I move—

I move—

The hon. the Prime Minister guessed correctly when, as his motion for the suspension for the automatic adjournment indicated, we are still going to have a long debate on the third reading, especially in connection with cost-plus. The Augean stable is not yet nearly clean, and we will endeavour today to clear a little of the dirt that still remains in the stable. We have, I for example for the last four years already as a member of this House, have had some experience of the fighting methods of the hon. members on the other side. We have learnt to expect that when they have a bad case and when they are not prepared to deal with the merits of the case, then they become personal, then they attack individuals and they do not care whether they strike above the belt or below the belt. We have become a little accustomed to this, but what surprises me, and against which, in my opinion, a strong protest be made from this side of the House, no, from all sides of the House, is that these methods should now be employed against the head of a friendly State, I mean the Prime Minister of the Dominion of Australia. I have shown how the scale of remuneration in South Africa began at 10 per cent. and in the Department of Public Works it is today still 9 per cent. and 10 per cent., and in my second reading speech I quoted an official document which we received from the Prime Minister of Australia, in which we were given the assurance by Mr. Curtin that the maximum scale paid under the cost-plus system there, was 3 per cent. Hon. members on the other side were in a little difficulty about this. What happened then? Because the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) did not see his way clear to refute it, he gets up and says that what Mr. Curtin, the Prime Minister of Australia, wrote officially to the Prime Minister of this country, is not true. I am surprised at the lack of responsibility on the part of a front bencher on the other side of the House, that he should get up in Parliament and accuse the Prime Minister of Australia that the information which he supplied to our Government is untrue. On what grounds has he done this?

Did I say that Mr. Curtin gave false information?

That is what the hon. member said. Here we have a letter that reads as follows—

That is the official letter of the Prime Minister of Australia, but the hon. member gets up and says that it is not true. And upon what does his denial rest? That a representative of the Lewis Construction Works said that from his knowledge of conditions in Australia, it is not so. On these grounds the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) gets up and says that the information is not correct. If this is not an attack on the good faith of the Prime Minister of Australia, then I do not know what it is. I must honestly say that the only thing for the hon. member to do, the only honourable way out for him, is to get up and withdraw these words, or to say clearly what he meant. I noticed that on the following day the Cape Times omitted to report that part of the hon. member’s speech, but you can consult Hansard, and I think the hon. member should withdraw his words, or he should apologise.

You are again using grossly exaggerated language.

That is the information supplied by one state to another, but the hon. member takes it upon himself to say that the information is not correct. If the Prime Minister of Australia says: “It does not exceed 3 per cent.”, what does it mean? Do we accept it, or do we not. Is it true, or is it not true?

In fact it is not correct, and I will prove it today.

If the hon. member says that it is not correct, that the official information from one government to another is not true, then the hon. member must give incontrovertible proof that it is not so. After the hon. member had accused the Prime Minister of Australia of giving information that was not true, he made the same accusation against me. Now I want for a moment to come to the Bakker incident. In my minority report I said the following: That Mr. Bakker, vice-president of the Association of Master Builders in Cape Town, appeared before the commission and that he told us that all the defence work was being given to the Big Four, that they had been deliberately selected by Fortifications without reference to the Association of Master Builders, that the Association of Master Builders was not consulted at all, that the four persons were deliberately selected. The result was that old established business men were pushed out of the building trade and that as a result a feeling of grievance existed among the Master Builders in Cape Town. Mr. Bakker, so I said further, expressed his grievance before the committee. That was the accusation I made in my minority report. What was the hon. member for Kensington’s answer to it? He got up in the House here and said that Mr. Bakker came and “recanted,” and the hon. member said further that after Mr. Bakker had withdrawn his words, the case was regarded as closed, and the hon. member added that because I quoted what Mr. Bakker said before he “recanted”, I had given a wrong impression of the case. That is what the hon. member said. What happens? I have today the evidence here, and either the hon. member for Kensington must support his allegation, or he must withdraw it. When Mr. Bakker appeared before the committee, his heart was so full of the injustice done to the Master Builders in general that when the chairman merely asked him: “Mr. Bakker, whom do you represent?” he said: “I am vice-president of the Association of Master Builders,” and without being asked, he immediately added: “My firm has never had any defence work to do.” He felt so strongly, that without being asked, he gave that answer. Later the hon. member for Kensington asked him: “You have not had any defence work, why not?” Then the answer was: “No work was ever given to us, we were never asked to do any defence work.” Mr. Bakker added that the four people had been selected without reference to the Board of Master Builders, and that many people, his firm among them, had been pushed out of the building trade. There the case remained for the time being. Then we had a recess at 11 o’clock, and after the recess Mr. Bakker came back and said—I want to quote his actual words because it was not a “recantation,” nor a withdrawal, but he said, and I wish to read the English version—

I wish to draw attention to the fact that Mr. Bakker said clearly that his firm was not prepared to tender. The hon. member for Kensington alleged that after Mr. Bakker had made that statement, all the members of the committee regarded the case as closed. That is not true, because a few moments later after the Chairman had put a few more questions, other members of the committee had the opportunity of putting questions. And what did Mr. Bakker say then, in connection with the statement he had made—

The question was asked in connection with the statement that the Firm Bakker had not done any work for the Defence Department, and the question was whether they were not prepared to do the work. What was the answer—

The hon. member for Kensington said that the case was closed after Mr. Bakker made the first statement.

We did not take any further evidence on the matter. We let the subject drop.

Here I have the evidence. As soon as the commission had the opportunity, they asked Mr. Bakker what his words meant. Mr. Boyder put the question to him, and then he answered. I included this evidence in my minority report. After the so-called “recantation” Mr. Bakker was asked what the position really was. Then he explained that his firm did not want to tender. He said that they did not want to tender, that they did not want to have anything to do with tenders, but when he was asked whether this meant that his firm was also not prepared to do work on the cost-plus system, then he answered that they had never been invited, that they would like to do work. And what happened further? When my minority report was submitted, then the matter was referred back to the Committee because the Minister of Finance did not see his way clear to give an answer to it in the House. They then referred my minority report back to the Committee. An unheard of procedure. And what did they then say in their memorandum on my minority report, and after they had taken the whole matter into consideration—

We support that by quotations.

I have read the whole of it, but the hon. member says that Mr. Bakker came of his own free will and said that his firm was not prepared at any time to do contract work. That is a misrepresentation of the position. Mr. Bakker merely said that his firm was not prepared to tender, but when at a later stage he was asked if it meant that they were not prepared to do defence work at all, then his answer was that they were prepared to work on the cost-plus basis; that they were anxious to get work; that they had sat and waited for work, but that they did not get it. That the hon. member should now come and accuse me, that I cannot understand. We have become accustomed to it from the hon. member. But that he should also do this sort of thing against the Prime Minister of Australia, that is going far. And now we come to the next point. The next point is that the hon. member for Kensington said that the Union Defence Department introduced the cost plus a percentage system on 4 September, 1939 and that they continued with it until the Committee began its sittings, because—this is the reason he gave—“We did not know before 1942 that there were various forms of cost-plus.” When I heard the hon. member say this the other day, I could not help laughing. During the whole inquiry it was never mentioned, and no one knows better than the hon. member for Kensington that it is not true. I said that if it was necessary to use the cost-plus system from 4 September till today, why did they use the worst form, namely cost plus a percentage, and why not a better form? I think it would perhaps be as well if I explain what the three forms of cost-plus system are. The cost-plus system means: That a contractor is asked to do certain military work, and he is told that the Government will compensate him for all costs he incurs, i.e.—cost of labour, cost of material, cost of supervision, the Government will compensate him for all these costs, and then he gets his remuneration. The remuneration depends upon the method of remuneration. There are three methods. In the first case they say to him: The building must be done, all the costs will be refunded to you, and if you build an air training school for £200,000, then we will give you £20,000 as a remuneration for your work, but if you succeed in pushing up the cost to £250,000, then we give you £25,000. And if you are clever enough and understand the art of pushing up the cost to £300,000, then you get £30,000 as remuneration. That is the cost plus a percentage system. The higher the contractor succeeds in pushing up the costs, the higher is his profit. That is the cost plus a percentage system, and that has been the experience of every country in the world during the war, that it is the worst system, and practically no country in the world was still employing it when the Commission sat. I do not believe that there is any single country we know of, that is still on the cost plus percentage system. All of them have abandoned it for something better. Then we come to the second form: Supposing you want to build an air training school and you expect that it will cost £250,000. Then you say to a contractor: Look, we think it will cost approximately £250,000, it is not necessary to have a prepared plan or specifications; we reckon it will take six months to complete the work; for how much are you prepared to give your services to the state for six months? Then the man might say that he is prepared to do the work for six months for a remuneration of £15,000. Then he does the work and there is no encouragement for him to push up the costs because he does not benefit from it. The third form is that when you want an air school built you call in a lot of contractors to the office and say: Look, we want an air school built which will cost approximately £250,000. For how much are you prepared to do it? The one will say £15,000, the other perhaps £12,000, and the third who is very eager to have the work, £10,000. That is the third form.

There are many other forms.

Yes, those are the most important, the cost plus a percentage, the cost plus a fixed fee and the cost plus a tendered fee. Everyone will agree this afternoon that the latest form is the best, and that we have maintained the worst form. Rhodesia followed our example for only one year and then abandoned it, Britain abandoned it. Australia, Canada and America also abandoned it. All the countries abandoned it, but our country continued with it. And now the hon. member comes along and says that we continued with it because we did not know that any other forms of the cost-plus system existed. Imagine it, what an admission of ignorance on the part of the Department of Defence if this is true. But the whole world had an argument about the cost-plus system and Britain, immediately after the outbreak of war, appointed a committee to investigate the matter and a report was issued. Australia and Canada also did so and we received the reports, but the hon. member for Kensington says that we clung to the system because we did not know that there were any other forms of cost-plus system. The hon. member should rather consider the matter a little more before he speaks. I think it would be better if hon. members on the other side would simply admit that a mistake has been made and that it cost South Africa dear. Altogether £35,000,000 has been spent on buildings under the cost-plus system, and I think it is a conservative estimate that at least £5,000,000 of this amount has been thrown into the water, that if, from the beginning we had chosen a better form, the best form, instead of the worst form, then South Africa would have saved at least £5,000,000. I have the greatest sympathy for the soldiers in the front line, who have the courage of their conviction and who risk their lives for it, but I have very little time for the super-patriots who open their mouths wide, while all the time they are trying to fill their pockets — and the Government is helping them in this. Now I want for a moment to leave the hon. member for Kensington and come to the hon. Minister of Finance. The Minister of Finance, just like the hon. member for Kensington, jumped about a little, as far as facts are concerned. He should again read the first report. The hon. Minister quoted from Paragraph 91 of the first report to show that my comparison between the profits made in South Africa and those made in Australia does not hold water. I just want to read this again, because apparently the Minister did not understand it very well. It says—

I did not read that.

What paragraph did the Minister read?

I did not quote that at all. I quoted from the memorandum, paragraph 44.

It amounts to practically the same thing. The Minister wanted to create the impression that in Australia contractors receive a remuneration of only 3% but that in the costs in Australia are included the expenses incurred by the contractor in connection with his installation and equipment, while in South Africa the contractor must provide for this out of his profits. That is the impression which the Minister tried to create, that in Australia they get only 3%, but they must include expenses in connection with installation and equipment, while in South Africa it must be taken out of profits. Now I want again to quote what Mr. Curtin writes on this point—

Therefore they must also take it out of the 3%. This means that Australia pays only 3%, but South Africa allows 10%, and in both cases the expenses they have in connection with plant and equipment must be taken out of profit. I want to advise the Minister that before he speaks the next time to make sure of his facts. So far I have made a comparison between South Africa and Britain and between South Africa and Australia. I have the evidence before me, and I want to point out that in the evidence the position in respect of profits in Canada emerged. It appears on page 81 of the evidence, where information is supplied to us by the Auditor-General. From the evidence it appears that the profit is very small in connection with large contracts given out in Canada. The evidence reads that—

I should like to raise a point of order and privilege for your consideration.

He is afraid.

Yes, there we are. The moment I rise on a point of order I am met with rude and offensive remarks from the other side.

Oh, no, we leave that to you.

The point of order is whether my hon. friend is allowed to read to you and to the House evidence taken by the Commission. I personally have no objection to his doing so, but, as far as I know, the evidence has not been laid on the Table of the House and it is certainly not in the possession of members of this House, except that those three members who were members of the Commission, and I do not know how far it is permissible for that evidence to be read. If it is allowed to be read, there are certain extracts which I can read as well. But the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) will agree with me that it rather tends to place members of this House who served on this Commission at an advantage as compared with members who did not.

May I ask whether members are allowed to make “rude and offensive” remarks in this House? If they are not, I take it it is your duty, Mr. Speaker, to stop them. In such circumstances, is the hon. member in order in accusing members on this side of the House of making rude and offensive remarks?

I think the hon. member is correct. The evidence has not been laid on the Table, and it does not seem fair to read extracts from evidence which is not available to other members. The hon. member may refer to evidence and say what happened, but I do not think he is entitled to read from the evidence itself.

Then I just want to say that it is indicated that in a small-arms munition factory on a contract of 2,500,000 dollars the contractor received a fee of 24,000 dollars. It was not clear if it was done by tender or not. But the hon. member for Kensington made the remark: “That means less than one per cent.”, and the Auditor-General replied: “Yes”. I have gone through the evidence and I can tell the hon. member on what page it appears. It appears that on a contract of 2,500,000 dollars the profit of the contractor was 24,000 dollars, while in South Africa it would have been 200,000 dollars. That is the difference. Before I leave this point, I want to say that the Minister accepted all our recommendations except our recommendation in connection with the rate of remuneration for contractors, and I should like to know in view of the things exposed here in the House, whether the Government does not feel that the rate in South Africa is too high.

What recommendation is that?

It is my recommendation in Chapter 7, Clause 46, and I would read the English version, perhaps the Minister understands it better—

Now I want to come to the Prime Minister. The hon. the Prime Minister said that he was a little relieved when he received the report. Then, he must surely have expected terrible things, then he must have thought that things were terribly wrong in the Defence Department, if he is satisfied with the things as they have been revealed in the House. The Prime Minister says that I have given a clean bill to the Director-General of War Supplies. I want to say to the Prime Minister: We were asked to investigate the system under which D.G.W.S. did its work. We investigated the system, and I signed the report in which we said that that system was good. I wish however that with the time at our disposal, it has been impossible to go into the question manner in which the system is administrated, If you read the report well, you will see that we refused to express a verdict on the manner in which the system is administered, and I should like to tell the Minister that the system is good and that the men who are at the head of the system are undoubtedly doing their best, but there are flaws in the system, and I feel that it is in the interest of the Prime Minister and Dr. van der Bijl to bring it to his notice. There is, for instance, the point in connection with the issuing of contracts. There is a Commission for every section, and the Commissions are perhaps anxious to examine the issuing of contracts, but we found that the Commissions meet at irregular intervals, with the result that the work is usually left in the hands of one or two officials, and consequently throughout the country everything is not as it should be. While I was on the Commission all kinds of stories and gossip were brought to my notice. We examined one case. I myself am not quite satisfied, but I did not have sufficient facts to make a recommendation in the report. It is, however, worthwhile for the Prime Minister and Dr. van der Bijl to give a little attention to the recommendations. There are Commissions, but they meet at very irregular intervals. Some of them hardly ever meet, and then it is left to the secretary of the Commission and perhaps to one other person, and everything is not quite what it should be. Then in respect of D.G.W.S. I also want to draw attention to the fact that they are very much afraid of criticism. I am not speaking of criticism from outside, but if an official in an office dares to ask a question in connection with something done by a high official, then he is immediately branded. Questions are not allowed there. And consequently it is felt that there is a stricter discipline there than anything the Gestapo can introduce. Immediately you ask a question in connection with a high official you are branded. You may perhaps retain your job, but you remain where you are and you have no hope of promotion. I do not know whether Dr. van der Bijl knows it. Now I come to Fortifications. The hon. the Prime Minister said that I made myself guilty of exaggerating. I just want to tell the Prime Minister that I sincerely wish that it was pure exaggeration, then I would have been very much more at ease in my mind and worried less about the enormous amounts that are being spent by this section on behalf of the State. I want to tell the Prime Minister that to me it is not a personal matter. I have nothing to do with Col. Craig personally or Maj. Jordaan or other persons who assist them. If the Prime Minister should decide tomorrow to rather give a pension of £2,000 a year to each one of them and to close Fortifications and give the work to P.W.D., I think he will be doing a good piece of work. Rather give them a pension of £2,000 and it will still be a saving to the State. The Prime Minister has now taken Col. Craig under his protection. It is a very great responsibility he has taken upon himself. Any moment more things might come to light for which the Prime Minister now takes responsibility. [Timelimit extended.]

Before the hon. member continues I just want to say that just now when I ruled that the hon. member may not read from the evidence from which he quoted, I was under the impression that it was evidence given before a Select Committee, but I find now that the evidence was given before the Cost-Plus Contracts Committee, and there is nothing to prevent the hon. member from reading it. Of course, it depends on the discretion of every member how far he wishes to do so. There is nothing in the Standing Rules and Orders of the House that prevents it.

Then I want to continue. I just want to add briefly that my accusations are made against Fortifications, but are not aimed against one or other person. I forgot for the moment that Col. Craig and Maj. Jordaan have anything to do with Fortifications, and I make my accusations against the Department. My first accusation was that Fortifications do not do their work honestly and above board, even with the Department of Defence or with the Government. This Department is cunning in its methods and disobedient in the execution of the orders it receives. If you can make such an accusation against a Department and can support it, then it is a serious accusation. The Department is not honest and straight towards the Department of Defence or the Government, or the Authorities Committee, and it conceals things, and acts irregularly, and tries to conceal it, and if information is sought it supplies incorrect and false information to the Department of Defence and the Government. If an order is issued, then that order is simply ignored. If we can make such accusations against a department, and we can support those accusations, then it is time that action was taken against that department. I want to give proof of this. The first concerns the placing of personnel of Fortifications on the books of contractors. The excuse was that they asked for staff and that they could not get the staff in time and therefore they resorted to this step to get staff I say in my minority report that I admit that Fortifications was placed in this difficult position. They applied for staff and it was not made available immediately. The work had to go on, and Fortifications were obliged to follow another plan. But my accusation is that after they resorted to this irregularity Fortifications should immediately have reported it to Defence and this Fortifications did not do. They did not report it immediately to the Public Service Commission; they did not report it to Defence. They did not report. Look, we had to have staff; we had to do it, and what are you going to do now? It only came to light a few months later when the inspectors of the Public Service Commission came and inspected the work of Fortifications. Col. Craig and Maj. Jordaan say that they then told the inspectors of this irregularity, but the two inspectors definitely deny it. The fact that Fortifications afterwards continued with this system, and gave orders to garrison engineers to conceal it, and not to let it appear on any files, supports what I said here. They should have reported it immediately, and not waited until it leaked out later. They say they told the inspectors about it and the inspectors definitely deny it. They say they came to hear of it by indirect and other ways. And when later an order was issued that this practice must cease immediately, they still continued with it and kept it concealed, and asked garrison engineers not to let it appear on files, so that the inspectors would not find it out. There they definitely behaved in a cunning manner towards their own superior. That is number one. The second point I wish to raise in this connection is the paying out of profits. When the inspectors visited Fortifications in 1941 and found that there were staff of Fortifications on the books of contractors, they said that this was an irregularity, and that at least profits should not be paid out on the wages of that staff. The inspectors reported it in Pretoria and immediately telegrams were sent asking: Are you paying contractors 10 per cent. on the wages of those persons? And one telegram after the other replied: No, we are not doing it. The telegrams said: “No, we are not paying 10 per cent. profit.” Defence was given the impression that the 10 per cent, was not being paid. The Authorities Committee was given the impression that it was not being done, and when we asked Maj. Jordaan: Why did you allow the matter to continue without informing the office in Pretoria that it is happening? His answer was: I imagine that I told the contractors that it must not happen. Then we summoned the chief of the Lewis Construction Company and said to him: Look, Maj. Jordaan has told us about it, and his answer in the presence of Maj. Jordaan, was: We discussed the matter and I told Maj. Jordaan clearly that it is a right which we would not give up, and we would continue charging 10 per cent. profit for it. And although Maj. Jordaan at that time discussed the matter with the Lewis Construction Company in this way, he knew that they were continuing with the calculation of 10 per cent., and he continually informed the Department of Defence in Pretoria and the Authorities Committee: No, rest assured, the 10 per cent. profit is not being received by contractors on the wages of these people.

Is there any documentary proof that he issued the order?

Maj. Jordaan could prove that he issued an order to the Engineers Officer in Grahamstown and in Port Elizabeth. He could not prove that he also sent the order to Durban. But the important point is that when the question was asked in connection with the Lewis Construction Company—they had big contracts and there were some of the staff on their books—whether they received the 10 per cent., his answer was: No; and yet the Lewis Construction Company was demanding and getting the 10 per cent. all the time. All I can say now is: What are you going to do with a Department like that? An important point is this. In March, 1941, there was a definite instruction from the Secretary of Defence to Fortifications, by order of the Authorities Committee, and that instruction was absolutely clear. This can be found on page 7 of the third report, in my minority report. I think I should read paragraphs 12, 13 and 14 so that the Prime Minister can fully grasp the position. First I read paragraph 12—

When we put the question to Fortifications plainly, we got this reply. I read paragraph 13—

And then paragraph 14 is important—

He said they did not receive instructions, and here are the instructions clearly in the letter. What is the result now? They go on with it, but they hide it. I hope I have convinced the Prime Minister that things went on in the department which make one full of distrust towards the whole department. And now there is another thing. We are talking about the cost-plus-percentage system, and the danger of this is that the contractor tends to make the costs high so that his profits will be more. That is the danger of the system. It is the most important danger in it. If we can prove that Fortifications allowed the contractor to try to increase his costs in every permissible and impermissible way, just to make the profits higher, then we can say here that Fortifications did not do its duty in exercising proper control and supervision over the work under this system. It is not necessary to name dozens of instances. If I can name a few sound instances that Fortifications allowed contractors to abuse this system to drive the costs up higher and make the profits higher, then the system is condemned and the department also. This increase of costs was brought about in two particular ways. The first was to let material be put in at a higher price than was justified. One can allow a contractor to use material on works and put it in higher than it ought to be. As a result of my minority report, we were compelled to inquire further into one case in Cape Town. It was for work in Grahamstown. He did it at twice the price for which the corrugated iron sheets could be obtained from Iscor. The representative of D.G.W.S. admitted that if the committee had not reported that case, the contractor would have got away with it. Because we reported it, the State saved more than £400 on one item alone. We did not have an opportunity to go into those cases too far. The Auditor-General said he had not yet had sufficient opportunity to audit all the accounts in connection with these contracts. Those things must still all be investigated, and I wonder about all that will then come to light. Here and there we come upon the trail of something, and we follow it up. Let me give another instance. It affects not only corrugated iron sheets, but much else. I do not want to mention the names of the firms. We find it in regard to wheelbarrows, shovels and all sorts of implements which the firms used on the works, which were put in at twice as much as the Department of Public Works could have bought them for itself. Now we come to labour. I think you will realise that with cost-plus work it is an easy way to drive costs up to use too many workmen on the work. These people can also be paid a wage to which they are not really entitled. The work may be so arranged that there are times when the workers have nothing to do. In regard to that the Prime Minister should but read the evidence of a certain Mr. Rose. It appears in the minority report on page 13, and I wish to read it to the House—

That is the evidence we received. The people stood so close to one another that there was no room for them to work. One of the workmen told us that they stood so closely together that they could not work, and he himself could not lay more than fifty bricks a day. Another case was also mentioned—

The officer of Fortifications works knows about it. That to me is the strange system of Fortifications. They know that there are people who are unnecessary and who are being paid, and they let it go on. I quote further—

That is what happens. We also have other evidence, and I wish to name a few instances. On the previous occasion I mentioned one instance, namely, where one of the Big Four had to do work in Grahamstown. It paid them to take their people with them from Cape Town. They sent their foreman and their stuff from Cape Town, and I want now to give the remuneration of a few of these people, what they received here in Cape Town and when they left here for Grahamstown. There was a Mr. Austin who received £60, Munnik £50, Pentz £40, Visser £40, Kemp £40, Abel £27 10s„ Tonnison £33, Boshaard £27 10s. Then there was also a certain Welsh who received £30. They had been in Grahamstown a few months when their salaries were raised as follows: Austin from £60 to £82 10s., Munnik from £50 to £65, Pentz from £40 to £54, Visser from £40 to £54, Kemp from £40 to £57 10s„ Abel from £27 10s. to £33. Tonnison from £33 to £46 10s. and Boshaard from £27 10s. to £33. The workmen received what is called a “living-away allowance” of £7 10s., which was increased later to £9. The result was that they also raised the salaries of the foreman.

But they were also away from their homes.

Yes, but we know what that means. What is more, Norman Kennedy did not bring all these people from Cape Town, but they also received the increment. He did not mind paying these additional wages, because they made the profits higher. We are busy at the moment on the Select Committee on Public Accounts, and this is certainly not all that will come to light. That is why I ask the Prime Minister to be careful about how far he accepts responsibility for the continuation of Fortifications. We find that in every possible way this system has been abused to the benefit of the contractor. Proper supervision was never carried out. The contractors could do what they liked. The costs were driven up, and the public is the child of the account. I think I have said enough. I just want to say this in conclusion. I think that the cost-plus-percentage system is now dead. The committee has recommended it, and the Government has accepted it. It is now for the Government to see to it that its decision is carried out. But under a bad system all kinds of troubles are hatched. Our building industry is tainted by it, and a great part of the officials’ class is tainted by the evils of the cost-pluspercentage system. That was why I asked that there should be a standing committee, actually of this House, to be a brake on the officials with reference to the malpractices which occurred. Unfortunately, the House decided otherwise, and I can tell the Prime Minister this, that the only way to put an end to these evils is to open them up and let the full light of day shine upon them. The worst is that in the Forticifations section there was not a single person who could give me any reason why Fortifications used only four people. The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) tried to defend it. My answer is that the Department of Public Works did more work than Fortifications. This department divided the work between the contractors. They split it up so that every builder inland got a chance to do a piece of Government work. If the Department of Public Works was able to do it, then Fortifications could also do it. It did not do it. It gave all its work to four men. It was only when the Select Committee started with the matter and when this committee was appointed, that Fortifications began to let other contractors share in the work. For me this is one of the greatest acts of injustice done by Fortifications—to give all the military work to four contractors, and to let them make profits which in present circumstances were absolutely scandalous.

We have had another hour or so from the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) on cost-plus. I cannot help thinking that he has not really advanced his case at all by this fresh attack. Most of what he said is a recapitulation of what he said at the second reading in an attempt to reply to what I then replied to him. I want to put one consideration to the House and to my hon. friend himself. This Committee, this much discussed Committee, of which I was the chairman and he was a member, brought in altogether four reports. The first report was on building contracts; the second was on war supplies and engineering contracts; the third was the final report which dealt with various miscellaneous matters, boots, seaward defence, conversions of ships, and this question which my hon. friend discussed this morning, the alleged sins of Fortifications in putting certain of their employees on the contractors’ books. Then we brought in a fourth report, which has not been published because it is in the form of a confidential document, and deals with merchant shipping repairs, and not the expenditure of public moneys of the Union. The hon. member for George did not agree with the substance of the first report, and brought in a minority report. He did agree entirely with the second report, which is a unanimous report. He agreed with three-quarters of the third report; he dissented only on one portion, namely, Fortifications and private contractors, and he agreed most enthusiastically with the memorandum on shipping repairs which also is unanimous. The point I want to put to you and to the House is this, the same people signed all of these reports. All of the reports, as the hon. member well knows, were drafted by myself. Now, sir, if our mental approach to the problems before us was such as to command the adhesion of the hon. member in regard to the second report and the third report, except for one portion, and the whole of the report on shipping repairs, are we such a set of scoundrels that we would bring in what in almost plain language he has described as a dishonest report on building contracts. He complained this morning that I had resorted to the old dodge, viz.: “When you have no case, abuse the’ other side’s attorney.” It was the hon. gentleman himself who, in the most irresponsible manner, went out of his way to attack his five colleagues, not only myself, but his five colleagues who signed the majority report on buildings, and who, with him, signed the other report that I have referred to. I would like to ask you, sir, to read the language that my hon. friend has used, for instance, in paragraph 3 of his minority report. After saying that he agrees with certain unimportant portions of our First Report, he goes on to say—

Any ordinary person would read that as an attack upon the other five members of the Committee. It accuses them in direct terms of glossing over grave abuses and grievous blunders. We, as a matter of fact, in our reply say that that is how we read it. My hon. friend does not deny this construction. He does not say that we misunderstood him. We took, and we still take it, as a direct attack upon our bona fides, as a suggestion that having taken the evidence we deliberately glossed over its effect. I ask the hon. member and any other hon. gentleman in this House what construction could be placed upon that. But he goes further in paragraph 7. After dealing with the question, whether the worst or the best form of cost-plus should have been followed, he then winds up paragraph 7 by saying this—

If words have any meaning at all, that word “studied” carries an innuendo that the rest of the members of the committee, myself included, deliberately and male fide failed to deal with one of the principal problems before the committee. How can an hon. gentleman, who thus attacks his five colleagues on this committee, be heard to come forward and complain that he has been attacked. What does he expect, when he permits himself to use language of that description? I can claim this in this House: I have served in it even longer than my hon. friend; I am not a person who glosses over abuses; I do not try to hide blunders. I can call the testimony of other members on all sides of the House who have served with me on committees, that I am not a person who would be guilty of “studied omission” of or “glossing over” of grave abuses. Certainly, the hon. gentleman did not do justice to himself when he used language like that about myself and his colleagues. I am sure in calmer moments, he regrets it; but do not let him come to this House and complain that he has been attacked when he uses language so studiedly provocative as this, language which I must call offensive and unwarranted. Was he surprised that the majority of the members of the committee, in answer to an invitation of the Minister, set out their views in the memorandum, and that they did not hesitate to point out in strongterms the grave omissions of which he was guilty in his minority report. No, sir, do not let the hon. gentleman ever come here and complain that he has been abused. He started this by using absolutely unwarranted and totally provocative language, unnecessarily provocative language, not only about his colleagues but about certain departments of State and in particular about Fortifications. Now, if you want to judge of the mental temperament, the judical temperament, if there be one, of the hon. member for George, ask yourself how far you are prepared to accept his attack on Fortifications. Remember this, that he was quite willing to carry that attack on to his five colleagues on the Committee. Now I want to put a question direct to my hon. friend. I have a great regard for him, and I hope he has some regard for me; but I want to put this question direct to him: Did he at any time think that I endeavoured to cover up any of the evidence that came before the Committee? Did he? Well, I cannot get an answer. I can only say that the record of the evidence is there for everyone to read. My record in Public Accounts is there to prove it and there is no one who will say that I have ever tried to gloss over anything which came before this committee or the Public Accounts committee, and I would call the testimony of his friends on that committee to bear me out. I conducted this investigation in exactly the same spirit in which we conduct the proceedings up there. I consider it a matter of grave regret that my hon. friend has stooped in his minority report to use language of this description. See what exaggerated language the hon. member uses. See what exaggerated language he has used in regard to Mr. John Curtin. I know Mr. Curtin personally. I met him first when I went to Australia in 1936, and I saw a great deal of him when the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister sent me there fifteen months ago. When I came back to this country I said that one of the greatest Australians was John Curtin, a man whose reputation for integrity goes right throughout the world. Yet the hon. member for George was irresponsible enough to accuse me this morning of having made out Mr. Curtin to be a liar. You see his exaggerated approach to all these things. He should have been a poet and not a politician. What did I say? In the mildest of language I ventured to suggest that Mr. Curtin’s figure of 3 per cent., contained in the letter which we ourselves quote,—we are the people who bring that letter before the country in our majority report—that that figure of 3 per cent. was not correct. If I suggest that a man’s figure is not correct, do I attack his bona fides; do I suggest that he is a liar? And that is what the hon. member tried to make out that I had done. He reduces the proceedings in this House to the level of a farce.

You asked him for official information, and you say his reply is wrong, and I find fault with you for saying it.

Supposing I do say it is wrong, I do not call him a liar. Many of the statements my hon. friend has made are palpably wrong, but I do not call him a liar because I say his information is wrong. But now let me get to the substance of it. In point of fact, Mr. Curtin was wrong. We had that information as a committee before we left Johannesburg, and by a curious and dramatic coincidence I have this morning the actual Australian contract in my hands and I am now going to give my hon. friend the information. My surmise that Mr. Curtin was wrong in that figure, turns out to be totally justified, and if the hon. member is not satisfied after I have read this to the House, a cable could easily be sent to Australia by our Prime Minister. This morning I received a letter from the Lewis Construction Co. I will hand this to the hon. Minister of Finance after I have finished with it. This letter reads as follows—

Mr. Curtin’s letter was written in July 1942—

When I dealt with this matter before, I stated that the Lewis Construction Company is a company of Australian origin. It has a South African branch, but the parent body is Australian. It does enormous works in Australia and therefore it is in a unique position to supply us with information about Australia. I will continue reading this letter—

Then he gives the form of contract, and he has undertaken to supply the actual original for perusal. I have only had an opportunity of glancing at it, but the contract provides that a certain portion of the expense has to be borne by the builder and a certain portion by the State. It provides—

Then it gives the schedule of fees. Here they are—

These are the correct figures, and therefore, with all respect to Mr. Curtin, who probably knows nothing about it personally—after all, he is the Prime Minister of Australia and he has an enormous job—I was justified in querying that figure of 3 per cent., and here I have the actual figures. Here is the letter for my hon. friend to read. So I hope that we will have no more of these exaggerated statements. The truth is this, for what it is worth, that we are paying our contractors today in South Africa 1 per cent. more than they are paid in Australia. If my hon. friend wants to use that fact to argue that we are paying too much to the South African contractors, he is welcome to do it, because it is a fact. I agree with him that probably in South Africa we are paying 1 per cent. more than they pay in Australia or in England. In that respect you can argue that the South African contractors are being paid more. But if the hon. member wants the whole parallel of Australia, let him get down to the income tax of Australia. Then he can complain that there should be complete uniformity with the profits paid in Australia.

When the House adjourned, I had just finished my references to the Australian form of Contract, and my hon. friend’s references to Mr. Curtin. One small point I omitted to bring to the notice of the House, that in this current Australian contract the remuneration is on a percentage basis, just as we have it in this country, the only difference being that the Australian rate tapers down from 5 per cent. in the case of contracts up to and including £30,000, to 4 per cent. in the case of contracts over £100,000, but it is cost-plus a percentage.

How does that compare with Mr. Curtin’s letter?

That does not square with Mr. Curtin’s letter. I can only repeat the suggestion I made before lunch: If hon. members want further information they can ask the Hon. the Minister of Finance to cable to Australia for it. I come now to deal with what is possibly the most unpleasant portion of my hon. friend’s case, that is what he calls the Bakker episode. I am going to deal very fully with that and with my hon. friend’s part in it. What is the charge he makes? The charge he makes against Fortifications is contained in paragraph 48 of his minority report and the paragraphs which follow. He says—

In paragraph 49 he goes on to say—

Then he goes on to draw his conclusion in paragraph 52. He says—

Now, Sir, on what does the hon. member for George base that edifice of charges against Fortifications?

Do you deny it?

Will my hon. friend allow me to deal with the argument instead of interrupting me continually. On what does he base it? You will hardly believe me, Sir, when I tell you that there is no evidence on this point, except that of Mr. Bakker himself, no evidence whatsoever. I told this House on Wednesday last when I was speaking on this matter, that Mr. Bakker after making his charge in a half-hearted manner, came forward voluntarily to withdraw the charge. He did not do it under cross-examination; he came back to us after the tea interval and said, in the language that has been quoted so often: “I do not wish to press this charge that I have not had my share of Defence Work.” Then, there was no other evidence on that point, except the further statement made by Mr. Bakker in a reply to Mr. Boyder. Believe it or not—it sounds incredible—but apart from that there was no evidence whatever, from any source whatever; and still more pregnant, this point was never put to Col. Craig either by my hon. friend or by myself or by anyone else. The matter was treated as of so little importance that once Mr. Bakker had made these three conflicting statements which the hon. member for George has quoted, which is the sum total of evidence on the point, not another reference was made to this question of alleged unfair discrimination, throughout the entire sittings of the Committee. Col. Craig appeared before the Committee on several occasions subsequently, and not on one occasion did my hon. friend put this question to him. And yet, Sir, the hon. member launches now, in his minority report, this full-blooded charge of unfair discrimination against Fortifications; and as I say without the slightest evidence to support it. The hon. member for George has done worse than that. He was sitting in this Committee in a quasi-judicial capacity. He quoted the charge made by Mr. Bakker, and did not even refer to Mr. Bakker’s retraction. He either did that by mistake or he did it deliberately. He used against his colleagues in the Committee the phrase “studied omission”. Was this a studied omission on his part, or was it not? If he tells me he made a mistake, I accept it. Then I can only say this is another instance where my hon. friend rushed to conclusions. If he saw this and deliberately omitted it from his report, then he puts himself in the position of a person occupying a semi-judicial position, being called upon to arrive at certain conclusions, who deliberately overlooks the evidence for the defence. I do not honestly think that the hon. member did it. I think he made a mistake and overlooked this evidence. But if he did, then he is in this dilemma that he has based all these conclusions on an alleged statement by Mr. Bakker, not knowing or caring that Mr. Bakker in express terms withdrew this charge. So even if he had not, would he dare to base all these conclusions on the mere statement by Mr. Bakker, without putting it to Col. Craig, without getting supporting evidence? When we replied in our memorandum on the question we said this quite definitely—

The hon. member has laid great stress this morning on the evidence of Mr. Rose. Who is Mr. Rose? He is the secretary of the Cape Federation, but he is also a high officer of the Building Workers’ Union. Mr. Rose came before the Committee and some questions were put to him on this point—

Here is Mr. Rose’s answer—

Now my hon. friend does not think it worth while mentioning that.

At the moment they said that there were eighteen contractors and no longer four.

At the moment he said that, of course, the policy of splitting had been put into effect. But this evidence relates to the past. That is a mere quibble.

Oh, he calls it “quibble.”

Then let us look at paragraph 52. We say there: “Apart from the statements of Mr. Bakker, quoted by Mr. Werth, which subsequently were withdrawn in the terms above quoted, there is no evidence whatever to support the allegations quoted in paragraph 52.” No evidence whatever. My hon. friend does not deny that statement. There is no evidence. Now I sum up this so-called case of favouritism in regard to Fortifications. In the first place there is no evidence at all; in the second place, my hon. friend has produced no evidence, and in the third place the only witness who mildly suggested it withdrew his suggestion, and fourthly my hon. friend in quoting his evidence omitted to mention that withdrawal. In the fifth place the Trade Unions who gave evidence before us as a body—Mr. Rose did not speak alone—he had the whole of Trade Unionism with him—agreed that when Col. Craig did the work he had no alternative but to go to the bigger firms and finally, this memorandum of ours was signed by Mr. Boyder—one of my colleagues. Now, who is Mr. Boyder? He is a Trade Union Leader from the Rand, and I think even my hon. friend will agree that Mr. Boyder represents all that is sane and sound in good Trade Unionism. I formed the highest opinion of him, and I think that our Committee was greatly strengthened by having him on it, and he says too that there is no substance of a case against Fortifications. Now, I want to come to something more serious. I don’t know what the hon. member for George intended, but I shall tell him what the effect of his accusation is, what the impression created by him is, namely that there was favouritism—corrupt favouritism on the part of Col. Craig and his organisation. That is the impression created, even on the mind of Col. Craig himself. Col. Craig came to me last week and said, “Why is my name bandied about on the floor of the House and in the newspapers in this way? The innuendoes behind Mr. Werth’s words are not only that I was indulging in favouritism in giving contracts to these people, but also that I was doing it corruptly.” I ask my hon. friend to dissociate himself from that innuendo. But that is the impression which is created, and I want to say this about Col. Craig, who is so hotly assailed by my hon. friend—I want to say that Col. Craig is one of the ablest engineering officers we possess. He is the author of the Cape Town Harbour scheme, he had it in his brain and pencil originally as an engineering draftsman. He ranks in the top rank of the engineering profession in South Africa—he is a man of an international reputation—and I think it is scandalous—that is the only word I can use, scandalous in the extreme that my hon. friend, the member for George, in his characteristic lighthearted irresponsible way, should attack Col. Craig in the manner he has done. If he had criticised him for certain alleged administrative misdeeds I could understand it, but without any evidence, without any justification whatsoever, without even putting it to Col. Craig himself, he has dared to do this evil thing in this House. Hon. members will remember that the other day the hon. member attacked the Secretary for Defence and accused him of corrupt favouritism. He said that corruptly the Secretary for Defence had …

Did I use that word?

Yes, and if you didn’t you accepted my interpretation of your words in that sense. The hon. member really does not remember what he said, but the Prime Minister is quite clear that the attack was that he had corruptly and improperly put a pal of his into the position of military paymaster of the Union. And I asked him whether he meant that and he said “yes,” he did mean that. And the point is that he did that without putting it to Brig. Blaine. He had him before him at the Public Accounts Committee. He never put the question to him, and in a similar manner he has now-launched an attack on Col. Craig without ever putting a word of it to him, without ever giving him the opportunity of denying the charge. I say it is reducing the public life of this country to a very low level when things of that kind can happen, and I cannot contain my indignation at the hon. member’s action. I cannot contain my indignation at his coming forward with charges based on such paltry grounds.

Why did the Public Works Department on the same jobs spread it over a number of contractors?

I say this in conclusion, that if I, as Chairman of that Committee, had ever thought that there was any such charge intended against Col. Craig I myself would have insisted on his being recalled and on having that point put to him, and giving him the chance of denying it. I say that Mr. Bakker, after the wishy-washy way in which he made that charge, and after withdrawing it in the same wishy-washy way, was never treated seriously by the Committee, and therefore it was not necessary to call on Col. Craig for any defence against such a charge. Now, my hon. friend indulges in a number of further charges against Fortifications. I don’t want to go into too much detail lest I be accused of treating my hon. friend too seriously, and of wasting the time of the House. But the first charge against Col. Craig is that he was disobedient. Disobedient to whom? To the Prime Minister and the Authorities Committee? Well, it is something new to find my hon. friend, a war on warite, a gentleman who is opposed to this war, coming here and telling the Prime Minister that one of his officers was disobedient to him.

Talk about wishy-washy!

Will my hon. friend allow me to reply—we gave him every chance to make his statement.

Don’t take yourself quite so seriously, you are not the most important man here.

If there is any serious charge of disobedience surely the person to deal with it is the Authorities Committee itself, or the Prime Minister, or Col. Craig’s immediate chief, the Chief of the General Staff. But Col. Craig is alleged to be a disobedient officer—well, if he is, if he does not carry out his duties, there are ways of dealing with him. Then he went on to say in his usual flamboyant way, that Col. Craig and Fortifications had been guilty of the use of underhand methods. Again a charge without any substance whatever.

What about that letter?

Oh, I shall deal with every point. Where did the hon. member for George get his facts from? In this present charge against Col. Craig? I shall tell you. [Time extended]. Where did he get his facts from? In the first instance this matter was investigated by the Committee somewhere about last August or September here in Cape Town, and there the matter rested. Then the evidence which we took was brought to the notice of the Secretary for Finance and the Authorities Committee, and later on a memorandum was sent to us saying that certain statements made by Maj. Jordaan were not to their knowledge correct. The point I want to make, just to show how the Government and Defence Department played open cards—if one officer made a statement, which another set of officers did not agree with, it was brought to our knowledge at once and cleared up. There was no hole and corner business, no mystery. Maj. Jordaan made a statement which the others thought was not quite correct, and they told us what they thought were the true facts. And we investigated the matter and came to the conclusion set out in the first paragraph of our report. Now, what is the substance of my hon. friend’s charges? The hon. member admits that Fortifications had no option but to commit these irregularities. He says that, put in the dilemma in which Col. Craig was put he had no option but to put these men on the books of the contractors, but he says he went wrong in not reporting it until two months later. Well, if that is so—what importance is there in that?

I think it is most important.

But it is not so. But what importance is there when a man dealing with rush jobs, told to get camps ready in three months, camps costing £500,000 of money, does not report it at once?

He never reported it.

The point is so trifling that it is not worth dealing with. Then he says that wrong information was given by Maj. Jordaan. Maj. Jordaan said that they were not paying profits to the contractors on these men who have been irregularly placed on their books, while in fact they were. In one or two points the information was incorrect, but if it was incorrect, what does it matter?

Oh, is that your outlook?

Yes, my hon. friend suffers from a lack of perspective. Well, I have dealt with the major charge of corrupt favouritism at some length, but I do not think it necessary to deal at length with these smaller piffling charges which at the most amount to minor instances of indiscipline on the part of Fortifications and their officers, and can be dealt with depart-mentally if there is anything wrong—which there is not. Then the hon. member goes on to quote from evidence of certain irregurities which Mr. Rose finds to have existed at the Cape. He concentrates solely on Fortifications. The sole butt of his charges is Fortifications. May I say this, that that same evidence which Mr. Rose gave as to irregularities here in Cape Town was repeated on the Witwatersrand, only the sinner on the Rand was not Fortifications but the P.W.D. But my hon. friend in his vendetta against Fortifications concentrates on them—and he says nothing about the P.W.D. Now, Mr. Rose struck me as a very responsible man, and if he says he saw these things I have no doubt he did. We dealt very fully with that in our majority report. There was no need for my hon. friend to i quote this evidence. But what my friend did not quote was paragraph 24 of his own report. After giving Mr. Rose’s evidence which he read at great length, what did he say?—

After quoting to the House and the country these instances given by Mr. Rose he then wound up: “It is difficult to assess this evidence at its true value.” The Committee tried to asses the value of this evidence in its majority report, and we deal with the matter quite faithfully. Why my hon. friend now on this third reading drags it out again I cannot understand. Then, he dealt with these increases of salary at Grahamstown. He says that at Grahamstown all these people, all these workers, had large increases of salary, and he gave the figures. His evident intention was to suggest that there was something wrong, something corrupt which should be exposed, but he knows as well as I do that the matter was fully treated by the Committee and commented on. Now, this is the truth. On a job at Grahamstown where the whole staff had to be brought from Cape Town there were no contractors capable of undertaking this work. There are no artisans there—Grahamstown is a little academic village.

Oh, oh, oh!

Sorry, I withdraw the word “village.”

It is a City.

There are no building artisans worth mentioning at Grahamstown which is a Cathedral City. In order to carry out this very big contract, contractors and workmen had to be brought from Cape Town.

Had to be?

When you take a workman away from his home you have to pay him a living away allowance of 7s. 6d. per day. You have to pay his fare as well and in fact you increase his wages by something like 25 per cent. Also, of course, the workman gets overtime, and they found, as a matter of fact, that on this Grahamstown job, the rank and file of the workmen were getting more than the overseers who were overseeing them.

No.

Well, as much as, or more, than the overseers. So these people came to the contractors and said: “We cannot carry on in this way, we are entitled to the living away allowance as well as the workmen are.” Thereupon, the whole lot got increases ranging from £10 to £20 per month. This could not be done by the contractor off his own bat—all these increases had to go to the Director of Fortifications and he O.K.’d them. If my hon. friend wants to make a case of irregularities out of that.

Did the contractor get his 10 per cent. on that?

Yes, I believe he did. He got his percentage on the whole cost of the job and if these people had their wages increased, the contractor’s costs went up. Now my hon. friend makes this point: He says the P.W.D. at the outset split their jobs but Fortifications did not. That is not wholly correct. The P.W.D. from the beginning on single jobs gave them to single contractors, but they also split. Fortifications did not split. They followed the policy of giving a job to the big contractors, and they did so deliberately because they thought the big contractors could do a better job. Six or nine months ago they commenced splitting; when we went to Pollsmoor there were seven contractors doing the job—I suppose it is finished now. But for what it is worth I admit that the P.W.D. were quicker in the policy of splitting. The hon. member is welcome to that if he thinks it worth while.

What do you think?

Now, finally, my hon. friend says that the worst and not the best form of cost-plus was adopted. In our memorandum in reply to his minority report, in paragraph 8, we make a specific point of the fact that these four forms of cost-plus emerge for the first time and were defined for the first time in the Auditor-General’s report which was presented to this House twelve months ago. I have looked at my hon. friend’s reply and he does not deny it. In this country—I don’t know anything about Canada or the States. In this country I know that in any document which we had access to the four kinds of cost-plus were defined for the first time in the Auditor General’s report. Now, Fortifications and the Defence Department are to be condemned because in May, 1940, they did not adopt what the hon. member calls the best form, but followed the worst form. Well, that is reducing the argument to an absurdity. If an engineer is not conscious that there are four different forms of contract existing, how can he elect between these four forms? Cost-plus as known before the war was known as cost-plus-percentage. Cost-plus known in 1940 was cost-pluspercentage, and that was the form in which it was worked. Supplies today are still working under cost-plus percentage; all the stuff produced by the Director of War Supplies is produced under cost-plus percentage. But that system my hon. friend sees nothing wrong with—not with Supplies or not with the Director of War Supplies. We actually asked ourselves the question in our second report, whether we should leave cost-pluspercentage and go over to cost-plus tendered fee in our contracts in for supplies, and we say no, and my hon. friend agreed with us and he signed that report. But in regard to buildings, because we as a Committee now recommend to leave cost-plus percentage and go over to cost-plus tendered fee he criticises the Defence Department for not doing it when they started their big contracts in 1940. Again I say that there is no substance in my hon. friends criticism. Then he has the temerity to make this statement. He says that if we had adopted what he calls the best form, that is cost-plus tendered fee and not the worst form, this country could have saved £5,000,000. That is another of these airy statements which we get from my hon. friend. I am going to show its futility. Our reports deal with buildings to a total value of £35,000,000. Now 10 per cent. on £35,000,000 is £3,500,000. Now, we did not pay as much as 10 per cent., but even if we had paid 10 per cent. the most we would have paid, that is on the £35,000,000 programme, would have been £3,500,000. That is the total at 10 per cent.— if we had paid 10 per cent.—on the £35,000,000.

What about the inflation of cost?

As a matter of fact we did not pay anything like £3,500,000; we paid considerably less. The P.W.D. was only 9 per cent. and Fortifications latterly was 7 per cent. Now, if we paid these people on a tendered fee, would not their tenders have been in the neighbourhood of this? Is not Australia very much the same? Supposing we had had this tendered fee from the very outset, I doubt if we would have saved £100,000 in builders’ remuneration. I doubt it. But assuming we had saved £250,000, that is the utmost limit the saving would have been. It does not stop my hon. friend getting up here in his happy-go-lucky way and saying that this country would have saved £5,000,000.

You have not dealt with that point. You leave out the point which you find inconvenient.

I have dealt with quite a lot of points. Then he quotes figures from Canada. I give this House the advice to treat any figures which my hon. friend quotes with the utmost caution. The experience which the House has had of him justifies that word of caution. This Committee took no evidence about Canada; it had no evidence about Canada; its report reveals all the reliable evidence it could get. We had evidence about Australia, the United States and Great Britain. We have no evidence about Canada, and this story which my hon. friend is now coming along with …

What about it?

We have no evidence worth reporting about Canada; neither in our report nor in the minority report is Canada dealt with, and although we might…

The Auditor-General gave us these figures …

You probably got it from “Die Burger” library.

I say that if we had wanted to, if we had thought it would have been of any value to us in our report, we could have cabled for the information, but we did not do that. And my hon. friend attaches so little value to the little information we had about Canada that he does not refer to it in his minority report. Well, now, I think I have dealt with all points of any value in my hon. friend’s remarks. If there is any point which my hon. friend thinks I have not dealt with faithfully I shall be glad to do so. If he has any further suggestions to make I hope he will tell me while I am still on my feet. But otherwise I just want to say this, the House has heard my hon. friend on cost-plus and on the sins of the Government on two occasions. It has had the advantage of reading his minority report, and our reply thereto, and I can only say that I am prepared to take it before any tribunal in the world. And I further want to say this, that the hon. member has based his conclusions on only part of the evidence; he has followed the case of the prosecution …

If you take this to any court it won’t be the first case you have lost.

As I say, the hon. member has followed the case for the prosecution; he has quoted only part of the evidence, he has ignored the evidence in defence, and he has conducted himself not as an impartial and judicially minded commissioner, but as a person seeking to make out and bolster up a case. If the House wants any proof of that, they saw it this morning. He twisted my remarks about the Prime Minister of Australia in a most grandiloquent manner.

You are a fine one to talk about grandiloquence.

In a grandiloquent way he told the House that I charged the Prime Minister of Australia with lying simply because I called in question a figure in a letter. Now you have a typical example of my hon. friend’s methods. His are the methods of exaggeration—even on the floor of the House he attacked Col. Craig and Fortifications unfairly and unnecessarily. Before I sit down I want to say this: I have sat as a member of the Public Accounts Committee for two years investigating Col. Craig and his methods; I have sat for eight months as a member of the Committee invesitgating Col. Craig and his methods, and I am satisfied beyond any doubt whatever not only that he is an engineer of outstanding ability, but that his reputation stands unsullied and untouched.

The speech of the hon. member who has just sat down may be divided into two parts. The part before lunch was really very reminiscent of what one very frequently found in one’s school days, because the case that the hon. member made was really this: “You must not complain that we are calling you bad names, because you called us bad names first.” That was the gist of his remarks this morning, which took more or less 20 minutes of the time of the House. The second part, which commenced after lunch—and otherwise than one might have expected in the circumstances—was a part in which the hon. member took himself very seriously. If we all took the hon. member as seriously as he takes himself, it would require more time than I have at my disposal to deal with it.

What a calamity it would be.

I propose to take one example of the hon. member’s reasoning and the reasoning of the majority report, and to ask the House and the country to accept it as a fair sample of their logic. We have heard a lot about the Bakker incident. I don’t want to traverse the whole ground, but I do want to read just three extracts from Mr. Bakker’s evidence, and then I would like to read what was the conclusion which the majority of the Committee based on these three extracts. The first extract is this: Mr. Bakker, on page 435, makes a statement in reply to a question which was put to him. The question was—

The answer was—

That is on page 435 of the minutes. The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) now comes and says that that has been withdrawn. Now, I will read the so-called withdrawal, which is on page 447. Mr. Bakker said, before continuing his evidence—

So-and-so and the rest—

Can you explain the omission to quote that?

Give us a chance.

The hon. member must take his medicine. He has had a much longer innings than I will have. I want to give the House an example of the logic and reasoning which lies at the bottom of this whole majority report. I have already stated on another occasion that the underlying fallacy of the whole majority report is that they have failed to carry out the terms of their reference. They have issued a big report, explained about cost-plus contracts in general, but have failed to carry out their one term of reference to investigate into cost-plus percentage. They come to the House today and come to the country and try to make them believe that the cost-plus a percentage is the same as the cost-plus tender fee. The sin of the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) is that he did not quote this so-called withdrawal. Now where is the withdrawal? It is the simple statement: “We were not prepared to tender.” Now I come to the third quotation which was not quoted by my hon. friend, in the majority report. This is on page 465 of the minutes—

The answer was—

At the beginning of the war they were prepared, and they are still prepared, but what they were never prepared to do was to do it on a tender basis; on a cost-plus basis they were always prepared. If one takes these three extracts, the only possible logical conclusion which any unbiassed and fair-minded person would draw would be, as I have stated it. Now let us see what the majority report says, the conclusion that the majority drew from these three remarks—

(that is the hon. member for George)

That is the conclusion based on the evidence of Mr. Bakker. The so-called withdrawal was no withdrawal at all. The third extract was not put in at all, and they draw from that the conclusion that Mr. Bakker told the Committee that at no time were they prepared to do any work at all, notwithstanding his statement that they were prepared, at the beginning, and were still prepared at cost-plus and not on the tender system.

He did not say that.

I say that is a sample of the reasoning which lies at the bottom of this whole majority report. I do not want to go further into it, but the hon. member for Kensington can take his choice, either that there was a studied omission of this last part of the evidence, or that his intelligence was so much at fault that he drew this conclusion from these facts. I leave it to him, he can take whatever choice he likes. But in any case he is on the horns of a dilemma, and whatever choice he takes he stands condemned and the report stands condemned as a report to which nobody can attach any great weight. That is the point, whether it is a mistake or whether it is a studied omission, I am not concerned with that, but I am concerned with the facts pure and simple, and I say whatever explanation the hon. member wants to make, there is one conclusion which one cannot escape, nobody can escape it, and that is that the report which is based on reasoning of this kind, is not worth the paper it is written on. Now let me just come to another point. I don’t want to go into details with these things, but the point that was made by the hon. member for George in his minority report, is that if it was necessary to adopt the cost-plus system at the beginning, why was the worst possible system of cost-plus adopted? The hon. member for Kensington says: “You expect us to have known these things in 1940 or 1941, but the first time we heard that there was more than one kind of Cost-Plus Contract was at the beginning of 1942.” That, I take it, is a fair summary of the hon. member’s argument. The majority report itself says: “You cannot expect us to have the accumulated wisdom gathered in the last three or four years.” Let me deal with that. Here is the English report, which was printed in January, 1941—more than a year between 1941 and 1942. I am referring to the Fourth Report of the English Select Committee on National Expenditure. It is a very full report on this whole question of the cost-plus system, and there they have a very informative note on the contract terms in common use. Under the term “cost-plus” and “time and lime” contracts, they say this—

Now, Mr. Speaker, what is the significance of this? It is that more than a year before the Auditor-General drew the attention of this country to the existence of this other type of Cost-Plus Contract, it was already in print in England, and my submission is that surely these people who were concerned with placing these big contracts ought to have known what was already common cause in England in January, 1941; and, if they did not know it, if the Department of Defence did not know it, then surely they are guilty of culpable negligence in not having known it. It is hardly for the hon. member to say: “You cannot blame us; we did not know there was more than one form of Cost-Plus Contract.” From one of the remarks which the hon. member let fall this afternoon, I understand that this form of cost-plus-a-tender-fee was common knowledge in the D.G.W.S. Department.

No, no. My point was that there is no such thing; it is quite the opposite to what you say.

The hon. member for Kensington has said there was no such thing in that Department.

As a tender fee.

Does the hon. member rise to a point of explanation?

Yes, sir. The hon. member did not get my meaning. The only form of cost-plus known to the Director of Supplies was cost-plus percentage; the costplus-fixed-fee and tender fee was entirely unknown to him.

I am going to read some excerpts here, because we have heard here that this cost-plus percentage is such a necessary requirement in expediting a contract. It is the main reason advanced for adopting this course in works contracts and building contracts by Defence. The main reason for adopting this course was to expedite the completion of the work. It says here in the English Committee’s report—

That is what happened in England, and that is what happened in South Africa, and in this report we have the Committee trying to whitewash the whole thing, when a year before 1942 they ought to have been well aware that there was some other form of cost-plus contract, apart from the cost-plus percentage. That is the point that the hon. member has not met. He says here in the House: “How could we have known about it?” Now let me come to his remarks in regard to the letter from Australia. Now, Mr. Speaker, I shudder to think what international repercussions we may have when we have the statement of the Australian Prime Minister, solemnly submitted in letter form, attacked in this House because the information in it is incorrect! The hon. member for Kensington comes here with a letter from a private firm, an interested party, and he expects us to accept that for what it is worth.

I produced the contract.

You produced the contract! They are merely telling what their agent in Australia wrote to them. It is their agent in Australia who is passing this information to them. This is a very serious allegation, that the Prime Minister of Australia, in a letter written to our Prime Minister, has been guilty of a terminological inexactitude. Let us put it in that way, if the hon. member prefers that. And it is not only that the figures are said to be wrong, Mr. Speaker—you will remember that the figure given was that it would not be more than 3 per cent.—but it was also stated in this reply from the Prime Minister of Australia that they were working on a cost-plus-fixed-fee system. Now the hon. member for Kensington comes and says that is also wrong. I want to know what is right in this letter from the Prime Minister of Australia.

They know each other; they both come from the same place.

Mr. Speaker, for the hon. member for Kensington of all people to call in question anything that emerges from Australia is really incomprehensible, it is inconceivable. But that is what the hon. member is doing. Apparently, all that remains, or rather all that is correct in this letter of Mr. Curtin’s, is that they had certain big contracts from July, 1942. Probably the date is correct, but I am not sure about the date either. It is dated July 16th, 1942, and anyhow, we have not heard from the hon. member for Kensington the scale of remuneration, or rather the date when it came into force.

They mentioned it in the letter, July, 1942.

That is the date of the letter. The very moment that this new scale came into force, the Prime Minister sat down and wrote a letter repudiating all the facts as they then existed! Let us take this argument one point further. If the Prime Minister of Australia has been at fault, why blame the hon. member for George, who was working on the facts that were before the Committee? The hon. member for Kensington, with his characteristic logic, is arguing on the facts as they now emerge from information which he has received only recently—yesterday, I believe.

No, I said we had received that information some months ago, last year in fact. I merely got confirmation of it today.

They print the letter in their report, the Prime Minister’s letter, verbatim, and they don’t call it in question there.

Yes we do, we mention that point.

I do not want to carry on a dialogue across the floor of the House, but I want to put this to the hon. member for Kensington, that the majority report quotes that letter from the Prime Minister, and nowhere does it say in its report …

That is wrong; we do.

You have not yet heard what I am going to say. Nowhere in their majority report do they say that the Prime Minister is wrong, when he says their contracts are given out on a cost-plus-fixed-fee basis. Where do they say that? I will give the hon. member an opportunity of looking it up.

We will have to adjourn.

Nowhere do they say the Prime Minister is wrong. While the hon. member is looking for what he won’t find there, I will go on to say that assuming for a moment that the hon. member is correct in saying that we did not know in this country that there was such a thing as cost-plus-fixed-fee basis in 1942, then why did we not follow that system when we heard about it? He says we only heard about it in the beginning of 1942. Now, what happened? In July, 1942, the Authorities Committee asked the Defence Department of Fortifications to experiment with this new form of contract at Pollsmoor. Fortifications were specifically requested to deal with that, and what did they do? Mr. Speaker, you will find all this in the report, the minority report, in paragraph 33. See what Col. Hill says about that. That is also illuminating, if one remembers that it is said we do not know anything about this other form. Col. Hill said—

Col. Hill knew there was another basis—

Col. Hill knew all about this; he definitely rejected it, and he had an instinctive feeling against it. Now the hon. member for Kensington says they didn’t know anything about it. In July, 1942, the Authorities Committee had a discussion with Fortifications and the P.W.D., and decided to conduct an experiment at Pollsmoor by introducing the cost-plus-a-tender-fee basis. Fortifications was instructed accordingly, but Defence did not welcome the proposed change, and the instruction was not given effect to. On the 14th August, 1942, the Authorities Committee wrote severely censoring Fortifications and quoting the following paragraph—

So not only ought they to have had the information at the beginning—they ought to have known it from 1941, at any rate—but in 1942, when they were definitely requested to employ it by the Authorities Committee, they still jibbed at it and refused to carry it out. Then the hon. member comes here and says: “Oh, well; we did not know about it.” It shows the whole attitude of mind of Fortifications to this whole Cost-Plus Contract business. They were averse to it, and they have only been forced into it after the report of the Committee has made it compulsory for them to go in for it. I do not want to continue, for my time is limited, but I want to say this to the Prime Minister, who I am sorry, is not here: We know that if there is a report of any Committee, and the Prime Minister or the Government is not satisfied; if there is any attack on them, any criticism, then they simply push it aside and say it cannot be accepted. We had this the other day in the Economic and Planning Council when they brought up their first report. They made it clear that the Government had not attempted even to deal with the question of unemployment after the war, and when they assessed on scientific lines what the amount of unemployment would be at the end of the war, we find the Prime Minister saying that it is grossly exaggerated. Now the country is not satisfied with that. I just want to conclude by reading to the House what a paper which is neither Nationalist nor Opposition has to say in an editorial. “Common Sense”, which for once expresses common-sense, says—

Order! The hon. member is not in order in reading a comment of speeches made in the House during the Session.

I bow to your ruling, sir, and I will then merely summarise. There are other people, apart from members on this side of the House, who feel that the Government by this policy of trying to crush criticism, by trying to show that this report of the majority on this matter is correct, and trying to whitewash the sins of omission and commission which can be laid at the door of the Government, and of the departments concerned, will not take anybody in, particularly when this policy is bolstered up by the type of argument of which I have given the House a sample this afternoon. That type of logic and reasoning will cut no ice with any intelligent person. The hon. member for Kensington has said that the most compromised man on the whole Committee was the hon. member for George, because he is the chief financial critic of the Opposition. He forgets, and it is not usual for the hon. member for Kensington to forget himself, but this time he has forgotten himself; he has forgotten that he was on that Committee, enjoying the confidence of the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister. He has been put there, and if one listens to his speeches here in defence of his own attitude, then one can only say that if the hon. member for George is compromised in this matter by reason of his views, then the hon. member for Kensington is a hundred times more compromised.

I wish to make a suggestion or two on rather different matters. Though I know that suggestions are not always welcome, they are sometimes acted on after an interval maybe of years, and lately we on these benches have had a very encouraging example thereof. I do not wish to startle any guilty consciences by mention of a General Election, and yet I must. My reference is not, however, to any impending one, but to an event that is past. Previous to the General Election of 1938 I had put before my constituents, in speeches and in written articles, the fullest possible details of the New Zealand Social Security Code. That, it is not too much to say, was the main plank of my political platform. Presumably, therefore, it is because of that that I was elected to this place. I do not see any other good and sufficient reason—it certainly was not because of my youth and beauty that my majority of 3,500 was obtained.

It certainly was not.

Most certainly was not. Greatly encouraged, I came to this House, and on the 12th of May, 1939, I gave in the Assembly the main provisions of the New Zealand Act as summarised by the late Mr. M. J. Savage, then the Prime Minister of that Dominion. The following year, in 1940, the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside), sometimes an impetuous sort of man, made a vigorous but ignored plea in this House for “a little bit on account” in this matter of Social Security. In 1941, that same hon. member and myself, in our Budget speeches, laid down the Social Security plan and policy of the South African Labour Party. In 1942, the hon. member for Krugersdorp (Mr. M. J. van den Berg) brought before this House a motion asking that that plan and policy should be endorsed. And I think I am quite fair and accurate in saying that on that occasion the Prime Minister accepted the principle and endorsed Social Security. That gave it a spectacular fillip, and editors, and professors, and philosophers, and goodness knows who, all and sundry, and new democratic organisations which had been born in the last year or so, jumped in, not only to give Social Security their uttermost support, but also claiming to be the originators of the Social Security movement. Now, these preliminaries are merely to show why I feel I am justified in claiming a tremendous volume of support for the proposals that I now purpose to make. And the first one is that we should secure and safeguard the reasonable health and happiness of the aged persons of our country. The latest figures which we have shown that we have expended £2,811,000 during the past year in old age pensions. I have the temerity to suggest that that amount should be doubled, even trebled. When from these benches we mention that to each of all these old people should be paid £10 per month, we are led by this, and this only, that they are entitled to live and they cannot live on less. It will mean a cost of from £8,000,000 to £10,000,000 per annum to our country. That, no doubt, is a big sum, but we can carry this on for twelve years on the amount it costs for one year of war. Now, it is very easy to find reasons for increasing the amounts paid to old age pensioners. The statutory amount of £3 10s. per month per pensioner—even if they always get it, which they don’t—is ridiculously inadequate. In Durban it may cost double that for a cottage. They can get a room, in which they would be more cramped for space than a canary in its cage, for £2, and that would leave the average pensioner with 1s. per day for food, clothing, medical expenses, and amusements. They would not have many amusements, nor much clothing or medical attention—and not much food either, for that matter. And in the past two years expenses have gone up very considerabaly. It may be amusing to some people to spend time in assessing the increases in the cost of living—whether it is 13 or 14 or 15 or 16 per cent. To me such researches do not convey a great deal. I am prepared to make oath and say that I do not eat any more meat than I did two years ago, but all the same the butcher’s bill is twice as large as it used to be. The same thing applies to the grocer’s account too. For a cup and saucer—an empty cup at that—eleven shillings has been paid in recent months, and an egg in Durban costs 5d. Some hon. members will naturally be interested in the price of carrots. The present cost is 3d. or 4d. per bunch, whereas formerly you used to pay 3d. for 4 bunches. Formerly, and not long ago, you could get a pound of rice for l½d. Now it is 7d.—if you can get it at all. Milk now costs 4½d. per pint, bread is expensive and very bad in quality. These things particularly affect the aged poor. And these people, in addition, often have sons and other relatives absent on active service in the field. They are subject to the common anxieties of our times, and they are put to extra and totally unnecessary expenses for abominations such as are called “black-out curtains”, and worse things, a quite unnecessary annoyance and cost so far as towns like Johannesburg, Durban, and Cape Town are concerned. These contraptions cost money, and pensioners have no money to pay for these things. Then they are threatened with Court proceedings for not keeping their lights to themselves. The conditions are definitely difficult. I ask the Government to give further consideration to the needs of this particular class of our people, the aged, who have done their duty to this country and are entitled to look forward to a few years, at any rate, of comparative comfort. And I want to make it quite plain and say that we feel that the coloured people should be paid exactly the same. They get just as hungry as we do, and no one sells them bread any cheaper, so far as I know. And I add to this that the Natives should also be paid old age pensions, probably on the basis of what we have up to now been giving to the Coloured people. I do not subscribe to the poor pretence that the Native does not need as much protective food as we do, but the aged Native has not been used to much in his life, and he will be very thankful to get even 30s. per month. My correspondence satisfies me that this need is very wide, and that the feeling in our country is becoming very bitter on this subject, and that it angers Europeans as well as non-Europeans. We shall no doubt be told by the Minister that this will cost a great deal of money. It will, but it is money the nation will be prepared to spend; it is money which the nation expects to be spent. One question in the minds of the people of this nation is: “What is this war about? What is it for? What is it going to do?” Is it going to resolve in a system which gives reasonable comfort and security to the many; or is it really just to preserve what we have always had to our discomfort—is it going to perpetuate the privileges and the luxuries of the few? This may not seem practical politics in the midst of war, but it is. The public are clear in their minds that if we can spend enormously on war, if we can spend colossally large sums for war, we can spend a great deal more for peace. They think we can, and they say we must. There is another point which also has to do to some extent with the food of the people. I remember an election cartoon in England which I think struck the right note. It was an excellent cartoon, and was reproduced on posters which depicted a little loaf and a big loaf of bread. The question printed below was: “Which do you want?” And the people answered intelligently. They threw a Government out of office. In Johannesburg people find it difficult to buy fish, even if they have the money, which is not always the case. If you go into a shop they say: “You are not a regular customer; get out.” There is so little fish to sell, and yet there is enough fish close to our shores for everyone to have at half the price you can get it at today; and therefore this representation for a State fishing industry, which has been placed before the Government by the South African Labour Party, deserves serious consideration. Let me quote here what the South African Labour Party says on that point—

That was the recommendation made by my Party to the Government. So far it has not met with any particular results, and in case it has been thrust aside, as so much is thrust aside, as being too ambitious, I wish to make one or two modest suggestions in regard to this matter, and the first proposition I want to make is this: I suggest that there is a problem with regard to fishermen returning from war service. Many of them have already returned. It is essential that we shall make a plan for them, and we should make it now. If we go along our Cape coast a little we shall come to the Breede River, at Cape Infanta, which has a delightful harbour in the river mouth. I am not the only one who knows about it, because the South African Railways and Harbours, recognising the possibilities of that haven, built a jetty there some years ago for the purpose of encouraging fishing. But that harbour has been neglected and wasted ever since. There is safe room in the estuary, even in the worst of weather, for quite good-sized fishing boats, say craft of 50 to 60 feet. There is only one boat at the jetty today, belonging to a civilian who does not use it for fishing. The present position is that not a solitary fisherman there is making a living at his proper trade. My suggestion is that the Government should buy at least one boat, and for experimental purposes test what a harvest there is in the sea. I look at it from the point of view of the benefit which the people will get. For £3,000 the Government can obtain a suitable boat, with an 80 to 100 h.p. engine. I am sorry the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) is not here. We might be very well advised to get him to buy it for us, as we could then be sure we would get our money’s worth. But perhaps the echo will come to his ears. And we might perhaps be allowed to suggest to him that if he does buy a boat like that for us he should get one with a Diesel or semi-Diesel engine, and not a paraffin-fuel engine, because that is more expensive and too slow on the job! We should want then to have one thoroughly experienced man to run the boat, with a crew, and that experienced man should supervise the fishing. In the first instance the catches would have to be sold to wholesalers, but if the experiment proves a success I suggest that cold storage facilities should be provided and the fish should go, not to the wholesaler, but to the person who wants to eat it—the fish should go direct to the householder. If the project succeeded further we might go in for cured fish, smoked fish and salted fish, and even build up some sort of an export market. An idea very much like this was put before the Government at the end of the last war, when the British Admiralty offered to provide motor boats from the Coastal Patrol in order that a fishing industry might be built up to aid men returning from war service. There were to be fleets of ten boats, each to operate from their own centre, under the skilled control of a fishing skipper or commodore, as in the North Sea. The building-up of markets would folow afterwards. I understand, however, that the Government looked upon that project very coldly. Their reply was that the people of South Africa were farmers and not fishermen. Well, much has happened since then. I think today we are justified in claiming that they are both fishermen and farmers, and that a great deal might be done along these lines. If the Government do not care to take it up as a national matter, I have another plan, and it is this: that just as money is lent to the farmer for the purchase of stock or the improvement of his land, the Government might allow eight fishermen, returned soldiers, to unite forces. The Government might lend each of these men, say £250—making £2,000 in all. They could build or buy a boat of their own. The loan would be perfectly safe. You could not take that boat out of harbour without Government clearance papers. The boat could not die on you, as I understand cattle sometimes do; and it would be insured to its full value against loss at sea. I suggest that for a small outlay like that these eight fishermen would get a living, they in turn would employ another eight fishermen, and sixteen families would be supported by means of this small loan. Moreover, we should be able to obtain a very much-needed extra supply of useful food for our people. I shall not keep the House much longer, but I want to refer to a totally different matter. I have here a cutting from the “Rand Daily Mail” of the 20th November, 1942. It is headed “University grants for returned soldiers.” I do not altogether like the expression, “generous concessions to soldiers” with which the paragraph starts. It seems to savour a little bit of charity. The soldiers in my view cannot possibly owe anything to us. They can never be in debt to us, it is we who are in debt to them. But this is what the paper says—interesting as far as it goes. There is a sub-heading: “New State concessions announced by Maj. Van der Byl,” and then it reads—

Now I wish to put before the Minister the condition, the unfortunate condition, in which the Churches generally find themselves today with regard to the training of men who may quite probably and indeed do already seek to offer themselves as candidates for the Ministry. I feel sure the House will have a feeling of sympathy in regard to the position of all Churches, and not just some of them. A very big number of clergymen of all denominations have joined the Defence Force, whether as Chaplains or education officers, or in combatant units. And indeed a good number of them have been killed in action already. In addition to that, practically the whole of the young students who would normally be in training for the profession of the Church, the calling of a clergyman, have also gone into the Army, so that the Theological Colleges, denuded of students, at present are largely closed. They will not always remain closed. The men will come back. I feel sure the House will sympathise not only with the teaching, law, and medical professions, but with all others, including the profession of which I am an unworthy member. I am sure the House will be concerned with the reconstruction of that high profession, and I would urge that these grants and loans should be extended not merely to those mentioned in this Report, but also to each and every one of any young men, members of whatever Church, who may wish to undertake this study to become a Minister, in any Clergy School or Theological College in South Africa.

I wanted to bring a certain matter to the notice of the Prime Minister, but unfortunately he is not in his seat. I hope, however, that the Minister will make a note of it and bring it to the Prime Minister’s notice. East of Bloemfontein the Government is erecting a new aerodrome. It is known as Air School No. 27. To the south of Maselspoort Road there are a number of plots which belong to people in the city, and the aerodrome is being erected on the northern side. When this air school was started, a deputation, composed of occupants of these plots, interviewed the head of the Defence Force in Bloemfontein, Col. Klerk, and pointed out to him that if Native quarters were erected there, it would mean that the people living there would have to suffer inconveniences, and they tried to have the quarters for the Natives built farther away. Col. Klerk tried to go into the matter further. I just want to read what the head of that deputation, Mr. Maynard, wrote—

The people who live there have small plots of five morgen, and the Native quarters are being erected directly opposite them. He writes further—

Even before work on these quarters was commenced, therefore, a deputation of these people went to the Commanding Officer and begged him to build these quarters further away, not within view of these plots. I just want to point out that many of these people work in the city during the evening. Their wives are alone at home during the evening, and these Native troops constitute a source of danger, and I want to congratulate Col. Klerk, in that he took strong action in Bloemfontein in an effort to keep the Native troops under control, and in those cases where they were guilty of unseemly conduct, he did his best to have these people transferred. You will understand that many of these Europeans have to work during the evening. Many of them work on the Railways. Their wives and children are alone at home. Many of the Natives drink beer during the week-ends, and indulge too freely, and these women are afraid to live there alone. This deputation has now tried to influence the Defence Force Authorities to remove those quarters and to shift them further away. Col. Klerk wrote the following reply to their representations—

That is his attitude. They replied to this as follows—

These quarters have been erected and Natives are being housed there. Some time later they again wrote to the head of the Defence Force, as follows—

The sanitation water overflows at a distance of 150 yards from some of the properties. They further state this—

This is the drinking water of the people

I think the hon. Minister will agree that these people have a serious grievance. The Department is not entitled at any time to do anything which will reduce the value of the properties of these people, which will cause; inconvenience, and which will endanger their health. I cannot understand why the Department does not intervene in such a case and put a stop to it. I was told by people who are concerned in the matter, that some of the members of the Department had said that only Europeans would be placed there, and not Native quarters. The value of the properties of these people has now been reduced, and during the evenings the wives of these men do not want to stay there alone because they regard it as extremely dangerous. I therefore ask the Minister to put a stop to this state of affairs, and I hope that the Minister of Finance will convey this message to the Minister of Defence, and that it will not be necessary for me to raise this matter again. I think the Minister agrees that the Government has no right to deal with the private property of people in this way. Then there is another matter which I want to bring to the notice of the Minister of Finance. I asked him the other day whether he intended introducing legislation in connection with Oudstryders’ Pensions. He said that he was considering it. It is expected that he will intimate on Wednesday what he has decided, but I want to make an urgent appeal to him at this stage, to meet the Oudstryders and those people who are in receipt of old age pensions. If the Minister came into contact with people in the large cities, as we do, he would discover that the costs of living have risen surprisingly, and that householders can no longer make a living, and that there is general want. I want to make an urgent appeal to the Minister to meet this type of pensioner. It will be of no avail to talk about social security and what we intend doing in the future, if at the present time, while large sums of money are being spent on the war and while money is plentiful, we allow these people to starve. I want to make a serious appeal to the Minister to deal liberally with this type of person, when considering legislative measures. The Oudstrvders and people who are in receipt of old age pensions, receive pensions which are very small and on which they cannot obtain the necessities of life. I ask the Minister to meet that type of person, and I hope that on Wednesday he will make a favourable statement in this connection.

Mr. Speaker, may I venture to distract the attention of the Minister and the House from this absorbing topic of cost-plus, to what I hope he will find equally as absorbing as I do, because it is something concerning the lives of the people. I would remind the House and the Minister that last year after eight years of steady effort to persuade the House to legislate in that direction this Assembly at last passed the Motor Vehicles Insurance Act, compelling all motorists to take out third party risk insurance. That Act was supposed to come into effect on the 1st January this year, but somewhere about November there was a notice in the paper to the effect that the application of the Act had been postponed. Well, sir, when the Session started, I asked the Minister for what reason the application of the Act had been postponed, and he replied that it had been found necessary in the circumstances which obtain. He said that the matter was less urgent owing to the restrictions on motoring in the shape of less petrol and tyre difficulties. He added also that there were several difficulties to be considered, one being the shortage of paper, before the Act could come into operation. Now, sir, to deal with the last matter first, I cannot imagine for a moment when I see the number of small magazines that are still being printed, magazines of no particular interest except to the people concerned, and when I see the number of cinema programmes and other matters of that sort being printed and broadcast, then I cannot imagine for a moment that the small amount of paper that might be necessary to print a couple of hundred thousand small insurance sheets, can be an obstacle in the way. To deal next with the hon. Minister’s point that the application of the Act is now less important, may I say that the facts are against him, and those facts have been collated by the people who know and use the roads. I know, for instance, that the Commercial Travellers’ Association, after the publication of the announcement postponing this Act, passed a resolution at their annual Conference deprecating very strongly the fact that the Act had been postponed. I know, sir, that that resolution was sent to the Minister. These are people who use the roads all the time, and the people who are in the very best position to know whether the matter is less urgent or more urgent than before. From the talks I have had with the association, I believe that the black-out conditions in the coastal areas have made the incidence of accidents more serious. They find that much more serious accidents occur because of the black-out conditions in the coastal areas, and they are very concerned at this postponement of the application of the Act, so concerned that they sent a copy of their resolution to the Minister. That is one body which feels strongly on this matter, composed of people who use the roads frequently. Another organisation that I know does not agree with the Minister, and that is the Safety First Organisation. Recently the Prime Minister issued an appeal on behalf of the Safety First Organisation, for more care in preserving the lives of our people. He gave facts and figures which went to show that the accident rate in this country was still deplorable, and he implored people to back the association in their very laudable efforts. Well, sir, the figures which the Prime Minister gave certainly do not show that the matter is less urgent than it was. These figures were issued after the Act should have been applied, and the Minister’s own statement was that at that time after petrol and tyre rationing had been brought in, there were still 39 more people killed on the road than there had been the previous year. There has been a considerable drop in the accident rate on the road, but there severity has increased. The monthly bulletin reflects that drop, but the most recent bulletin does go to show that even with that drop there are 2,331 people killed or injured on the roads of the Union over three months. That figure is for the last three months of 1942, and I would ask the Minister to reconsider the non-application of Third Party Risk Insurance which would ensure that at least these 2,331 people would be either compensated themselves or their dependants. That is a very urgent matter.

[Inaudible.]

I cannot state if these statistics include military accidents. My impression is that the military casualties figure in the statistics issued by the Department of Defence, but I am not quite sure. However, the point I am trying to make, that if 2,331 people of the Union had been killed on the battlefield or injured without any kind of compensation to their dependants, there would have been an enormous outcry in this country. Yet because these casualties happened on the road, the Minister considers it is less urgent. The number of people who are insured is only one in three, and therefore two-thirds of the people killed or injured, or their dependants, get nothing at all in the way of compensation. So I would ask the Minister most urgently to reconsider his decision. That brings me to the third reason for this delay in putting the Act into force. The Minister said it was because of staff difficulties. Now, sir, I have made some private enquiries amongst the insurance companies. The Minister may have better information than I had, but my information is that certainly the insurance companies have not raised any difficulty on account of staff. If that is really so, I fail to see why the Minister should postpone the application of this most important Act on account of difficulties of staff. It is to me, sir, a very important matter; people who use the Union roads should be able to use them in safety as far as insurance against pain and suffering, against loss of earning power, or against death, so that their dependants may not be left penniless. It really is a vital matter in this country with its small population, and so I would ask the Minister most seriously whether he will not reconsider his attitude on this question, and if he cannot put the Act into force immediately, he will not postpone it indefinitely, because, as far as I understand him, he is waiting for a more convenient occasion. I think that is a very unsatisfactory situation. I would ask him to at least give us a definite date when this Act can be brought into force. I suggest the end of June would be a suitable occasion. As to the financial effects of the Act the financial liability of the motorist, that is very small, as the Minister knows; it is in the neighbourhood of 30s. or 35s. a year. That is a very small item to counterbalance against tyre and petrol costs. There is one other matter. I know at least one of the motoring organisations has made representations on this important question, and, in view of all the facts, I hope the Minister can give the House at least some definite assurance that the Act will be enforced. The incidence of accidents proves that while accidents are less, the severity of those accidents is greater, and the number of pedestrians killed and injured is rising because of the blackout conditions.

I regret that the hon. Prime Minister is not in his place, because I would like to bring to his attention a few matters of the greatest importance for the farming community. Hon. members of this House are perhaps not so well informed, but I have just come from the platteland, and the position there is very serious, so serious that many of our farmers, particularly sheep farmers, are menaced by ruination on account of the drought prevailing there. I am glad the Minister of Agriculture is here, and I would like to know from him what the Government intends doing under these special circumstances prevailing on the platteland. As a result of the drought a serious disease has broken out among the stock. I do not know if the Minister is aware of this, but a tick plague has broken out and nothing is being done about it by the Government, and no investigation is taking place. Nothing is being done to circumvent it. I would just like to say to the Minister of Agriculture that certain farmers have lost from 500 to 600 sheep, and they are continuing to lose sheep every day, so that you will realise that the position is very serious. It is the duty of the Government to institute an immediate investigation as to the best means of combating the plague.

Do the animals die from tie tick plague?

Yes. Some of the farmers do not possess much stock, and in some cases they have lost from 40 per cent. to 50 per cent. The matter is extremely serious.

Is it only sheep that have died?

I am speaking now about sheep. There is something else that is very serious so far as the farmers are concerned, particularly there in the northern parts of the Cape, which I particularly represent, namely, that along the settlements the people cannot at the moment transport their products to the nearest market, due to the fact that no means of transport is available. The Railways can in no way keep pace with the traffic. Those people have worked very hard to accumulate products, as for instance lucerne and sultanas and other products, but now those products are lying there at the settlements on the Orange River. It will surprise the Minister to hear that there are people who have not yet thrashed their crops because thrashing machines are not being made available, and those who have finished thrashing cannot get their products transported. It is a thorny position and the people are being threatened by ruin. You will understand that where lucerne is stacked, and it cannot be transported, there you have the danger that if rain comes damage will be done. Lucerne can perhaps stand this in a measure, but sultanas will rot and thereby lose their whole value. It is urgently necessary that the Government should make provision so that the people can transport their products to the nearest markets. It is also in the interest of the Government that the people should not suffer losses, for then they will be able to meet their financial commitments. The poor people are in a difficult position, because you find the Government frightening them day after day by paper bombs from the offices, in which they are reminded of their financial obligations and asked to pay off their instalments. They cannot pay if they cannot get their products transported. I have seen that in the Northern Free State the Government has made available transport means in the shape of lorries of the Defence Force to transport the wheat of the farmers. I want to make an earnest appeal to the Government to come to the assistance also of those people with us whose livelihood depends upon their products. I hope the Government will see to it immediately that transport means are provided for the people along the settlement of Boegoeberg-Karos. Let me point out that many of the farmers are at present members of Co-operative Societies which they established on the recommendation of the Government. That would place them in the best position of getting their products marketed and of obtaining the best prices. Now you find that these people cannot get their lucerne and sultanas and other products to the market, and the Co-operative Society stores cannot give them advances. They are becoming desperate, and if there is one section of the population who have worked hard and are worthy of their wage then it is the people there. Now, after they had established the society on the recommendation of the Government they cannot get their products to the market. I urge strongly that the Government extends immediate help to those people. Otherwise they are doomed to failure, and it will be a disaster and not in the interests of the area and of the Government. Let me add this, it is very discouraging when you find that people who have done their best, and who have followed the advice of the Government, cannot get their products to market. A fair quantity of wheat has been obtained and the wheat is standing in stacks on the land, and the wheat already thrashed cannot be sent away. I hope that the Minister of Agriculture and the Government will do everything in their power to alleviate the position. Then I want to make certain recommendations to the Minister of Finance, which I hope he will accept. When the Minister in the previous Session introduced his special taxation legislation in connection with profits on the sale of fixed property, I told him that to my mind it is wrong to levy the taxation in this manner. I agree with the principle the Minister has in view, viz. to prevent speculation in fixed property as far as possible, but I felt that this is not the right way to act, and that the taxation should rather have been levied in the form of transfer fees. I pointed out to the Minister that in the previous war of 1914-1918 transfer fees were doubled from 2 per cent. to 4 per cent., and the revenue accruing to the State from this source was much more than it gets at the moment from the special taxation. I don’t mind even if the Minister makes it 5 per cent. In the previous war it was increased to 4 per cent., but later reduced again. Where the Minister will shortly introduce his main budget, I want to express the hope that he will try to make this change, of changing the taxation on profits on fixed property to taxation on transfer fees. Let me point out to the Minister that he estimates to receive £450,000 from the special taxation, but I believe that up to date he has not received £160,000. The latest report in the Government Gazette shows a figure of something over £90,000. I do not know what this really is. It means that the Minister is out by an amount of about £300,000. This should be proof to the Minister that it is an ineffective taxation, but also a taxation in connection with which a great deal of juggling can take place, and I understand that there is considerable intrigue in connection with it. I hope therefore that the Minister will rather increase the transfer fees instead of that taxation. Then there is also dissatisfaction in the country in connection with the Compulsory Savings Tax. I have already said something or other about this on a previous occasion. But I feel that that Compulsory Savings Tax is very ineffective. It sounds very nice, because it is a sort of saving. But the fact is that it is a very undesirable taxation and I want to read out to the Minister what one of the great authorities on finance has to say about this sort of taxation. I want to read out to him what the editor of The Economist, a world authority on the financial system, says about this taxation—

Here we have one of the greatest authorities of the world telling us how undesirable this sort of legislation is. It falls half-way between a loan and a tax, and in many respects it has the disadvantages of both. He says that the blame of compulsion as well as difficult problems at the calculations of the tax exist in connection with this sort of taxation. What the public outside feel is simply that it is a compulsory tax. It is known as a saving, but the saving is only a small portion of it, so small that it is hardly worth while. The public feel that it is an unsatisfactory tax, and because it is an unsatisfactory tax the public outside feel that it is not just and fair towards them. It is an involved method of taxing persons. As I have quoted here, this sort of taxation offers many difficulties, and the result is that the ordinary man feels that he is not being treated justly and fairly. He cannot understand the taxation, and because he cannot understand it, it becomes more difficult for him and makes him more dissatisfied. I hope therefore that the Minister will take the matter into consideration, because it is clear that, in spite of the tax and the manner of its fixation, it will nevertheless leave a big national debt. It is very unsatisfactory, and I think the Minister will do much better if he abolishes this taxation. It is desirable that the persons who pay the tax shall know where they stand, and what the circumstances are that accompany it. I thus hope that the Minister will endeavour to see whether he cannot bring about a change in the tax when he introduces his main Budget. It sounded very nice when he introduced this taxation because we heard about saving, but actually it is not a saving, and for that reason, and because it causes so much difficulty to the ordinary man who has to pay taxes, I hope that the Minister will consider bringing about a change. Further, I want to draw the attention of the Minister to this. It is a matter that relates to the taxation on dividends drawn by persons who live in other countries. I am glad that the Minister has realised that this is a very fair taxation, when I suggested it to him. But I now want to plead with the Minister to go into the matter and to see in how far he can increase that taxation. I think he said that that taxation would yield about £800,000. It is a tax of 5 per cent. According to the Estimates, it will bring in about £1,000,000. I think that if the Minister makes the local taxpayer pay 5 per cent., then he can make the man, overseas pay at least 50 per cent. or 100 per cent. I would suggest that he should tax those dividends higher in the new Budget, so that we shall get a greater amount. I put forward these few suggestions to the Minister and I hope he will consider them in order to see in how far he can improve the present position. If we suggest something to the Minister from which he can derive greater incomes, he is always very eager to accept it, and I now suggest to him this question of a higher dividend tax on persons residing overseas. I hope he will give careful consideration to the hints I have given him.

I make no apology for coming back to this vexed question of social, or, as I call it, economic security, and I am glad my hon. friend for Durban, North (the Rev. Miles-Cadman), devoted a few moments in giving the history of this demand for economic security in this country. This economic security was particularly the Labour Party’s baby, but the baby has been adopted by so many individuals, by so many parties, and by so many organisations—

And by so many fathers …

Yes, both legitimate and otherwise—if it is possible for a father to be illegitimate—that the baby is in great danger of being killed by kindness. We are rather inclined to feel that the baby is going to be strangled by getting mixed up in the rush of people who want to claim its parentage, and what we are more afraid of even is that there is so much talk about social security, so many people have ideas about it, that the thing will not eventuate at all. I want to be perfectly clear as a member of this House, what our attitude is. I explained this matter to the Minister on the second reading—but unfortunately I was not here when he replied. I understand that he did not reply to my point about the institution of a Ministry of Reconstruction, but I want to make it clear to the Minister that we feel more or less certain that we are going to be faced with a General Election in the near future. Now, that is bound up with something else I said on the second reading, to which I also believe the Minister did not reply, and that is the efficiency and the efficacy of members of Parliament as such. Well, time is going on, and the Minister is introducing his Budget this week. Members of Parliament as well as others get very little information as to the intention of the Government. Not only are we pushed back in regard to our positions as members of this House, but we are also kept in ignorance as to what the Government’s intentions are. We know that a General Election is in the offing—the Government so far have not made up their minds whether they are going to hold it or not. There does not seem to be any point in their not having made up their minds. They cannot score off anyone during this war period by letting us know what we are to expect. And if they have made up their minds, surely they should not leave the country in any state of uncertainty in so far as a happening is concerned, which is a constitutional happening, and for which definite provision is made. There has been some talk in Government circles that an election may not be held. That talk comes from the Government itself. If such talk had not arisen we would be sure that there would be a General Election. Now, we are in this position—at least as far as I am concerned—we have in this House consistently asked and urged for a measure of social and economic security. Eventually the Prime Minister agreed to a motion which came from these benches. Subsequently a Planning Committee was instituted, and then a report came from that Committee which resulted in a Committee to consider social security specifically. But are we to go to a General Election, without knowing what these specific plans of the Government are in regard to social security? I do not think the Government is entitled to ask us that. If they do, then the Government cannot blame us for taking a line which they may afterwards find they do not agree with. We see what has happened in the British Parliament. A powerful Committee, under Sir William Beveridge, submits a report, and the Government is not prepared to accept that report in toto. I am not going to discuss the question how much of that report the Government has accepted; I won’t even discuss the implications of some of the remarks, but what emerges without argument is that the vast majority of the powerful British Labour Party are not satisfied with the attitude of the Government. Now, we are in a worse position here. It may be—I don’t know—because we get so little information—the Government of South Africa is so much of a hush-hush business which is kept in the pockets of our pocket dictators, that it is difficult for us to get an appreciation of what our conditions in this country are—it may be that the Government intends going to the country within the next few months. It may be that it will get a majority, possibly a substantial majority.

Never!

Well, I say maybe, and it maybe that the Government will then be prepared to say that they have had a mandate to remain in office for five years, and that their mandate is to put into force a kind of policy, a policy which they may like, and which so far they have not told us about—a policy which so far has been obscured by the appointment of Standing Committees and Commissions. Again, coming to the grievance which I have placed before the House before, that so much of our work is taken out of our hands and put into the hands of experts, that the policy of the Government is generally obscured and particularly obscured at the time of a General Election. We want to press for a general measure of social and economic security. I have never been of opinion that that is a matter which needs such a great deal of investigation at all. It is not like the cost-plus business which the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) was talking about. We have talked about economic security for years, and we cannot say that it is a subject which has only cropped up in the last few months. The hon. member for Kensington said that so rar as cost-plus was concerned only one form of it was known and nobody was told that there was more than one form of it. Well, we know that there is a vast amount of literature in existence appertaining to social and economic security, and I should like to try and get from the Government what it really proposes doing in this regard. I want to get a reply from the Minister. I have put a question to the Minister of Railways and Harbours. I have had no reply, but I shall deal with him again on the third reading of his Bill. But now I should like to get some official reply as to how much social security we are likely to get. It seems perfectly clear that we are not going to get anything this Session. It seems clear that the Government have already made their plans and there will not be time to put any social security plans into force this Session. But we want to know what are the general principles. The House is entitled to know. We have discussed this question ad nauseum the whole of this Session. We have discussed it on a general motion, on a motion introduced by the Leader of the Opposition, but so far as the House is concerned all we know is that the House has agreed, that they have accepted what the Government have attempted to do in the last few years, and they are quite satisfied that the Government will proceed on these lines. But while the House may be satisfied, the country is not satisfied. The people have made a demand for a measure of economic security. That in itself is one of the reasons, that above all is why we are fighting this war; that is above all the reason why the men coming back will consider that they have fought the war or they have not fought it. On how far we are prepared to go in giving economic security will depend what the soldiers’ viewpoint will be—on that will depend whether the soldiers will feel whether they have been let down or not. A great many are satisfied that they are going to be let down again. They have reasons for that view, because of the treatment that the men have had in a number of cases. I am satisfied that the Government of this country has no right to go to an election unless they can say specifically what practical measures they are prepared to take in order to bring into force a measure of economic security. That is what the country is interested in. I don’t think they are interested in questions of bilingualism—I don’t think the country is even very much interested in this cost-plus argument, which has roused so much ire on both sides of the House for so many hours, and they are certainly not interested in the Afrikaans dictionary. They are not even very much interested in the hon. member for Jeppe’s (Mrs. Bertha Solomon) pet scheme of third party insurance—they are interested in what kind of living they will have after the war. They are interested in the question whether they are going to be plunged into the same kind of semi-starvation which they had after the last war. They are interested in knowing whether they are going to have a better living. Let me tell a story to the House—I don’t often do so, but it happens to be a true story. I travelled in a train with three ladies, two of whom were in the South African Army and one of them had lost her husband and her brother on the same day—both members of the Police Brigade up North. The third lady was the wife of a fairly rich Natal sugar magnate in Durban, and a discussion arose at dinner about the Native strike which was proceeding in Durban, and it was said that it was time for something to be done to put the Natives in their place, that all this talk for higher wages was so much Communism and Bolshevism and so on. The discussion went on until the lady who had lost her husband and brother intervened and said to the sugar magnate’s wife, “If you think my husband and brother were killed on the same day to perpetuate the kind of thing we had in this country before the war you have another think coming.” And that is the opinion of very many people in this country. They are not fighting to perpetuate the kind of things we had before the war. They are not even fighting to retain the things we had before the war. They are fighting this war to set many other things, chief of which is a life where we can be reasonably secure, where we can get rid of these fears which haunt large numbers of our people from the cradle to the grave. The war issue today has rather drifted into the background. The war issue is not a great issue today. My hon. friends opposite have been proved so completely wrong that they have now given up the war issue. They don’t use it any more. They have been forced into their present position by the circumstances of the war itself.

Now they are making Communism their issue.

Yes, but that is not a very intelligent interjection. They have belatedly and reluctantly come to the conclusion that the war issue is something which cannot be flogged any more. I say it would be wrong if the Government party insists on going into the country on this occasion cion any other occasion with the war issue. If they are to go to the country, they need not go to the country with the cry that it is our determination to fight this war to a succesful conclusion. That has already been decided. South Africa by a vast majority of its people has already decided that the war will be prosecuted to a successful conclusion, and the point which now arises is: “What are we going to do after the war?” “What kind of a South Africa are we going to have after the war?” “What kind of a foundation are we going to lay down?” A statement on that is urgently demanded from the Government. We do not want manifestoes flying about the country at the last moment. We do not want black manifestoes from the other side and counter manifestoes from this side. We want a clear statment as to what kind of economic reconstruction and re-organisation we are going to have. We want a statement of what the Government are going to do for the people and how they are going to stand up against vested interests. I trust the Minister in his reply will not waste all his time in going into this obtruse question of cost-plus which does not matter two hoots. It has all happened and it is all done with. I hope he is not going to waste his time on telling us whether the Prime Minister of Australia was right or wrong, whether his figures were right or wrong it does not matter two hoots to the country. What we want to know is what the Government is going to do for the people of this country? And that brings me to the one other point I want to make. Just as we can get very little out of the Government as to the economic problems on which the General Election is to be fought, so we get statements from time to time by the Minister of Native Affairs, who, since its inception, has been Chairman of this Civil Re-employment Board. The Minister has a very childlike habit—I think it is a habit contracted by all junior Ministers—of making important statements at luncheons and dinners in his honour, or at places like Rotary Clubs. The Minister seems to forget that he has a duty to this Parliament; he forgets that he is not elected by the Rotary Club, but by the people of this country, and that we are also elected, and when he has any statements to make on behalf of the Civil Re-employment Board, this is the place to make them. It may be a very fine club—I believe it is—and he may be a very fine member of it, which is more than I can say about his membership of this House, but this is the place where statements of that description should be made. The hon. member for Kensington, I am sure, would not make that brilliant statement on cost-plus at the Johannesburg Rotary Club. And we expect Ministers, at least, some of us expect Ministers to come here and give us the information which we want. I have dealt with this thing before—I have for a long time said that we are not only made into nonentities, but we are treated as such here. Now, this particular Minister made a statement about returned soldiers, and about university training. I see that this university training is to apply to men who have already had some university training, and—I want hon. members to listen to this—to youngsters who went straight from school to the Army, who otherwise would have taken up a university career. That seems rather startling. It is quite clear what the position is about men who have already had some university training. But what about “youngsters” who would have taken up a university career, and so on? It is going to be rather a peculiar position—who is going to say whether a youngster would or would not have taken up a university career? Is there going to be a Board, or is there going to be some kind of organisation to make the decision as to whether a youngster would, or would not, have taken up a university career? If that is going to be the position, then I know the type of youngster who will get the benefit of this. They will say: “Jim Jones, who is the son of a bricklayer or a carpenter—it is unlikely that you would have taken up a university career.” So is seems that where youngsters have joined the Army straight from school, the question on their being demobilised will not be whether they show any ability, or whether they can benefit from a university career. And that is the very thing which we want. A youngster who shows the ability, and who shows that he can benefit from a university career should be given his opportunity. The benefits of this particular scheme should be extended to them. I don’t think the test should be with reference to a youngster, who will leave the Army a grown man, whether he would have taken up a university career or not. The question should be whether a youngster can benefit by taking up a university career. That is a point I want to return to later. Now, before I sit down, I want to say a word or two to the Minister of Finance in the hope that perhaps I shall get a reply from him on the same subject which elicited no response from the Minister of Railways and Harbours. I have explained before, and I propose doing so until some kind of reply is made. I have explained that the Civil Re-employment Board is engaged in drafting blue prints. One of the things which strikes me is that we have a marvellous aptitude for coining phrases. Even in social security we are drafting blue prints. We are drafting blue prints for this, that and the other. Well, let us admit they are being drafted. So far as the Minister in charge of the Civil Re-employment Board is concerned—I don’t blame him for it, but he also is asking everybody to provide him with blue prints—the Provincial Authorities and everybody. They all have to provide blue prints. These blue prints are merely in connection with capital works and various extensions which will take place after the war and which are going to supply work for soldiers when they are demobilised. I pointed out to the Minister of Railways the other day that he is in fact in charge of the organisation which is the biggest employer of labour in South Africa, and I want to point out to the Minister of Finance that he is in charge of probably the second biggest employment agency in the Union, namely, the Civil Service, and I am still waiting to hear any report from the Minister, the Chairman of the Civil Re-employment Board, or from any Government department, that the civil service, and I mention the Railway Department in passing, are in process of drafting any blue prints in so far as their service is concerned, providing for the absorption of any of these discharged soldiers. When one raises this point, one is met with the reply: “Oh, you are dealing with services where promotions are concerned, where men get their annual increment and where men are promoted mostly on grounds of seniority, and if you absorb any number of men coming back from the North, you are going to upset the whole question of seniority for promotion. Well, I repeat again that it sounds very much like the Government being afraid to do anything like that in case they should interfere with the promotion of a very large number of people in the civil service who have been known to be prominent members of the Ossewa-Brandwag, and it appears to the loyal section of the people of South Africa that the people who were disloyal at the outbreak of this war, the people who were not prepared to sacrifice anything or to fight for their own country, are being sheltered at the expense of the people who did. The hon. Minister and the Civil Re-employment Board are to be congratulated for having-produced a scheme whereby returned soldiers can go into the university, thereby qualifying themselves for various professions. But, sir, if it is possible for the Civil Re-employment Board to produce a scheme such as that, surely it is also possible for them to produce a scheme whereby young men returning from the North can also take the civil service examination and be appointed to posts in the civil service with the salary that their age and abilities command. You cannot expect men of 22 and 23 and 24 years of age to be prepared to come back and start as office boys. They cannot keep themselves on office boys’ salaries, and there are very many jobs, I am satisfied there are many jobs with a fair and reasonable rate of pay in the civil service where men returning from the North could be employed. Perhaps if the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs would give me his ear for a moment or two, I could suggest to him that in his department there are very many jobs furnishing a suitable field for men coming back from the North. Again, there must be such jobs in the Public Works Department, but so far as I am aware, neither he nor any other Minister has been prepared to go into the question. It is not an insoluble question; it is, I believe, a question that has got to be solved, and the private employer cannot absorb all these men in permanent employment. What applies to the civil service applies also to the Provincial Administration, and we do not want large numbers of men coming back only to be employed in a temporary or casual capacity. Here we have the Railway Department, the Civil Service and the Provincial Administration, the largest employers of labour outside the mines in the Union, and they are not prepared to produce these blue prints. The Public Works Department is producing blue prints of extensions to buildings and various things which have got to be gone into, and these, I presume, will be handed out to private enterprise, which will absorb a number of these men. In the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, together with these other departments, must offer opportunity for absorbing many thousands of men and women, but I know the Government is burking the issue, because they are going to be met with tremendous opposition from our friends on the opposite benches. This is a question we have got to face up to. If my hon. friend will give me the assurance that he has no worry about my hon. friends opposite, I shall be very pleased, but I am rather afraid that he is so worried. I am quite satisfied that that portion of the civil service, the limited portion of the civil service who agreed with the war and supported it, will have no objection; it will only be that portion of the civil service which has so far turned itself against the war; many of them were members of the Ossewa-Brandwag. I feel the time has arrived when the Government should give some consideration to this matter, because as far as I know they have only looked at the problem superficially. I raised the matter with the hon. Minister two years ago.

It has been gone into. I have the papers here.

How is it I don’t know about it? How is it my colleague for Durban, North (Rev. Miles-Cadman) does not know about it? Is this some more of the “hush-hush” business that I have been referring to? I have raised the point several times in this House, and if the hon. Minister is not prepared to let us into his civil re-employment secrets, then he cannot blame me for wasting the time of the House raising it again. I can assure the hon. Minister that there are many thousands of soldiers in the army and in this country, who want to know what he is prepared to do in this direction. The hon. Minister says he has gone into it; right you are; the hon. member for Roodepoort (Mr. Allan) has probably gone into it with him. But we want to know what the Minister is prepared to do, and what percentage of these men are going to be absorbed in civil service employment. I know the Railway Department will say they can absorb many hundreds. Yes, 8s. a day, at the bottom of the scale. But why not absorb them in the civil service in the clerical branches, where they can get a reasonable standard of living, where they can in time rise to a reasonable salary? I suggest that a certain percentage of these men, irrespective of their age, should be given an opportunity of making application. I think it could also be arranged that a fair proportion of jobs should be reserved for disabled men, and I am surprised to see that in this university scheme which the Minister was talking about the other day, no provision is made for disabled men, because I should imagine of all the men who are entitled to receive university education at the hands of the Government, it is the men who have lost a leg or an arm or are otherwise seriously disabled. Those people should have the first consideration.

They receive the same privileges as anybody else.

He must already have been at the university or be a youngster who has left school and would have gone to the university if he had not joined up. Take the case of a man who has been a compositor, and serves in the army for four years. He comes back at the age of 20 years or so with an arm off. He is no longer any good as a compositor, but he cannot come under this scheme because he has neither been to the university before nor has left school with the intention of going to the university. He is ruled out immediately, and that is the type of man who should receive a university education at the hands of the Government. A man who has lost an arm or a leg or is otherwise disabled, must obviously work with his brains, and be in an occupation where he uses his brains. These men may not feel the effects of their injuries up to 25 or 26 years of age, but their troubles begin when they get up to 42 and 45, and then we have more talk about war veterans. Of all the people who should come into this particular scheme, I feel that the disabled men should definitely have first preference. If the Government is prepared to absorb a percentage of returned soldiers in the civil service, I feel that a percentage of the jobs should be reserved for disabled men. If the Minister has gone into all these things, it is no fault of mine that we have kept the time of the House discussing them because the Minister should, by this time, have made reasonable explanations to the House and told us precisely what the policy of the Government is. I know we have had statements about what is going to be done by municipalities and private enterprise, and we have had statements in so far as plans for capital works are concerned, but I am concerned about employment in the civil service which will give the men a greater opportunity to earn a good livelihood. I would be pleased and happy to hear what precisely the Government has decided to do in that matter, and I shall be extremely grateful if I find that they have made arrangements to absorb a percentage of these men in that fashion.

I have promised to reply to the various questions and observations put and made during the Second Reading Debate. The hon. member for Vryburg (Mr. du Plessis) asked me what the position is in connection with bonemeal for cattle feed, and he pointed out how important it is in lamsiekte areas. I agree with him. I know how important the feeding of bonemeal is to cattle farmers, not only important, but exceedingly necessary, particularly in areas such as the Western Transvaal, Bechuanaland, the North-Western Cape, and the Western Free State. The position is that our supply of bonemeal has decreased considerably as a result of the war. Before the war the position was that we could manufacture about 15,000 tons of bonemeal internally, and we imported about 15,000 tons. As hon. members know, importation has practically stopped as a result of the difficulties in connection with shipping space. There is no opportunity of importing bonemeal from the sources from which we got it formerly. By various methods the supply of bonemeal manufactured in the country today has been increased to about 22,000 tons. We are therefore not so very far short of what we had before the war, but all circumstances considered it has been decided to put a stop in the first place to the use of bonemeal for fertiliser. Hon. members will know that a Proclamation has been issued that no one shall be permitted in future to use bonemeal for fertiliser purposes.

We do not even get it for stock.

We shall come to fertilisers later. We have launched a considerable campaign for the collection of bones. School children, Voortrekkers, Scouts and the Anti-Waste Organisation have helped a good deal in this respect. We have approached the military camps to make available to us the supply of bones there, and there alone, with the help of the military authorities, we got about 4,000 tons.

Four thousand tons, over how long a period?

Four thousand tons per year. We have also permitted the importation of bonemeal from Bechuanaland to South Africa. That will only be for a certain period. Hon. members will understand that every precaution is being taken where any danger exists regarding the spread of stock diseases. Then I am busy trying to obtain a supply of bonemeal from Madagascar. It depends, of course, on whether the quality is right. That is the supply of bonemeal we have on hand. To try to cover the shortage we have, as I have already said, we have decided not to make available bonemeal for non-fertiliser purposes, and to give priority to districts in which lamsiekte prevails; and as regards other districts, to treat applications on their merits. These areas include the following districts: (a) Mafeking, Vryburg, Taungs, Kuruman, Gordonia, Christiana, Barkly West, Hay, Kenhardt, Kimberley, Herbert, Hopetown and Prieska.

What about Lichtenburg?

The applications for permits in the case of the districts under (a) have already been received, and the issue of permits has, so far as I know, already been dealt with. That is for that group of districts. Under the second group of districts fall Schweizer-Reneke, Bloemhof, Wolmaransstad, Klerksdorp, Lichtenburg, Ventersdorp, Marico, Hoopstad, Bothaville, and Rustenburg. My information is that considerable progress has been made with the applications and that allotments, if not already completed, will be completed within a short time. Then my Department realises that there are many farms that can be considered borderline cases, and these cases will in any case be dealt with on their own merits. Where my Department is satisfied, that a man is entitled to bonemeal, an allotment will be made to him, and I hope the matter will be dealt with fairly quickly. The hon. member for Vryburg spoke of small farmers who do not receive their orders; in other words, that big farmers and big consumers are receiving preference in the matter of bonemeal. I can just say to him that, according to the information I have, I must deny this today. We do not know of such cases. I immediately asked for a report. If there are such cases we shall see that they are dealt with in the strictest impartiality, to ensure that the big farmer and the small farmer shall be treated on an equal footing. Then the hon. member for Vryburg also touched on the question of the provision of grazing to farmers along the Molopo River. He asked that the Department should try to persuade the High Commissioner and the authorities to make available grazing in the Protectorate for farmers residing on this side of the river. Before he raised the question, however, I had received representations from the hon. member for Delarey (Mr. Labuschagne) and also directly from the hon. member for Vryburg. Immediately thereafter I telegraphed to my Pretoria office to find out what the position is and how this fits in with our campaign against stock diseases, and with your permission I would like to read the reply—

That is the man who had telegraphed me.

That is the Senior Officer of the territory—

Hon. members from those parts know that there are stock diseases in those areas that we do not have here—

That is the reply I received, and I fear that it will be difficult for me with a view to that to approach the High Commissioner. I want to say, however, that I am concerned about stock that may perhaps succumb to drought, and also that farmers may now throw cattle on the market that are not fit for the cattle market, that they will perhaps put on the market a large number of cattle and young cattle. That may be the result. At the moment I do not know what the position is in the immediate vicinity of that stretch, whether grazing is perhaps obtainable to the Cape Province or the Transvaal sides. I am busy investigating the matter further, and I would like to prevent the farmers being placed in the position of having to sell their stock. The hon. member for Middelburg (Mr. Bosman) has asked me my opinion about the possible mealie crop. I don’t know whether he means last year’s crop or this year’s crop.

This year’s crop.

I am afraid that the hon. member’s opinion is as good as mine, because he has perhaps had later reports from his home. We had expected not only to get a good crop, but a surplus crop, a bumper crop. I am afraid our chances for that have already been lost owing to the absence of rain.

What are things like in Rhodesia?

Worse than here.

Shall we have enough for our internal consumption?

I hope that we shall perhaps have a little more than our own requirements, but that depends a great deal on what will happen in the following fourteen days

The Government must not again go and assist Rhodesia if we ourselves have a shortage.

No, the hon. member need not be afraid of that. I shall look after ourselves first. My time is restricted, and I hope hon. members will give me a chance to proceed. The hon. member also pleaded for a little mealie meal for the cows, and also that something should be given for poultry. I regret it, but there is no maize to give to cows during March and April. I hope that we shall get in enough maize from the farmers during March and April to feed the people in the Union during those months. Then the hon. member spoke about inferior wheat, low-grade wheat, and expressed a fear that the miller will get all the advantage of that wheat. I can give him the assurance on the advice of my officials who are au fait with the grading, that it will be very difficult for the miller to get it. The lower grades of wheat are deficient in bushel weight and are also dirty. The miller must therefore take more bran out of this wheat than in the case of first-grade wheat. It may happen that he has to take a great deal of dirt out of the wheat. I think a proof of this is that the millers everywhere do not ask for second-grade wheat or lower grades, but for first-grade wheat. If they did better on second-grade wheat, they would not ask for first-grade wheat.

Nevertheless they buy the under-grade wheat.

Yes, they buy the lower grades of wheat, but for reasons I have indicated they cannot get more meal from it than from the first-grade wheat. They do not try to obtain lower grades of wheat. Hon. members surely do not want us to throw away lower grades of wheat. We need it. Then the hon. member also asked me about Karoo manure. I must say that this is the first time I have heard that there is so much difference between the kraal manure of the Transvaal and the Karoo manure, as regards value for planting purposes. This is the first time I have heard of it, and my attention has not yet been drawn to it. I have already given instructions that a report be submitted on it. As hon. members know, there is an agreement with the Railways, whereby areas are demarcated in order to economise in trucks, and in order to enable us to get more fertilisers to the farmers, and also to decrease pressure on the traffic of the Railways. I want to say this, however: If it appears absolutely necessary to provide also the Eastern Transvaal with Karoo manure, then I will make representations to the Railways to include the Eastern Transvaal in that part of the Cape Province’s railway system that fits in the most conveniently.

Before the wheat season starts?

Yes, we are busy with it. I just want to say this, that if it appears absolutely necessary, then we shall also provide the Eastern Transvaal with Karoo manure, and then I shall make representations to the Railways to include them in the section of the Cape that is the best situated for the purpose.

What is the Minister going to do in connection with wheat? Will the fertiliser be available before the wheat sowing period?

We are now busy with that. The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) has said that we must now do something in connection with potatoes. I wish I could do more, but I think that during the past two weeks the position has improved appreciably. Only last week one of the members of this House, who comes from the Transvaal, got 15s. for first-grade and 14s. for second-grade. This shows that good potatoes are still a fair price. I think that what is happening is that some of the producers are throwing onto the market potatoes of low quality and even potatoes that should never have been sent to the market. But in any case there was a considerable surplus of potatoes. The recrimination has been made against me that the Government has not fixed a minimum price. I do not think many arguments would have been necessary to convince hon. members that in the period such as this a maximum price makes no difference. It is a question of supply and demand. But let me give hon. members the assurance that I have now convinced the Price Controller that the maximum price should be removed, at least for the present, and that the only fixation should be to see that the consumer shall get as much benefit as the trader in potatoes, that the consumer should receive potatoes cheaply. The Price Controller envisages an arrangement whereby wholesalers will be allowed 10 per cent. profit and a retailer 25 per cent. profit, but this is not yet final. Thereby the consumers will get their potatoes more cheaply in periods such as that now prevailing. The hon. member asked what we have done. We have already exported between 20,000 and 25,000 tons and we are busy continuing with this. But the trouble is that the most potatoes must be exported in crates, and it demands organisation to supply the wood and nails the farmers need. These are, however, being supplied as far as possible to enable the farmers to export. Apart from this, we approached the big employers at the time, such as the mines, the Railways, the Defence Force and others with a view to taking up the surplus, and particularly also with a view to the shortage of maize, to give more potatoes to their employees, and they did so. I think I can say that it seems as if the difficulties have now decreased considerably. I think we can expect to get a fairly good outlet at a reasonable price for the rest of the season so far as summer potatoes are concerned. Let me add also that competition on the part of the Government has exceedingly little to do with the matter. Anyway 2,000 or 4,000 bags that were rejected for a convoy were brought onto the market. Apart from this we have not competed with the farmers as regards table potatoes.

But if you had not produced, the farmers would have sold to the convoys.

If we had not produced there would have been a shortage of potatoes part of the time. Without the potatoes from Pongola, Durban would have been without potatoes for a month or six weeks. But nearly all the potatoes produced by the Government were seed potatoes. There is nothing in the argument that the State, by competing with the farmers, brought the price down. Various hon. members spoke about baling wire and the hon. member for Oudtshoorn accused me of short-sightedness and neglect and what more. I would just say that we have been busy for the past two years in connection with baling wire, and in doing everything possible to manufacture baling wire. Two ships with large supplies of baling wire were sunk, however, and I do not know if hon. members hold us responsible for that also. I merely want to say that a Controller of Agricultural Requirements has been appointed and inter alia he went into the matter of baling wire. In many cases binding twine has been supplied to farmers to tie then-products, and we have repeatedly approached Iscor to see if it is not possible for them to help us out as regards baling wire. Experiments have been conducted with cable wire from the mines, and by a process of softening cable wire we succeeded to supply it in usable form to the farmers.

Does Iscor itself not make wire ?

Yes, they have now succeeded to that stage. A great deal of trouble has been taken. They could not get the machinery, particularly the dies. We have not material hard enough for the manufacture. But they got enough ultimately, and they are now making baling wire. A small supply of 300 tons has already been sent out to various distributors in the Union.

They telegraph that it is not there yet.

The stuff has been put on the Railways, and I think that it has now arrived. Eleven tons have been delivered to each of the distributors, and in some cases 22 tons. Iscor has promised to manufacture 150 tons each month from now on. This, together with the wire manufactured from cables, will be almost sufficient to provide in the most important requirements. I want to say to the hon. member for Oudtshoorn that he has wrong information when he says that the official entrusted with the matter promised to deliver the baling wire on 31 December. Both the official and the Secretary for Agriculture are in the ctiy and they were present at the same Congress at which the hon. member for Oudtshoorn received his information that deliveries would be made in three months. They have done better than three months, for deliveries are now being made. But what would the hon. member for Oudtshoorn have done in my place? Could he have done anything more? Hon. members have spoken about fertiliser, and they are concerned about the matter, just as my Department is. As hon. members know, all our fertiliser and the raw materials for our fertiliser mostly came from outside the Union before the war. We imported. This importation has been almost stopped as the result of shortage of shipping space, and the places from which we get our fertiliser have also been closed to us for a long time. Raw phosphate mostly came from Morocco, and this was closed since the early stages of the war, until the allied nations took Casablanca recently. As soon as Casablanca was taken, I made representations to obtain rock phosphate but unfortunately I have not yet succeeded. The great difficulty of course is again shipping space. But we are doing what we can. Today we get most of our phosphate from Egypt, and we are taking every ton of phosphate we can lay our hands upon.

The big complaint is the inequitable distribution of phosphates.

I am coming to that also. The Industrial Corporation is busy developing phosphate deposits at Langebaan. They are now busy erecting a factory, and I have reason to hope that before we need phosphate for the planting of mealies they will be starting delivery. The Government has instituted investigations into a big phosphate-bearing area in the North-Eastern Transvaal, near the Kruger Park, but it has been found that it will not be possible to deliver phosphate to the factory from there until the middle of 1944 or perhaps the end of 1944. The difficulty is to obtain the machinery. Meantime farmers as well as municipalities are being encouraged to make compost from various materials, and I am glad to say that considerable progress has been made with this. We have advised the farmers to make a plan to use the compost as a complementary fertiliser on their farms. A careful survey has been made of the requirements of the farmers. We have gone into the applications made under the rationing system and it has been decided in the first place to supply the wheat farmers and then the vegetable growers. That will absorb practically all the fertiliser there is at the moment, and even then there will not be enough to give each farmer the quantity that he requires. Hon. members have said that the fertilisers are not properly distributed. I can only give the assurance that so far as I know, this is being done in accordance with the systematic consideration of the data on the applications that have come in, but after the matter was raised here I immediately asked for a report. Hon. members can be assured that so far as I and my Department are concerned, we shall see to it that the fertilisers are apportioned as equitably and impartially as possible.

What about the fertiliser that was packed away?

There are perhaps farmers who took care for the future. About that I can do little.

What about fertiliser for potatoes?

We shall obtain whatever we can lay our hands on. I have given special instructions in that connection. The hon. member for Oudtshoorn has castigated me. I wonder whether he would have done anything better if he had been in my place? We shall investigate all the sources and get together as much fertiliser as possible, and what we have we shall ration, and the fertiliser will be apportioned in a fair and impartial manner. But I must tell the hon. member that I was fairly disappointed in his speech. I do not want to attack him personally, but the hon. member is sometimes referred to as the Opposition’s future Minister of Agriculture. I do not know what the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) thinks of this, but I think the House is fairly disappointed to find that the hon. member is so poorly informed about agricultural matters. He complains that my Department and the Food Controller have done nothing. Does he not know anything about the fixation of the price of mealies? He was not in the House when I tried to explain what difficulties we experienced in apportioning the small quantity of mealies we had available. I think we have done good work. I think the wheat farmers in general are satisfied with the prices for wheat.

Question mark!

The hon. member may say so, but the wheat farmers I have met have said that it is a reasonable price.

There is a difference between what is fixed and what they get.

I do not know if the hon. member knows anything about the organisation regarding dairy products. During the past year there was a shortage of butter on several occasions. Notwithstanding the fact that the price to the farmers has been increased, and that farmers in general are satisfied with the price they get for butter-fat, for fresh milk, for cheese-milk, and for condensed milk, we have been able to arrange matters in such a way that the consumer does not pay much more for butter and cheese. And does the hon. member know anything in connection with eggs? If he did know, he would not consider that anything but praise can be expressed to the organisation and to the Food Controller for his action. As regards mealies, there we ensured in the first place that seed mealies were available. As regards seed potatoes, we imported. The firms were not prepared to assume this responsibility, and the State assumed it. I can understand firms being afraid to import under prevailing circumstances. I do not want to boast, but does the hon. member know how I intervened in connection with tea? If we had not intervened, we would have had a great shortage of tea. I do not even want to speak about vegetable seed, about grain bags, and all those things. In connection with binding twine, we experienced great difficulty, but we supplied farmers more or less fully. The hon. member spoke of a confused state of affairs in connection with the price fixation of meat. I thought he knew that that is not my duty, but the duty of the Price Controller. That applies to retail as well as to wholesale prices. The hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. Loubser) asked whether I could not get a little more inducement from Iscor regarding the manufacture of agricultural requirements, so that Iscor should not spend all its time manufacturing war materials. I make no apology for the fact that Iscor is manufacturing war materials, or for the fact that Iscor is devoting its time to that in the first place. No matter how important it may be to manufacture farming requirements, I say that Iscor must in the first place devote its energies to the manufacture of war materials. But notwithstanding that, Iscor is busy manufacturing many things required for agriculture. Mention has been made of baling wire, and I want to say again that Iscor is busy with that. We are grateful for what Iscor has done in that respect. They not only supply baling wire but also thick wire necessary for silage bins, tanks, etc., but also steel wire for nails, while they also manufacture steel for agricultural implements. I may just say that the local manufacture of agricultural implements has increased by 400 per cent. since the beginning of the war. They also manufacture zinc and have now commenced manufacturing towers for windmills. Surely that is a fine achievement. I only hope that hon. members who represent farmers, or who ought to represent farmers, are a little thankful. The hon. member for Malmesbury also asked me to do something in connection with Italian prisoners-of-war for his area. I think it is a reasonable request and I am busy approaching the military authorities on the matter.

What about jackalproof wire?

I think if the farmers could also get barbed wire then most of them would be satisfied. We cannot do everything. The hon. member for Hottentots-Holland (Mr. Carinus) and also the hon. member for Malmesbury have asked me what the position is in connection with the price of apricots. When we fixed the price we expected one of the biggest apricot crops for years. I expected 15,000 tons, and the Dried Fruit Board 18,000 tons. In order to enable the canners to can fruit, we had to fix the price in such a way that it would be reasonable. For that reason the price was fixed at 12s. 6d., which, in view of the crop we expected, was very reasonable. [Time limit.]

I do not know why the Minister of Agriculture, when he is criticised by this side of the House, becomes so touchy, especially if I criticise him. I can only say that the answer which the Minister gave on the points of criticism of myself and others was evidence that our criticism was sound. He sought this afternoon to divert us instead of upsetting our criticism. He tried to divert us by mentioning a few things which the Government has done. He referred, for example, to the maize prices and prices of wheat and dairy products. Now, the Minister knows, and I think the House and the country knows it, that what the Government has done in connection with the fixing of prices was done only on strong pressure from this side of the House. The wheat farmers last year would certainly not have obtained the price that was fixed if it had not been for the strong action by members on this side. I warned the Minister last week with a view to the prevailing circumstances to take further steps, especially in connection with the wheat industry, if he does not want a hopeless shortage of wheat next year. I wish also to refer again to the weak action of the Minister in connection with potatoes and his weak excuse for the situation which prevails. He told us that he hopes that the price will now be better, but he has done nothing to improve the position. He is the cause of the bad situation. He could not say what he had done to improve the market. All that he could say was that a member of this House last week received 14s. and 15s. for his potatoes. He did not say what the expenses were. What is the average price of potatoes to-day? Certainly not 10s., and I ask whether the potato farmers can produce potatoes under existing circumstances at 10s.

Yes.

The Minister must just ask the farmers here in the vicinity of Cape Town whether they can produce for 10s. a bag. If that is the case, why did the Minister fix the price at 25s.? The Minister made out no good case, but merely proved that our criticism is sound, because he comes now and raises the maximum price. Why? To reduce the price? No, but because he has now agreed that the fixing of a maximum price for the farmers operated as a hindrance and reduced the average price. He admits now that it was wrong. What this side asks is that he should not fix a maximum price without also fixing a minimum price. The reply of the Minister would have been much better and more reassuring today if he had told us not that he had raised maximum prices, but that that he had also fixed minimum prices. It would have been in the interest not only of the producers, but also of the consumers. Then the Minister says in connection with the sowing of potatoes by the Government on Government land that it did not help to dislocate the potato market because the Government brought no potatoes on to the open market, but he admitted that at one swoop he put thousands of bags of potatoes on the public market, and also sold thousands of bags of potatoes to the convoys. If the farmers could have made use of that market, then the dislocation would not have been there. He said further that Vaal-Hartz is devoting itself exclusively to the growing of seed potatoes. That is not the case. I am aware that he supplied certain markets from Vaal-Hartz. The other day I mentioned the case that Vaal-Hartz intended to send potatoes to the internment camp at Koffiefontein. It was only after the Department of Defence was approached in connection with the matter and it was pointed out that a promise had been made to the farmers at Koffiefontein, that they could supply that market and that they had been encouraged to produce with a promise of a market, that the Department of Defence intervened and asked the Minister not to send the potatoes from Vaal-Hartz there.

The farmers of Koffiefontein ought not to plant potatoes.

There now is a new apostle of wisdom. He wants to prescribe for the farmers what they must plant.

The water was given to them to make fodder for their stock and not to plant potatoes.

The Minister now wishes to prescribe what certain farmers must do and what they must plant. If the Minister wished to act as dictator to tell the farmers what they must plant, then he can try to play dictator, but I just want to say to him that he will not be dictator in South Africa for long. No, the Minister did not convince us in connection with the confusion on the potato market. He and his department have been criticised, and we cannot exempt them from blame. Then the Minister says that I am exceptionally poorly informed. The Government made the promise that there would be baling wire within three months. That promise was made in September of last year. He said that within three months the Government would have baling wire available. We are now at the end of February, and only now do we learn from the Government that baling wire is available. In November of last year I was in Pretoria, and I came into contact with the person who made the promise at Bloemfontein and learned from him that in spite of the promise at Bloemfontein, the Government would not be in a position to deliver wire. As a result of questions put in the House, the Minister got in touch with Iscor and now learns that the wire will be delivered. Now the baling wire has been given to certain agents to sell. He gives the wire to certain wholesale agents who sell again to retailers. Fed Farms are one of the agents. I have a letter here in which they say—it is a letter which was written to a farmer—that they cannot supply farmers, but only agents who order 11 tons of wire. Fed Farms cannot sell less than 11 tons. A lot of middlemen again have to act between Iscor and the farmer. I ask the Minister to take steps to enable that wire to come to the producers in the least round-about way. He can do it by means of the various co-operative societies. Why must Fed Farms have the exclusive right, or a few other agents with them, to sell the wire? I learn that the persons who have been appointed by the Government to sell the wire are Fed Farms, the Bethlehem Co-operative Society and Sacks, a merchant in Bloemfontein. Why can the co-operative organisations not obtain the wire without the intervention of all these middlemen? That is our criticism against the Minister. I wish to leave the Minister of Agriculture there, for we shall still have considerable opportunity to criticise his administration. I wish to say something about the matter which the hon. member for Bloemfontein, District (Mr. Haywood) mentioned, and it is in connection with the additional allowances for cost of living to certain civil servants and former civil servants. I have here in my hand a letter from a former policeman who was in the service for a long time and who was discharged for health reasons. He informs me that with regard to the allowance which is paid to him, he is in the same position as he was before the outbreak of war. There may be other such cases, and I wish to ask the Minister of Finance to consider such persons who obtain an allowance from the Government, who did not perhaps give full service and do not receive a full pension, but to whom a certain allowance is paid and who today do not receive an increased allowance which other pensioners receive as a result of the increase in the cost of living. I request him to give his attention to that. But I rose more particularly to speak on a matter of a more local nature in Oudtshoorn. It is a pity that the hon. the Prime Minister is not here, because I wish to bring it especially to his notice. When the war broke out we had much reason, especially in view of what happened on the Railways, to be disappointed about the lack of discipline which was revealed by the soldiers. They were often guilty of improper behaviour, and there was reason for complaint. I am glad that today it can be said generally that the soldiers who travel on the Railways reveal a better realisation of discipline. We no longer have those outbursts which we experienced at the beginning of the war. I say that in praise of them. But now we learn of soldiers who have returned from the North on holiday who do not behave themselves so well. At Oudtshoorn an incident occurred in which soldiers again lent themselves to outbursts. I am informed that they were coloured and Native soldiers of the First Division, who are now in the Union. I have already noticed that among coloured soldiers and Native soldiers we do not find the same good behaviour that we find among European soldiers. One knows of all the propaganda which is going on at the moment in our country to incite the non-Europeans against the Europeans. There is Communist propaganda going on in the country, and instead of the Government’s doing something to check it, the Government is busy justifying it. The Minister of Justice, in answer to a motion in this House recently, instead of doing something against that propaganda, tried to justify it. I have been informed that as a result of conditions which arose at Oudtshoorn, the community there is seriously disturbed. Last Saturday coloured and Kaffir soldiers made a row in the streets, with the result that the people could not venture on the streets in their cars Europeans were attacked. At first it was thought that it was only a group of drunken soldiers, but later it appeared that it was an organised band. They used provocative language towards the Europeans. They stood outside houses and used provocative language. Later they came to blows with Europeans, and it became so serious that a woman who came out to help a certain European person who was assaulted, was also assaulted. She was struck to the ground, and her leg was broken. On the same night another person was assaulted. He was jumped on and his leg was also broken. A whole lot of coloured soldiers who had returned from the North went amok, and set a part of the town by the ears, and were guilty of the worst misbehaviour. These are people who are under discipline. Where such things happen with them, I wish to ask the Government, where it takes no notice of warnings from this side, to be on its guard against the propaganda that is going on in the country; I wish to ask the Government to be deaf no longer to the warnings that are given to it, because it must know what the consequences of this sort of propaganda and behaviour will be. I regret that the Prime Minister is not here. I was telephoned from Oudtshoorn this afternoon. I was asked to bring the matter immediately to the notice of the Prime Minister. They told me that they are going to hold a public protest meeting next Saturday, and if steps are not taken to prevent these things, then they must not be held responsible if they themselves take steps on their part. We can see what is going to happen there, and I wish to ask the Government to send a person immediately to investigate the matter. No other way will reassure the public of Oudtshoorn; the Government must immediately have an inquiry conducted into what happened there. It is no good leaving the matter to the local military police. Those police have no hold on the mob. If a soldier is arrested, they are assaulted by the mob. It will be no good obtaining a report from the magistrate to ask whether the military police are doing their work. They do their work as well as they can, but soldiers have got out of hand, and nothing will reassure the public, unless the Government sends someone to make an investigation and make a reassuring statement. If that does not happen, I can imagine what will happen. A public meeting is being held next Saturday, and decisions will be taken which will have serious consequences unless the Government immediately intervenes to rectify conditions at Oudtshoorn. Those conditions will grow and will not end if the Government does not awake now, and if it closes its ears any longer to the cry in the country which warns against the great danger that is mounting up as a result of the incitement on the part of people who go around the country and expound new doctrines among the non-Europeans, doctrines which may seem enticing, but which will result in clashes which will be detrimental not only for the Europeans, but also for the non-Europeans. When the Minister of Justice comes and tells us here in the House there is no danger, then I wish to tell him that he is hopelessly wrong. In spite of the motion which is already on the agenda, I wish to bring this matter today to the notice of the Government, and I hope that the Government will immediately give its attention to it, and will institute an inquiry to prevent further detrimental consequences of the kind which have already occurred.

I am sorry that the hon. Minister of Agriculture did not have the opportunity of completing his reply. I rose to ask for an extension of time for him, but unfortunately another hon. member on the front bench stood up, and I therefore could not do it. There are certain replies which I would have been glad to get from the Minister. I therefore have to deal with his reply so far as it went. The first point is his reply in connection with the border farmers in the drought-stricken areas along the Molopo. I appreciate the friendly attitude of the Minister, but I deplore that his friendly attitute did not assume a concrete form towards those farmers. I speak of personal knowledge of conditions there. I myself have a farm there and as far back as eight months ago I had to remove all my cattle to another farm, with the result that my farm lies there without a single animal on it. As the position struck me all the farmers along the Molopo have been affected, and some in even worse degree. The condition of over-grazing that existed there is now completely eliminated through four years of drought, one year after another. Where the reply of the hon. Minister did not satisfy me is that his whole argument was based on a long-term policy, a policy to stop denudation. The Minister alleges that the land on the Union side is denuded, and that that will also happen on the Protectorate side. The position is simply that through the continuous droughts the farmers on the Union side will have to bring their stock back. On the other side of the river where no stock comes and where showers have already fallen, the grass has grown in places and grazing is to be found. The Minister cannot convince me, or anyone who knows the position there, that he can transfer the thousands of cattle on the Molopo side, and falling within the drought area, to the Union side, because so far as Bechuanaland is concerned the position is that every farm has as much stock as there is water available. There are no farms where the farmers can obtain grazing, because every farm has as much stock as there are grazing and water for stock. I do not believe therefore that the Minister can find a way out by trying to shift farmers into the Union side. There is also no danger, mentioned by Dr. Snyman, that cattle transferred from the northern side to the southern side will spread stock diseases. In those parts where the drought prevails there are no cattle, because the water is scarce there. The only possibility will be when the Molopo runs. Then there will be water. But is pays no one to trek 300 miles through the desert for the little while during which there will be pools of water in the Molopo. It is hopelessly impracticable to think of such a thing, and the information of the Minister is wrong. I want to ask him, on behalf of the farmers who are on the point of losing thousands of stock, to give his attention to this and to meet the people. One of the leading farmers has written to me that I must let him know if there will be alleviation, for if there is no alleviation then he must try to throw his cattle on the market while they are still able to walk to the market. It is a shocking situation. The Minister will deprive nobody of anything if he meets the farmers. The land on the other side lies there as Providence created it. It is used by no one. It is a wilderness. All that must be done is that the Minister of Agriculture must go to the High Commissioner and get his permission to allow the cattle to graze there while the drought lasts. I think it is the Minister’s duty to do so, and I want to give him this advice on behalf of the farmers of those areas. I have really risen this afternoon to submit to the Miniser the representation I received from mealie farmers when I was in my constituency on Saturday morning and was already on the station to board the train for Cape Town. No fewer than 25 mealie farmers came to the station to give me the following instruction. It emerged from the debate that took place in the House a week or so ago regarding the fixation of mealie prices. I can tell the Minister that farmers were present belonging to every party. There were farmers who are members of the party of the Minister of Agriculture; there were farmers who belong to the official Opposition party on my right-hand side; there were members of the Afrikaner Party, and there were members of the New Order Group. No party question was made of this problem. When the farmers heard that I was home for a few days, they came together to see me and to give me an instruction. They told me that owing to the poor crop of last year, and because a portion of the present crop is already lost as a result of the drought, it will be disastrous for the mealie farmers if the Minister adheres to the idea of two weeks ago to fix the price of mealies at 12s. 6d. for this year’s crop. They said that they leave the matter in my hands with the fullest confidence. They said that I had pleaded for not less than 15s., but then it must be well understood that this was as matters regarding the crop then stood, but if the crop continues to deteriorate, and if the devastation of the drought continues then the farmer will be impelled to ask more than 15s. I have also received a telegram regarding the matter, and I am going to read it out. But I have already shown it to the Minister, and I need not take up the time of the House. It is a telegram from a farmer who was not present there. This farmer considers that, as the drought has affected them, and in view of the chances they have of getting a crop, they will not be able to come out on less than £1 a bag. I make bold to say that during the eight years that I have been a member of Parliament, I have never stood up in this House to make a case about the mealie question and the travail of the mealie farmer. Nor do I want to do so. For that reason I appreciated it so much that members of all parties met me to discuss this matter. En route I also met mealie farmers at Coligny while the train stood there. Among them was Mr. Schulenburg, the Chairman of the North-Western Cooperative Africultural Society. He represents 2,000 mealie farmers, and he is also a member of the Central Agency that represents maize producers throughout South Africa. He says that he has come to the conclusion that a great part of the mealies are already lost as a result of the drought that has prevailed during past weeks. He says that it is the opinion in all parts of the Union that the Minister, as the position now is, ought to fix the price at 17s. 6d. per bag for the following year. Now, I am very glad that the Minister of Agriculture in his reply this afternoon has displayed nothing but goodwill as regards what the mealie farmers may expect in the future. I am very glad that the Minister has not again spoken about 12s. 6d. I want to give him the assurance that even if we assume he was right two weeks ago regarding the position as it then was, that the position has now developed in such a way that the Minister can in no sense think of that basis. Our country has suffered considerable damage because a great part of the mealie crop is destroyed. The Minister must now guard against one thing, and that is not to discourage the mealie farmer. If we get a short crop we may conceivably have a famine in South Africa next year in so far as mealies are concerned. At this time it will be a wise policy on the part of the Minister to make a concession to the mealie farmers. The mealie farmers have assuredly been the most long-suppressed section of the population in South Africa, and you must now help them to ensure that they shall remain standing. I have not the time now to go into the matter of increased production costs. I have already discussed it on a previous occasion. The Minister must give the mealie farmers a chance to recover, because the mealie farmers have retrogressed considerably of recent years. The people who have to go about the passages of the trains with trays to serve foreigners, the people who have to walk about the passages of the trains for ten hours at a stretch with trays, are the sons of mealie farmers; they are people who have retrogressed because the mealie farmers have been retrogressing of recent years. They have gone down gradually. In a large measure they have to live from other activities; the one farms with sheep; the other plants potatoes; the other has mixed farming, in so far as it is practicable to concentrate on those other activities. I want to state here that the mealie farmers are the most unjustly treated section of the farming community, and that says a great deal, because the farming population has had very little recognition and help in the past. I think it is time that serious consideration is given to this matter. What we need in this country is a policy that aims at something. We must get away from the policy of living from hand to mouth. We have heard in this House that a Planning Council has been appointed that must now plan ahead to find work for the soldiers who will return after the war. There is no Planning Council to plan ahead for the farmers. We have no fixed course. The one day we hear that the farmer must produce potatoes, and the next day the potatoes lie and rot at 2s. 6d. per bag. I want to put a question to the Minister; I want to ask him to show his goodwill towards the mealie farmer, and to ensure that he gets a reasonable price. I can assure him that South Africa will be grateful to him for it. If the Minister is prepared to meet us, then I can assure him that the mealie farmers will give him all the honour and the praise for doing so.

I would like to revert to cost-plus contracts. I am sorry, but to my mind that instruction given to the Committee of investigation has not been fully carried out. Perhaps I read the terms of reference wrongly, but to my mind—and personally I expected it—they should have inquired into what was expected of the various contractors in South Africa to produce, according to what is necessary, and in what way this could be done; and then finally I expected that they would compare the prices of the commodities made here with the normal prices, and also with the prices overseas. But not one of those questions have to my mind been investigated. To my mind the report does not deal with any of those questions. I may be wrong, but my conception is that I am right, that this Committee did not carry out the terms of its reference fully. That expectation I entertained has not been satisfied. The information with which I thought the Committee would come to light has not been supplied to us.

What information is that?

In the first place the Committee should have told us what is necessary in South Africa, what should be obtained from the various contractors. This should have been produced in South Africa. They did not go into that matter.

That falls outside the scope of our instruction.

Then I am sorry, then your instruction was wrong That is what I expected. For that purpose the Committee was necessary. Then they should have investigated how the price of what is manufactured locally compares with the normal price or the price prevailing in other countries. I have not much time at my disposal, but in this respect the Committee has not answered its purpose. What I have against the cost-plus system is that only favoured persons are taken into account and I would be neglecting my duty if I do not point this out. In my own constituency, for instance, one contractor was chosen. He is still working day and night, he is overworked, he is working all over the place, he gets the contracts he wants, but the others are eliminated, are unemployed.

We have received no complaints of this nature.

They came to complain to me. What is the position? The man in Krugersdorp does as he likes. He gets the contracts. In the first place it is an incentive to him to waste as much money as he can, and thereby to make his earnings higher. But the other contractors do not come into consideration. Then I expected that the Committee would, for instance, go into the matter of the mass of material that is rejected and must be sent back. I expected that this would be investigated, then it would have appeared that the State has thrown much money in the water, and that this has suited the purposes of the people who have contracts. And they know it. They knew that they could proceed on this system. The first speech made in this House to urge the appointment of the Committee did, I think, point particularly to this, but now nothing is revealed about how much money has been wasted in this way. There the Committee, according to my opinion, did not answer its purpose. The hon. member will perhaps say that this fell outside the scope of their instruction. But then the instruction was not comprehensive enough.

We are now proposing that there shall be a broader investitgation.

We know that a large number of industries have arisen on the assumption that it will pay them to develop, and which expected to survive after the war. What is the position today? I am not one of those who thinks that the Director of Supplies is an outstanding man; on the contrary I think the reverse, and I think that he has landed us in a hopeless position as regards supplies. All the little things we need, not only for production in agriculture, but for the country as a whole, for our normal requirements, these we cannot get—there he left us hopelessly in the lurch. Then I do not even speak of supplies for military purposes. If the matter is properly investigated, we shall see what the prevailing situation is. What has been done? Only profitable things have been tackled, but other things that are essential to the country’s continued existence, for war purposes as well as agriculture, as also for the daily use of the public, are not being made. There are a mass of commodities in South Africa, urgently needed by the public, and we cannot get these. If I say “cannot” I do not suck it out of my thumb. Manufacturers have told me that they can manufacture certain things, but the necessary material is not available, the Director of Supplies has left South Africa in the lurch. I thought that these things would be brought to light. Let me mention one definite case of what happened, goodness knows why. A contract of about £12,000 was given to the Western Engineering Works at Krugersdorp. Suddenly it was cancelled. Why? Men and women had to be dismissed. About that the Director of Supplies and also the Controller of Labour care nothing. If they had even told the people betimes that they could be fitted in in some other place, but the Director of Supplies suddenly cancelled the contract without warning those people. A terrible dislocation was created without the employers’ receiving a warning in advance and without being told: “There are vacancies elsewhere that you can fill.” Therefore I say that I do not believe that the Director of Supplies is such a wonderful individual; I hold the opposite view. The military authorities are plucking the bitter fruits of that policy, and the farmers cannot even get a simple thing such as baling wire. I do not know who in this House would have been a weaker manager if he had been in control. We would at least have ensured that simple agricultural requirements are manufactured. I am sorry that those things could not have been properly gone into by the Committee. Then great deficiencies would have come to light. The Director of Supplies has left us in the lurch, and the Controller of Manpower also makes no provision. Then on the other side we get shortage of labour, and this and that, and is this not one of the reasons why there has been such an enormous rise in the price of some commodities? Certain things are being manufactured in respect of which there is no great necessity, but other things are very scarce. I know that the members of the Committee, the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth) who represents the Opposition, as well as the other members, did their best. Perhaps their terms of reference were too restricted to inquire into the whole matter and to conduct a full investigation. I am complaining that the distribution and the manufacturing are inequitable, particularly also the distribution of food. I would be neglecting my duty if I did not focus the attention of the House on the prices that are for instance paid on the Witwatersrand today for meat, prices unprecendented in the history of our country. But if we peruse the market reports then we see that the prices for slaughter stock are only normal. Then one comes to the conclusion that in this respect the Controllers are hopelessly neglecting their duty in supplying our country with the different things that we need. I am sorry that I have not more time at my disposal, but I hope to have the opportunity later of going deeper into these matters.

The hon. Minister of Agriculture and Forestry repeatedly made the remark: What would you have done if you had been in my place? But that is not the way to defend yourself. He should rather have put the question: What have I neglected that I should have done? Why have I procrastinated so? If he had looked ahead a bit, he would have known ahead that plans must be formulated for the manufacture of baling wire. Why did he neglect doing so, or neglect the importation of baling wire, while there was still time? Then today we would not have had this struggle. There is a general cry for wire in the country, not only baling wire, but also barbed wire and other fencing wire, and now the Minister ultimately comes to say that Iscor has got so far as to make wire. It is very late in the day. Then the Minister became a little personal. I do not know if the hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. Le Roux) will ever become Minister of Agriculture, or if he aspires to that. I do not think so, but it avails nothing for the Minister of Agriculture to run to others asking what he should have done. The question is that he has neglected to do what he should have done. I would like to avail myself of the opportunity to bring the extremely precarious position in which the deciduous fruit farmers are to the attention of the Government. I have done so every year, but the position becomes ever more serious. I must therefore again draw the attention of the Government to the fact that the position of the fruit farmers has become almost unbearable. They are among the most progressive farmers in the country, and what they have achieved in this sphere can never be appreciated highly enough. I want to ask the Minister if he cannot do something to help them? There is an impression with many people that the deciduous fruit farmers are making a first-class existence, and the incomes of these people are considered high, without taking into consideration their expenses. When people drive past the beautiful great fruit orchards and they see the beautiful pear trees, then they think that the man must have’ a great income. But they forget the great expenses. The Minister should really visit the farmers and go through their books, then he will discover that the expenses are so great that only a meagre income remains to live on. These people have to spray the fruit trees perpetually. They have to spray the trees at least four or five times per year, and as a result of the war situation they cannot get the spraying requisites. But that is not all they have to contend with. They have great difficulty in finding a market for their fruit. On account of the war they cannot export their fruit to the best market, but the fruit must be marketed inland. I do not want to say that no good inland market can be developed, but the position today is not favourable. First-class pears can be sold at £12, and second-class pears at £9, but for third-class pears they get only £3, and then it happens that the fruit is so damaged by fruit fly that nearly everything is third-class. They have a hard battle to wage against the fruit flies, and the worst of these is the codling moth. This has become a national plague, and the fly has become salted against the spraying measures. The custom was to spray with arsenic, and that was done with success, but the pest virtually became salted against it, and now they must use a spray that must be imported from America, and this remedy is so expensive that many people cannot afford it. Elsenburg has laid down precisely the prescriptions, according to which the people must act, but because it is so expensive some people cannot afford it, with the result that the orchards are becoming contaminated, and the fly spreads from one farmer to the other. There the Minister of Agriculture should long since have made a plan to erect a factory here for the manufacture of the spray remedy. Elsenburg knows precisely how the remedy is made up. But the factory has not been erected, and this plague continues to spread. The Minister of Agriculture spends hundreds and thousands of pounds every year for the destruction of locusts. Last year it was more than a £100,000, the year before that it was £150,000, and I shall not be surprised if another £100,000 appears on the Estimates this year for the purpose. We are in favour of it. We want the locusts to be destroyed, but the codling moth is just as much a national plague. It affects not only apples and pears, but also peaches and apricots. Why has a factory not been established long ago? If hundreds of thousands of pounds can be spent to combat locusts and thousands of pounds to close the boundaries of Bechuanaland to keep out stock diseases, why cannot a little money be spent also to combat this national plague of the codling moth. The Minister does hot have to seek a remedy because the agricultural colleges know the remedy and how it must be used. I think the Minister neglects his duty towards the fruit farmers of the Western Province. The way in which the farmers have built up districts, such as Ceres for instance, can never be sufficiently appreciated. When the trouble with fruit began they thought of falling back on vines, but the K.W.V. stops them there. Must they just continue to go backward? Thousands of people are dependent on fruit culture and if steps are not taken they will come to rest on the neck of the Government, and the Government will have to look after them. The Government will perhaps say that they can go to the war, but all the people are not prepared to go to the war. They are not take into the railways or on other State works. They are told they can go to the war, there they can get a good income, but if they are not willing to go must they suffer want? And the war will not continue for ever. These people will have to be helped. The best is to help them now to make an existence and to keep them on the land. I think the Minister neglects his duty towards them. In connection with other plagues a great deal of investigation is done and big sums are spent, but as regards the fruit plague, little or nothing is done. I hope the Minister will realise that the time has come to view this plague as a national plague and that money should be made available to eradicate the plague. It is spreading farther and farther afield, and in course of time we shall not be able to get any fruit. As regards the Minister of Finance, I do not want to say much. From what other members have said here, it is clear that he is busy getting himself into a noose. To be more figurative: “He will perhaps still reach his Stalingrad if ever he comes there, and if he goes on in the way he is going on now, by wasting the country’s money on the war, then he will return much more quickly than Hitler.” I say he must be careful and not tax the people with unnecessary severity. I warn the Minister. My time is restricted, but I shall come to him later.

The House has heard so much today about the cost-plus contracts and about Col. Craig, that to the surprise of all of us the hon. member for Bloemfontein, District (Mr. Haywood) even paid a compliment to Col. Craig, from which it appeared later, however, that he was thinking of another colonel. I think that the House is fairly sick and tired of the whole business. In any case I do not feel disposed to mingle myself again in the struggle. When I listened to the speeches today, I had the feeling of the Irishman who, while he was watching two persons fighting, called out: “Is this a private fight, or can anbody join in.” I would like, however, to refer to a few points raised by the hon. member for George (Mr. Werth). In the first place he put a question to me. He asked whether we could now adopt his recommendation. It appeared from his answer to an interjection of mine that he really did not make a recommendation in connection with a point he had raised specially, but that he had referred to Clause 47 of his minority report in which it is said that a decrease in the percentage on these contracts is justified. In answer to that I just want to say this: We have accepted the recommendation of the majority report. The majority report says this—

1. (i) The present percentage remuneration should be substituted by a fixed fee to be arrived at by tender amongst selected contractors; and
2. (ii) to the extent to which the percentage basis is retained, the rate of remuneration should taper, being reduced in proportion as the value of a contract rises.

We accepted this. It means that in future the cost-plus percentage contracts will be accepted only in exceptional cases, and as regards the general conditions of such contracts, the Authorities Committee will see to it that this happens on a fair basis. In the second place I want to deal with an allegation of the hon. member for George, namely that if we had from the commencement adopted the best system of cost-plus contract then the Government would have saved £5,000,000. The figure is, of course, totally ridiculous, but it is true that if we had adopted the best system from the start then we would have saved something. But was it possible to adopt the best system of cost-plus from the start? Was it possible for Col. Craig, when he gave out his first Fortifications contracts, to adopt the best system? It was not possible. There were reasons that made it impossible at the time to carry out the work on the tender basis, and it was also impossible at the time to go to work on a fixed amount on the basis of cost-plus,—it was impossible to adopt the best system from the start. Then the hon. member for George spoke of the unheard-of procedure I had followed in connection with the matter, by referring back the minority report to the Committee. We had a very good precedent for what we did, and I thought that the hon. member, an ex-Administrator of South-West Africa, would have heard of it. I have here before me the report of the Commission on the economic and financial relations between the Union of South Africa and the Mandated Territory of South-West Africa, and in connection with that Commission precisely the same procedure was followed. At first a report was issued signed by all the members, but subject to a minority report by Dr. Hirsekorn, which would be submitted later. The minority report of Dr. Hirsekorn, which appeared later, was longer than the original report. Then the Prime Minister of the day referred back the matter to the Commission as a whole. Just as I have done. Then the Committee as a whole again submitted a report, and Dr. Hirsekorn again delivered his reply. Just as happened here. That then is the unheard-of procedure that has been followed! What was the request that I directed to the Committee in this case. He is my letter—

To what does the whole matter boil down? We have appointed a good Committee. Even the hon. member for George has agreed with the majority as regards by far the most points. It was a good Committee. The Committee acted in a judicial capacity. It had various accusations before it and the Committee came to the conclusion that has frequently been read out in the House, the decision appearing at the end of the first report of the majority. The hon. member for George had the opportunity of convincing the Committee that they are wrong, but he did not succeed in this. Then we gave him another chance. We said: Look, the hon. member for George has now come forward with certain things, now you go into it and consider it properly. We again gave the hon. member for George a chance to convince them, but the Committee, acting as a judicial body, again gave its verdict against the hon. member for George. He had ample opportunity, but he did not convince the Committee. Then he came back with his attacks on Col. Craig. He created the impression that Col. Craig had acted dishonestly. I do not know if this was done consciously, but that is the impression that the hon. member created. He created the impression that Col. Craig is hand-in-glove with the “Big Four”. He created the impression that there was unfair discrimination. That was actually the most important point of criticism, and the most important point was in connection with the issue of fortification contracts. The hon. member alleged that there was unfair discrimination. Now I want to ask the hon. member: Has he ever put the question to Col. Craig, who appeared before him as a witness, the question why he selected the four contractors? Apparently not. Has he ever had or ever quoted any source, except Mr. Bakker’s evidence, to prove unfair discrimination? Evidently not.

I asked if the Board of Building Contractors was ever consulted, and to that a negative reply was received.

Col. Craig is being accused of dishonesty, but the hon. member never gave him the opportunity to defend himself. Must I really accept this to be the position? That he had Col. Craig before him and never gave him the chance to defend himself? And after that he comes with the accusation of unfair discrimination and dishonesty. The hon. member did not have the fairness to put the question to Col. Craig, but he did have in his possession the letter which Col. Craig addressed to him when he wrote his first report. He had the letter of Col. Craig in his possession. Notwithstanding this the hon. member yet made the accusation. He knew that Col Craig had originally called together a large number of contractors, that he did not only invite the “Big Four”. He knew why Col. Craig would not set to work on the tender basis. He had Col. Craig’s reasons. He knew that the syndicate that was formed did not consist of the “Big Four”. He knew all this.

Yes.

But notwithstanding this, the hon. member wrote the minority report and made the attack on Col. Craig. He also knew that Col. Craig did not act on his own initiative, but that he went to Pretoria, and that there he was congratulated on his arrangement, and obtained the approval of Col. Pienaar and the Tender Board. Knowing all this, and after neglecting to give Col. Craig a proper opportunity of defending himself, the hon. member, hiding behind the privilege of this House, made the accusation. I hope that the hon. member will now get up and admit the unfairness of his action, and also withdraw the unfair attack on Col. Craig. Otherwise I must come to the conclusion that if one person was prejudiced on the Committee, then that person was not Mr. Osborne, not Mr. Prentice, but the hon. member who sits on the other side. Then I can only say that, although the hon. member came to condemn Col. Craig, it is he who stands condemned. The hon. member for Ceres (Mr. J. J. M. van Zyl) and also the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys) raised matters here regarding taxation. They will excuse me if I do not reply to that today. It is a Budget matter, and the Budget will be submitted shortly.

That applies to what was said by the hon. member for Durban, North (Rev. Miles-Cadman) in regard to increased expenditure, but these are matters which can best be dealt with against the background of the Budget, which I shall shortly be presenting. Then the hon. member for Umbilo (Mr. Burnside) made a complaint that I, in previous debates, had not replied to points that he had raised. That is correct, but I think, sir, that it is not generally expected in this House that the Minister of Finance should reply to every point which is raised in a general financial debate of this nature. The Minister of Finance is only expected in such a debate, to reply to financial points. I have always kept to the spirit of that, and I do so on this occasion also. There was certainly no discourtesy intended to my hon. friend the member for Umbilo. On that account, Mr. Speaker, every Minister took part in this debate, and replied to matters affecting their departments. My colleagues have done that this afternoon, and if members are unable to get replies from every Minister to the questions they raise in the course of this debate, they can always raise those questions again when the votes are under discussion. The hon. member has asked for a clear statement of the Government’s social and economic programme. Well, sir, he has had a statement from the Prime Minister in that regard, and there is nothing I can add to that. He will have other opportunities of asking the Prime Minister what the Government’s intentions are. He has also raised the question of the re-employment of volunteers in the Public Service, and in that connection I would say that I am not the Minister who should deal with that matter. He has described me as being in charge of the second biggest employment agency. I am not. The Minister of the Interior is responsible for the Public Service Commission, and he may be regarded in that light, but not the Minister of Finance. In any case, that particular matter to which the hon. member has referred, has received a good deal of attention from the Chairman of the Re-employment Board and also the Public Service Commission. Then, sir, the hon. member for Durban, North, has raised the question in regard to the fishing industry. I have asked my colleague, the Minister of Commerce and Industries, to deal with that on a later occasion, and I believe he intends to do so. He has also raised the question in regard to the educational concessions to ex-soldiers, and suggested that these should not merely be confined to those who proceed to the universities, but should also be extended to those who go to theological colleagues. These concessions do not exclude theological students who go to universities. My hon. friend, however, wants theological colleges not being parts of universities, to be included. I have no doubt the Civil Re-employment Board will go into that question. The hon. member for Jeppe (Mrs. Bertha Solomon) has raised the question of motor vehicle insurance. The hon. member is, of course, an enthusiast in regard to this matter. She has done, as she said, a very great deal to get this particular legislation on the Statute Book, but, sir, the Government has a very great deal on hand at this present moment, and we must take account of changed circumstances. Circumstances in regard to this particular question have unquestionably changed since that Act was passed. It must be accepted for the time being that this is one of the things we would like to do, but cannot do under present circumstances. I hope it will be possible to do it as soon as circumstances permit, but I certainly cannot give any definite assurance at this stage that the Act will be brought into operation on a particular date to be named by me. That is a matter which will have to be considered in the light of developing circumstances. Now, finally—I have no doubt that that is a most pleasant word to use—finally, I wish to refer to one matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister of Agriculture, who is prevented from doing so by the time limit. I refer to the question of meal and bread. I want to assure the House that hardly any mixed meal is being sold today. If it is sold it is to be marked “mixed meal. Mealie meal, soya meal and rye meal are so scarce that these ingredients cannot now be used. But, sir, in order to set the mind of the public at rest, the Minister has asked the Wheat Board, which has agreed to stipulate that no mixed meal of any kind is to be made or sold from now onwards, and of course, that means that there will be no mixed bread. It will be a contravention of the law in future to sell mixed meal or mixed bread. The Wheat Board and the Department of Agriculture have always been unhappy about the high distribution costs of bread, as well as about baking costs. Investigations have continuously been going on since the fixation of the price of bread. The Department Costs Accountants have pointed out that now that the bakers are unable to get certain ingredients which they have been putting into the bread, because those ingredients are unobtainable, the costs are appreciably less. It has also been pointed out that now more loaves can be got out of a sack of meal than they got before. The department has been strengthening its opinion by statements which have been made publicly in regard to baking costs, and also by representations which have been made to the Minister by some members from the Witwatersrand. As a result of this the Minister has taken up this question of the price of bread with the Wheat Board, and at its meeting last week it was decided to reduce the maximum price of bread from 6½d. to 6d. per 2 lb. loaf. The minimum price of bread will then be 5¼d. per 2 lb. loaf. At the baker’s premises, there will be a further reduction. The price will be brought down there from 5½d. to 5d. per 2 lb. loaf, so that people who wish to go to the baker’s premises can buy their 2 lb. loaf for 5d., a good palatable 2 lb. loaf for 5d.