow who has perhaps been working in a garage under a man who has been there for many years, and who for all practical purposes is a journeyman. He trains this young fellow, but when the young fellow does to town he cannot find a job in a garage. The work he has been doing is not recognised. He has to go through the whole process again, and by that time the youngster is often too old to be taken in as an apprentice. The Minister made me a promise that he would go into another aspect of the matter as well; that he would look into the case of a young fellow who had been at school for a longer period perhaps, and who had taken his matric, and who was now too old to become apprenticed. The Minister promised me that he would go into that matter, and see if some concession could be made in a case of that kind, so that a boy like that could be permitted to become apprenticed. Do hon. members realise that there is a strong feeling growing in the platteland that the Department of Labour does not want to have industries on the platteland, and that all the legislation which we have today tends to protect industries in the towns, and has the effect of making it impossible for industries to exist on the platteland? During the last week-end I was discussing matters with a man who is a printer in a small town. He said that the Apprenticeship Act was such that he was unable to compete with the man who lived in the town. I have known that man’s business for the last twenty years or more; it is in the town of my birth, and he told me that as a result of the legislation coming under the Labour Department and the way it was carried out, it was impossible for him to continue his work as a printer, and that he would have to shut down and move his business to Cape Town.

When I speak about the wages in the industries in our dorps my object is not to put up a plea in favour of keeping the wages down. I consider that there should be stabilisation, but the wages in Cape Town have to be different from those at Worcester or Montagu and those parts of the country. The owner of a factory connected with one of those industries tells me that the wages he has to pay are only about 5s. 6d. to 6s. 6d. per month less than what the worker in Cape Town gets, but, in spite of that, he is unable to compete. And he says that as a result he has had to retrench his staff and people come to him and tell him that they prefer to work at Robertson for £5 8s. 6d.

What are you referring to?

The determination of wages.

Which particular one?

No. 20. They prefer to work for £5 or £5 10s. at Robertson rather than for £6 10s. here. The other with whom I discussed matters pays £5 8s. 6d., and he cannot afford it in his industry; his output is not big enough. The people come and beg us to employ them. I think the Minister should wake up and realise that we need industries on the platteland. The war has shown that the centralisation of industries in the large towns is not effective, is not meeting its purpose. One’s industries should be spread all over the country. In time of war and in a time of crisis one gets this position, that if one’s industries are centralised in a few towns and particularly in the coastal towns, those industries are the first to be in danger, and that is why we should make a start now with the establishment of industries on the platteland, and we should encourage them as much as we possibly can. It is within the power of the Minister of Labour so to vary his wage scales that those industries can exist. Not that we must give those people smaller wages, but because the cost of living on the platteland is so much less. The Minister is aware of the fact that in a town like Cape Town, house rent is almost three times as much as it is on the platteland. Where one pays £15 or £16 per month for a house in town, one pays £4 or £5 on the platteland. If the Minister will give his attention to this matter we shall be able to develop our industries on the platteland, and the young fellow whose cause I am pleading will be able to fit better into conditions in the place where he has grown up. But now he has to come to town. He is uprooted and he has to take root here afresh. Sometimes he cannot settle down to it, whereas if he had stopped on the platteland he could have become a useful artisan. This is an important aspect of the matter, and I hope the Minister will give it his attention. I hope he will particularly give his attention to these few questions of apprenticeship and the wage scale, especially on the platteland.

I think I had better intervene now. Let me say at once how very much I am impressed by the evident anxiety on the part of hon. members on all sides of the House to bring a critical examination of the position to bear in this debate, based on a desire to help—with one or two exceptions, and I hope the hon. member for Fordsburg (Mr. B. J. Schoeman) will forgive me if I have to single him out as one of the exceptions—up to a point. Beyond that he was also anxious to help. And that is as it should be. We are passing through times and approaching times where it is the business of any one party, in the Government or out of it, to devise ways and means to solve the stupendous problems which we shall undoubtedly be faced with after the war, and I look with the utmost pleasure on the indications of an evident desire to co-operate. Let us resolve, however we may be prepared to criticise little odds and ends, let it be with the object of getting together, toning down each other’s ideas, and find whether on the contrary we cannot force them up to a plain, to a level higher than we have achieved up to now. That I am very anxious to accomplish. I do not claim a superlative knowledge of the right way and of the right means of dealing with the problems which confront us. We do not know what they are going to be. We have to prepare ourselves for all possible eventualities in the determination that we shall solve them in a spirit of mutual goodwill, and a desire to advance the interests of the country as a whole, whatever may be our political outlook and political differences. Now I propose to deal with the criticisms in their chronological order. The hon. member for Fordsburg started the ball rolling, and if I may be permitted I shall deal with his criticisms first. Of course he began in the usual way—he glibed at me—funny, he cannot get away from that sort of thing. But of course one can ignore that, but I must express my keen appreciation, as indeed I did last year, of his kindly disposition towards myself. He is most anxious that I shall secure my old age and that my old age, my last declining years, shall be lived in a degree of comfort not jeopardised by any effort of his to reduce my salary. I thank him. And I also thank those friends of mine, good friends of mine, who in the eventuality of a reduction in my salary, were arranging a whip round on my behalf. Well, they need not put their hands into their pockets.

Do you really believe them to be friends?

Oh, yes, and you are my friend too. It may seem strange but I have a spirit of tolerance towards those even who betray their enmity to me on occasions, who really deep down in their souls have a feeling of kindly friendliness to me. And may I say that the hon. member who just interrupted translated for me, and I thank him for so kindly coming across and assisting me, having regard to my inability. I also thank the hon. member, the junior Gauleiter of the New Order …

Order! Might I suggest that these terms be not applied to hon. members. I stopped another member the other evening.

Well, sir, is Fuehrer acceptable?

It is advisable not to apply any of these terms to hon. members.

Well, by the behest of you, sir, the New Order has gone bung.

German is not accepted.

You have proved yourself a true friend of the Union. My friend made an onslaught, with the meagre information at his disposal, perhaps understandably so, but still an onslaught on the Controller of Manpower. He fastened the responsibility on me and I willingly shoulder it. It is a dual control. The Minister of Defence and the Minister of Labour are in dual control of the Controller of Manpower, and to that extent I accept responsibility. I have no apology to make, first of all for the appointment of the Controller of Manpower, and secondly for the manner in which he performs his duty. Let me give the background for a start. It is perhaps just as well. It is unfortunate one has to repeat it but it is necessary. Let me hold up the picture to hon. members so that they can see it. Why did I join the Cabinet? Why did the Labour movement? The Labour movement as a whole almost, in fact absolutely without exception, in advance of the fact endorsed that action of my going into the Cabinet. Why?

To see the war through.

Exactly; my friend has put his finger on the spot.

He is showing his commonsense for once.

Before all things the workers of this country were determined not to come under the domination of Nazi Hitler.

Which workers?

And they were kind enough to nominate me as their representative in the Cabinet, and despite my former experience. I wholeheartedly accepted their dictum because it was considered that I would be coalescing the whole of the Labour movement and associating it with this Government in its determination to see the war effort through. Now that is the picture. And following that out they are prepared, it may seem strange to hon. members opposite, but the Labour movement as a whole is prepared to make sacrifices to the end that we do win this war. They claim to themselves, and I reinforce their claim—they claim to themselves the right to make suggestions as to how it shall be carried out, and also as to how the Controller of Manpower shall perform his duties. That brings me to a point which the hon. member made, namely, that a certain trade union passed a resolution of no confidence in the Controller of Manpower. That was my own trade union— the Amalgamated Engineering Union. The Cape Town District Committee passed that resolution, but very shortly afterwards, as the hon. member himself was good enough to state, they very much modified that resolution. They withdrew the resolution of no confidence on an explanation havingbeen made as to how the misunderstanding had arisen. Let me inform this Committee that the primary object, the fundamental reason for the appointment of a Controller of Man Power, is that there shall be no man power wasted, that he, with his bird’seye view of the whole Union, its activities and war requirements, will be able to decide where and how men shall be placed to the best advantage; and right well is he carrying out that duty, and I want to pay him a very high compliment for the manner in which he performs his duty under difficult and trying circumstances. One of his jobs is to see to it that employers with an eye only to their own profit shall not offer inducements to workmen in other employ to come to them regardless of the effect on the national war effort, and he has to hold the scales, and right well is Mr. Ivan Walker holding these scales in our effort to do the very best we can to produce the best we can, the most we can, towards the successful conclusion of this war. So much for the Controller of Manpower. But before I leave him, let me say this, that in no instance, except the one he mentioned, though even there to some extent it was done, in no instance does the Controller of Manpower act without complete consultation with and agreement of the trade union movement. Whenever he is contemplating any particular move he consults the trade union concerned, and in the vast majority of instances, of course it applies particularly to the engineering industry, of which I am a member, and about which I know a considerable amount, is complete consultation and co-operation between the trade union movement and the Controller of Man Power in existence. Now let me come to the next point. The hon. member said that I, with my dictatorial manner and dictatorial power, which I exercise to the full, have completely abrogated the Conciliation Act. I have done nothing of the sort. The Conciliation Act still operates and this very night we are engaged in trying to arrange a Conciliation Board in connection with a dispute. My department is endeavouring to arrange a Conciliation Board in connection with a dispute, and Conciliation Boards have been held continuously ever since the war started, and no let or hindrance is allowed to prevent conciliation being conducted as it has been done before the war. I have not abrogated the Conciliation Act.

Have you seen that Proclamation that has been issued?

Oh yes, I issued it myself, and believe me, I don’t sign things that I have not read and understand and thoroughly agree with. Now, his reason for suggesting that I had completely wiped out the Conciliation Act is that I have proclaimed an Emergency Regulation in which, in order to avoid disputes—if in my opinion there is a possibility of a dispute —I have the right to appoint compulsory arbitration. Now let me tell my hon. friend that for many years we have advocated in this House compulsory arbitration. I am talking of the Labour Party. So it is no new thing, but why have I taken the power compulsorily to appoint an arbitrator whose decision shall be final in the circumstances? Why? Always in connection with some activity which is concerned either with war production or the food supply of the people. We say in no circumstances shall those sorts of production, especially of food for the people, be held in abeyance—that production shall stop, even only temporarily, if there is any way of settling that difficulty, and I think in the interest of the general mass of the population I would be failing in my duty if I did not take steps to set up a state of affairs where the closest investigation of the trouble should take place, and the State itself take the responsibility of saying “Yea” or “Nay” in the case of a possible or actual dispute. Now, I have only appointed an arbitrator on two occasions, and on each occasion he has been pre-eminently successful. I may have to appoint an arbitrator tomorrow in connection with the matter going on tonight. It is a matter affecting the food supply of the people, and surely they come first. And then, while we have secured a state of affairs where the supply goes no, then we have an opportunity of coolly and calmly enquiring into the difficulty and composing it. What were the two occasions when I appointed an arbitrator whose decision is and was final? The one was a strike on the fortifications at East London, due very largely to a misunderstanding, and largely to a certain amount of tactlessness. What was the result of having a compulsory arbitrator on that occasion? He composed the difficulty in consultation subsequently with the trade unions concerned, and the trade unions acquiesced in the whole situation, and now there is no further difficulty there or elsewhere in that particular class of work. No one suffered, but we prevented the holding up of a very important aspect of our war effort, the protection of our seaports, of one of our seaports, against a possible invasion by our friends, the Japanese.

What was the other one?

It is within the knowledge of the Committee that some six weeks ago I called a National Conference of the canning industry, of the employers and the employees. In my presence they came to a definite agreement. Later on the conditions laid down were attacked from some quarters and there was trouble when they refused to implement the agreement; then others in the town also refused to implement the agreement, and we were in a state where it was not only useless to have had a National Conference but possibly dangerous, because hopes had been held up and men found these hopes dashed to the ground. In order to avoid further trouble I appointed an arbitrator. This morning I received his award. That award now will become obligatory on employers and employees, and I am perfectly satisfied that it will have a satisfactory ending, and a satisfactory reception. Now these are the only two occasions on which I did it. What is he grumbling about? For the rest the usual relationship between employers and employees exists, the Conciliation Act operates as successfully as it did at any time—it is operating as successfully in war time as it did in peace time. Now he said that we froze the wages and he found fault with me. They are frozen subject to the operation of the Conciliation Board. They were only frozen at that level so that employers could not offer employees more to induce them to leave their employment and go to others, for the selfish ends of those others—not for the sake of the war effort, but for their own selfish interests. And does the hon. member for Fordsburg object to that? Does he object to our preventing such a thing? It is true that that was the particular point which aroused the opposition of the Cape Town District Committee, and other sections of the various engineering industries of the Union. But when it was thoroughly understood and a modification made to the declaration, the opposition ceased and no one is grumbling today. My friend must remember that unlike him I am able to, and I do walk into my trade union meetings, and I do not walk in there as a Minister but as a member of the trade union. If there were any fault to be found with my administration, believe me these men would very soon let me have it. Hitherto I am happy to relate, and I am sure my hon. friend over there will share my joy, that I have had very little criticism, not one scrap of adverse criticism have I received. On the contrary, I am constantly receiving resolutions of thanks.

There are always exceptions.

The 54hour and 60-hour limit was another point of criticism over there. I think my hon. friend was actuated by the best of motives. I don’t think he was trying to draw me, but I think he was just gently joking on the fact that we had insisted that the men shall work for 54 hours and for not more than 60 hours per week. The reason is not far to seek. We realise that the shortage of our skilled manpower particularly makes it imperative that they shall work as long as possible consistent with their own health. That is why we made the limitation of 60 hours. From time to time we go into these matters and we are watching it very carefully indeed, and if there are any signs of strain, physical or mental, despite the keying up that these men have given themselves, then, sir, we shall find it necessary perhaps to modify the number of hours we have laid down.

The strain is there already. You are overworking them.

Then the hon. members got on to the post-war problems, and quite rightly, the responsibility is upon every member of this Parliament to bend his mental energies to a realisation of possible post-war problems, inevitable problems, and to endeavour in some way or another to devise ways and means of coping with them in the interests of the people as a whole. He rather tended to pour a little bit of scorn on our appointment of an advisory council. I don’t think it was deliberate, I think it was his manner that he has unfortunately got into, and which conveys perhaps a very different impression from what he really intends to convey. I will take it on its highest plane. While he was not really scorning it, he was not altogether satisfied that this appointment was going to be a good thing. Again, I make no apology, because I am wholeheartedly in favour of this. It was, first of all, recommended by the Agricultural Requirements Commission, whose report is of outstanding merit, and one of the finest things that has ever eventuated from any commission. They advised us to appoint this Advisory Council, and we seized upon that with avidity, and extended the suggestion both in its scope and personnel. Now, what are the duties and responsibilities of that Council? It has to do what any Government would require somebody to do, even if a Government of supermen got into office from that side of the House, including the members of the New Order; they would seek information as to the potentialities and the manner in which those potentialities of the country should be developed, economically, agriculturally, industrially. We are relying upon the advice of the Council as to which direction, in how many directions, and how quickly we may develop along this, that or the other line, the Government, of course, having to take the responsibility of either refusing or accepting all the suggestions. That will be the Government’s responsibility. And right well will this Government carry this out despite any possible sprags in the wheel. Now, the hon. member says there has been much dilution of labour, dilution of skilled labour, and that is perfectly true; that was the inevitable result of our war effort, and, Sir, this country is not alone in the world, certainly not in the British Commonwealth, in this dilution of labour; and, sir, the dilution of labour, both in England, in the rest of the Commonwealth, and here, that dilution has taken place in complete co-operation and consultation with the trades unions of the country concerned. We have done it with our eyes completely open; the trades unions knew the danger, and faced the danger as one of the gravest that they were prepared to meet in order to bring a successful conclusion to our war effort, and a successful resistance to the potential dominator of the world.

That is not the point.

I let you make your speech, and I wish you would let me make mine.

The hon. Minister must address the Chair.

I am sorry, Sir. I realise, Mr. Chairman, none better, the danger that confronted the trades union movement, especially the artisan class, by this dilution of labour. We realised it to the full, but I repeat there was no other way for us to produce munitions in sufficient quantity to keep our fellows up in the North up to scratch, and in the face of the enemy. But, at the same time, we provided safeguards. The hon. member asks whether the Minister, and I presume by that he means the trades union movement, because I am a representative of that movement, is the trades union movement going to insist upon going back to the old condition of things? By which he means the closed shop. I have no time for the closed shop; I never have had. I am not in love with the closed shop. What he really means is the closed preserve of the artisan. Most decidedly, Sir. It is unthinkable that we should ever have industry of the high order that we hope to achieve with a lot of halfbaked mechanics; you cannot do it. I am speaking out of the wealth of a long experience, and I say that these dilutees and the basic trainees can never hope to take the place of the skilled artisans in the engineering world, but they will have their place.

Where?

I cannot answer all these points at once. This question of dilution resulted after a considerable amount of consultation, preparation and safeguarding, and the Government is prepared, and has given an undertaking, that they will be kept as part of the organisation until, in consultation with the trades unions, we can gradually filter them into industry. The trades unions will see to that. And here I interpose a suggestion, indeed, it is a determination. We are at the moment engaged in drafting the necessary legislation for use not after the war, not even immediately after the war, but I hope we will be able to put it into practice before the war finishes, and I do hope that hon. members on that side will help by precept and practice, I hope that they will not be so inconsistent between their asseverations and their acts, and will give me a little more assistance in carrying that legislation through the House than has been my unhappy lot in all the industrial legislation I have hitherto introduced. In some cases it will be found that these dilutees will profit both in their own interests and in the interests of the State, by continuing in the trade. It must never be forgotten that we are going in for an era of tremendous industrial expansion in South Africa, and there will be room in various capacities throughout industry for these dilutees, and the same applies to basic trainees. I am sorry I kept the Committee so long, and I hope hon. members are not running away with the idea that I am not replying to them. The next point was made by the hon. member for Cape, Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger), reinforced by the hon. member for Cape, Western (Mr. Molteno). That was the question of native trade unions. On that point I want to say this, Sir, although it may be only a victim which is capable of being traversed, but I want to say that no nation can rise, and if it rises, cannot remain there with a small aristocracy resting on the shoulders of a mass of slave or semislave labour. It cannot be done. That labour has got to be uplifted so that it shall be self-supporting and a self-respecting section of the community.

Don’t wait so long.

I don’t want to wait. The hon. member over there will be the first to tell this Committee that I am suspect for endeavouring to uplift that section of the community. I admit it is slow, painfully slow, regrettably painfully slow; but With the instruments I have at my disposal, I am endeavouring to forge that section of the community into a whole which will redound to our national credit.

You must be on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

No, I was never clearer-minded than I am now. The first point the hon. member made was that native trade unions are not recognised. Well, they have this compensation: that they are recognised by my department. They are free to come whenever they like to make representations, and that is not confined to the officials: they may come to me, and they do come to me, and, what is more, I go to them. I have twice been to Johannesburg to meet them on their own ground rather than cause them the inconvenience of going to Pretoria. As a matter of fact, they are completely recognised by my department, though we are having some difficulty about getting complete recognition in law. I frankly confess that I am having that difficulty.

[Inaudible.]

My hon. friend must not enquire too closely.

We would like to know.

I am afraid you won’t know, and consequently you won’t like me. I hope my hon. friend will let the matter rest, knowing that I am anxious to secure what she wants. I am getting a tremendous amount of support in that direction, and I have very little doubt that before long full recognition will be accorded them.

Before this time next session?

I am not a railway time-table, even they go wrong. One point which rather struck me was this. The hon. lady said that if natives form trade unions away from our industrial centres their employers say “If you join up with trade unions or form them, then you are for the high jump. You will be sacked.’’ Well, we are preventing that. If information of that sort comes to us, then my department acts and will continue to act. The hon. member for Smithfield (Mr. Fouché) brought up the question of the semi-fit, and he instanced particularly Zastron. There is a pretty live branch of the South African Labour Party there. He says …

No wonder conditions are so bad there.

The hon. member says that I am not getting sufficient semi-fits to the Municipality of Zastron, and that brings me immediately to the question of the whole policy of dealing with semi-fits. I am gradually, and I hope successfully, curtailing this policy of letting out subsidised semi-fits to municipalities, and the reason for that is not far to seek. When you subsidise municipalities in order that they will employ semi-fits, what hope, what prospects are you holding out to the semi-fit? He can work a few short years at miserable rates, and then there is nothing ahead of him. That is not my way of thinking. I am thinking of these fellows in terms of humanity, as indeed we have to think of all our citizens, and I am utilising the Social Welfare department more and more in the direction not of mere employment, but of rehabilitation and giving them an opportunity in life. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Not so long ago I had a memorial from one of our semi-fit settlements which was signed by every family at the settlement, thanking me not for employing them, not for a few bob a day, but for the opportunity of rehabilitating themselves. That was unanimous, sir, and I am sure the committee will appreciate that method of dealing with our semi-fit rather than using them as a stop gap sought for by municipalities, because by subsidising them we are making them cheap labour for municipalities. Now what is the position in Zastron? A little community like Zastron has no fewer than fourteen semi-fits. That is nothing to be pleased about, but is a number to be diminished, having in view the policy that I hold myself. The hon. member for Roodepoort (Mr. Allen) has called attention to the way the State treats its lower paid employees. I am entirely with the hon. member, I am not proud of the manner in which the State is treating its own employees, and I hope I can get assistance from all around in this matter. It is a question of building up public opinion, and once we have built up public opinion we shall be able to ensure that these employees shall have a decent standard of living, because the public will make the demand and the Government must surrender. Hon. members know they can rely upon me for every effort in that direction. I can only deplore the position at the moment, I cannot alter it. My hon. friend over there wanted to know about the milk scheme, and I will come to that later. The hon. member for Mowbray (Capt. Hare) trotted out his little plea for the nurses. He has a warm feeling for the nurses.

Who has not?

And he is very anxious to enlist my assistance. Well, I can assure my hon. friend that I shall never forget them, and if there were a tendency on my part to forget them, my hon. friend will be constantly reminding me. I can only repeat the assurance I gave him and that was that when we have got our new State insurance compensation scheme going properly, and we can see all the implications, his nurses will be attended to, every one of them.

When?

Another time-table. I don’t believe in working to a time-table. I like to do the thing on the spot. If I were to say I would do a thing in six months or twelve months, and I was able to do it in two, would he say “no, wait for twelve months”? The point is this, that I intend to do it as soon as I can. Now my friend over there (Mr. Werth) has raised a pretty kettle of fish, and the hon. member knows it. He and I share each other’s embarrassment in the matter. His point was that the Factories Act should apply to all Government departments, including the Department of Forestry, which he said through its sawmills is breaking the law or flouting the Act. He says to me: “What are you going to do about it?” I went very carefully into this matter, and I thought here is the hon. member for George who has been baiting the Minister of Forestry, telling him he has broken the law, and then he comes to me and says what are you going to do about it? I made enquiries as to how I could go about this, and my constitutional lawyers, I am sure, will be with me when I tell you the difficulties. One Minister does not sue another one, it is the Crown that does the suing. I am a Minister of State, and the Minister of Forestry is a Minister of State, we are both Rex. Now Rex does not proceed against Rex, and I am bothered if I can find a prosecutor. But what I have done is I have sent forward a strongly worded minute saying that the Act has got to apply to sawmills, and the Government has to put the Factories Act into operation there. I am having a consultation as soon as I have done with all this business and my Rents Bill, and I have a couple of hours free with the hon. Minister of Forestry. We have agreed to meet, and I have no doubt of the issue.

The Minister of Forestry said he was going to apply for exemption.

That is where I come in. I can refuse exemption even to Rex.

What about milk?

I am sorry, I have not the information yet, so I cannot deal with that.

Don’t talk about it till it comes in the morning.

The hon. member for Vrededorp (Mrs. Badenhorst) rather hurt my feelings. She accused me of discourtesy in that I had directly charged her with telling untruths. Never let that be said. I may doubt the correctness of the information, but never would I suggest for one moment that my hon. and charming friend would tell an untruth. No, she knows me better than that. The point the hon. member made was that the Municipality of Johannesburg was having its employees examined, and either forcing them or suggesting that they should go to the front. Well, I don’t know whether that is so or not, but I have nothing to do with it.

It is done through your Labour Department.

Oh no, the hon. lady is mistaken; I am assured that my department has nothing whatever to do with it. She is on sounder ground when she talks about the Government. She says that the Government has insisted upon those people whom they employ, being unfit for service. That is perfectly true, and I support that. One has this, that these are temporary employees, they are people who are taking the place temporarily of those who have gone to the front, and I cannot be asked, nor can any other member of the Government be asked, to accept a fit man in the place of those who have gone.

What about the 10s. for unskilled labourers?

Yes. Of course I cannot instruct the Wage Board but I have intimated to the Wage Board that it would be most desirable to work in the direction of a 10s. per day for unskilled workers. That is all I can do. My hon. friend may remember that on another occasion I instituted an 8s. per day wage for certain workers and I got the sack for it. I don’t suggest that I shall get the sack now …

No, I don’t suppose you will ever get the sack.

No, I don’t think so.

You are too wily.

Maybe, but I have sat at your feet too long. Now my hon. friend said that for 1942—’43 we have only £200,000 on our Estimates for the supply of milk, butter and cheese to the poor. Well, that is inevitable, unfortunately. We have not got the butter, and I can assure my hon. friend that if we get sufficinet butter I shall soon get the sufficient money to buy the sufficient butter for the children. I can give that assurance, and my hon. friend knows that if I say that, it is going to eventuate. Now, last but by no means least, comes my hon. friend for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie). Now he rather suggested that I had made him a promise that I would deal with industrial schools. I did not.

You promised that you would deal with the question of apprentices.

I told my hon. friend that next year a new Apprenticeship Bill would be introduced in which we propose to raise the age very considerably. That is coming, it is on the stocks, and we shall get that very soon. And then he raised another question—he made a charge which I don’t think we deserve, that we did not want industries in small towns. Now that is not fair. He instanced as a reason for coming to that conclusion the printing industry in Robertson—and possibly elsewhere. Well, I cannot understand that. You see, the Labour Department has nothing to do with that. That is an industrial agreement which is national in its character. The printing industry is one of the few industries which has a national agreement. This agreement is made between the employers and the employees, and in laying down that agreement they vary the rates of wages in various parts of the country, and they took into consideration all the circumstances. First of all, the Labour Department is not to blame, and secondly, the agreement was tempered so far as the shorn lamb of the countryside is concerned, very considerably.

The Minister seems to be so completely taken up with his war effort that he has hardly any other idea in his head, so much so that he has no eye for one of the most important things in connection with this war effort, namely the supply of food for his war workers and his soldiers. I again want to draw his attention to the fact that the position of the farmers today is untenable in consequence of the shortage of labour on the farms. This evil started first through the steady drift of natives and coloured people to the towns. They drifted to the towns to get better wages and better housing conditions, and as the housing conditions in the towns improved so the drift increased until the platteland eventually became so attentuated that the farmers could not get any more labour. There is nothing unusual today to find a farmer having to look after his own sheep, and that the son being taken out of school to look after the other stock owing to there being no labourers. When war broke out the Minister of Defence secured thousands and tens of thousands of people to go to the front. They were attracted by the higher wages and by the allowances paid to their women, amounting to £8 per month. The result is that the farmers have been deprived of their workers. The women have no servants to do their work for them. Not that I begrudge those people their wages, but if the Minister wants to make a success of his war effort he must see to it that there is food for the people and for the soldiers. Otherwise he and his war effort and all will crack up. He will not be able to see the war through because we cannot import anything from abroad. The country has been deprived of labour. What can be done to bring about an improvement? I want to suggest in the first place that there should be a proper housing scheme, not merely for the farmers themselves but also for the coloured workers. If these people have proper houses to live in, this wanderlust will become less. Another way of helping is to put a stop to the unnecessary erosion works on which hundreds of thousands of pounds have already been spent; and let me tell the Minister that the major portion of the money spent there will be a complete loss to the State. Return the workers who are on these erosion works to the farms. Don’t reduce their wages, give them a subsidy. Let the farmer only pay as much as he can afford to pay, namely £1 2s. 6d. or 3s. per labourer per day according to circumstances, and let the State subsidise those people. If that is done these people will not only be sent back to conditions that are healthy for themselves and their children but the farmers will also be helped and they will be able to carry on. Today they are at their wit’s end because they have no labour. A number of farms are lying idle. I am making an appeal to the Minister and I want to tell him that if he wants his war effort to be successful he must give attention to this matter.

I rise in support, if I may put it that way, of the family man, the man who I think it is becoming more and more generally agreed, is the backbone of the nation, the man who bears the chief responsibility in any State. Now, the Minister said this evening that we must create public opinion before we can move in the direction of bettering the conditions of our less well paid workers. And it is in the hope of helping to create that public opinion that I am speaking on behalf of the family man. I think the House knows that my efforts have always been in the interests of the children of the country, and it is therefore that I urge the Labour Department to pay more and more attention to their needs. The hon. member for Cape (Eastern) often uses an expression which I want to borrow from her. She speaks about the labour pattern. I want to say something briefly about the wage pattern, because for many years it has astounded me that the old age pattern should go on from year to year, as it has, without any imagination as to what is really wrong with it. I would have thought that it was so obvious, such an obvious truth that it must have been apparent to anyone that the married man with children cannot so far as wages are concerned, be treated in the same way as the bachelor without responsibilities or dependants; that surely is what is wrong with the whole basis of our wage system. I think there is no country in the world which has yet solved the problem of giving every family, by means of our present wage pattern, a modicum of security and comfort, with a little over for holidays and those things which make life worth living, and in my opinion no country will ever solve that on its present pattern of wages. A great economist in Great Britain calculated that if the whole wealth of Great Britain were pooled, allowance being made for taxation, and the necessary reserves to be replaced again in industry, it would merely affect the income of each family by the amount of 5s. per week, and I think it is obvious that by consistently using the method of simply raising wages all round equally for the family man and the bachelor, you will never achieve the object towards which I hope we are setting our face in this country, and that is a decent standard of living for all our families. At present, if we pooled our resources, we could not afford to pay the wages on the standard I have spoken of. So other methods must be used to attain that, and the only method is finding some means of raising the productivity of the country. That is the only method by which you can raise the standard of living for everyone in the country. Now, there is only one way to do that, and that is to see that the ability of the people of the country to produce is as high as it can possibly be. Today the family man struggles on in his endeavour to bring his children up and give them a decent start in life. I am convinced that what society has to do is to evolve a scheme for financing the cost of the rearing of the children. I am positive that that is the basis to which we have to turn, and I am positive that it will be the cheapest way for industry itself in the final end. We have all sorts of methods which we use today. Various countries are attempting various methods. We are hoping by helping with housing and our butter and milk schemes and other schemes of that kind to help the family man. All I am asking tonight is that the Minister will set his face towards the goal where the family man is helped, because, as I say, there can be no question at all that if you can pave the way for the wellbeing of the children when they are young, if you can save them from the eternal skimping in every way—on their clothing and their food and their schooling—if you can help them in the early days, you may in the end produce a type of citizen that will be infinitely more productive in industry than is the case under our present methods. I saw the other day a statement made by the Chief Medical Officer of Health, who was employed by a very large industrial firm in Great Britain, and he said this—

And I am convinced that we must move in that direction, and I would plead with the Minister who is dealing with the wage question to consider whether the whole basis of our wage pattern is not wrong, and whether society should not evolve some scheme which would take into account the burden borne by the family man.

I just want to say to the Minister that this matter which was touched on by the hon. member for Smithfield (Mr. Fouche) is not clear to me yet. That is to say the Minister’s reply is not clear to me, and I am also very much interested in the matter. The Minister put his idea before us, namely that so far as those semi-invalids are concerned he wants to give them the opportunity of rehabilitating themselves. We are glad to hear it, but until such time as there is a rehabilitation scheme, we want to know what the Minister intends doing. How is he going to help those people, bearing in mind that the amount on the Estimates is being reduced by £16,500. Are the numbers of those people going to be reduced, or are the Municipalities no longer going to get 65 per cent. are they only going to get 60 per cent. or 50 per cent. of the wages that they are paying to these semi-fits? How is the Minister going to render the same services to those people if the amount he has for the purpose has been reduced by £16,500?

I was very much surprised to hear the Minister say that the trouble about raising the wages of Government employees was that public opinion would object to it. With regard to unskilled employees I cannot follow that. What section of public opinion could object to the Government paying wages equal to what the Government through its Wage Board compels the private employer to pay? I cannot conceive of there being a single section of public opinion which would object to that fair change being made—that is, that the Government would not ask a private employer to do what it is not prepared itself to do. I am not contending, as the Minister knows, that private employers are asked to pay too much. I made the point earlier this evening that I don’t think they are forced to pay enough. But the Government is lagging considerably behind and I would, if I may, give this advice to the Minister, to test public opinion on this point. I am certain that no section of public opinion would object to the Government’s paying a living wage, which at present it is not doing. When I spoke earlier I asked two specific things of the Minister which he has not dealt with in his reply. The first was this, what is the Government’s policy with regard to the employment of natives in industry, having regard to the recommendation in the Third Interim Report of the Industrial and Agricultural Requirements Commission? I read out the relevant section of the Report and the recommendation there is that in order that the industries of this country may be self supporting, the Government should reverse the policy of previous Governments, of confining native workers as far as possible to the primary industries, and reserving the secondary industries for other workers. That policy has been characterised as unsound, and I ask the Minister whether or not the Government is taking the advice of the Commission? The other point which is from my own point of view just as important, is with regard to the Wage Board—with regard to the references for investigations in smaller towns. As I said, the average wage of unskilled workers in these towns is not from £4 to £4 10s. per month, as the Minister of Native Affairs seems to think — it is more from £2 10s. to £3 per month. Builders, Municipalities and Divisional Councils in all the small towns I am acquainted with—and I make it my business to find out when I get there—pay about 2s. to 3s. per day, which works out at about £2 10s. to £3 per month. And if the cost of living for an unskilled worker’s family in a large town is £6 10s. per month, then I say the corresponding cost of living in a small town is certainly not less than £5 10s. Personally I think the cost of living in large towns is much more than £6 10s. per month, it is nearer £8, which would bring the cost in the smaller towns to about £7. The only material difference as far as I can see between the cost of living in the larger centres and the smaller centres, is that in the smaller centres the rent is lower, and therefore I say that there is an urgent need for the Wage Board to pay attention to the smaller centres. Now, in the case of the commercial distributive trade, I know there has been an investigation and determination in respect of some small towns, but what is required is general investigations for the various centres involved. I would like to know form the Minister whether it is his policy to get the Wage Board to investigate conditions in the smaller towns, because as I have told him before, I have had repeated requests from these centres, from the unskilled workers, for that to be done, and I want to be able to give them a reply. As a matter of fact, instead of investigating each centre, which is what the Wage Board has been doing in regard to the chief industrial centres, it would be better to have a nation-wide investigation with a view to laying down a basis wage below which no worker can fall. As I read the Wage Act, the Minister can order an investigation for a group of trades. The current report of the Wage Board draws attention to this particular matter and contrasts the policy, which I characterise as the backward policy, of this country with what some other countries, such as Australia, do. In that report, under the heading of “Policy under the Wage Act,” the Board sets out the following passage—

Now that puts my point very well. The Board points out that in other countries, such as, for instance, in Australia, instead of adopting this piecemeal habit of investigating a group of industries here and there, and being so conscientious to see that each of these industries can pay a living wage— in countries such as Australia they have laid down a basic wage below which no worker shall fall, and if an industry cannot pay that, it has no right to exist. That is the policy which could legally be put into operation under the Wage Act of this country, as I read it. And I should like to hear from the Minister whether he has considered it. That is relevant to the point I made about the conditions in small towns. These different wage rates are unjust and harmful, and the obvious policy for the Minister to follow, particularly if he desires to lay down a general floor to wages, is to use the machinery at his disposal to lay down a basic wage for unskilled labour. I cannot at the moment make any suggestion as to what it should be, but I do feel that as a start it should not be less than £1 10s. per week, and it should work up as soon as possible to a general unskilled level of £2. And in determining a basic wage for unskilled labour it should apply to the Government as well, although I know determinations do not at the moment. Administratively it can be applied by the Government to apply to their own employees. But if the Government does not feel that at present it can go as far as that, I do ask the Minister to instruct the Wage Board to investigate the conditions in these smaller towns.

I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the state of affairs which has been created here in Cape Town as a result of his policy. The same condition prevails throughout the country, and it is due to the fact, as everybody will agree, that his policy is wrong and undesirable. I am referring to the policy of increasing wages during a time of war instead of introducing a war bonus in place of increases. I don’t know whether the Minister wants to safeguard his position, but he is gradually increasing wages and he knows as well as I do that as times change and as the war gets to an end, we shall find it very difficult to reduce wages again. Consequently we are going to get a position which may become totally impossible for the government of the day and for those who have to attend to matters. If one merely raises wages and does not take any other factors into account, things are bound to go wrong. Just let me tell the Minister that he has created a state of affairs in regard to boarding houses as a result of which the smaller boarding houses can no longer carry on because the Minister has raised the wages of the servants and at the same time he has provided that the boarding houses are not to increase their rates above a certain figure. In other words, they are not allowed to charge more than a certain percentage more than what they used to charge before war broke out. Is it right and just to increase the wages of the servants and then say at the same time that the owners of boarding houses are not allowed to earn larger profits than they did before the war? In that regard there is a serious position prevailing in the Cape today. I have had representations made to me from time to time. Meetings have been held and they have not improved the position at all. The poor widow in Cape Town who has always made her living here cannot manage to come out at all today, and that applies also to the other big towns. They cannot make a living as they have to pay these high wages, and at the same time their charges are fixed on the pre-war basis. I think it should be clear to the Minister that a person running that kind of business cannot possibly carry on. It simply means that he is playing into the hands of the big hotels in Cape Town and into the hands of the big institutions carrying on that type of institution, and the smaller concerns are cut out completely. I therefore want to make an appeal to the Minister and ask him to see to it that the situation is improved. One cannot increase wages on the one hand and on the other hand fix charges on a pre-war basis. If that is the position the Minister will agree with me that a change must be made. I don’t know whether the Minister has a preference for areas like Muizenberg and places like that. There the regulation is not applied. In other words, in those places greater relief is given than in Cape Town Central for instance. The fact of the matter is that places like Muizenberg and Kalk Bay have a preference as compared with central areas where people have run boarding house businesses for years. Today one finds that there are many gifts and favours. Inspectors go round and if one is very good and talks very nicely to the inspectors the hotel housekeeper gets off scot free, but the poor widow who has to make her living out of her business has to keep within the regulations, otherwise she is threatened with prosecution in court. That is the sort of thing that prevails in the Labour Department, and the sooner the Minister realises that he must do something to improve the position the better it will be for all concerned. I must say that I am surprised that the Cape Town representatives have kept so quiet in this House. I don’t know whether they are ignorant of the conditions, but I want to tell the Minister that the position is such that it cannot be tolerated any longer. Those people depend on their boarding house business. Many of them in Cape Town are poor widows and they are dependent for their livelihood on their boarding houses. If they go under I say that the Minister and his department are responsible. I say that the Minister does not know what is going on in his department. He is ignorant and does not know the conditions prevailing here, and the sooner he gives his attention to these matters the better it will be for the people who have to make their living in that way. The labour question was referred to here this evening. I dealt with the labour question on a previous occasion, but I want to say again that the Labour Department is responsible for all the trouble. I have never come across a department before where there is such a mess, such a state of chaos, as there is in the Labour Department. I simply cannot get any information from them. One goes to their offices, knocks at the door and tries to interview an official about a particular matter. The official you find in the office says that he knows nothing about the case. Then you are referred to another office, say, Room 13. When you get there you find the official there does not know anything about it either. They do not know what is going on in their own departments and the Minister is responsible for it. He is getting a bit old, and that is perhaps why he no longer is as energetic as he used to be, but I remember the days when he sat on these Benches, and I remember how he carried on and championed the cause of the poor man. He created an impression here; he used to slam his desk and tell the House that if he ever got into power he would see that conditions were improved. I thought that if the Minister ever got into power he would try to do something for the poor man, the underdog, but now he is silent as the grave, and if one asks him what he is doing he always has some excuse. But if one analyses his excuse one finds that he simply allows things to continue as they have been doing in the past. I hope he will realise that something must be done to help those people. I know he is on the side of the capitalists now and naturally he likes the seat he occupies today. It is a nice seat, and I don’t know whether it is due to that, but under those circumstances he does not care what becomes of the interests of the section whose cause he used to plead so strongly when he sat on this side of the House. The Minister is pointing at me, but he is not the same man today that he was when he sat on this side of the House and when he held forth so violently against the Government. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Ceres (Mr. J. J. M. van Zyl) brought up a very important point, and he was reinforced by the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys). They complained that the farmers were unable to get labour. Well, Mr. Chairman, that really is not my responsibility. I cannot help that. The manpower of the country is being drawn on in order to do the most important thing that is in front of us, and that is to prepare ourselves to resist invasion. One of the suggestions the hon. member for Ceres made was that we should stop all erosion schemes. I do not know whether he was serious, and whether he has thought sufficiently about it, because I don’t think the farming population of South Africa would support him in that.

I did not say all erosion schemes, only unnecessary ones.

That is all we are doing; every erosion scheme that we have embarked upon is a very important one. Of course, if my hon. friend desires me to give preference to his own constituency, that is another matter. I shall have to examine it in relationship to the possible importance of other constituencies. He was on sound ground when he talked about housing schemes. I am making no promises, but I am going into that question of housing on the countryside. The hon. member for Parktown (Mrs. Reitz) put a most important point before this House, and that is the position of the family man. You have to be mighty careful how you approach this question. I have all through my years resisted the idea of differentiation in wages as between the married and the single man. While you have a wage system at all, the present system is all right because you pay for work done, irrespective of the person who does it, and that should apply to coloureds, married and single, and to women.

It does not apply to coloureds.

You pay for work done. Then when we speak of the married man we have to recognise that he is performing a very important service to the State, in that he, together with his wife, is producing progeny, and it is the business of the State to subsidise families. You should not leave it to the employer to make any differentiation in the wage, because the wage is paid for work done, and the married man in respect of his wife and children, should get a subsidy from the State. If you say that, I am with you. We can agree upon this, that the married man requires and should get encouragement from the State, and that is the way, to my mind, that it should be done. Then the hon. member for Paarl (Mr. Hugo) was very worried, but I think that was because he did not quite understand me. He was worried about what I meant by gradually reducing the subsidies for semi-fits in the employment of municipalities. He rather gathered the impression that I proposed to reduce the wages of the individual. That is not so, nor shall I take them away from the municipalities until I have a place to put them. I want to gradually merge this system into the other I have indicated until we can absorb all the semi-fits in the manner I suggested. The hon. member for Cape, Western (Mr. Molteno), wants to know what is our policy with regard to natives and industries. He has been examining the position very carefully, indeed, and surely he has noticed that there has been no prevention of natives getting into industry. They are rapidly coming into industry.

I want that assurance.

All we want to establish is a standard rate of pay for that work. He wants to know whether I am prepared to have a Union-wide Wage Board investigation. We are tending in that direction. Just at the moment they are completing an examination in regard to unskilled workers in 40 industries all over the country. It is not confined to any one section, and when they have finished their work, and as soon as I can reasonably place them on the job, I will do so. I do not take second place to the hon. member in my desire to get these nation-wide determinations, because I do not want to have one district played off against another. Even in the smaller places the distributive workers have had a determination, and I promised that I would have an examination as soon as possible into wage conditions in the smaller towns. Then my friend the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys) is worried about boarding houses, and the unfortunate widow who keeps the boarding house. We always have to remember the unfortunate widow, who, it is said, cannot make a living because the tariff is fixed. My hon. friend knows quite well that I have already told the Price Controller that his tariffs for boarding houses must be based upon the wages, the increased wages that are being paid, and therefore where is the harm? We have given 7½ per cent. increase because of that very fact.

Is that a constant figure, that 7½ per cent.?

Yes, that is roughly it. I might make the suggestion as to how an improvement could be made. Landlords might charge a little less rent.

When my Rents Act comes into force, a reduction in rent will take place, much to the satisfaction of the unfortunate and importunate widow, to whom my hon. friend referred. I think in that matter he let himself slip a bit.

[Inaudible.]

I do not know what the hon. member (Dr. Van Nierop) is laughing at.

Neither do I.

We are not amused, are we? I have no knowledge of local colloquialisms in Mossel Bay. I think, however, my hon. friend slipped when he charged my inspector with being amenable, was that it? I hope not, Sir.

The point is that they discriminate.

No, I cannot allow that to pass unchallenged. I am very much impressed by the high standard of integrity of the officials in my department, and I want to take this opportunity of expressing my admiration at their devotion to duty and their honourable conduct in carrying out their duties. I do not think my hon. friend meant to reflect upon them in that way. Now, Sir, I have answered all the points, and I think we might let this vote through.

I wish to pause for a few moments at a subject which the Minister touched upon on a former vote, namely, the question of settlements for invalids. The Minister, apparently with a good deal of selfsatisfaction, spoke of the settlements which had been created. I don’t want to blow my own trumpet, but I think I am entitled to claim that I have contributed considerably towards the establishment of these settlements. The first settlement of this kind was established in my constituency, although it was not originally intended as a permanent one. The land came under the Department of Agriculture, and the intention was to do away with the settlement eventually. I urged the Minister who was in charge at that time, the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) and the Secretary for Agriculture, to turn it into a permanent settlement. I drafted a memorandum which I put before all the Ministers, containing a scheme which more or less fits in with the scheme that is in operation today; anyhow, I feel it is my duty this evening to thank the Minister for what he has done to improve those settlements, especially in my constituency, and I want to thank him particularly for having such good houses built there for those people. Originally the houses on those settlements were such that the people could not live in them. They were of an extremely poor type, and the department has undoubtedly brought about a very great improvement in the position. The houses that there are today are fit for anyone to live in. Nice gardens and parks are even being laid out, and these are really modern villages—as they are naturally intended to be. What I blame the Minister for, therefore, is not that he has neglected his duty by not bringing about improvements in those villages, but that not only is he progressing very slowly with the extension of those villages, but that he is even allowing some of them to be closed down. On the 6th February I put a question to the Minister and asked how many such settlements for aged and physically unfit individuals had been established, and where they had been established. His reply was that three had been established, namely, at Sonop, Karakatara and Vaalhartz. I also asked what was the number of families for whom provision had been made on such settlements, and the Minister replied that provision had been made for about 200 families. I asked the Minister whether, since the outbreak of war, any of those settlements had been closed down, in order to make them available for internment camps, and in reply he told me that Vaalhartz had been temporarily closed. I now understand that since that time that settlement has been opened again. I believe there is accommodation for 60 families and I hope the Minister will immediately take steps to fill up that place. The Minister has told us now that he is going to keep these semi-fit people employed until such time as he can succeed in accommodating them under these schemes, but let me tell the Minister that if he proceeds with the extension and the application of the schemes in the way he has been doing so far, it will take many years before he will be able to accommodate even a small proportion of these people. There are such large numbers of them today applying to be put on settlements of this kind that the Minister should do everything in his power to establish more of these settlements. I feel very strongly on this matter, and for this reason: most of those people who have been settled at these places are men who have reached the end of their years, they are sickly and they can no longer work. Nine out of every ten are deserving cases. The majority of those people in some way or another have rendered services to the community in days gone by. The bulk of them have gone down as a result of the conditions of poverty in which they found themselves through setbacks they have had during the second War of Independence. Because of their misfortunes they have never been able to get on their feet again. Many of them have contracted diseases of some kind, and that is why so many are invalids today. If there is one section of the community which the Minister should help, I feel it is this type of person. That is why I want to ask the Minister, whatever the Minister of Finance may say, not to allow the amount that is required for the extension of these schemes to be reduced. The Minister should do all in his power to open up as many of these settlements as he possibly can. I want to tell him this, that even if he makes provision every year for 100 or 120 families it will still take him twenty years or more to provide for all of them. There are many people who have reached the end of their days who are keenly looking forward to being placed on these settlements. In my constituency there are a great many people who under the conditions laid down by the department are eligible to be placed on these settlements. If the Minister likes me to give him 30 or 40 names of people who are anxious to be settled there I can do so at once. I only want to repeat again that we owe a debt of thanks to the Minister for what he has done for the extension and the improvement of these settlements, but I want to urge very strongly that he should not allow Vaalhartz to be used again at some future time for other purposes. On the contrary the Minister should do everything in his power to extend these settlements as far as possible.

May I have permission to speak for half-an-hour? Before I make my remarks in connection with this Department I want to say this to you, Mr. Chairman, that this side of the House appreciates the services of the Secretary for Social Welfare. We realise that in the Secretary for Social Welfare we have a man who really lives in his Department and who understands the problems of the people whom he has to deal with. We feel also that he has done a lot of good work, especially among the poor and the less privileged classes of our people. When we think of social welfare we think of the less privileged section of our people who have become impoverished. The Department of Social Welfare should be a Department of National care, and if we realise that the poor will always be with us, we have to ascertain which organisations and institutions we have that can help us in taking an active interest in that section of the population. I have here an address which was delivered to a number of predikants who met in Johannesburg, predikants of the DutchReformed Church. This address was delivered by the Secretary for Social Welfare and he said this among other things—

And if we look at the matter in that light we must realise that there are two sides to the question. Poor relief has its spiritual side, and it also has its material side. The man who has become impoverished and who has to be looked for and found, is not the type of individual who wants charity to help him on his feet again—charity which has to be doled out to him to fill his stomach. He needs a little more. That man may have been injured in his whole being. He feels that he is one of those who have been cast out by the community, that he is the victim of circumstances over which he has no control, and if we look at matters from that point of view then we can make a success of the Department of Social Welfare, and that is why I want the Department of Social Welfare not to think that it only has to distribute charity, that it only has to attend to the material side of the care of the people. The people have to be uplifted in spirit because the individual who has become impoverished and requires the aid of the Department of Social Welfare is the individual who has become spiritually impoverished, as well, and that is why it is so essential for the Department to take account of all the activities of all the institutions or societies which so far, even before the Department of Social Welfare was there, have handled this matter, and have done a great deal of good for the uplifting of the people. The distribution of charity can have the best results with people in need if it is not done entirely by the State, but if it is done by an organisation which can go into every individual case, which can analyse the reasons why a particular individual has gone under, and if the Department of Social Welfare wants to do this, then it has to call in the assistance of charitable institutions and societies which have been doing this class of work hitherto. That is why this side of the House and other sections of the people regret the fact that there is a tendency in the Department of Social Welfare to bring about centralisation of all the charitable work. The Department of Social Welfare is busy centralising all the charitable work and by doing so the Department is not doing justice to many of the societies which so far have been doing the lion’s share of the work of uplifting the people, the work of raising the people from their impoverished condition. If we think for instance of a town like Johannesburg, if we look at a town like Cape Town, we must come to the conclusion that so far no proper survey has been made of the real conditions in which our poor find themselves today. The misery in which a large proportion of our people find themselves today is not properly appreciated. So far there has only been a kind of sporadic system of aid, and when the individual has been assisted we find he is thrown back on his own resources again. So far the question has not been considered either to what extent the State should concern itself with after-care in respect of those persons to whom assistance has been given. We therefore ask that the department should make a proper survey of the conditions, especially of the conditions in our big towns where there are large numbers of people who have been forced to leave the platteland by the conditions prevailing there; they have had to find refuge in the towns, where they must try to make a living. Very often they disappear in the slums, where they go under and perish in misery. The extent of the problem has to be thoroughly investigated. One of the predikants who handles the social work in Johannesburg, after he had been engaged on that work for a number of years, made this remark—

Very often the condition of people appears to be good on the surface, but if we delve more deeply into their condition, if we go to their homes, we find what the real needs are, and those of us who have the privilege of serving on religious bodies and who go about in town to do charitable work in our congregation find the most deplorable conditions, particularly among the old people, conditions of which the State knows nothing at all. That condition of want and need is becoming more and more serious in our towns, and, as the Minister should realise, there is going to be serious unemployment after the war; conditions will arise which possibly will be worse than those which we had to contend with in 1918. It is quite likely that as a result of the economic depression which will follow, lower wages will be paid. It is quite likely that we may find, if the wages are not lowered, that there will be an increase in the cost of living, and that increased cost of living has to be met by the precarious earnings of those people. We ask the Minister of Social Welfare to instruct his department even at this stage to make a serious attempt to prevent that condition of affairs arising. Now I want to come to my principal objection to the policy pursued by the Minister’s department. In this address which the Secretary for Social Welfare delivered he also told the predikants what the objects of his department were and he said this among other things, that in Johannesburg they were asking the City Council of Johannesburg to take poor relief under their wing. He said this—

If that is going to be done in a large town where large numbers of our people have gone, they are not going to get that degree of assistance which they require. They will not get that amount of spiritual uplift which is so absolutely essential. The City Council of Johannesburg, or any other non-sectarian body, has not got that amount of sympathy with these people which the church, for instance, has. I want to ask the Minister rather to help the church, the different sects, or the societies such as the A.C.V.V., the Women’s Federation and so on, and rather to subsidise them or even the other societies which exist today in connection with religious bodies. Since the announcement was made by the Minister and the Secretary for Social Welfare, a deputation waited on the Minister at the end of August last year. The interview was attended by the Minister and the Secretary for Social Welfare. I want to make a few quotations from the report of that interview. A memorandum was handed to the Minister by the deputation and the report of the interview reads as follows—

That is what the poor relief body of the church is so keen on, that there shall be no loss of prestige, that the individual who is given assistance should feel that he is not receiving any charity and that he must be assisted in such a manner that it will be made possible for him on his part to make some return. And then the memorandum goes on—

It is laid down clearly here that the State should call in the help of the existing societies rather than create new organisations. The State wants to do the work by giving a subsidy to local bodies and those local bodies will do the work through people who do not live in daily contact with those in need of relief. The memorandum goes on to level this criticism—

That is a point which I have already emphasised and it is also emphasised in this memorandum which says—

This is an objection to which the Minister must give his attention. We are dealing here with bodies which have mostly devoted their energies to the uplifting of our people. I have in mind, for instance, the poor relief undertaken by the Church. In the Transvaal the poor relief section of the Dutch Reformed Church has put £50,000 aside. The Synod has supplied that money and the intention was to increase that amount to £100,000. We also know, for instance, what has been done in that respect in the Cape. I have not got the figures so far as Natal and the Free State are concerned. And then the memorandum goes on to suggest what the Minister should do—

That is the difference between the Church on the one hand and the department on the other hand, and I personally consider that the direction which the Church wants to follow will give most effective results. An then the report goes on—

Now I should like to know from the Minister what decision he has come to in regard to this memorandum. Has he ignored the memorandum completely? I shall be very sorry if that is the case. The whole business was started by the charitable organisations, especially the Church, approaching the Johannesburg City Council and asking for support. They got £250. But apparently the Johannesburg City Council went further into the matter and eventually they seem to have approached the Minister, and the Minister of Social Welfare thereupon decided that so far as Johannesburg was concerned there was to be centralisation of charities. We know that the Church has done a great deal in the past, especially here in the Cape. Charitable organisations, too, have done a lot. They have trained their own women social workers. Let us think, for instance, of what the A.C.V.V. have done here in the Cape. They maintain very thorough contact with the people. When relief has to be granted they enquire into every individual case and a report is handed in. I was informed, for instance, that a man went to Johannesburg. He was found in the slums in a state of dire poverty, and he had to get food. Eventually it was found that he came from the platteland and that he was a shoemaker by trade. The Church took steps and enabled that man to get the necessary tools to mend shoes, and he started his work again. I am told that that man now has a paying business in Johannesburg and that he is able to provide for the needs of his family. I am afraid that if this kind of thing is left in the hands of the City Council the officials will not tackle every individual case in the same sympathetic way. This particular case was reported to the predikant. The predikant immediately gave 15s. or £1 to buy tools and leather for the man. He saw to it that the man got shoes and boots to repair and the man was able to start. If that case had been reported to the Department of Charities of the City of Johannesburg or even to the Cape Town City Council it would have taken a year at least before the man could have started work. We know the red tape attached to a State department, or to a municipal department. An enquiry was made in this particular instance, and his case was immediately attended to. That won’t happen if municipal officials have to look after things. The man would have gone from bad to worse and he would have landed in greater trouble and in deeper poverty. So far it has not only been the Church but the teachers too who have done their duty in regard to the uplifting of the people, the uplifting of the poverty stricken section of the population. It is announced for instance from the pulpit that in certain towns there is no employment available. People want to go to Johannesburg, East London, Port Elizabeth, and other places. On Sundays announcements are made from the pulpits and circulars are sent out by the Teachers’ Associations over the length and breadth of the country telling people that there is no work offering in certain towns. That is the sort of work that has been done, and if the Minister is going to take that out of the hands of private institutions they will consider that it is the duty of the State to attend to these matters, and the State will not be able to do as much in regard to the improvement of those conditions as these societies or institutions have done. That is why we are pleading with the Minister of Social Welfare to change the policy of his department and to convert it into a policy of State subsidised relief for the poor. Then there is the question of the rehabilitation of the poor on the platteland. The hon. member for Brits (Mr. Grobler) has already discussed this matter I consider that the department should do more in regard to the establishment of homesteads for old people and people of the less privileged classes. In my constituency at Renosterkop 25 houses have been put up with a subsidy, but I feel that it would be very much better if the department spent more money on such homesteads on the platteland, if it spent more money in areas where there is irrigable land. If small farms are laid out where the people can have a garden attached to their house, a plot of lucerne for a milk cow or a goat, they will be able to get along very much better. I have this sort of thing in my constituency, but there is not enough of it. I hope the Minister will do more in that direction. Representations have been made to the Minister from time to time asking him to abandon this idea of centralisation. I know where the Minister and the Secretary for Social Welfare got that idea from of centralisation of poor relief. It comes from America. We get it there, but it has come to my knowledge that the centralisation of poor relief in America has not been effective. If it is in the hands of the State alone it cannot be effective, and in America the scheme is now being abandoned and the State is again emphasising the principle that the citizens who are able to do so, who have more of the world’s goods than others, must pay greater attention to the needs of the less privileged classes. They take up the attitude that everyone is his brother’s keeper. That is charity with State support, and we therefore ask the Minister to follow that policy here and to support bodies such as the A.C.V.V., the Church, and other concerns. Take, for instance, the institution of the A.C.V.V. at Salt River. That was started by private donations. That institution has grown, and today the State is contributing towards the work of the A.C.V.V., but I am afraid that if centralisation of all poor relief in the hands of the State is proceeded with, the more privileged sections will take up the attitude that they are paying taxes, and that they are not going to make any further contributions to concerns like the A.C.V.V. or to other concerns which can do the work more effectively and show better results than the State can show. The State, for instance, cannot insist on some return being made. The soul of the poor has to be considered; his spirit must be saved. He must be turned into a useful citizen again, and I consider that if the State, and the State alone does this class of work, we shall not get the results which we have had so far. I am therefore appealing to the Minister to abandon the policy he has been following; I urge him to accept the wise counsels of these institutions and public bodies in the country which for years have been handling this charitable work. They have experience of this class of work; they have devoted themselves to it. All they expect today is to be given financial support. They will put up the machinery to see to it that our poor are uplifted and saved from the condition of poverty in which they find themselves today.

The people I represent in this House are almost entirely excluded from the operation of the Social Services administered by the department—the Department of Social Welfare. Poor relief, which is absolutely inadequate, is an exception. The position has been explained in a memorandum circulated by the Department of Social Welfare. The passages I am going to quote are under the heading of “Poor Relief”. The department draws our attention to the fact that the African people are without social services. This particular memorandum refers more specifically to the system of poor relief, which is one of the few services available to the native people, but even in relation to that relief, they are subject to very serious discrimination. The memorandum says—

The department in this memorandum lays down a new pauper ration scale, and I must say the provisions are not over-generous. For a non-European family, consisting of husband and wife and three children, the allowance is 27s. 6d. per month, or 8s. 8d. per week, or 1s. 6d. per day. Including a rent grant, for a non-European family of five, the rate is £2 17s. 6d. per month, if they live on the countryside, and £3 7s. 6d. if they live in urban areas, and one would not think that a provision of that kind would be regarded as over-generous to support a native family either in a town or in the reserves. The memorandum says—

I should not have thought that a basic allowance for an adult of 2s. 5d. a week was over-generous, and I would not have thought that it would take all these words to explain that a native should not get that. Whatever their customs or tribal background, I say that no human being can possibly live on food which costs less than 2s. 5d. a week. Yet that appears to be what is laid down. I do want to make this appeal to the Minister, to put the native on the same basis as other non-Europeans. The whole subject of poor relief in this country is dealt with inadequately. We have no proper poor law, and so-called paupers are simply sent to the magistrate and fed like animals. The present system is antiquated and totally inadequate, but I do ask the Minister that it should apply equally to all paupers, irrespective of race, and more particularly in the case of the native, who is precluded from benefiting from every other social service.

I still feel happy when I remember the remarks appearing in last year’s report of the Secretary for Social Welfare where it was said that the whole of our State machinery, all the various departments of State, should really be founded on the idea of social welfare. At the time when I read the introductory remarks of the Secretary for Social Welfare I felt happy, I could associate myself with that idea, and I trust that the Government, or any other government this country may ever have, will always be animated by the idea that the whole machinery of State must be inspired with that conception of social welfare. That is the idea underlying the establishment of government—to make it possible for every individual in the country to be happy, to be able to live decently. As the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) has said, social welfare has been in operation in this country for years but it has been handled particularly by charitable institutions which have been inspired especially by the religious congregations, and the State has only now started interesting itself in this aspect of the matter. It is only now that the State has been interesting itself more directly in the idea of social welfare. I heartily associate myself with the hon. member for Gordonia when he says that he does not hope the day will ever come when the State alone will be responsible for social welfare. In the first place I feel, as the hon. member also feels, that charitable institutions, in other words our Church, have dealt with social welfare in the past most effectively, and I think they will be able to do so in future as well, but the assistance of the State has become necessary because the financial contributions especially have become insufficient to enable those private institutions to look after the great need, and to give all the assistance that is required in regard to social welfare. We are also glad that social welfare as time goes on is being looked after in a more scientific manner. Where charitable societies have attended to this need in the past there has always been this to be said against the system, that there has been too much charity and too little scientific treatment of the problem. I well remember that a number of years ago a start was made at the Stellenbosch University with the training of social workers, male and female, and I remember the question being put to the professor in charge of this matter, whether there would be any work for those male and female social welfare workers in time to come. The answer given by that professor was that if the State did what it should do there would be ample employment for those workers, and the professor added “Surely it is impossible to expect anyone who has been scientifically trained and who has obtained a degree, having to work for £50 or £100 per year.” That is the difficulty and that is all the charitable institutions have been able to do. Without assistance from the State it was impossible to have the work done by more scientific workers. I believe I am right when I say that we are grateful for the scientifically trained male and female workers, and I feel that we are entitled to say that in the few years their services have made use of they have become indispensable instruments in the uplifting particularly of that section of our people who are backward. Their work is heavy, it is exhausting work and it is exacting in its nature. If one remembers that these male and female workers every day of their lives have to deal with a section of the population which is less privileged, and not only less privileged but backward and in needy circumstances, we must conclude that their work is really axacting. I shall be pleased if you will allow me to mention a few instances to show what has to be done by these female workers in my constituency. At Paarl we have two female workers and I want to take the one case. This woman has 224 families on her books for which she is responsible. In her last report she stated that she had paid 1,048 visits during the year, which meant four visits per day. At the same time she had received 790 visitors in her office, which worked out at about three per day.

Where is that?

Then on behalf of the magistrate she made 90 enquiries, that is to say one enquiry every three days. These enquiries were mostly in connection with people who had made application for a grant and she had to assist in establishing whether those were deserving cases. She served on numerous committees such as the Pensions Committee, the Butter Committee and so on. In my constituency there are 386 families receiving butter rations.

Is that Miss Du Plessis?

Yes, and the Minister was present the other day when local people paid a very high tribute to the work this lady is doing. In addition to that there are her club activities which she is concerned with and where she plays the principal part. And now I come to my real point, and I hope the Minister is not going to say to me what he said to the hon. member for Mowbray (Capt. Hare). I want to break a lance for these women workers, first of all those male and female workers do not get sufficient holidays. In many cases they have been appointed under the charitable institutions with a holiday of six weeks per year. [Time limit.]

I would like to congratulate the Minister on the continued forward movement in social welfare that I seen year by year in the Estimates of the department. I think it would be a very good thing if the Minister, at some time or other, either in a memorandum or in a statement in the House, could present some statistics regarding welfare work covered by all the departments dealing with social amelioration. I have seen from time to time statistics in Great Britain which show the amount from public revenue that is being spent for social welfare work throughout the country, and I think that if we had some such review of the whole position we would really be able to see how much has been done by this Government for the social betterment of our people in the last few years. I think it will be a very valuable memorandum to have. Now I just want to touch on one or two points. I want to know why there is no uniform rate of allowance for various disabilities in this country. We have the old age pension, which I believe is £3 10s.; the blind pension which I think, but am not sure, is £3; we have a disability allowance of £2 10s., and I find it very difficult to understand why there is any discrimination in regard to these. Perhaps the Minister could make a short statement on that subject. There are one or two items that crop up year by year in the Minister’s estimates which I never hear anyone speak about, but upon which I think perhaps a statement should be made. One is in regard to the inebrates retreats. I have reason to believeall is not well there. I would like some information as to the conditions in these retreats, and what is being done in regard to the rehabilitation of the inmates, because that, I think, is the important point. I should like a similar statement on that point with regard to the work colonies. I think it is a very long time indeed since I have heard any statement in this House with regard to the running of work colonies. I imagine that it is very difficult work indeed, and I think it will be very illuminating if we could get some idea of the policy and the aim of the department in that regard. Another point I would like to mention, I have had sent to me a report on the civilian blind, and it is recommended that blind workers should have a flat rate of augmentation instead of the sliding scale as at present in use. Is it quite fair that you are helping the slow worker at the expense of the quicker and more efficient worker? Would it not be a kinder way of dealing with the question to have a flat rate on a high enough level and give some encouragement to the worker who is more efficient? I have a feeling that that should be done, and at any rate I would like a statement on the question. I am particularly grateful to the department for the extent to which they are maintaining the maintenance grant to children and in that they recommended to the Minister of Finance that a grant be paid to the mother as well. In conclusion I say again I think it will be very illuminating to the country as a whole if we could have some picture of the whole of our efforts in this country towards the social amelioration of the people. I think the department might well give us something of that nature.

I just want to ask the Minister something about the farm settlement falling under his department. A few days ago the Minister answered the question about the Ganspan settlement. Since that time I have asked the Minister of the Interior whether, seeing that the internees have been taken away from there, the farm will again be at the disposal of the Minister of Social Welfare, and the Minister for the Interior replied that the farm had been handed back to the Department of Social Welfare. I must say that it came as a great disappointment to us all when the scheme was in its first stage of development and when a start had been made to put the settlers there, it was turned into an internment camp. As it has now been returned to the Minister I hope he will make full use of it. We originally understood that this scheme at Ganspan was being specially developed to accommodate needy and less privileged diggers. That it was intended particularly for diggers who were semi-fit, semi-invalids. I don’t think there is any need for me to draw the Minister’s attention to the investigations which have been made into the conditions on the diamond diggings. All the published reports show that there is a very serious state of poverty, almost an emergency condition, prevailing on the diggings. At the present moment the position on the diamond diggings is such that the Government must step in without delay. Last year special legislation was passed in this House on account of the conditions prevailing there, and I do hope that the Minister of Labour will make arrangements as soon as possible so that diamond diggers, especially those who are semi-fit, will be able to avail themselves of the Ganspan settlement scheme. Originally that scheme was designed for the purpose of accommodating people of that class.

I move—