This side of the House has put forward the contention in regard to wheat that so much profit is made out of the price of bread that it is in conflict with the interests of the producer as well as the consumer. We have made that charge here. The other side of the House has tried to contest that view, but they could not produce any convincing evidence that that was not the case. I have in my hand a telegram which I believe was sent to all members of Parliament. We don’t want to comment upon it, but I only want to read it out to the House. The charge made here is so serious, if it is true, that it is really a scandal that a thing like this can take place under present conditions. Let me read the telegram:

Order! Wheat does not come under this vote.

But this whole question concerns the price of bread.

That matter has been dealt with on a previous vote.

I have before me particulars of Loan Vote J. Surely they buy bread.

No money has been applied for that purpose.

There is nothing in this amount in connection with wheat.

But there is money for bread.

The Minister in charge of the Vote has explained that there is nothing in this vote in connection with wheat.

But the price of bread is dependent on this question. We contend that the price of bread is unduly high in comparison with the price of wheat, and that affects the whole question.

As the House is in Committee on the Estimates of Additional Expenditure, the hon. member can only discuss the reasons for the increases as far as this amount of £154,000 is concerned.

With all due respect, I wish to state that that is the very thing I am doing. The increase is there as a result of the increase in the price of wheat.

The Minister has explained that this has nothing to do with the price of bread, and in the absence of particulars I must be guided by the assurance of the Minister that wheat is not included in the item under discussion.

May I suggest that the question at issue is that of food control, and under food control the Minister of Agriculture has made a statement about the position of maize, and this telegram talks about the milling of maize, and I therefore feel that we are entitled to discuss this question of bread. Surely the soldiers need bread, and this is a matter which comes under the Minister’s Department.

It is perfectly clear that the point which the hon. member now wishes to discuss comes under the vote dealing with wheat.

Food.

Don’t be afraid.

It is not a question of being afraid. The question which has to be discussed here is the increase which the Food Controller has to get in regard to his activities.

He has had to buy food.

Not one shilling is spent by him in regard to the purchase of wheat or in regard to the purchase of bread.

What about mealies?

Even mealies do not come under this. I stated on Friday last that the question of mealies was out of order under this vote, but as certain members had been told that they would be able to discuss it on this vote I raised no objections. But this has nothing to do with mealies. No money whatsoever has been spent under this vote on wheat.

I must bow to your ruling. Am I allowed to proceed?

The Chairman has not given any ruling yet.

I shall take a later opportunity to discuss this matter.

We want to protest. We are going to ask Mr. Speaker’s ruling.

I move:

I only want to say this. The Minister on this vote made a statement in regard to mealies. He made a statement in regard to the position of mealies on this vote, and the hon. member for Smithfield (Mr. Fouche) wanted to quote a certain document, a telegram, dealing with that subject. I am only going to quote part of that telegram in order to show that it is relevant to the subject at issue:

That is in answer to what the Minister said. The hon. member wanted to quote that telegram.

The hon. member knows that it is not permitted to quote any comment made outside this House.

That is not the point at the moment. The point at issue is whether this question of mealies and wheat can be discussed. The Minister made a statement in regard to mealies, and now the hon. member wants to give the House some information in regard to the Minister’s statement.

What I want to do here is to quote a telegram which has reached us, a telegram in relation to the debate which has been conducted on this question. I wanted to quote this telegram in order to explain our attitude. It is not a matter of comment, it only gives data in regard to the matter we are dealing with, and I contend that as we are discussing the question of food advances this telegram is very relevant. That is the position, and I should like to have your ruling.

We feel very much upset at the position. We feel that everything in connection with food can be discussed on this vote, and we feel that wheat and mealies should not be barred from the discussion on this vote. We feel that the Minister should give us an opportunity to discuss the question of advances.

You will see Mr. Speaker, that there is a vote on the Estimates No. 23 which deals with agriculture in general, with the price of bread and the subsidy on wheat. The telegram which the hon. member wants to quote here relates directly to the discussion which has taken place on that.

No, it relates to mealies.

There is another vote here which concerns an additional amount to be allocated to food control. When this vote was before the Committee on Friday I explained that even that vote did not provide any money and certainly no extra money to deal with mealies, but because of the importance of the matter I made a statement about mealies, but the vote as it stands here does not concern the price of wheat.

According to a regulation which we have in regard to the fixing of prices, meal also comes under this, and this telegram only deals with meal, and I feel that the millers are unfair in the fixing of prices and that is why this amount of money has to be voted, so that the Minister can pay people more than necessary. That is not right.

I understand that a telegram was read during the course of the discussion. In this connection I wish to refer hon. members to Standing Order No. 62 in which it is laid down that “No member while debating shall read from a printed newspaper or book the report of any speech made in Parliament during the same Session, nor read extracts from newspapers or other documents referring to debates in this House during the same session.”

On the point as to whether on the Vote before the Committee which provides an additional amount of £154,000 for “Advance to Food Control Fund” any discussion can take place unless it is in regard to the reasons for the increase on the original estimate, I want to say that if the Minister in charge stated that the question which members are desirous of discussing is not included in this Vote, the Chairman could not do otherwise than rule a discussion of that nature out of order. No particulars are given and the Minister concerned is the only person who can say what falls within the Vote and what does not. I therefore uphold the Chairman’s ruling.

May I on a point of information ask in regard to your ruling on the first point:—If a Minister or any member of the House says anything or makes a statement or gives information, which may perhaps be proved to be correct or incorrect, are members not entitled to quote in this House to prove that the contention contained in the statement is not correct for instance, even if what they quote from is a letter, a telegram, a book or some other document? It is not comment on what has been stated in the House, but it is a denial of facts which have been given here.

That is a point which I shall consider. The point which the hon. member has raised is a reasonable one, but in accordance with the rest of the ruling I have given the position is that the Minister says that the points which hon. members, or which the hon. member, wants to discuss, do not come under this vote. That settles the matter and the Chairman is perfectly correct when he says that the matter cannot be discussed.

On a point of order, if a Minister makes a statement in connection with a certain matter are we not entitled to go into that matter?

I cannot deal with a hypothetical question.

But the Minister made a statement about the shortage of mealies.

I am afraid that is a matter for the Chairman and not for me to decide.

I should like to put a question to you Mr. Chairman. We have here the special case where the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry has made a statement on a particular matter and the question is whether or not members have the right to reply to the Minister’s statement. It is of great importance to members to know whether they can reply. As you know Mr. Speaker stated that he had to leave it to your ruling as you know what has happened here. You know that the Minister has made a statement. Are you now going to prevent hon. members from discussing the matter? Members would like to have some guidance in this particular respect.

I have ruled the reading of the telegram out of order because it is not relevant to this vote, and Mr. Speaker has upheld my ruling.

Let us leave the telegram out of the question for the moment. The question is whether the matter which the Minister has raised here by way of a statement can be discussed. The hon. the Minister said that he wanted to make a statement. Are hon. members permitted to discuss that statement, and are they permitted to reply to the points made by the Minister?

The position is that the Minister who is responsible for the vote has made the statement and he has said that he is prepared to discuss the mealie position. So far as the mealie position is concerned I shall allow discussion to take place.

I should like to discuss the mealie control further. Many difficulties in that connection have been brought to my notice. One farmer in my constituency early in November applied for a permit. As the Minister himself knows, a very serious position had been created at that time in my area in regard to the gathering of the crop. The farmers had employed labour on a large scale, but there was no mealie crop. Now this man applied for a permit early in November. He received his form, and completed it on the 12th December. The form was sent away, but on the 7th January the farmer had not heard a single word in regard to his application. Meanwhile he had been obliged to borrow mealies in order to get over a difficult period. The Minister stated here that that kind of delay had tended to reduce the consumption of mealies, and one can deduce from that statement that the Minister had it at the back of his mind that he was pleased at the delay, because as a result of that the consumption of mealies was being reduced. When farmers are in trouble I ask whether it is fair to aggravate their difficulties in that way? A farmer gets a permit and he is allowed a certain quantity of mealies. But he should get those mealies as soon as possible. What about the time that has passed since his application was sent in? The man I am talking about has now received a permit for the future, but what about the period which has gone by since his application? His work had to continue, and he was simply forced to borrow mealies. I want to ask the Minister whether provision is going to be made for cases of that kind, so that the people concerned will not only get permits for future use, but will also receive some allowance in respect of the time that has passed. We on this side of the House are not opposed to control. As a matter of fact, we believe in control, but the control which is now being exercised is of such a nature that it makes it impossible for the farmers to carry on with their production. I have a letter which I could read to this House to show the chaos which is prevailing to-day. We have this position today, that a farmer can only get two bags of mealies per month. No man who farms on any scale at all can possibly come out on that. Cannot some other plan be devised, so as to make it unnecessary for the farmers to apply continually for two bags of mealies? The position is impossible. Let us devise some other scheme, because under the present scheme there is a tremendous amount of confusion, and there are all sorts of difficulties.

It would be interesting to learn from the Minister to what extent moneys out of this fund are spent on propaganda and publicity. I imagine that very little, judging from results, is being done in that direction, notwithstanding that it should be one of the most important functions of the Food Controller. The more difficult the position becomes, the more the public comes to rely on the Food Controller for information, so that they will not, as unfortunately happens to be the case today, be in a state of panic, not knowing day by day what the resources of the country are, and what the functions of the Food Controller are. Now we have had in this respect a very sorry state of affairs. We had in Durban only as recently as the 8th of this month a meeting convened by interested parties, by poultry men, stock keepers and others, who had invited the Food Controller to send a representative to tell them what the position was, and Dr. Fisher, the principal of Cedara Agricultural College, was sent. Personally I think it would have been better if someone who could have faced criticism had been sent, but, be that as it may, the advice which Dr. Fisher gave to the poultry farmers was that they should cut the throats of their poultry. Within a fortnight these self same poultrymen were being told that there was a glut of potatoes on the market, and that they should use potatoes for their feed, and within a matter of a few days after that the public were told that the food position in the Union was extraordinarily healthy—we were going to get a very good crop of maize next season, and we were given the impression that nothing had been wrong in the past, and that we could look forward to glorious times in the future. Now, all that is highly misleading, and it would be far better from every point of view if the public were taken into the Minister’s confidence, if they were told in advance what the position was, what the shortage was that was anticipated, and if they were helped by publicity and propaganda to find substitutes for those particular items which we were short of. It is not very helpful when a crisis has arisen to make short statements as was done in this particular instance through the medium of the Press telling the public, who are dependent for their livelihood on these food resources—I am speaking of dairymen and poultrymen now—who have no grazing—that they must try and get over the next few months as best they can. It is the duty of the Food Controller to tell them how it is to be done, to tell them where they can get substitutes, and not to leave them entirely dependent on their knowledge or their lack of knowledge as to how they are to get over this difficult period. I think the whole thing can be summed up by saying that there has been absolutely no planning. There has been no long view taken by the Food Controlling Department. Now, I want to say a word on the matter of potatoes. This fund became a purchasing body for potatoes which were to be supplied to military camps and convoys. Now, there was a great demand for potatoes at one time, with the consequence that the prices soared. It was one of the functions of the Food Control Department to supply the convoys and the camps, and the ordinary dealer who wanted to carry on and do the business he had always been doing had to buy from the Department. Now, this is not a serious objection in itself, but it becomes serious when we find this sort of thing happening. The dealer goes to the Food Controller, he has bought his own potatoes at 10s. per bag, plus about 1s. 6d. railage and other expenses, so the potatoes have cost him about 11s. 6d. He is happy to sell at a reasonably handsome profit of, say, 2s. 6d. Now, he goes to the Food Controller’s Department, and he has to buy there at 18s. 6d. per bag, yielding a profit to the Department which is out of all proportion. He has to pay a sum to that Department giving the Department a considerable profit, which in turn is borne by the British taxpayer. These convoys are paying 21s. to 22s. per bag for potatoes which could have been supplied at 13s. or 14s. It is difficult to understand how that policy achieves the primary purpose for which the fund took over the selling of these potatoes, namely to stop profiteering. A few days before I came to the Session I saw a telegram to a trader offering to sell potatoes at 10s. and that very same day he had to pay to the Department 18s. 6d. per bag. So I am not taking the prices at random. I am speaking of what actually happened last week. I hope the Minister will be able to say that that irregularity has been put right.

I am very worried about the future but I just want to say that I am very pleased that the Minister, after representations were made to him in May and June by the farmers in the Western Transvaal, decided to fix a minimum price for the ensuing season. The Minister was very unwilling to do so, but I am very pleased that, after having carefully considered the matter, he has agreed to a minimum price of 12s. 6d. being fixed for next season.

You wanted to go further and you wanted to fix prices at a higher level for next year as well.

I cannot discuss that at this stage, but the Minister will find out afterwards that my attitude was correct. I hope that he will fix minium prices for the next two or three years, but, of course, I am pleased to get something. So far as the Native representatives are concerned, whenever they get up one always feels that they only have at heart the protection of the consumers and not of the producers. Let me tell them that there are areas, such as the Transkei for instance, where there are more producers among the Natives than consumers. Those people have to make a living out of what they produce, and I hope that the representatives of the Natives in future will pay a little more attention to the producers and will not think of the consumers only. I want to make the House understand clearly what our mealie farmers sacrificed in their last crop so far as prices are concerned. Several speakers here have said that control should be removed. Let me say that if there had been no control this year the price of mealies would have gone up to £3 per bag, as the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Egeland) stated, and let me produce evidence in support of this contention. Even if we do grouse a bit, we are in favour of the control of prices, but I want to say that control this year, the control exercised over the last crop, cost the mealie farmers at least £8,000,000. Let me explain that. Wherever there is a shortage of a particular commodity, the price of that commodity is regulated by the price at which the particular article can be imported. Mealies cannot be imported at the moment into the Union for less than 27s. 6d. per bag. Now, I should like the consumers to understand that the mealie farmers this year got 12s. 6d. per bag less than they should have got, if the import price is taken into account. We have lost a lot, but to a certain extent we are satisfied, because we feel that consumer and producer should work hand in hand. According to the statement made by the Minister the last crop produced 16,000,000 bags, and on that crop the mealie farmers got 12s. 6d. per bag below the import price. If we reckon out what that means we find that the mealie farmers sacrificed about £10,000,000 for the sake of the consumers in this country. The farmers always have it flung at them that they are being spoonfed by means of subsidies. I should like the consumers to express their gratitude at the fact that the mealie farmers have been willing to make that sacrifice. I feel that when our producers have a big surplus and prices go down they should not indulge in so much criticism of the fact that they have to export their commodity. We are here to help each other and to assist the people in any way we can. We are not here to exploit each other and to do each other down in every possible way. Now I want to know from the Minister of Agriculture why he has not taken us into his confidence, and why he has not told us what his estimates of the forthcoming crop is. This is the first occasion on which the Minister or the Department of Agriculture has failed to announce the estimate of the forthcoming crop. What is the reason for the Minister not having done so? I think he has made a mistake there. If he had given us the estimate and we had known what the crop was going to be, we might possibly have been more economical with our mealies. Now we are very worried about the future because we do not know whether we shall have enough to feed our people. How are we to help the public? According to the statement made by the Minister there will be no more mealies available after February for the purpose of feeding poultry and stock. Let me make a suggestion. Even if we are to be criticised, and even if you criticse me for getting up here and talking politics, I challenge this House to prove that I have ever got up here for party political purposes. Whenever I have spoken here I have done so with the object of defending my country and my people, and whenever I see an opportunity of offering constructive criticism and of being of assistance I shall always be prepared to do so. There is one method which the Minister can avail himself of. Some farmers started planting mealies on the 19th August. Those farmers will be getting in their crop towards the beginning of March. If the price is attractive I am convinced that those mealie farmers will start getting in their crop towards the beginning of March. But then a few concessions will have to be made, and the first is this, that instead of fixing the moisture content at 12½ per cent. it will have to be raised to 20 per cent. If that is done those people will be encouraged to start getting in their crop as soon as possible—they will get in their crop as soon as it is possible to do so. If the mealies are allowed to be gathered with a moisture content of 20 per cent., damages may very easily be suffered by the farmers. The mealies cannot be cleaned so well, and we cannot allow those mealie farmers to suffer. The consumers and the Government will have to assist in order to come to the aid of those farmers, and an increase in price will have to be agreed upon. And let me tell hon. members how that can be done. Under the fixation of prices, the mealie farmer can only get 15s. Even if I have a bag of mealies and I give it to you, you have to pay me 15s. and you do not pay my railage expenses. I think that is unfair. But if the course which I have suggested is followed then I am convinced that the country will not be faced with a shortage of mealies in April. There is another suggestion I want to make. As soon as the mealies can be taken off towards April, the farmers will start getting in their crop. [Time limit.]

Mr. Chairman, on the experience of this last year of the working of the office of Food Controller, I and I think many others in the country, would like to be a little clearer about the principle on which the Food Controller’s office does function. That experience has led to grave anxieties which, I may say, were not allayed by the statement made by the Minister in this House on Friday. In fact I might go so far as to say that that statement only aggravated those anxieties. The hon. Minister told us on Friday in speaking about the shortage of mealies, that he had anticipated that a rise in the price of maize would reduce the consumption. Later on he told us that we had had to conserve the supplies in the country; and finally he gave us the assurance that there would from now on be maize in the Native areas. None of this we find particularly encouraging. What we want to know is this. In view of the fact that the Native population is almost entirely dependent on maize for food, is it not obvious, if consumption was going to be reduced by a rise in the price, that this was the section of the population that would have to reduce its consumption. Is it the intention of the hon. Minister to balance food supplies and consumption by the automatic rationing involved in the rise of price? This seems to us to be the implication of this statement—an implication which means that the poorest section of the population will not be able to buy so much as they did before of what is their basic food. So far as the Minister’s assurance that we shall have maize in Native areas in future is concerned, the only satisfaction we can get out of this is that we are to have maize now at the expense of the people who could not buy maize this last season. We do not find that encouraging. We want to know whether it is the policy of the Government to introduce a scheme of rationing by the back door, which in effect means that the poorer section do not get their share of what food there is in the country. I know that so far as maize is concerned, there will be supporters of the Minister’s actions in the matter, that there will be a good many challenges to us that we are raising hares unnecessarily, that the price of maize is not too high, and that the people have lots of money to spend. It has been said here in this House that if it had not been for the Price Controller, maize would have fetched £3 a bag this last year. I do not consider that that is an answer to the question we are putting here. I know there are a good many farmers in the country who would be glad to see the prices that obtained in the last war obtaining now, but times have changed since the last war and there is now a responsibility on the Government to try to see that the people are fed; the Minister has an obligation to stabilise prices in such a way as to give fair treatment to all sections of the population. The fact that money is freer than it has been in the Native reserve, a fact of which I am not convinced, is also not an answer to our problem. We know that if the price of maize rises as Native earnings rise, we are going to find ourselves incapable of getting anywhere near an attack on our present very serious nutrition position. Today the Native is not within measurable distance of buying protective foods and if his basic food is to rise in price, he will be still further from that goal. Now an hon. member has said, if I understood him rightly, that the Native is a greater producer than he is a consumer, that he produces more maize than he consumes. But this House knows perfectly well that the Native maize trade has never been put into a separate channel. Assuming that certain sections of the Native population produces more maize than the whole Native population consumes, which I challenge, and I do not think it can be proved, the House knows perfectly well that all that maize goes into the ordinary trade channels. You may say that the Native maize farmer gets the price that goes to the ordinary farmer, but we also know that the Native who produces the food, sells it and buys it back again at the enhanced price. We on these benches have said in this House on more than one occasion that the Native maize trade should be taken out of the ordinary channels of trade. We have pressed for that ever since the Maize Control Board began to operate, so that the Native might get the advantage of his own production, but we have not been supported in this by the Minister’s department. I think the Minister is bound to consider that proposition now, particularly in view of his own statement in his capacity as Food Controller, that he had not been able to deal effectively with the problem of distribution. I do not think the Department of Native Affairs should be blamed if the distribution has gone wrong, and if there was not enough maize in the Native areas. I feel it is a little unjust to expect that Department to produce machinery at a moment’s notice for this purpose. We have tried often enough to get the Department to support a proposition that the Native Affairs Commission, if it continues to exist, should be responsible for the setting up of depots in the Native territories, where Native maize could be taken in, paid for in cash to the people who need cash, and sold back to them at a price which is just enough to cover the cost of administration. With regard to this question of distribution, what is going to be done next year? I am fully anticipating that the Minister will tell us that his policy this last year was to raise the price of maize in order to encourage the farmers to produce, but what control is there to be over production at the increased price? I believe there is likely to be a bumper crop this comingseason. How is it proposed that the consumer’s market shall adapt itself to this situation? The whole problem of fixing prices is so involved that I do not see how it can be dealt with piecemeal in this fashion, and that should by now have been clear to the Department of Agriculture and to the Government. The Department of Agriculture has consistently fixed prices to stimulate production, and has closed our doors to importation to maintain these prices, with the result that production has been stimulated in areas unsuitable for the particular commodity and the country has found itself faced with large crops which the consuming market cannot absorb at the prices fixed for the producer. I trust the Minister will give us some statement of how he proposes to meet this situation and what he plans to do to balance the interests of consumer and producer. [Time limit.]

I feel that after the statement made by the Minister there is very little criticism one can offer, except possibly to suggest an improvement in the matter of distribution. I was glad to hear the Minister admit that the distribution in the Native territories has been very unsatisfactory. I would add to that that the whole working of the Maize Control Act in the Native areas has been very unsatisfactory. I asked the Minister if he could not arrange to send a responsible member of his department, and a member of the Maize Control Board, to meet the Civic Association at Umtata with the Chief Magistrate, and discuss this very difficulty. He told me that he was not at all against the suggestion, but that he was bringing out new regulations which would meet all the troubles. Well, sir, I think events have shown that the troubles have not been met. I would again ask the Minister, and I hope he will give the Native areas the assurance, that he will convene a Congress of the Civic Association in Umtata to discuss with representatives of the Transkei and the Ciskei the difficulties that those areas are labouring under in the operation of the Maize Control Act. I know the Minister wants to see the distribution of maize and the Control Act working smoothly, and I want to assure him that it would make for better feeling amongst the traders and those interested in maize distribution, and amongst the Natives themselves, if he could arrange a Conference such as I have suggested, of all interested parties. I hope he will give me that assurance. Then there is another matter. I want to know if some better arrangement could be made with the Maize Control Board for the dispatch of maize. I have figures here which have been supplied to me relating to business transactions of a very large produce dealer in Queenstown. The transactions started on the 16th November, when the dealer sent a first cheque for £473 to the Board. The last of the transaction was on 1st December, by which time he had forwarded cheques amounting to £2,455 to the Maize Control Board for maize. It was not until the 10th December that he got a single bag of maize, although he had already paid out £2,455 and was losing interest on that amount. Surely the Board could accept the banker’s guarantee, but the Board would not accept a banker’s guarantee and said it must have cash. I am sure the Minister does not want to hinder the circulation of maize, he does not want to do anything which will stop maize from getting to the consumer as soon as possible but it is not the correct way of doing business to insist on cash being paid down, and then six weeks afterwards the maize has not been delivered. I hope the Minister will see that the Board makes some different arrangements. There is another small point. We have two different authorities controlling the price of maize, the Price Controller and the Food Controller. These prices were fixed by two different proclamations, one dated 13th May and one dated 17th July. The two prices did not quite agree. I am assured that a man was actually found guilty for selling maize at one price because he had sold under the price fixed by the other party. He was charged with selling maize at a price different from that fixed by one party, and when he produced in his defence the price fixed by the other party, the court said: “I have nothing whatever to do with that; you are charged under this proclamation and you are fined £5.” I will give the Minister the names, if he wishes. There is something wrong there; we don’t want the authorities fixing two prices for a similar article. The price should either be fixed by the Food Controller or the Minister, but not by both. Then there is the point mentioned by the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Egeland), which I would like to explain more fully. Everybody knows very well that when the mealie crop is reaped, and up till August and perhaps September, the demand for maize from the natives is very small, from October onwards the demand increases very rapidly until the new season’s crop comes in again. This year in the early months the distributors were getting a much larger quota, and later on they were starving for maize. The Minister will see this if he looks at the permits which were issued. It should be realised that for the first fewmonths the demand is small, and thereafter goes on increasing. I would be glad if the Minister would look into these points, and would again urge him to arrange this conference in the native areas, at which the Chairman of the Maize Board, if possible, or a responsible member, could be present. It should be held under the chairmanship of the chief magistrate, and should go into the whole problem of distribution in the Transkei with the civic association and all interested parties.

We don’t get up here merely to criticise but what we say we say because the position today is serious. If we look at the telegrams and the letters which come to us, then we must sympathise with those people and we must realise how serious the position in the country is today. Here is the case of one man who writes to me that he has 4,000 fowls. He is quite prepared to use other food to a certain extent but still he has to have some grain for his fowls; he cannot get it and today he has to get rid of his poultry because he cannot get the necessary grain. Then I have a telegram here which reached me this morning—

That is a telegram from the Farmers and Wool Growers’ Association of Jansenville and that is the position right throughout the country. I must say that the statement which the Minister made on Friday afternoon did not satisfy us by a long way. In that statement the Minister said that there had been a delay. He admitted that there had been a delay, but what consolation is there in that? As a result of that delay it has been possible to retain a little mealies. The Minister admitted on Friday that there were ample supplies of mealies in the country.

I did not talk about ample supplies, I said there were supplies.

Very well, if there are supplies in the country then I want to ask the Minister and the Department concerned to see to it that their machinery operates better than it is doing today. Here we have the case of the farmers’ organisation which states that the position is critical. If the Minister were a farmer and he could buy two bags of mealies without a permit, and he had fifteen or twenty labourers whom he had to feed—wat could he do with two bags of mealies? That is where the trouble starts. He has to get a permit and it takes a month or two to get that permit, and what happens to his labourers in the meanwhile? I want to say that we are all conscious of the fact that the crop last season was a poor one, but we contend that the position should have been under control long ago. We blame the Government for that position and we say that any far-seeing Government should have realised what was going to happen, because every farmer could see what the position was going to be. The position should have been controlled long ago and we should not have lent mealies to our neighbours. The English saying goes, “Charity begins at home.” We dare not lend mealies to other people and allow our own people to suffer hardships. In view of the information which the Government had at its disposal in regard to the crop it should have known what the position was going to be. It should have known the difficulties which this country was going to experience, and it should have known that we could not possibly expect new mealies at the earliest before April and May. Instead of keeping our mealies for our people and our stock they lent it to our neighbours. I like to help my neighbour as much as I can, but I am not going to do myself and my business down just in order to help him. The position is that the Government waited too long before stepping in and taking control of the situation. They waited until we were in trouble, and what was the result? The result was that the Government lost all control. Today there is practically no control at all. Everything is so chaotic that one does not know what to do. According to a statement which appeared in the Press a week or two ago the Mealie Control Board, with the consent of the Minister, of course, has now stopped the use of all mealies for the purpose of feeding stock. We have no fault to find with that in parts of the country where there is sufficient grazing and where the cattle do not require the mealies. But what about the poultry farmers who have to make their living out of keeping poultry and who definitely require mealies for feeding purposes? How can the Government curtail them in this way? We want to ask the Government to put its machinery in order so that sufficient mealies will be distributed for the next two months. We need the mealies now and not when the new crop comes in, and judging by the telegrams we are receiving, the position is very serious. The machinery should be made to work more smoothly and it should be placed in the hands of people who have experience. Help the people who urgently need mealies.

One wonders if the hon. the Minister is really aware of the serious state of affairs which exists right throughout the country in respect of these Control Boards set up by the hon. Minister. The country, both consumers and producers, are seething with discontent to the extent that they are becoming revolutionary in what they propose to do, should not some action be taken in the near future for the setting up of machinery on practical, intelligent, and business lines, and should the present state of affairs be allowed to continue in this country, then I feel sorry for the Minister if he tries to control that section of the community which he has now been persecuting, in their endeavour to raise prices to the consumer and to raise prices to the producer to such an extent that you have established a most unhealthy position for both producer and consumer. I propose to draw the attention of the Minister to certain letters, drawn from possibly a hundred or more, that are directed to us. Here is one of them:

This letter was written by the Mealie Industry Control Board on the 30th November, 1942. It was received on the 6th December granting a permit for the month of November. The Minister told us that he was effecting a saving on this sort of thing. What is he doing but to send these men into a black market? I can assure hon. members that; it is an extremely unsatisfactory position that exists throughout the country. I have another letter here that actually took longer. It is from a gentleman who applied for 1,400 lbs. of mealies, and it took two months before he received the permit. Then it would probably take him another three weeks before he gets those mealies. That type of thing, not only in the Mealie Industry Control Board, but in every Control Board that exists in the country, is bringing about that discontent that is going to be extremely unhealthy for the agricultural industry. Before resuming my seat, I would like to ask the hon. member if he is exercising the same control over the producers of sprouted grain, as he is over the poultry industry. I would draw attention to the fact that since he imposed these regulations, as much as 7,000 gallons of beer were thrown out by the police in one night in a Border town. On a Saturday evening, on a small construction gang, no less than 2,000 gallons of beer were thrown out by the police. That would hardly savour of fair distribution. If these Natives are able to get sprouted grain and mealie meal to the extent of being able to produce 7,000 gallons of beer in the one instance and 2,000 in the other, then I maintain that there is something seriously wrong, and I maintain that the Minister could prohibit the manufacture of this sprouted grain and give the poultry farmers some consideration. Should he not have those mealies, might I ask that in view of a possible surplus of wheat and, I think, a fairly decent return of oats and other cereals, that the Minister should save the poultry farmer from going out of business and not force the other slaughtering of poultry as suggested by one of the principals of one of the agricultural institutions in this country. I commend to the hon. Minister the setting up of some machinery to deal with this question on different lines from those adopted in the past. It would appear that ambition is the greatest factor in the appointment to a Control Board. We maintain that there is lots of room for improvement. We want practical and business-like methods on the part of these Control Boards, and we would be extremely pleased to have that Control, instead of being disgruntled and seething with discontent as we are doing today.

During the past few days we have heard some criticism levelled against the Minister and that criticism came from all sides of the House. It is not necessary to add anything to it, but none the less the shortage of mealies continues. Now I should like to make a few suggestions to the Minister as to how he can get more mealies on the market. If the Minister were now to decide to increase the price of mealies as from the 1st February—that is to say, the price of the old mealies which is still in stock in the country, a great deal more mealies would come on to the market. Take my own case. I use about 40 bags of mealies every month on my farm. If the Minister raises the price to 17s. 6d. I shall put part of the mealies which I have kept back for March, April and May, on the market. In that way large quantities of mealies will come on the market. I also want to associate myself with what the hon. member for Ventersdorp (Col. Jacob Wilkens) has suggested. It is very difficult to put fresh mealies which have a moisture content of 18 per cent. or 20 per cent. on the market. The Minister will only achieve that if he allows the farmers 17s. 6d. per bag for that period. We are living in abnormal times and abnormal measures are justified in such times. Now I want to go further than that. The mealie crop will start coming in from the end of April, but if the farmers only get 12s. 6d. per bag the crop will not come in until May, it will only start coming in in June. I am not going to get my mealie crop in before June, if I don’t get a special offer made to me. I therefore suggest that for the month of May the price should be brought down from 17s. 6d. to 15s. We should make it attractive to the farmers to get their mealies on the market early. I am speaking from practical experience and I am basing my remarks on conversations I have had with mealie farmers. They are not going to take the trouble to get in their crops as early as April and to put their mealies on the market, because it gives them too much trouble, as the mealies are still wet at that stage, but if they are specially encouraged by being offered a better price the position will be considerably relieved. Now it may perhaps be argued that if that is done, the millers who possibly may still have stocks of mealies will also demand 17s. 6d. I therefore suggest that the Mealie Board should only buy from bona fide farmers. If that is done it will benefit the farmers and it will cut out the speculators. The hon. member for Ventersdorp has pointed out that the man who brings in his mealie crop when it is wet loses quite a lot, but if we get 17s. 6d. in April and only 12s. 6d. in June, it will encourage the farmers to get in their crop before June. I should like to put this question to the Minister. We have been told that 200,000 bags were lent to Rhodesia. When are they supposed to return those 200,000 bags? I hope they are not going to return those mealies in June or in August when we ourselves have ample mealies here. Rather let the Minister suggest to the Rhodesian Government then that they should pay 15s. or 16s. per bag. They got their mealies at a time of scarcity when mealies were expensive, and they should not be allowed to return what they borrowed at a time when mealies are cheap. We have had ample experience in regard to potatoes, and we have had plenty of experience as a result of over production of potatoes, and if we get in our crops a bit earlier this year it will also reduce the carry over to the next year, because a big surplus is expected this year. Now, there is a further question I want to put to the Minister, and it is this: What really is the minimum price that has been fixed? There is confusion in the country and we should like to have a definite statement from the Minister on this point. Is the minimum price 12s. 6d. now, or what is it? The position has been put so vaguely that people do not know where they are. I should like the Minister to tell us definitely what the position is and whether the price is 12s. 6d.

Although the hon. Minister made a fairly comprehensive statement with regard to the maize question, I make no apology for rising again to voice the grievances on the part of the farming community in my constituency in connection with the supply of maize for rationing their servants. Apart from the fact that there are numerous complaints that late or no replies are received to communications addressed to the Maize Control Board and the consequent irritation caused thereby, there is not the slightest doubt that the present whole system of the regulation of supplies is hopelessly inadequate and inefficient. All this causes considerable irritation. I feel that the Minister and his Department should devise some less onerous means whereby these permits can be more speedily obtained. I think it is absolutely essential for the Minister to devise some such means in order to give more satisfaction in the country. I appreciate that the Controller has a considerable amount of difficulty in the matter, but I think he should have taken the country more into his confidence, and I hope that when a similar situation arises in the future that he will take the country into his confidence and then all will be better acquainted with the situation.

You will have a bigger ramp than you have now.

Oh, no; the Minister does not like to hear this, but I say that the present system is hopelessly inadequate and inefficient. If he as a rural member travels about in the country districts, he will find that what I say is voiced by every other person in the country districts. The Minister should appoint a board of business men who know something about the system of distribution to advise and assist him. I want to warn the Minister that the present system is being used to sabotage him and to cause trouble and dissatisfaction in the country districts. I say again that I am satisfied that the Minister and the Food Controller are trying to do their best, but unless other means are devised to give greater satisfaction and to remove the allround dissatisfaction, I have not the slightest doubt that there is serious trouble ahead for him.

I don’t think there is any need for me to criticise the Minister of Agriculture severely seeing that members on his own side of the House have already described the position as a first class mess. I even want to thank the Minister for the steps he took when the position in our area became precarious. The position which prevailed was that in an area of 100 miles not a bag of mealie meal coud be obtained. The farmers were gathering their crops and they had to put off hundreds of cutters because they could not obtain a single bag of mealie meal within a hundred miles. They had a lot of trouble in getting their wheat cut and stacked. We hope we are not going to have a recurrence of that position in the future. It has been clearly shown how difficult it is for farmers to carry on and we have also shown that they cannot possibly come out on two bags of mealies per month. I don’t want to go into that question any further. I only want to deal with the statement which the Minister made on Friday last. He told us that they had estimated for a shortage of 5,000,000 bags of mealies, but in spite of that they lent or sold Rhodesia 200,000 bags of mealies. They did so in spite of the fact that Rhodesia, so far, has not gone in for “khaki bread,” but is still using pure white flour. We have to eat “khaki bread” here and yet in spite of the fact that there is a shortage here of 5,000,000 bags, we send 200,000 bags to Rhodesia! Our own people are short of mealies and are suffering hardships and we cannot get meal for our labourers and people are losing thousands of pounds—which has been the case in the Northern Cape and Southern Free State—but we send 200,000 bags to Rhodesia where the people have white bread to eat! It is a most anomalous position. The Minister now tells us that there is not going to be a shortage. What is there to make up the shortage? In what way has the shortage of 5,000,000 bags been made up? Are the natives supposed to eat “hanekam bossies”? If one goes to Herschel or Basutoland and a lorry containing a hundred bags of mealies pulls up, one finds that within a couple of hours not a single bag is left and hundreds of natives have to go away disappointed because they have been unable to secure any mealies at all. In regard to the farmers themselves, they are losing heavily as a result of the waste of time between the date they apply for mealies and the time their applications are granted; there is a lapse of about a month before their applications are dealt with. I therefore want to suggest that it would be better to give the magistrate the right to say how much mealies a farmer should get. He knows what goes on in the district, and if a farmer approaches him and makes a bona fide statement that he has to feed fifty Natives, that farmer should be supplied with the necessary mealie meal. On the other hand the millers should also be supplied on a proper basis. In one case the Mealie Control Board has had a miller’s cheque for three weeks—he has paid for his requirements, but as a result of all this red tape the farmers in the district of Zastron are unable to get one single bag of mealie meal for their Native labour. This sort of thing should not be allowed, and I trust the Minister will once again go thoroughly into this question. It is now said that rye and barley can be used partially instead of mealies. We are expecting a large surplus of wheat. I estimate we shall produce about 8,000,000 bags in the Union. Let the Minister abolish the khaki bread, seeing that there is sufficient wheat now, so that people will be able to get some decent bread. In that way a good deal of mealies which today is being mixed with the bread will be released.

I would like to congratulate the hon. Minister that in spite of an approximate shortage of 4,000,000 bags of maize, there has been no actual starvation in this country, and that it has not been necessary to divert shipping here which is conveying foodstuffs to Great Britain, but speaking for an overwhelming majority of people in the Eastern Province, both distributors and consumers, I would appeal to the hon. Minister to call in the assistance of a committee of business men to assist in the proper distribution of maize and maize foodstuffs. It is essential to eliminate all nervousness as regards maize distribution if we are again to build up our poultry industry and the forcing of the early maturity of all slaughter stock, because it is only by this method that we can get increased production of beef, mutton and poultry. I would like to read a paragraph from a letter to demonstrate the type of control which cannot be tolerated, and why I am appealing for a committee of business men to assist in the proper distribution of maize. This letter states:

The Mealie Control Board’s only interest is watching that of the producer, and I think the Government has met this by the fixation of prices. I do hope that this fixation of prices will be continued because it can eliminate speculation and it can make possible the proper distribution of food. It can provide for the better fertilisation of our soil and increased production, which is absolutely essential if all humans and animals in this country are to have sufficient food to eat. I think the Government should subsidise maize in the Native areas and create one price level from year to year, but I would rather debate that matter on another Vote. I do not want to take up the time of the House but I want to appeal to the hon. Minister to let business men assist him in control and distribution, and I want to appeal to the Minister to make it a policy as regards fixation of prices to the purchaser, which will then automatically standardise the price.

There are a few points which I desire to bring to the notice of the Minister of Agriculture. First of all I want to say that there is an easy solution of this shortage of mealies, which is troubling the Minister today. Last year when the Minister found that there was going to be a shortage of wheat he devised the very sensible plan of fixing the price of wheat at £1 10s., which immediately encouraged production, and his efforts met with good results. Today there is ample wheat in the country as a result of the Minister’s policy. Let the Minister now, without further delay, fix the price of mealies at 15s. at least, and if he does so he will have ample mealies. There may be lands which are full of weeds and the farmers feel that it is too much trouble to clean up and prepare those lands for planting mealies, but if a higher price is offered, it will justify the extra trouble and the extra expense. Then there are other lands too which can be irrigated, but which are dry today. If the farmer can get better prices he will irrigate those lands. The whole country will benefit and the Minister should take these steps without further delay. All this trouble is connected with the whole question of control. For years we have been urging that farmers should be given full control over the mealie industry. Now the Minister finds himself in the greatest trouble and it is all due to the fact that there is no proper control. There is another suggestion I want to make to the Minister. The Minister should let the mealies go to the Co-operative Societies; let them handle everything. They have the machinery and they have the necessary storage accommodation. If that is done the Minister will find it much easier to control the whole position. Last year the Minister asked whether we (the Co-operative Societies) thought we would be able to handle the crop. We said “Yes”. We immediately came together to discuss the matter and we found that we could handle the mealie crop and we definitely expected that the Minister would appeal to us to exercise control, but to our great disappointment the Minister afterwards allowed the millers and the speculators a free hand. Where are the mealies today? Nobody knows what has become of the stocks. The mistake that was made was that the big speculators were allowed to get hold of the mealies. If the Minister had left the control in the hands of the Co-operative Society we would have had mealies today. We would have had proper distribution, whereas today we have a terrible state of confusion. I feel that there are stocks of mealies available but the distribution is so bad that one cannot buy and one cannot make head or tail of the whole business. In order to confirm what I have said I merely want to add that on the 17th December I was in the bush veld where large numbers of Natives live, and I enquired how many Natives there were there. The Commissioner told me that according to his records there were 100,000 Natives there. Those Natives are starving and are living on prickly pear. They cannot buy any mealies; the railway lorries come there once or twice every week with mealies, but the supplies are so small that not even half the hungry Natives can secure what they need. I hope the Minister will see to it that mealies are sent regularly to such areas so that the Natives need no longer suffer the privations and hardships which they are suffering today. One or two lorry loads of mealies are sent to those areas every week. The Commissioner himself gets small quantities of mealies. The Natives don’t leave the spot. They stay there for weeks, they sleep on the spot, just to have the opportunity of getting hold of a few mealies to enable them to live. But at the moment they live on prickly pear and roots. The position is not due to the fact of their having no money to buy mealies; the Commissioners say that they have the money, because every month they pay as much as £3,000 to the women whose men have joined up. They have the money but they cannot get the mealies. Now, maize has been produced, but where is it today? It is in the wrong hands and we cannot trace it so as to use it for those poor creatures who are starving. The trouble is that the Minister did not have complete control over the mealies. And what is the position in regard to the dairy farmer today? What is the position in regard to the poultry farmers? Everything is wrong simply because at the beginning of the season the Minister failed to exercise the control over this commodity as he should have done. I am very anxious that the Minister should do these two things—let him fix the price at 15s. per bag and let him hand over the control to the Co-operative Society—let him hand the mealies over to be controlled by the Co-operative Societies, and the Co-operative Societies will be able to look after things on behalf of the Minister.

I think it is desirable that I should reply to a few of the questions that have been put to me, so as to try and remove some of the misunderstandings that seem to prevail. The hon. member for Middelburg (Mr. Eosman) said that the difficulty arose at the beginning of the year because people were able freely to buy mealies. No, there was no such thing. In the month of April a Proclamation was issued stating that every man who wanted to buy mealies could only buy as an agent of the Mealie Control Board. The maize was controlled in such a manner, that people could not buy more than 25 bags, afterwards ten bags, and later on five bags. They were not allowed to sell to just anyone they pleased. Consequently the Mealie Control Board had control over the whole crop from the very start, so the hon. member was mistaken in what he said on that point. His whole argument was based on that point, and as I have said, that is where he is wrong. His second point was that we should fix the price of mealies at 15s. for the next season, and he said that if we did that, the farmers would clear more land and produce more, and if that were done we would get ample mealies. Well, the hon. member should not try to joke about this. I am convinced that if the farmers can do anything at all we shall have a very big crop. None of the new regulations which my hon. friends have been asking for will be required if the farmers can only produce as much as they want to produce. But if we get over this year, I anticipate a very much better position next year.

And then the difficulty will again be to sell the mealies.

I also want to reply to the question put by the hon. member for Klerksdorp (Mr. Jan Wilkens). He asked me what the price was going to be, whether it was going to be a minimum or a maximum price. My reply it that it is going to be a fixed price. Nobody will be allowed to sell a bag of mealies for less than 12s. 6d. without contravening the law.

Does that mean that the farmer is only going to get 12s. 6d

Is that not enough if there is a big crop? Of course, there are other questions too which will have to be gone into at a later stage; questions such as the cost of storage, and the cost of drying, which will have to be added. But the definite price which the farmer will be able to expect for mealies will be 12s. 6d. per bag as from the 1st May. The hon. member for Somerset (Mr. Vosloo) asked me whether any mealies would be available for poultry. I thought if there was one thing I had made very clear, it was that we have no mealies for poultry or for other animals. In the very first place it is our duty to see to it that the people get food and that they do not starve. That is quite clear. Hon. members criticise me for having lent 200,000 bags of mealies to Rhodesia. I say again that this happened in December, 1941, and in the beginning of February, 1942. Although we started getting uneasy about the mealie crop there was no reason at that time to believe that the crop was going to be a very poor one. There was still a chance and I was still hoping that we would be able to supplement our crop by means of importation from elsewhere. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) also raised this matter and he raised it in connection with the question of bread. He asked: Why should we lend mealies to Rhodesia, while they are still eating white bread? I have made enquiries about this, and I received the following reply from Rhodesia:—

Anyhow, if the argument meant that I should have taken into account the fact that Rhodesia was eating white bread I can only say that at the time when they borrowed the mealies they were not eating white bread. Naturally, the argument is so weak that it is hardly necessary to reply to it. I had to deal with this matter on its merits, and if my judgment was wrong then I have to take the responsibility. The Rhodesian Government gave me the assurance that they would return the mealies this season—the season in which we are now.

And now they are not doing it.

As I have already told the Committee, we have made a book entry in respect of this transaction and they have to pay for those mealies at the price ruling at that time, and not later when the mealies may perhaps be cheaper. But I still have the right to demand the mealies now. But what is the use of demanding the mealies now, if they have not got it?

Have you asked for it?

I have repeatedly asked for it. I have not got the time to deal with the whole of the correspondence here at this stage, but we have made arrangements to get the mealies from Rhodesia, and Rhodesia has made arrangements to give it to us. They have done their best but they are in the position that they simply have not got it. They have also tried to borrow more from us but we have no mealies to give them. The hon. member for Smithfield (Mr. Fouche) asked whether if a man had borrowed mealies from his neighbour to make up his shortage he would have the right to sceure mealies to pay back his neighbour. My answer is “yes.” I shall ask the Mealie Board to take this into favourable consideration. I see no reason why they should not meet the case of a man like that.

†I think the hon. member for Transkei (Mr. Hemming) and the hon. member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger) have not quite grasped wat I tried to convey in connection with the matter of consumption. I did not have any idea of human consumption at the time. Hon. members will remember that I said that to our surprise and to everyone’s surprise the consumption was 22,000,000 bags. We could not account for that greatly increased consumption and it was most difficult to find out whether it was a large increase in human consumption, or a proportionately large increase in stock consumption. On account of the drought, our opinion was that it largely was that the increased consumption was due to the drought and that most of that increase in the consumption went to the stock. What I said was this, that because the price of maize had been fixed at the higher figure of 15s. farmers would probably think twice before paying that price for certain kinds of consumption. A man would pay 15s. for maize to keep his fowls but I doubt whether he would unless he wanted it very badly and unless the price of slaughter oxen had gone up very much. I doubt very much whether he would pay that price to feed his slaughter oxen. I doubt whether he would have paid that price to feed sheep, or to feed stud animals if he could possibly avoid it. Of course, we had no information on these points and could not get any. It was not a question of neglect but we could not get any information, so hon. members are quite wrong in arguing that it was unfair to fix the price high in order to reduce the consumption, for human beings, and particularly the poorer human beings. That was never in our minds.

You don’t know which way it is going to act.

Well, there was no question of that at the time, and I say again that we were quite correct in fixing the price at 15s. and even then the mealie farmers did not do too well at that price if you consider that their crop was about two-thirds of their normal crop. Now, in regard to the hon. member for Umlazi (Mr. Goldberg) let me tell him that we have already told the stock feeders how we would assist them. We are now experimenting in regard to feeding stock on potatoes, and we are even going so far as to put lower grades of wheat at the disposal of poultry and stock feeders. The hon. member for Griqualand East (Mr. Gilson) has asked me about the conference which he suggested. We held a conference. The manager of the Maize Board and Professor Leppan went to Kingwilliamstown and met the Civic Association and also representatives of the Transkeian Territories. We kept in touch with them on this matter but I don’t think they quite came up to scratch if my impression is correct. My Department said: “You tell us what you want.” I am not blaming them but they were not extremely practical or definite about their advice.

†*The hon. member for Ventersdorp (Col. Jacob Wilkens) put two questions to me in regard to the big crop which we expect to get, and the hon. member for Klerksdorp (Mr. Jan Wilkens) said that we should give the farmers 17s. 6d. for the mealies they still have. Even if we give them 17s. 6d. instead of 15s. I wonder whether we are going to get any more mealies.

Try it.

The hon. member seems to forget that unfortunately it is public money I am handling. I am quite convinced that the mealie farmers right throughout the country are not going to hold up the mealies they have over. The first reason is that they are going to get 15s. per bag instead of 12s. 6d. later on. The second reason is that they will do it because they know that by putting then’ mealies on the market they are helping the country at a time like the present. The hon. member for Ventersdorp made another suggestion. He can tell us a lot about mealies, because I know he is one of our best mealie farmers, and in addition he is a business man. He said that the farmers would get in their crops early if we gave them 17s. 6d. for their mealies. Well, I am prepared to consider that, but the information I have from all sides is that it is not necessary to do so. Whatever mealies can be brought in before the end of April will be brought in.

What about the moisture content?

As the farmers know that they are going to get 15s. for those mealies and afterwards 12s. 6d., they will get in their crops if they can sell their mealies before that time. Now the hon. member talks about moisture content. There is something in what he says, but there are reasons also which make his suggestion impossible to carry out. The hon. member knows that the grain elevators cannot take mealies containing a moisture content exceeding 12½ per cent. But I think that I am correct when I say that the mills cannot mill mealies the moisture content of which exceeds 16 per cent.

They can add dry mealies to that.

Yes, if we have dry mealies. We take all these factors into account. We expect that a certain quantity of mealies will be produced and will be available before the end of April. We expect that farmers who very sensibly held up their mealies until they were sure of the next crop will shortly release those mealies. Those people cannot be quite sure yet. We know that the month of February may produce certain difficulties. It is a difficult month, but none the less we can expect that they will shortly put their mealies on the market, and I think that they will be satisfied to get 15s. per bag. We know that we may then perhaps have dry mealies to add, so that we shall be able to mill the other mealies. We are expecting all those things, and that is why I have already said that I can give this Committee the assurance that there will be no famine in this country before the next crop comes in. Then the hon. member for Ventersdorp said that we should fix a special price for May. Well, I am afraid that if we have to fix a special price for May, and if we give the farmers 15s. or 17s. 6d., they will have cause to be dissatisfied if afterwards we fix the price at 12s. 6d. The hon. member is expecting too much. In May it will depend on conditions prevailing then, it will depend on the quantities of mealies coming in. It will depend on the dryness of the weather, and on the question of how soon we shall we able to thresh the grain. I have tried to deal with most of the points that have been raised, and I don’t think I am asking too much if I now ask the Committee to pass this Vote.

What about the 200,000 bags.

My hon. friend was not here when I dealt with that matter. I said that Rhodesia should have returned the mealies this season, but for reasons which I gave we made a book entry of the amount they have to pay. I still have the right to demand the return of those mealies, but I can give the hon. member the assurance that they will not be permitted to return the mealies to us when the prices come down.

The Minister of Agriculture referred on Friday last to the difficulties experienced by the dairy farmers, and I realise the difficult position in which the Minister is placed, but I do not think that he appreciates the difficulties experienced by the dairy farmers. The Minister said that they must endeavour to pull through during these few months. Those are the most difficult months, for the dairy farmers at any rate, in the Western Province and in the Cape Peninsula. If something is not done, then there will be a tremendous shortage of milk in the Cape Peninsula within a few months. I also want to point out to the Minister that once the production of milk has fallen, it is very difficult to adjust the position again. What is the Minister going to do? It is of no avail to say that the dairy farmers must see to it that they pull through. The Minister cannot dispose of this matter as easily as that. I think we have the right to come to the Minister and ask him that something be done. There is a lot of oat chaff, but it is lying on the farms unbound. There is no baling wire. Lucerne cannot be brought in owing to the lack of baling wire. The chaff rots, and the dairy farmers are struggling. I understand that oat chaff is supplementary, and it will not solve the difficulty. But I want to urge the Minister most strongly, where he says that the dairy farmers must see to it that they pull through, that his Department should find some means of meeting the dairy farmers.

We are kindly disposed towards them.

Yes, but I hope that we will get something more substantial. We appreciate the Government’s benevolence, but it does not take us any further unless there are deeds too. Then there is the question of the position obtaining in the potato market. Last week we paid a visit to the market, and I think the Minister ought to know what the position is there. The Cape Town market, from one end to the other, is loaded with potatoes. Even those portions which are intended for fruit, are filled with potatoes, and the buyers and coloured boys stand on the potatoes. What a nice place to stand on! But the position is very serious. I know that last week a consignment of potatoes was sold at 2s. 6d. per bag. Those bags cost the farmer 11d. each; the railage is 10d. and when it is off-loaded at the market it will cost a further 2d. After 24 hours, 1d. per bag is added in respect of storage, and then there is still the commission of the agent. I want to leave it to the Minister to work out what the farmer gets for that product. What does the poor producer get for his potatoes?

And in Cape Town potatoes are sold at 1s. for 7 lbs.

Yes, the consumer has to pay 1s. for 7 lbs. I just want to say this, the Minister and his Department encouraged the farmer to plant and to sow, and he did so even in unfavourable circumstances. It will not avail the Minister to say now that his position is a difficult one. If the Minister wants us to pay attention to his recommendations in the future, then he must do something now. When difficulties arise, possibly difficulties over which the Minister has no control, he must not say that he is kindly disposed, and then do nothing. The Minister cannot shift that responsibility from his shoulders. He cannot say today that the farmers must produce and tomorrow that the producers must see to it that they make ends meet. Then there is another matter which I want to bring to the notice of the Minister. I feel that I would be lacking in my duty if I did not protest against the Minister’s action in connection with the apricot crop.

That has nothing to do with this

Then I shall get an opportunity later on of saying what I have to say, but I hope that the Minister will not overlook these two matters which I have touched upon. The Minister says that the position is a difficult one. We know that it is difficult, but we expect him to do something, because if he does not do anything he must expect an even greater mess than that in which we find ourselves now. Then he must expect an even greater state of disorder to arise in our markets, and he will also find that there will be a tremendous shortage in connection with dairy products.

Due to favourable circumstances and contrary to conditions elsewhere last year, the Native on the Lower South Coast of Natal had a very favourable crop. Knowing this, a storekeeper on his own behalf, and that of others, applied to the Mealie Control Board for registration to enable them to buy the surplus. The Board informed him that as he had not been registered in 1941, he would not be registered in 1942. The Farmers Association on the Lower South Coast asked me to intervene with the Mealie Control Board and they pointed out to me that if they were not allowed to trade, the Natives would use the mealies for drink or pit them and the first copious rains would spoil them for human consumption. Representations were made, and the Board replied that these were the facts, but that they had reviewed the position and would now send down forms for registration. In the meantime the rains came, and the Natives had quantities of mealies which they could not dispose of. The storekeepers held a meeting and decided that there was then no object in registering. The result was that about 1,000 bags of mealies were absolutely lost to the country. Two thousand bags is the quantity of mealies computed as absolutely lost. I think the Minister will agree with me that the fact that these storekeepers were not registered as dealers in 1941 is no reason why they should not have been registered in 1942. I have sufficient faith in the good sense of the Minister to feel that he can assure me that such a position will not be allowed to arise again. Now, Mr. Chairman, I understand that the Minister has sent a thousand bags of mealies to the Native territories. I wonder if the Mealie Control Board realises the density of the population in Natal. In my own constituency I have four magisterial divisions with 200,000 Natives, and just before I came down here Natives were going from store to store with money in their hands trying to buy mealies and were told that there were none. Two days prior to my departure for Cape Town I was approached to find out whether I could refer the mother superior of a convent only three miles from where I live, to where she could obtain mealies or mealie meal for her Natives, because there was none available. That was only a fortnight ago. I would like to know from the Minister whether any steps are being taken to see that mealies and mealie products are supplied for purchase by Natives in my constituency. There is a very serious aspect of this state of affairs. I am assured by people who should know that the Natives do not know anything about the Mealie Control Board, they do not know anything about the Food Controller, and they are not concerned with anybody but the Government. They are blaming the Government for starving them, and keeping them short of food. Natives in that condition are an easy mark for those who wish to stir up trouble, and from this point of view alone I would ask the Minister to ensure that there is no shortage of mealie products on the South Coast of Natal.

We have heard a great deal about the difficulties of the dairy farmers and of the poultry farmers. I also experience these difficulties. The Minister explained that there would be no mealies for the dairy farmers or the poultry farmers, but that there would only be mealies for Europeans and natives. But on a previous occasion I asked the Minister to allow us, instead of using mealies for our pig-farming, which is on a fairly extensive scale in Lydenburg, to buy barley. There is a big quantity of barley this year, especially in my district. The Minister told me that barley must be kept for the beer breweries. I have now received a letter from one of the big scale pig farmers in my constituency, and he asks whether beer is now regarded as better food than meat, bacon and ham. I agree with this person that it is much better to be able to obtain ham and eggs than it is to use barley for beer brewing. Barley can be used as a substitute for mealies, especially for pigs, even though it may not be quite as good. This friend of mine applied for 1,200 bags of barley, which is obtainable from the Lydenburg Co-operative Society, but the Food Controller would not permit this. This person is not asking for first-grade barley but for a grade which in any case cannot be used for beer brewing. It can only be used as cattle fodder, and I shall be glad if the Minister will tell me that we can get the inferior grade barley for big farming in my constituency. We have the barley with the Co-operative Society and the Minister need only give instructions that inferior barley may be delivered to these people through the Co-operative Society. Otherwise this extensive pig farming will be ruined. The pig farmers in my district send thousands and thousands of pigs to the market every year. The big cities will suffer if the Minister does not, grant this request. It is required now, and the Minister must not wait until April. We require it now so as to keep pig farminfg going.

I shall be very brief. After the crystal-clear statement on the part of the Minister, every section of the population knows where it stands. The dairy farmers know that as from the 1st February they can no longer obtain fodder.

Mealies.

Yes, I am referring to mealies. The same applies to the poultry farmers. On the other hand, we also know that there will be no famine. I realise, of course, that it is impossible for the Department of Agriculture or for anyone else to make such accurate calculations, that as soon as the available supplies are exhausted, the new supplies will flow into the elevators. That is impossible. The poultry farmers who cannot do without grain food are in great difficulties. The dairy farmer can still use lucerne and other things, and obtain it up to a certain point. In what way can we grant a little relief to the poultry farmers? The Minister of Agriculture spoke of substitutes which will be used wherever possible, and I want to express the hope that such substitutes will be made available in such a way that poultry farmers can obtain them easily. In view of the special circumstances, I want to suggest to the Minister that he should give the poultry farmers an opportunity of buying in the open market whatever is still available. I do this because I am convinced that there are still farmers and others in the country today who have more mealies on hand than they require for use until the new crop comes into the market, but who should be encouraged to some extent to place these mealies on the market. For that reason I hope that the Minister will comply with this request. Then there is just another point in regard to potatoes, to which reference was made. I do not want to go into the whole matter, but in view of the position which exists today with regard to potatoes, we may expect that when the winter sets in there will be a meagre crop. There is no incentive today to produce potatoes in view of the increased costs of production which always operate in winter. The winter crop is much dearer than the summer crop. I hope therefore that the Minister will suspend the operation of Regulation 3 of the War Measures Act for a few months so that farmers will be encouraged to produce. The increased costs are such that at the moment there is no incentive, at all to produce potatoes.

It is very clear to me that the control, in so far as mealies are concerned, is the cause of the sad state of affairs which exists today, but I want to draw attention to a few points specifically. In the first place it is bad policy to lend grain to a country which also runs the risk of being drought-stricken and which may not be able to return the grain in time. I think that was a very unwise policy to follow. The district which I represent, the biggest mealie district in the country, still has an abundant supply of mealies. The wholesalers and millers in that district have thousands of bags of mealies, but in other portions of the country there is a shortage of mealies. In the Northern Transvaal and in the Eastern Transvaal the Natives suffer want and they are starving. I have a statement here to the effect that in the Pretoria district, e.g., there are 600 Natives who are suffering a great deal and who are exposed to famine, whilst, in the neighbouring districts, the big millers and the Indian shops have an abundant supply of mealies. But what happens? Under this type of control which we have, the dealer or miller is allowed to sell 10 bags or 25 bags, but then he receives 18s. 6d. and 19s. 6d. per bag. Why would he then sell en masse? He prefers to keep the mealies and to sell them retail, when he gets 19s. 6d. per bag, because if he sells wholesale, he gets a much lower price. The Minister has now stated that there is a surplus of wheat, but nevertheless we find that 5 per cent. mealiemeal is added to bread. Why? Everything is controlled and marketed to a fine degree. One must add so much per cent. soya beans and so many lbs. of mealiemeal, so many lbs. of bran and so many lbs. of chaff. Everything is controlled precisely, and then the price of mealies is fixed at 12s. 6d., the price of A.l. wheat at 30s. and the price of bread at 6½d. Why is everything not controlled and controlled properly? In this connection I just want to refer in passing to the potato position. Under control, a maximum price of £1 5s. has been fixed, but no minimum price has been fixed. To my surprise, I had to learn today that the Minister is negotiating with the Re-united Party, and the party was apparently a sort of Mealie Controller, and fixed the price at 12s. 6d. Now I want to ask whether the Re-united Party was also responsible for the poor price of potatoes? Did they determine that also? The mealie farmers in my constituency are not satisfied with the reduction in the price of mealies from 15s. to 12s. 6d. The costs of production have increased; the price of bags, of implements, of oil, petrol, paraffin, and all these things are more expensive, and the price of 12s. 6d. is not a satisfactory price to the farmer. I want to ask the Minister to consider the question of maintaining the price at 15s. There will be sufficient mealies and the problem will then be solved. The mealie crop promises to be a fairly good one. As a result of the encouragement given to potato farmers, production has increased and today we have a record potato crop, but the farmers are now running the risk of suffering great losses because the price has fallen to such an extent. The farmers have to pay approximately £1 5s. for seed potatoes. The bags are much dearer; it costs them about £20 per morgen for seed and miscellaneous items. Manure costs £10 7s. 6d. per ton, and labour etc., amounts to £35 per morgen for the production of potatoes. As against that, the crops are somewhat poorer because the seed is poorer, because seed cannot be imported, or it can only be imported on a small scale, and the new crop is therefore somewhat poorer. If then, a person receives 100 bags per morgen, and he only gets 4s. or 5s. per bag, then he can scarcely cover his costs of production. We are not working for love and fresh air. The Minister threatens us with an election. Big-scale potato farmers, like Lazarus who produces 200,000 bags, and who is known to the Minister, is wishing today that Rommel would return to Egypt, so that the English fleet cannot pass through the Mediterranean and convoys can again pass the Cape, so that they can obtain a better price for their potatoes. Since everything is under control, I strongly urge that a minimum price should also be fixed in respect of potatoes; say, 15s. for grade 1; 12s. 6d„ say, for grade 2; 10s. for grade 3 and 7s. 6d. for grade 4. But today the price may fall as low as 1s., because there is no minimum. Today the consumer still pays 1s. for 7 lbs., which works out at £1 1s. 6d. per bag, but the farmer only gets 4s. or 5s. per bag. Who gets the big profit representing the difference between the price the producer gets and the price the consumer pays? There should be no speculation in foodstuffs. It should be a criminal offence. I have evidence here, and I can show it to the Minister, which shows that a potato farmer in the Delmas area in the Witbank district, recently sent 53 bags National Mark Grade 1 potatoes to Benoni, and he received a cheque for £11. This is an untenable position and the farmers cannot carry on with their farming in this way. I hope that these few suggestions will appeal to the Minister and that he will see his way clear to save the farmers from the critical position in which they find themselves. Let the Minister immediately fix fair minimum prices in respect of potatoes and protect the consumers so that they will not be required to pay too much. Let the Minister also restore the price of mealies to 15s. for the current season. I want to tell the Minister that the crop will not be reaped before late in April. Everything depends on weather and climatic conditions, but if the Minister restores the price to the pervious level and abolishes the levy, the mealies can be put on the market earlier, because then it will justify the extra costs involved. It is difficult to reap wet mealies, but if the Minister increases the price, it will be worth while. Then the mealies will be put on the market earlier.

It was in March of last year that the Food Controller was appointed. He then had no staff at his disposal, and he called upon the Department of Agriculture and the Meale Control Board to help him in the very difficult job he had to do. Considering that we have been at war for three and a half years, also remembering that we, today, are feeding an increased population, and have supplied numerous convoys with extra food, the Minister is to be congratulated on some of the work that he has done. I am not going to congratulate him fully on the staff that he has employed. We are not today nearly as short of food as other nations that have been in this war, and that is largely due to the splendid way that our farmers have produced food, those farmers who are so often maligned by people who know nothing about them, and who say that they are always being spoon-fed. Those farmers have done the job this time, and we owe them a debt of gratitude.

[inaudible.]

The hon. member behind me talks about subsidies, but he will always do that. He should talk about a fair wage for a fair day’s work, and that is what the farmers are asking for. The Minister has used the Mealie Control Board to help him in his distribution. That Board has in the past dealt with surpluses, their whole experience has been of surplus production and trying to get a reasonable price when the country has produced more than it requires. Now, all of a sudden, they have been called upon to deal with distribution under different circumstances, and I would respectfully suggest to the Minister that when he has to deal with distribution again, especially when there is a shortage, he will employ business men who have been accustomed to distribute goods, to advise him and help him in this work. When I saw the Mealie Control Board last month—I think I saw them every month last year—they told me they have been getting 3,000 letters some days. There should be no necessity for getting that number of letters, either complaints, applications or enquiries. Any business concern doing the same job would have seen that they got nothing like that number of letters. What I would like to see in this Department and in any other Department is more business in Government and a little less Government in business. There is one unfortunate drawback to the present method, and I believe the Mealie Control Board is responsible, at least they are aggravating the position—they are gradually eliminating the small man. I went into some figures during the month of December, and I think it will astonish the House to hear that at that time in Northern Natal the total profit that the small distributor could make on selling a bag of mealies was 2d. per bag. At the same time the miller was getting 1s. 10d. per bag in the same area. We know that we must conserve food, but can you blame the trader in the Native areas if he prefers selling mealie meal, on which he gets a larger profit? In the early stages of this year the big millers got their permits immediately, at all events in the districts that I know about, while those of the smaller distributors were delayed, the result being an extra help for the bigger distributors and the larger millers. Then the Mealie Control Board does not deal with letters or telegrams. I have here an example, and I have many more. Here is one that really amuses me. In October last year a farmer in my constituency wrote for permission to buy four bags of mealies, two for seed and two for his own use. About the 10th December he got a letter from the Control Board to say that he had to fill in certain applications before a Commissioner of Oaths. He then wrote to me and said he was fifteen miles away from a Commissioner of Oaths and that he had waited from early October till mid-December to get this reply, and that now he would have to send back these application forms duly filled in. I immediately wrote to the Control Board and asked them to wire down or help this man in some way or other. Now I have a letter here dated 15th January, 1943, which reads:

My friend the farmer will have to wait for next year before he can get mealies to plant this year. I wish to draw the attention of the Minister to what is written by the Mealie Control Board, and I do trust that in future the Minister will use people who have the necessary experience at the job, to do the job that he has in hand.

Mr. Chairman, the length of this debate is by no means out of proportion to its importance since the Minister whose Vote we are discussing has absolute powers over the supply of the necessaries of life of the people. The Minister of Agriculture, in the statement he made, said the hon. member for Transkei (Mr. Hemming) and the member for Cape Eastern (Mrs. Ballinger) had misunderstood his previous statement in relation to the shortage of maize in the Native areas, but his explanation of the way this problem has been handled has given us a fresh shock when we thought we had had all the shocks that could be got out of the situation. What does the statement of the Minister mean? Before the war 16,000,000 bags was the normal consumption of the country, and this has now risen to 22,000,000 bags. All that was needed was to create machinery by which the available supply could be distributed on the basis of pre-war consumption having regard to the fact that human needs must first be met. The Minister recognised that human needs must come first. That was a perfectly controllable situation. How did he deal with that situation, or rather how did his Department deal with it? Machinery was not set up assuring that human needs must first be satisfied, but the price was raised in the hope that mealies would not be used for animal consumption. That is the Minister’s statement. I cannot conceive of a thing like petrol being treated in that way, the price being raised in the hope that military requirements would take precedence over other requirements. The Minister assured us that there would be no further shortage, but I want to urge the necessity of controlling supplies in relation to the people’s needs in some other way than by raising the price. That is the point we want to get home, that the necessary machinery must be created. It is not reasonable in my submission now that this situation has been created, to expect the Native Affairs Department in the Native areas to take over the sole distribution of maize. In the past the Mealie Control Board has always insisted that it must have control all over the country. There have been differences of opinion on that, but that is the attitude that has been taken up, and it is unfair at this stage when there is a shortage to say that the Native Affairs Department must take control. As a matter of fact there are areas where the Native Affairs Department has provided the necessary machinery, but as the Secretary for Native Affairs told the Natives’ Representative Council, his Department could not deal with the matter on a comprehensive scale, and the responsibility rests with the Minister. As a matter of fact the shortage was not something which the Department has not foreseen. In the annual report of the Secretary for Agriculture for the year ended 31st August, 1941, the Secretary for Agriculture remarked on the way in which the consumption of maize was rising. He says this:

As a matter of fact the Minister told us that it had gone up to 22,000,000 bags. And then the Secretary goes on—

I should think it has! This season it has been turned into a serious shortage and apparently the only way thought of to deal with the situation, when we have the examples of other countries before us in regard to rationing, the only means thought of was to raise the price in the hope that that would divert consumption from animals to human beings.

Do you object to the farmer getting a decent price?

I am talking now of consumers’ prices. What producers’ prices the Minister fixes with my friends over there is a matter between the Minister and them. When it comes to fixing consumers’ prices, account must be taken of what the consumer can pay, and if there is any gap between what the consumer can pay and the price at which the farmer can produce, then it is the duty of the general taxpayer to make up the gap. The Minister seemed to think that we were attacking the price which was fixed for the producer. That is not the point. What we are concerned about is the price fixed for the consumer, and as I say, any gap should be made up by the general taxpayer. It does not seem to have struck the Department that they should have dealt with the matter in the way these matters are dealt with elsewhere through the medium of rationing, and we are demanding that definite machinery be provided to ensure that human needs take precedence over other needs.

I just want to ask the Minister, in view of the fact that the dairy farmers are experiencing very difficult times, to provide the lucerne farmers with baling wire. The people in my area cannot get their lucerne baled, and we know that lucerne is a fairly balanced ration. The Minister should enable the dairy farmers to make use of their lucerne. Then I also want to say that the time has arrived for us to ask the Minister to fix minimum prices. A case was cited here where potatoes were sold on the market at 2s. 6d. per bag. Does not a thing like that make the Minister’s policy seem absurd? It was on his advice that the farmers produced, and if the Minister does not make provision for minimum prices, then the farmer will realise that it does not pay him to produce. I have always been opposed to the fixation of maximum prices. If the maximum price is fixed and not the minimum price, then we find that the middle man takes all the profits. Here we have a case where potatoes were sold at 2s. 6d. per bag on the market, and the middle man lets the consumer pay 1s. for 7 lbs. That is a scandalous state of affairs. Why not fix a minimum price of 10s. per bag? The farmer will then know whether or not it will pay him to produce potatoes. I cannot understand why the Government does not do so. If the Government really intends protecting the farmer, then be should definitely be protected in every respect. An attack has been made on the Control Boards. The Control Boards did make mistakes, but let us admit that those Control Boards have also done good work in the past. There are certain people who, for their own purposes, want to kill the Control Boards. No, we on this side do not want to kill the Control Boards but we want to alter them so that the farmer will be the master of his own product, and so that the speculators and the middle man will not have the power to pocket all the profits which are made between the producer and the consumer. We are not really against the principle of control. We are in favour of control. But we say that it should be done on a different basis. We have no objection to the producer organising; nor do we object to the consumers organising. But it is in between those two bodies that the problem must be solved. All the middle men in between, all the agents who sit on the Boards, make it impossible for the farmer to control his product properly, and we say that the farmer should control his own product, without interference from the middle man. As long as we have such halfhearted control, we shall find no solution to our difficulties. The Transkeian members are always criticising the farmers in this House. We are told that the farmer gets too much for his products. But what have they done in their area? Look at the number of exploiters operating amongst the natives. They buy mealies from the natives at 5s. per bag, and later on the native has to buy it back at 20s. per bag. In that way the natives are exploited. They ought to organise so that they can get a fixed price, and the Government could assist them with warehouses. The whole fault lies in the composition of the Control Boards, and secondly, in lack of warehouses. This applies to the distribution. The great crime lies in maldistribution, and the sooner the Minister realises that, the better it will be for the country. At the moment the millers have the big warehouses. They buy up the mealies and even if the farmer gets a permit, they do not sell the mealies to him. The miller sells only the mealie product to the farmer, because he knows that the retailer sells the meal at 3s. per bucket, and he therefore gets 24s. per bag, while the mealies must be sold at 18s. per bag; it therefore suits him better to buy mealie meal. That is one of the defects. I have been told of cases where the person concerned has twelve natives, and he sends every one to buy a bag of mealies, and then he takes the mealies over from them again. The whole position is untenable for the consumer. It is wrong, and as long as we have the middle man who does everything in his power to smash the Control Boards, we will have to contend with these difficulties. The position would really be ridiculous, if it were not so serious from the point of view of the public. For that reason we say that we must reorganise the Control Boards. We must have warehouses in the various towns, where the agents of the Mealie Co-operative Society or of the Mealie Control Board can buy the mealies. If a farmer wants mealies he must be able to obtain it immediately, and it should not be necessary for him to wait ten or fourteen days for a permit. In the meantime his coloured labourers starve. He must be able to get the product as soon as possible. If that is done, you will see that the whole marketing system will work much better.

It should be clear to the Minister of Agriculture from the debate which has been conducted here, that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction in connection with the issue of mealie permits. It has been brought to his notice that cases frequently arise which savour of deliberate delay in issuing permits, because these permits are issued at such a late date that they are practically worthless. This dissatisfaction exists, however, not only in connection with the issue of permits, but there is also a good deal of dissatisfaction in connection with the division of rationing. I had the privilege recently of spending a holiday in the Karoo, where quite a good deal of stock is fed. I came into contact with the people, and I can give the Minister the assurance that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction at the delay. Now I should like to ask the Minister what arrangements have been made by his department in connection with the granting of permits. In the first place, is it not possible for the department to see to it that there is not so much delay? I realise, of course, that there are many administrative difficulties and that it is a huge organisation. But I nevertheless feel that something can be done in order to eliminate that delay as far as possible. In the second place, I want to put this question to the Minister: Have arrangements been made by his department to make provision on the application forms, requiring the person who applies for a permit to state for what purpose he is applying for the mealies, and what animals he proposes feeding? My information is that it is not asked whether the mealies in respect of which the permit is sought, will be used for pure-bred stock or whether it will be used for what we commonly call “kaffir cattle.” The Minister will have to agree with me that it is desirable to state clearly on the application form for what purpose the mealies will be used. He will also agree with me that it is more essential to make provision for stud cattle than for the ordinary cattle. A great deal of capital has been put into stud cattle, and it would be wrong to permit a person to feed trek oxen to the detriment of stud cattle. It is surely not reasonable to give the person who feeds stud cattle no greater claims to mealie rations than the person who feeds ordinary cattle. I take it that the Minister is aware of the fact that in Great Britain it has been stipulated that it shall be stated on the form whether the ration is to be used for purebred cattle or for ordinary cattle, and purebred cattle receive preference. I have a telegram here from someone in Colesberg. I want to tell the Minister immediately that this person is a supporter of the Government. I have often discussed the position with him, and he sent me the following telegram. In the first place, he complains of the delay and he says this:

In the second place, he wires as follows:

I hope the Minister will give his attention to this matter. This man further points out that an appeal is being made by the Government that people, instead of using motor cars, should make use of horses and mules. But how can the people make use of horses and mules if they cannot get the necessary fodder for those animals? Since the Government has made this appeal to the people, it ought to enable them to obtain the necessary fodder for their trek animals. This man also suggests a plan, and I should like to submit that plan to the Minister. Is is not possible to establish mealie depots in certain districts? A person in the Cape Province, e.g., who applies for mealies, frequently has to get those mealies sent over a long distance. And what happens now in a mealie district? The farmer sends his mealies away, and then another farmer who may require mealies, buys it, and then it is transported back. I therefore want to ask whether it is not possible to establish mealie depots in central districts. It will then be easier to obtain grain in the same district. It will save time and also rail transport. I rose in order to submit these few suggestions to the Minister. These are matters which are generally discussed in the country, and I feel convinced that the Minister will give them his sympathetic consideration, and if he does that, he will succeed in removing a good deal of dissatisfaction.

It is very much against my wish that I have to get up here again, but I want to assure the Minister and the Committee that I shall only detain them for a few minutes. The Minister said something in his speech which I cannot allow to pass, namely, that he intends fixing the price for the next mealie crop at 12s. 6d. per bag. Now, I say that I would not be doing my duty to my constituency if I did not get up here to urge the Minister in the most courteous and at the same time most emphatic manner to keep the price of mealies at 15s. per bag, and I do so for this reason. It is a very reasonable price. Our mealie farmers did get 15s. last year but the Minister knows that we had practically no crop. The great majority of the mealie farmers were not even able to cover their expenses out of this 15s. There is not a single class of farmer who for so many years has lived on such a narrow margin between profit and loss as the mealie farmer has. For that reason I feel that members on all sides of the House will agree with me when I urgently request the Minister to give this question his serious attention and to see to it that the mealie farmers, now that we are in a time of war, and now that he has encouraged the farmers to produce sufficient food, are not left in the lurch. I say that it would be ridiculous if it were not so tragic. Let any hon. member take 15s., put it in his pocket and go to one of the shops here in Cape Town and see how much he can get for his 15s. I have not got the time now to explain to the Minister the extent to which the farmers’ costs of production have gone up. I only have time to show him that fertilisers have gone up by 50 per cent. I want to show him that all other costs have gone up, but this is not the time for me to go into details. The fact remains that at 15s. per bag—and I can assure the Minister that I am stating facts—the farmers are just as badly off as when the price was 8s. 6d. in normal times. Our mealie farmers don’t want to ask for anything that is impossible. The Minister will admit that if he had not applied his control measures last year we would have got £2 and £3 per bag for the few bags of mealies which we produced. That is a fact. But I want to be reasonable and I want to assist the Minister. I got up in this House on Friday afternoon and defended the Minister’s system of control against his own supporters who had started an agitation in order to destroy control, because there are certain sections in this country who reap the greatest benefits when the chaos is at its greatest. We realise that we must help the Minister, and I shall help him; but let the Minister satisfy the mealie farmers and let him fix a reasonable price. A price of 12s. 6d. per bag, however, is murder so far as the mealie farmers are concerned. I know that the Minister’s own conscience and his good feeling will make him realise, as time goes on, that the position is as I have stated it to be. I want to ask the Minister to do the right thing, and not to leave the mealie farmers in the lurch, but to appreciate the services they have rendered in years of low prices and now to give them a reasonable price.

I wish to deal with a feature of the work of the Minister of Agriculture in connection with the control of maize. I want to say that the almost unlimited power which has been conferred on the Mealie Control Board seems to have gone to their heads and to have induced them to take up a policy which has antagonised the farmers against the Minister’s department. That is the most unfortunate side of the work of the Mealie Control Board. I say that without fear of contradiction because there is no doubt that there is a tendency to blame the Minister of Agriculture for the bad work which has been done by the Mealie Control Board. Today my attention was drawn to a letter in a farming journal in Natal in which the Minister is denounced for the decision which he recently announced not to issue any further maize except for human consumption, and this House may judge of the attitude produced among prominent farmers by this announcement when I read a letter which has been sent to me. The writer of this letter is not an irresponsible man. He is a man of considerable substance living in the Midlands of Natal who has constantly, through his Association and through the Farmers’ Organisations and the Dairy Farmers’ Union in Natal represented the views of the farmers with as much force as it has been possible, to the Minister of Agriculture himself. And yet we have a letter which he has written and which is published in “The Farmer”, a weekly journal circulated in Natal, with great prominence. The heading is “Col. Collins Must Go.” This is what it says:

The cause of all this has been the manner in which the Mealie Control Board has ridden rough shod over the producers of this country. The Board were given almost unlimited power as far back as 1939 and they have used these powers to oppress the farmer, to make the farmer feel that every right he possessed over his own produce has gone by the board. The Mealie Control Board has declared that the farmer may sell to no one but the Mealie Control Board. They have declared that no one may buy unless he is registered, and they have laid down certain conditions which the Mealie Control Board is to judge of and no one else. This complete autocracy has led to an attitude towards the farmer which has caused the greatest possible resentment. And what has the farmer to suffer? He has to suffer visits from officials belonging to the Department of Agriculture, to enquire what maize the economic farmer, the frugal farmer, has kept for the purpose of feeding his stock, and I ask the Minister to say whether these visits are authorised by him. The Principal of the Agricultural College at Cedara—is at present engaged in a tour enquiring from the farmers what their stocks are. The farmers at this moment fear that their maize will be taken from them; the frugal farmer fears that his maize will be taken and given to others, not so frugal,—but chiefly because favouritism exists in the direction of the Mealie Control Board. They have no confidence in the Maize Control Board, they fear that that Board is dominated by influences that are subversive to the Government, and subversive to the solid interests of the farmers. They feel that as far as the Province of Natal is concerned, they have nothing but harm to receive from the Control Board, and they appeal to the Minister not to proceed with this policy of endeavouring to find out by the various means that are being employed, what crops are held by the farmer with the object of commandeering such stock as the farmer has never wished to sell to other persons. There has been no effort on the part of the Mealie Control Board to regulate the feeding of stock so as to economise. I have been approached by a man in my constituency to know whether the policy of the Board is aimed at robbing the Natal farmers of their supplies for the benefit of others, and I desire to have a reply from the Minister. [Time limit.]

I put a few questions to the Minister and if the Minister refuses to reply I shall be compelled to speak again. I have received a telegram in which I am asked what the Minister intends doing in regard to the issue of permits. The Minister does not even consider it worth his while replying to this question. It is not surprising that even his own people want to move a vote of no confidence in him. I feel that the very least the Minister can do is to tell us what his policy is. I asked the Minister whether permits were being issued at random and the hon. member for Illovo (Mr. Marwick) has now put the same question to the Minister. If the Minister knew whom this telegram came from he would take very careful note of it. This telegram comes from one of the most prominent farmers in Colesberg.

Nobody is going to get a permit.

I was in process of showing the bitter fruits of the work of the Mealie Control Board. The Board have succeeded in antagonising the most conservative people in Natal against the Government, men who have behind them generations of loyal support of the Government, and in particular of the Right Hon. the Prime Minister. Today, Sir, they have been driven to desperation by the attitude adopted by this precious Board. The Board, Sir, has antagonised the most patient, the most industrious people, who are dependent upon the Minister’s Department and the Minister’s efforts to increase the production of this country. They have arrived at the conclusion that nothing but harm is being worked against the interests of those who have long hoped that there would be a change of the policy of this Board. They have abandoned all hope, and they are now attacking the Minister because they feel that his protection of the farmer has been insufficient. I recently drew the attention of the Minister of Agriculture to the fact that while the farmers in Natal were being encouraged to produce to supply the convoys in Durban from time to time, and the port of Durban generally, the Department of the Food Controller took upon itself to issue an order to the Ship Chandlers of Durban forbidding them to buy products from the farmers direct, and requiring them to buy through one channel only, and that channel the Government pre-cooling plant at Durban. The farmers were given only one day’s notice of the fact that by a stroke of the pen their rights to sell to the convoys had been handed over to the Department of Irrigation. The Department of Irrigation (Pongolo settlement) has been allowed unlimited fertiliser, while the rest of the farmers were limited in their supply, and they were also allowed road transport for 30 miles and back where the farmer had to supply his own. And finally an order was issued by the Department of the Food Controller that ship chandlers were to buy from one channel only. And not only that, but the men who have been growing products for the canning factories run by Crosbie and Lowen were told that supplies for that factory must now be obtained from the Department of Irrigation—they were given one day’s notice of the termination of their market. These men have spent considerable money in irrigation plants, and they were given one day’s notice of the loss of their market. I have written to the Minister about this matter. There is strong resentment by the farmers over their treatment at a time when the Department of the Food Controller was urging the production of more food. They were being enjoined by the Food Controller to go on producing when their market had been given to the Department of Irrigation to the disadvantage of the farmers. What I want to know is whether Parliament has ever approved of the policy by which a government department can be given a monopoly of markets to the disadvantage of the farmer. I have never heard of such a policy, and I maintain that it is a wrong policy. Letters were written showing that the ship chandlers were enjoined to buy through one channel at prices fixed to cover the cost of employing the Italian prisoners who were introduced by the Department of Irrigation. It is a very serious matter, Sir, and it is among the reasons that have weakened the faith of the farmers in this campaign for growing more food. There is a very grave want of confidence in those who have been responsible for this position, and I hope the Minister, for whom I have the greatest respect, and whose regime I look to for improvement, will tell us what the position is going to be. Are we to see our markets taken away by the Department of Irrigation, or are we to be encouraged with some confidence to produce in the certainty that we shall have access to the most profitable market in Durban.

We have arranged with the Minister that we would stop discussing this matter at a certain time, but unfortunately members opposite are now getting up, the one after the other, and the debate goes on. In those circumstances we cannot stick to the arrangement that was come to, and we shall have to let the debate go on. It is no use our carrying out the arrangement if hon. members opposite do not do so. There is one matter which I want to bring to the Minister’s notice in regard to the control of meat prices. Last year when the price of meat went up the Minister saw fit to interfere. I assume—and that is what the Minister’s Department says—that he interfered because he did not want the price of meat to rise unduly, and he did not want consumers to have to pay too much. I think the Minister will agree with me that what he started to do turned out to be a hopeless farce. The prices which the consumer today has to pay for his meat are the same as they used to be. I do not think the Minister can say that the price of meat has gone down. If he thought that by interfering in the price of meat he was going to stabilise the price, then his efforts have turned out to be a hopeless farce. All the Minister has succeeded in doing has been to make things more difficult for the small butcher and the consumer has not benefited in any way, while the farmer has suffered enormously. The Minister has caused the farmer to suffer unnecessary losses as a result of the grading system which has been introduced. We on this side of the House are in favour of a general system of State control of meat prices, but the Minister has now stepped in—and as the coloured man would say, he has only come to interfere, and nobody has benefited in any way from his interference. I want to give the Minister a few instances to show what has happened as a result of this grading system. When the prices were fixed he also introduced the grading system. If the hon. the Minister will take the trouble to visit one of the markets he will see that his officials grade according to the build of the sheep or the ox, and that they base their conclusions on the question of how fat an animal is. They tell you that the animal must not be too fat nor too thin, but the animal’s build must also comply with certain requirements. Hon. members will see therefore that the Afrikaner sheep as a result could not be put into grade 1 at all. I understood that certain changes have been introduced so that an Afrikaner sheep can now come into grade 1. Now I want to ask the Minister why he allows this system of State grading to take place on the export basis, seeing that we are not exporting at all today? If the Minister had the idea of stabilising prices then his efforts have been a total failure. The price of oxen on the Johannesburg market was 78s. per 100 lbs. weight for prime. Let me mention one instance of a farmer from the Calvinia District who sent away 400 sheep. He sent 200 to the Johannesburg market and 200 to the Pretoria market. On the Pretoria market, where they go in for grading, that man got 17s. less for his sheep. My neighbour in Calvinia did the same thing. He sent one lot to Johannesburg and another lot to Pretoria, and he got 13s. less on the Pretoria market. This interference by the Government has turned out to be a farce. Now the Minister comes here and tells us that if he is unable to stabilise the market he is going to fix maximum prices. That is why I have got up to lodge my protest in advance. In this agricultural paper, “Farming in South Africa,” which is published by the Government, the Government intimates that it is going to fix maximum prices for meat. Hasn’t the Minister seen what happened on the potato market? Why cannot the Minister place potatoes under complete Government control, so that farmers will be able to get fixed prices, and the retail dealer will be able to get fixed prices, and the consumer will buy at fixed prices? After that he can come along with the grading system. I want to say with all due deference that there are people in the office of the Department of Marketing and Economics who entirely agree with me on this question of State control. But the Minister is afraid of the wholesaler, of the big trader—he is afraid of the Jews. Those wholesale traders are a hundred per cent. Jews. They object, and now the Minister has introduced this unsound system of State interference. Some farmers now say that they don’t want any State control, because the Minister had introduced a half-baked thing which he calls State control. We on this side of the House protest in advance and we ask the Minister not to fix maximum prices in respect of the meat industry, as he has done in regard to potatoes. If he wants to do something let him do what he has done in respect of wheat and wool and bring everything under State control so that the wholesale dealers can be cut out entirely. I want to know from the Minister whether it is his intention to fix maximum prices for meat.

We on this side of the House are in a very difficult position because no details are given as to the items on which this amount is going to be spent. We have already protested against the amount of £3,500.00 and we cannot allow this vote to pass unchallenged unless the Minister makes a fairly clear statement. I realise that it is very difficult to make a statement on every item, but so far as our information goes things are done in a most reckless manner in the Department of Defence. I told the Rt. Hon. the Minister of Defence last year that I thought there was something wrong with the Organisation. Let me give an instance. The First Brigade with the mounted men was sent to Piet Retief and all the fodder in the Cape was sent to Piet Retief. Shortly afterwards the First Brigade was sent to Ladysmith. Stables were erected costing £58,000 but now the horses have been sent to Vaal Hartz. I don’t know whether they have been sent there to compete with the farmer. I notice that those 6,000 horses cost £107,000 and those horses are now being sold for £15, £20 and £25. We had enough scandal in regard to the purchase of horses in 1915, and that is why I want to issue a word of warning in good time now. In spite of the fact that horses are now being sold at Vaal Hartz—and the best horses will, of course, be sold for £25, and the other horses for less—according to the return which I have before me the best horses have been sold for £18, and if that is so hon. members can reckon out for themselves what the prices of the other horses would be. But it seems to me that it does not end there. I understand that other horses are being bought now for one of the brigades. I am speaking subject to correction but I understand that other horses are now being bought. It seems strange to me that a brigade should be moved from one place to another, and that the horses should be sent to Vaal Hartz where they are sold at a loss. We are now asked to vote £12,500,000 for Defence, and I want to ask the Minister to take the House into his confidence. We on this side have so far always tried to be reasonable. We tried this afternoon to be reasonable, and to keep the debate as brief as possible, but it was extended by hon. members on the other side of the House. I want to ask the Minister to take the House into his confidence and to tell us that that money is going to be spent in a proper manner, that the money will be spent in accordance with the policy announced by the Government—not in accordance with our policy, because we are opposed to this war as a whole, and we feel that it is unfair that the public, and that coming generations, will have to be taxed for this huge expenditure. I therefore want to express the hope that the Prime Minister will now avail himself of this opportunity to inform the House as to the whole position. We on this side of the House are compelled to criticise this vote. We are compelled to ask for the deletion of this £12,500,000. It would possibly curtail the debate if the Prime Minister could give us some information as to why this huge extra amount of £16,000,000 over and above last year’s £80,000,000 is now required. I am putting this question in all seriousness without blaming anyone. In regard to the purchase of horses it does appear to me that this transaction bears a similarity to the scandal which we had in 1915.

I wish to say very briefly that I feel that the question put by the hon. member is a reasonable one, and I shall very shortly reply to what he has asked. The Main Estimates make provision for all the various votes, under wide heads, under which this money is being spent. In these supplementary estimates before us the items are, of course, not given, but if the hon. member will look at the Main Estimates he will find a summary of the points and items there for which this money is asked. It is not possible now to say in regard to the £12,500,000 which we are now dealing with, what the money is being spent on, because this is supplementary to the Main Estimates.

Is it supplementary to last year’s estimates?

Yes, it is in connection with last year’s estimates. The hon. member will see that all the items are given under Defence. In regard to the question of horses, the hon. member knows what happened. It was first of all intended as explained in this House, to have a mounted division. Afterwards, it was found that a mounted division would no longer fit in with the present method of warfare, and it was decided to convert the mounted division into an armoured car division. As a result a large number of the horses which had been purchased became superfluous, and for some time the horses were kept at Ladysmith, Standerton and elsewhere, but the expense was so heavy that it was found that it would be much cheaper to take the horses to a place like Vaal Hartz where there is natural veld, and where they could be kept until such time as they could be sold or used. The majority of those horses are today at Vaal Hartz. They are being kept there until such time as we shall have found out in what way they can best be used, whether they can be used for war purposes or whether they are to be sold. The rumour which the hon. member has heard about other horses being purchased is not correct. We have enough horses. We have got the horses which were bought for this particular division and we shall decide later on what to do with them. A number of those horses are being sold to the British Government and they will be sent to India or to other parts of the world, but it will take some considerable time before we shall have got rid of all the horses.

If the Rt. Hon. the Minister of Defence would only tell the House that he does not know what this amount is being voted for we would be able to understand it. He has now referred us to last year’s Estimates. That is where we are to get our details from. The details for this particular amount are to be found there in broad outlines. He comes here now and asks the House to vote £12,500,000 in addition to the amount voted last year, and he tells us that the details were given last year. If that is so, then why is there any need to supply this amount? Parliament may just as well go home. We are just becoming a voting machine. The Minister asks for £12,500,000, yet he cannot give us any details, he refers us to last year’s Estimates. Hon. members who are here have not got last year’s Estimates before them because last year’s Estimates are not relevant.

They are.

The hon. the Minister does not even deign to read out the details which were supplied to us last year. He is treating the House with a contempt such as it has never been treated with before. The Minister when speaking in public always talks so much about dictators and people like that, but I have never seen a greater dictator than the Prime Minister himself. With his slavish majority behind him he simply asks Parliament to vote £12,500,000 without giving us any details. From public platforms the Minister always holds forth against dictators and dictatorships. In the British House of Lords he was applauded when he used such big words about democracy, but in this House we see very little evidence of his respect for democracy. All we see here is a dictatorship. I only want to tell him that he will make things very much easier for himself and others if he deigns to give us a little more information. In the past, if a Minister asked for £2,000,000 for defence it used to take hours to inform the House of the purposes for which the money was needed. Every small detail was gone into. But here we are simply asked to vote an additional amount of £12,500,000 and the Minister refers us to last year’s Estimates and tells us that we can get the details there.

This is a time of war.

So Parliament can just be pushed aside because there is a war on? If that is so what are we doing here? Of course, the hon. member for Kimberley District will say “Yes” and “Amen” to anything the Prime Minister proposes. He has become such a slavish follower of the Prime Minister’s that he has surrendered his independence completely. We have not done so yet. We represent our constituents here and we have not yet become so slavish as to say “Yes’ and “Amen” to everything.

I did not get scared of Hitler when you got scared.

The hon. member is so scared that he dare not say a word. He simply votes as the Prime Minister tells him to vote, but that is his business. We ask for details and particulars and we have no intention of becoming a voting machine. The Minister will considerably facilitate matters by getting off his pedestal and getting a little bit nearer the floor of this House and by treating us like human beings and giving us some information. He is always talking about his great sense of responsibility. If he has such a sense of responsibility and if he has to account for what he does, we equally have to account for our doings, we have to account to our constituents, and it is our duty to enquire into the particulars before voting for this amount. We want to know how the money is going to be spent. When the Prime Minister goes into the country he says that the home front here in Parliament helps him to get these amounts passed, but he forgets that the House does not consist only of members on his side, but also of members of this side of the floor, and we are just as much part of this House as the other side is. We also have to account to the country and I make the request to the Minister to give us particulars of this amount he is asking for, and to tell us why this large amount has to be voted. He should not simply ask us to vote the money.

There has always up to now been a certain standard of honesty and decency in this House. In the past we have always been accustomed, when getting a reply to a question, or when getting information from one of the members of the Cabinet, to be able to accept the word of the individual giving us the information. There never was any suspicion in the past when a Minister replied to a question—there never was any suspicion as to the correctness of the facts given by the Minister. But what has happened here today? The hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) got up and asked the Prime Minister for particulars about expenditure incurred by the Department of Defence, and the reply which he got from the Prime Minister, as head of that Department, was “Look, I cannot give you the particulars in regard to this £12,000,000; it only constitutes an expansion, an extra amount of money in addition to the ordinary expenditure,” and he added that the details about the expenditure could be obtained under various heads in last year’s Estimates. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad thereupon, in an interjection, asked: “Are there details there, are the different headings mentioned?” and the Prime Minister’s reply was that those details were given last year under different headings under the Defence Vote.

I did not say that; I deny it.

The hon. member asked whether the particulars were given and the Prime Minister’s reply was that the details were given in last year’s Estimates.

That is so.

What are we to deduce from that? We have here a vote like Agriculture, which goes from page 78 to page 104, giving the various items falling under Agriculture, and those various items are sub-divided into sub-heads from A to N. The Prime Minister now wanted to create the impression, or at any rate he gave us the impression, that the expenditure of the Department of Defence last year appeared in the same manner under the various heads.

No.

But why did you refer us to last year’s estimates and why did you say that we would find the particulars there? The hon. member for Wolmaransstad asked a question in regard to the purchase of horses and the Minister’s reply was: “I cannot go into that and tell you how much money is being provided for the purchase of horses, but look at last year’s estimates where you will find the different headings under which these items of expenditure come.” Surely anyone must have got the impression that everything was specified there. In the past we never had any suspicions about a reply from a Minister not being correct. We always used to accept the Minister’s word without any suspicion, but what are we to think now? Let us see whether any particulars are given in last year’s estimates on the subject of Defence, and let us see how the exepnditure is specified there. These are the estimates to which the Minister of Defence referred us. I notice here “Contribution to War Expense Account £40,000,” and that is the end of it. There is no specification. Is the hon. member for Wolmaransstad able to see from that exactly how much has been spent on the purchase of donkeys—I would almost say how much is spent there in respect of the salaries of certain donkeys in the Department. I have no objection to the fact that no specified details are given. During a time of war it is perhaps not good policy but we do object to the contemptuous treatment of members of this House and to the Minister going out of his way to create the impression that the particulars are given, an impression which is quite incorrect.

Order! Order! The hon. member cannot say that the Minister of Defence has made a statement creating the impression which is incorrect.

It is not an impression which has been created which is incorrect, it is incorrect. Under the Standing Rules I am entitled to say that the Minister has said something which is untrue. I did not say that he did so deliberately. Whether it was done deliberately is a matter which I leave to the good sense of the House. But to treat the House in that way is nothing short of treating the House with contempt, and it tends to make the relationship which used to exist in the past between members of the House and members of the Cabinet, quite impossible—when one gets a Minister giving information one should be able to take it for granted that that information is bona fide. If a mistake was made in the past one could always take it for granted that the mistake was not one for which the Minister was responsible. Those days now seem to have passed, because the Prime Minister has given us information in such a manner that the House had to take it that the information was correct, whereas it was devoid of any truth. In future we shall not be able just to accept the Minister’s word.

We have had a very fine example of what the hon. member calls decency and courtesy. He distorts my words and gives a totally different turn to what I have said, and then he accused me, not covertly, but in clear terms, of having misled the House. I said that the amount of money I was asking for was supplementary to the amount which was voted last year on the Main Estimates, and in the Main Estimates the items were set out in broad lines, the items for which the £80,000,000 was voted last year. That was in the Main Estimates.

Show us.

We are dealing here with a supplementation of the Main Estimates. There are no specified items on this Vote, but this is supplementary to the Main Estimates. The amount which was voted last year was not sufficient, and it is now supplemented by another round sum. The Main Estimates of last year.

It only states there “Contributions to War Expenses Account.”

But the Estimates also state what the expense account was and what the items were. I shall read them out to the House. The hon. member has the Estimates before him and I thought that from his sense of decency he would have informed the House what the Estimates actually state. I shall read the items out for the convenience of the hon. member. “Salaries, wages and alowances, and all other expenditure of the Defence Civil Staff, Union Defence Forces and Cadets, Essential Services Protection Corps, and Civil and Military Staff on temporary service, ground, buildings and machinery; works, fortifications, vessels, aerodromes, aeroplanes, roads, guns, ammunition, rifle ranges, animals …” and then it goes on for another four or five lines. The whole round sum was £80,000,000, and that was the amount voted last year without it being possible to give any particulars of the different items. That is the way in which we voted our war account last year, and all that is now asked is, again without any specification, because I cannot give any further details, and nobody can give further details—all that is asked now is that the amount which we are short will be supplemented by £12,500,000. The details cannot be given. They are regarded as secret. They are submitted to the Auditor-General and the Auditor-General states that the specified account has been before him. I am unable to give the details.

I am not going to detain the House long but the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) asked for information in regard to a certain item and the Minister of Defence thereupon said: “I have not got the details here now but look at last year’s estimates, you will get the particulars there.” Now, what particulars do I find on the Main Estimates? I only find the round sum which is being spent and not the details. The Minister of Defence gave the impression that the expenditure was specified there, as it is on other votes.

No.

Why then did he say to the hon. member for Wolmaransstad, when the latter was discussing a particular item, “Look at the Main Estimates, you will be able to see it there?” Yet, if one looks at the estimates one finds only the round sum there. But the House was given the impression that we would find the particulars there.

I should like to get a little more information from the Minister of Defence about the prisoners of war. According to information I have received the value of our money, when it arrives overseas, is very much less than what it is here. It has been brought to my notice that people send money away from here, say for instance £15, and that in Italy only £5 is paid out. If that is the case will the Minister of Defence go into that question and see to it that our prisoners of war get full value. Why should they be made to suffer from the rate of exchange? Possibly in this amount of £12,500,000 there is also a sum to make up this difference. I don’t know whether I shall be allowed to speak about that now, but that possibly is an item coming under this.

The hon. member need have no fears on that score. We don’t have to vote any money for anything of that kind.

Then what is the Blue Oath? Does that perhaps also come under this?

No, nothing is being voted for that either here. In regard to the point the hon. member raised about the difference in the rate of exchange, the hon. member is under a misconception. We do not pay any money to our prisoners of war in Italy. The money which is due to them is kept for them in this country, consequently there can be no loss on money which is not paid to them. The money is kept here until they return.

I just want to ask the Minister whether he can give us an assurance that the requirements of the Auditor-General in regard to the auditing of the Accounts of the Department of Defence will be complied with. We are now engaged on voting £12,500,000, and the remarks made by the Auditor-General about the Department of Defence are of a very serious nature. He says this for instance—

And so there are further remarks right throughout the report. He says for instance—

That is not the fault of the Department of Defence.

And he goes further and he says this—

So there is one complaint after the other. Last year we voted large amounts of money and now we are again voting a large sum and yet we have this condition prevailing in regard to the Accounts. Mention is also made here of other matters, for instance there have been cases where too much has been paid and others where too little has been paid. It seems to me that the whole Department so far as the pay division is concerned is in a state of hopeless confusion. What is the Minister going to do to improve the financial control over his Department?

The hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) put a question to the Prime Minister in regard to mounted commandos which he established at the beginning of the campaign and which have now apparently been abolished again. I understand that a commando of that kind was stationed at Standerton, in the Prime Minister’s constituency, and that the mounted corps at Standerton consisted of coloured troops. I have here before me in my hands a photo of a memoral which was established in memory of the Ossewa Trek of 1938. In 1938 at the time of the Trek Afrikaner sentiment waxed greater in this country than ever before. On the occasion of the visit of the Ossewa Trek to Standerton a memorial consisting of white stones was erected at the side of a koppie near Standerton—the memorial was in the shape of an ox wagon. Here I have a photo of the coloured troops forming a V sign across the memorial of the Afrikaners of Standerton. I want to ask the Minister as the Parliamentary representative of Standerton, and as Minister of Defence, and as Prime Minister, whether he approves of this memorial of Afrikanerdom being deliberately desecrated in this manner. It is a serious insult. It would have been bad enough if it had been done by white troops, but those troops being coloured troops it is much worse still. It is a deliberate insult to Afrikanerdom, that they should form this English V sign over the Ossewa Monument.

Why do you call it the English V sign?

The hon. member has gone so far astray that he does not even know that the V sign originated in London. If the hon. member wants to embrace the V sign let him do so, but if he does so he does it solely in imitation of what the English do.

It stands for a Victory by South Africa.

There are two members of the old Nationalist Party and they are now front benchers of the S.A.P.S. Perhaps they will be proud one day to become members of this regiment. They give their approval to this insult to white Afrikanerdom.

We stand for the V.

No matter what comes from that corner of the House, I should like to know what the Prime Minister has to say about it.

Would you have liked to have seen the Swastika there?

Is Hitler going to win?

I don’t want Hitler there, but I want the Hottentots there even less.

Are you running away from Hitler now?

If I had run away from my principles I would be sitting next to the hon. member now. I am siting here because I have not run away from my principles. If hon. members approve of coloured troops forming the V sign across the memorial of Afrikaners then just let me tell them that Afrikanerdom will settle with them. But I have got no business with them—I want to deal with the Prime Minister. Is he going to take steps to see that these things do not happen again?

Who are the Afrikaners who are insulted? Are you a better Afrikaner than we are?

The hon. member for Calvinia (Dr. Steenkamp), who also used to be a Nationalist and who now sits over there, must not expect me to answer him any further.

Am I not allowed to speak?

Let the hon. member talk to his heart’s desire about bis wounds.

Were you wounded in South-West Africa?

I only want to ask the hon. member, if he should want to display his wounds, please not to do so in this House.

What did you do in South-West?

Because I understand that those wounds are in rather a funny place. I should like to know from the Prime Minister whether he approves of the insult done to the Afrikaans speaking people? How can he justify it? I also want to know something from him about the extradition of Holland subjects to the so-called Holland Government? How can the Prime Minister justify it? Those Hollanders have been extradited and practically, like slaves, dragged off with the consent of the Prime Minister. They came to South Africa with the consent of the Prime Minister and his Government; they did not come here as tourists, but they came here to become citizens of South Africa, and if they did not become citizens let him ask the Minister of the Interior why so many obstacles were placed in their way to prevent them from becoming naturalised.

Nonsense!

I can easily refer him to letters in my possession in which the Minister apologises for the fact that unnecessary obstacles had been placed in the way of the Hollanders.

They must have been Nazis.

They came to South Africa to make South Africa their Fatherland, just as our ancestors came to South Africa to make this their Fatherland. They did not come as temporary visitors with the intention of going back; they came here to settle permanently. They have been living here for a considerable time, but now they are taken by the scruff of their neck and extradited to the English Government. Meanwhile the Jews who have come to this country stay here and the English people stay here and they are not extradited to the English Government, but the Hollanders are handed over. And although the Jews who came into this country are not taken by the scruff of their neck and extradited, the Hollanders against their will are taken and handed over although they came to this country to become citizens of the country—they are sent overseas to fight for England. In certain cases the Prime Minister has been considerate. I am not dealing with those few cases where he took all circumstances into account and met those people. I want to express my thanks to him for having done so. I am dealing with the cases which came under the Prime Minister’s general rule, cases where he took people by the scruff of their neck and sent them out of the country against their will. He treated them practically like slaves. It makes one think of the old days of slavery. Those people were extradited to a Government which no longer had domicile in its own country, and it simply meant that they had to go and fight for England. [Time limit.]

I have taken the trouble to read, up to a certain point, the Auditor-General’s report, which deals particularly with the deficiencies and the extravagance of the Department of Defence, and I want to say this afternoon, Mr. Chairman, that anyone who, after having read this report, votes for the £12,500,000 which is being asked for, must be deprived of his senses to some extent. This wastage of money, especially in the Department of Defence, cries out to heaven. I want to mention one example out of many. The building contractor receives as his remuneration, a percentage on his expenditure, and then he adds to the building expenses the cost of telephone calls, so as to receive 5 per cent. or 10 per cent. on that item too. I say that anyone who, after having read the Auditor-General’s report, still votes for this £12,500,000, which is being asked for, must necessarily be abnormal. Then there is another matter which I want to bring to the notice of the hon. Minister of Defence and his department, and that is the camp which was erected—yes, erected in name only—where Italians are detained as prisoners-of-war to build the road to Du Toitskloof. Let me say most definitely that hitherto no malice has been evinced on the part of the Italians. But at the same time I want to say that in so far as the department is concerned, it has not taken steps to ensure control of any description. Shortly after they arrived there, representations were made to me that order could not be maintained and I took the trouble to go there and meet the controller. He reported to me that it was not possible to exercise control in the absence of a proper enclosure. I took the trouble to telegraph to the department, and I sent a lengthy telegram, which met with the approval of the neighbouring farmers. I want to say in parenthesis that the people in that area close to the camp are nearly all, without exception, supporters of the Government. They made a complaint, and I sent a lengthy telegram to the department in order to explain the position. I do not know what the reason was, because on other occasions I have always been treated differently, but up to the present I have received no reply. A few days ago another deputation came to me for the express purpose of discussing this matter, and the evidence was that up to the present not the slightest improvement has been brought about. There is no enclosure, and it is still impossible for the controller to exercise control. What is happening there now? I repeat that no malice is shown by the Italians. But they are walking about like a lot of school children, not only during the day but also at night—unfortunately during the night especially. I personally saw this at 11 o’clock last Saturday evening when I travelled from Drakenstein to Paarl. There were at least a hundred of them on the road. Three of them were walking in the direction of the camp, and the rest in the direction of the town. And now the people complain that every sigle hour of the night, these people walk about on their farms all over the place. They feel dissatisfied and uneasy. These are people who exercised discipline on their farms in the past, and now people are walking over their property day and night, and they do not know what may happen. Not only that; their plantations are entered; fruit and grapes are picked, not only for consumption, but it is wasted and the roads are littered with grapes which for the greater part are not ripe, because it is picked at a time when one cannot see whether or not the grapes are ripe. The position is becoming untenable, and it is not due to the fact that these people are detained there, but it is due to the manner in which they are detained. We have a camp there of between 500 and 600 people, without proper fencing and without proper control over the comings and goings of these people. I may say that various friends and supporters of the Government told me that if no improvement came about after the representations had been made, there would be no alternative but for them to instsitute a claim against the Department of Defence. It seems to me that there is a good chance of their establishing their claims, if things go on in this way, because the Department of Defence is simply not doing its duty, namely, to provide proper fencing, so that proper control can be exercised by the people who are in charge of the camps. There is no malice at the moment, but the prisoners-of-war are like school children who have been given leave to wander about at will, and we can appreciate what the consequences may be. Then there is another matter. I do not say that this applies to all of them, but some of them have not the slightest conception of the bar which exists in South Africa between Europeans and non-Europeans. They not only enter the houses of Europeans at will, but they also enter the houses of nonEuropeans at will, and the results of that freedom of movement may be to South Africa’s eternal detriment. I can only ask with the greatest emphasis, that the Minister of Defence should take steps in this matter and rectify the position.

There are another few matters which I want to bring to the notice of the hon. Minister. We are in a very difficult position on this side of the House, because the war is assuming such dimensions—I mean in the Union of South Africa, where there is no fighting. We are in this difficulty because we are getting no particulars. The Prime Minister does not give us any details, and we have to judge on what we see around us. For a considerable time preparations have apparently been made for a war within the Union, on a scale which the general public cannot understand. I should like to ascertain from the Minister—perhaps he will also refuse to tell us—what the expenditure in this country amounts to, and what proportion of this additional expenditure is caused thereby. I would have been able to understand, if it had occurred some considerable time ago, that perhaps it was possible—if we look at the matter from the point of view of the Government and not from our point of view—that we had to take into consideration the possibility of fighting in South Africa-, that our borders might be crossed, and that we should have prepared for battle. But since it may have been necessary for a considerable time, from the point of view of the Government, to prepare for war in South Africa on a large scale, I cannot understand why it should happen just at this particular time. In the first place, I want to refer to the large number of barracks and camps which are being built. It it out of all proportion with the number of troops we have in South Africa. It is not only in the Cape Province that this happens, but also in other Provinces. It is happening on such a large scale throughout the country that the nation has every right to ask “What are you driving at? Why are you engaged in putting up big camps at enormous cost; why are you engaged in building such large barracks, which are out of all proportion to the number of troops we have here. Those things cost money. We can hardly find a single area in which camps are not being put up, and the Government is still engaged daily in erecting more camps. Just tell us this. What are you driving at? When, according to the policy you followed, you expected an attack, I could understand it. But now that things have changed, why do you continue erecting large camps at great expense?—tell us that. What do you want to do with them now? For whom are they intended? My second question is this. If we take all these camps, those which are in the course of erection and those which have been completed, what are you going to do with them when the war is over? The nation feels uneasy about the erection of camps on this big scale, a scale which, according to the information which the people have, is too large, and which exceeds the requirements of our troops. The other question which I want to put is in connection with the foreign troops in our country. What are all these troops doing here? There is a large number of the R.A.F. Where are they fighting and what are they doing here? If one has to judge by the large numbers walking about in the streets, then it would seem that there is no place where these people can be used to fight. The troops we have here are foreign troops; they are overseas troops. They are not our troops; what are they doing here? I am not referring to the small number of troops who are being trained here, but to the large number who are at present in the Union. The Government intimated that some of them would be trained here. But that only applies to a small number. I am talking about the large number of other troops in this country. And what is the large number of American troops doing here? Did they come here in order to keep an eye on the Nationalists?

That is unnecessary.

It is not necessary to keep an eye on people who remain at home. There is a large number of foreign troops in our country, and the Prime Minister may as well tell us what his plans are in connection with those troops. My last question is this. We have no details, and that is why we cannot understand the position, but what is the object along our coast Saldanha Bay and at Darling, of those huge aerodromes and those huge military preparations, those enormous works which are being put up to supply water? It has always been said that Cape Town should have been situated at Saldanha Bay, if there had been water. Is that the reason why these big pipes are now being laid on to Saldanha Bay? There are colossal preparations. What is the object in view? Does the hon. Minister expect an attack from one side or another? If it is for the defence of South Africa, then it seems to me to be fairly ridiculous, because there years of the war are now past, and why is the Government only now thinking of erecting defence works on such a large scale? Is it not a case of history repeating itself, that the Department of Defence is putting up aerodromes, and as soon as they start using them they discover that those aerodromes are not suitable, and then aerodromes are put up at other places. If the hon. Minister wants to do so, then he might give us the information as to why there are suddenly such big preparations afoot along our coasts within the last few months, defence works which we apparently not required at first, because they were not started at the beginning of the war, but only recently. The Prime Minister told us that as a result of his intervention, the danger is now far removed from our coasts, and why embark on such big military preparations now? No, we want to know what the Prime Minister is driving at. To us it seems to be most unnecessary expenditure, and a waste of the country’s money.

I just want to raise my voice in protest against this big loan expenditure. It is an amazing figure, which will be a burden to posterity, especially in view of the fact that as far as we are concerned, and since we have no details, we feel that a large portion of that expenditure is perhaps unnecessary. I should like to bring to the notice of the Prime Minister the fact that in reply to a question which I put, he said that 46,000 coloured people had joined the army up to the end of last year, and no less than 70,000 natives. That brings the total number to 116,000. We know that the Prime Minister gave us the assurance that those people were being recruited with the specific object of not fighting. Our European army consists of approximately 200,000 men and women, and it seems to me that we have recruited such a large number of coloureds and natives that nearly every European who enlisted will have a batman (agterryer). I wonder whether the Prime Minister realises what the danger is to our country in enlisting this surprising number of coloureds and natives. I wonder whether he realises what this means to the farmer. I do not want to go into that now. We may do so at a later stage. But I just want to know whether the Prime Minister is not going to take a portion of this money for the purpose of recruiting even more coloureds and natives, something which to us on this side seems to be altogether unnecessary. I can give him the assurance that the country does not approve of this recruitment. The difficulties which are created for the Europeans are legion. We who live on the platteland know that the coloured people simply leave their work and join up, and one is powerless. The difficulties which are created are of such a magnitude that the farmers are at their wits’ end, and, faced with all these difficulties, they can make no progress. And nevertheless large sums of money are spent, a great portion of which is devoted to recruitment of more and more coloureds and natives. The Minister also said in reply to a question, that there is still a large number of horses on hand, but because it costs such a lot to keep them, they have now been taken to Vaal Hartz, where they can get grazing. I should like to know from the Prime Minister whether he has any intention of using these horses in connection with the defence of this country. If not, what does it cost us to keep them there. I may be wrong, but I think that when these horses were bought, they were bought not under five years and not over eight years old. That was two years ago. The youngest are therefore seven years now, and the oldest ten years. That stage is a critical one for a horse, because every year thereafter its value decreases considerably. Will it not be to our advantage to sell those horses immediately, instead of keeping them until they are worth much less and will simply be speculated with? Then just one more point, and it is in connection with the regulations and the inconveniences of the blackout in our cities. It is generally known that not only one section of the people but practically every section, and all the newspapers, strongly protested against the introduction of the blackout. The military authorities gave us the assurance that it was necessary to have a blackout. I should like to know what the blackout costs, and whether a subsidy is given to the cities in connection with the blackout and in connection with the arrangements which must be made in respect thereof. Then I should like to know whether the Prime Minister really thinks that the blackout is necessary at this stage.

I want to give the hon. member who has just sat down, the assurance that from a military point of view the blackout of our coastal cities is absolutelly essential. If there were lights, one could at anytime expect hostile ships and submarines to be directed to the coast, with disastrous results in our harbours. From a military point of view, however inconvenient the people may find it, it was an essential defence measure.

But what about the lights at the station and in the docks?

Possibly our blackout is not adequate. Perhaps we must go even further. Durban blacked out to a greater extent than Cape Town, and perhaps we will also have to go further, as the danger develops. But those steps which have been taken are the minimum which should be taken for our protection. The hon. member also asked why we were retaining the horses. We are engaged in selling these horses, but we do not want to give them away. A price has been fixed for the different classes of horses, and the Government sells when it gets a reasonable price. We do not want to keep them permanently, but we do not want to give them away either. The hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) put certain questions to me. He asked why we were spending large sums of money in connection with barracks and such items. Well, I can give the hon. member the assurance that in any case we only construct barracks or camps because they are essential in connection with our war work. He need not be afraid that they will be used against the people of the country. They are for our own defence forces which we have in this country, and it is essential for that expenditure to be incurred.

Are they for foreign troops?

No, they are not for foreign countries. The hon. member also asked why there were so many members of the R.A.F. in our country, and why there were so many foreign troops here. The only members of the R.A.F. we have here are the boys who are being trained as pilots in our camps. And then there are a number in our coastal towns who belong to the R.A.F., and who are stationed here for the protection of the coast. Our own Air Force is not sufficient and may never be sufficient to protect us against the submarine war which is in progress along our coasts.

And you sent our Air Force to the North.

The Air Force which is stationed here is attached to the fleet, which we did not have here before. Our Air Force is an Air Force on land. For fleet purposes and for the purpose of guarding the coast against submarines, we are using another type of Air Force, which we have not got, and which will cost us an enormous amount to establish. In that connection the British Fleet helps us. Those camps were erected in Cape Town and elsewhere in order to assist us in the war against the submarines.

Then the policy of the previous war has been departed from. You said at the time that we would protect our own coasts.

As the danger increases, and bearing in mind the scale on which the defence of our coast must be undertaken, that is altogether beyond our power. One may as well visualise one’s own fleet. That is something which is beyond our power, and it was necessary for us to accept the assistance which we could get from the British Fleet, and to avail ourselves of the Fleet Air Arm.

Is that the R.A.F. or the Fleet Air Arm?

I call it the R.A.F., but it is the Fleet Air Arm.

Are we paying them?

The question of training camps has already been dealt with. The British Government pays the costs. It is part of the British Fleet which operates in this country for the purpose of guarding our coasts. The works in Saldanha Bay are also in connection with the submarine war. Convoys come in. One cannot let ships sail unprotected. The hon. member ought to know about the terrific damage caused along our coasts.

No, we do not know about it.

I put a question and you would not reply to it.

There is not much publicity given to this.

But the British Government knows about it.

No, they have no more information than the hon. member has. My reply is that this is in connection with the war against submarines, and the protection which is given to transport along our coasts. It is an essential measure. We must protect our ships in that manner. If we do not do so, then the coast will be left unguarded, and we shall be running great risks. The hon. member for Paarl (Mr. Hugo) has another difficulty, namely, in connection with the camp for Italians at Du Toitskloof. I am not acquainted with the particulars he gave, but I was pleased to hear from him that there was no malice on the part of the Italian prisoners of war. My information, generally speaking, is that these people conduct themselves quite well, and that they are quite orderly and respectable, and there is not much complaint. But if there is anything in the statement of the hon. member, I shall go into the matter with a view to seeing whether an enclousure is called for. One must not regard such people as criminals. They are respectable soldiers, and they enjoy a certain measure of freedom. I do not believe that there is much trouble, but the hon. member makes a song of it, as though there is a terrific amount of trouble and unlawfulness. It would certainly not be right on our part to fence in those people like criminals. We do not like doing that.

But we do have them guarded by troops.

They give a fair amount of freedom to our troops in Italy. Let us treat these people well on both sides, but if measures must be taken for orderliness, then I shall do so. The hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom) spoke of the disfigurement of the monument at Standerton. I had not heard that a “V” sign had been put on the monument.

That was done by coloured troops.

Did the hon. member see that with his own eyes?

Ask the Secretary for Defence.

If not, then it is idle gossip.

I want to protest most strongly against the statement on the part of the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister that it is idle gossip when I bring certain facts to his notice. The information which I gave here, I received from respectable, leading citizens of Standerton. A photograph was taken of the thing, and it was sent to me. It is not idle gossip. These are facts. I want to tell the Prime Minister again what happened, and it happened on a number of occasions that the coloured troops at Standerton, who were mounted, in going out on manoeuvres, rode over the inscription “Ossewa, 1838-1938,” which was written in big white letters on the hillside. I take it that the Prime Minister has seen that inscription on the hillside. That inscription is laid out in big white letters. The mounted troops come along on horseback and then they form the “V” sign over the letters. I want to ask the Prime Minister this, that he must please not tell me that I am spreading idle gossip when I, as a responsible member of this House, tell him that these are facts. I want to ask you, when I receive such a reply from the Minister, in what terms must I reply to him? That is surely not the way in which the Leader of this House should act towards the other side when they come forward with well-founded complaints. The Prime Minister himself says that he would not approve of anything like that. What right has he, when I tell him that this is a fact, to answer that I am repeating idle gossip? If the Prime Minister had said “I shall make investigations to ascertain whether it is true,” then it would have been a different matter. I showed a photograph to the Secretary for Defence, and this is not idle gossip. I just want to tell him that such a reply on his part, in view of this insult which has been offered to Afrikanerdom by coloured soldiers under the command of European officiers, is unworthy of him.

Vote put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—62:

Abbott, C. B. M.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Ballinger, V. M. L.

Bawden, W.

Bell, R. E.

Botha, H. N. W.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowker, T. B.

Christopher, R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Collins, W. R.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

Deane, W. A.

Derbyshire, J. G.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Gluckman, H.

Goldberg, A.

Hare, W. D.

Hayward, G. N.

Hemming, G. K.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H.

Hooper, E. C.

Howarth, F. T.

Humphreys, W. B.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Klopper, L. B.

Lawrence, H. G.

Long, B. K.

Moll, A. M.

Molteno, D. B.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Payn, A. O. B.

Pocock, P. V.

Quinlan, S. C.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Robertson, R. B.

Rood, K.

Shearer, V. L.

Smuts, J. C.

Solomon, V. G. F.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steenkamp, W. P.

Strauss, J. G. N.

Sturrock, F. C.

Sutter, G. J.

Tothill, H. A.

Van der Byl, P. V. G.

Van der Merwe, H.

Wallach, I.

Warren, C. M.

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

Noes—37:

Bekker, G.

Bezuidenhout, J. T.

Boltman, F. H.

Booysen, W. A.

Bosman, P. J.

Brits, G. P.

Conradie, J. H.

De Wet, J. C.

Erasmus, F. C.

Fouche, J. J.

Geldenhuys, C. H.

Hugo, P. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Le Roux, P. M. K.

Le Roux, S. P.

Liebenberg, J. L. V.

Loubser, S. M.

Louw, E. H.

Malan, D. F.

Olivier, P. J.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Schoeman, B. J.

Schoeman, N. J.

Steyn, G. P.

Strauss, E. R.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, C. R.

Van den Berg, C. J.

Van Zyl, J. J. M.

Verster, J. D. H.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Werth, A. J.

Wilkens, Jacob.

Wilkens, Jan.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

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

I should like to know from the Minister how long he wants to continue. Could he tell us?

We must finish tonight. It was the understanding that we would finish tonight.

I just want to bring this to the Minister’s notice. We sit until this time every evening, and I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that at this time of the evening we cannot get food at our hotels, and then we have to go to restaurants. At the beginning of the year we usually sit until 6 o’clock. Now we sit until after 6 o’clock every day, and sometimes for an hour or more.

The hon. member knows that it was agreed between me and the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition, that it was necessary to get the Appropriation Bill passed by the end of this week. We arranged on Friday that we would dispose of this stage of the Estimates, that we would then dispose of the Appropriation Bill on Wednesday, and that it could then go to the Senate. The Senate must, of course, have time to consider it, and I hope that we shall get the co-operation of the other side to finish this vote.

The Minister of Finance says that we entered into an agreement. That is correct. The arrangement was that the Agriculture Vote would be disposed of between 4 and 5.30, and I was promised that only a few members on the other side would take part in discussions. But some ten members on the other side have spoken and have held up this vote till 5.30. That is the cause of the difficulty. I am sorry, but otherwise this vote would have been disposed of long ago.

I think we can still finish it.

I move—