Before the hon. member for Brits (Mr. Grobler) moves his motion I want to point out that Order No. VII—Second Reading of the Land Settlement Amendment Bill—is anticipated by the hon. member’s motion. I refer in particular to paragraph 2 (1) of the Bill. According to Article 74 of the Standing Rules and Orders it cannot be allowed, unless there is no assurance that the Bill will be dealt with by the House within a reasonable time.

I fear that I cannot give any such assurance. I do not think that the Bill can be introduced within a short time, and I think the hon. member can be allowed to proceed with his motion.

Then the hon. member may move his motion.

I move—

I do not expect that all members of the House will be acquainted with the circumstances that gave rise to this motion, but nevertheless I want to give the assurance at the outset that the policy applied by the Minister of Lands in connection with this matter, has, without the slightest doubt given rise to a great deal of unrest, dissatisfaction, and uncertainty on almost all the settlements. I also want to point out immediately that it is not a new power that has been given to the Minister, but that the power that the Minister is using, is a power which he has had for some time already, and which the previous Minister of Lands also had, namely the power to remove people from settlements under certain circumstances. It is also not against the fact that the Minister possesses this power that I am protesting, but against the method in which the Minister is using that power. I am not one of those who says that the Minister may not exercise any control what ever. I think it is necessary that the Minister should possess this power, and I will say why. When this provision was originally included in the Act, when the power was given to the Minister of Lands, it was done especially with a view to the conditions that could arise. In the first place the power was given to the minister so that he would be in a position to prevent over-population of a settlement. There were undoubtedly various cases where a father had five or six sons, of whom some were married and had their own families and where the sons, apart from the daughters, crowded a small plot, so that it was impossible for the owner to make a living. In my opinion the Minister should have the power to use his discrimination. It cannot be allowed because it would simply mean that the settler cannot make a success of his plot. That is one reason why the power was given to the Minister, Another reason was to enable the Minister to remove undesirable elements from settlements. There have been cases—fortunately not many—where a son has lived as a good-for-nothing on a plot, been of no assistance to his father, but on the contrary one who brought trouble and worry to his father. In such cases in the past, Ministers of Lands have made use of their power to remove such a son from a plot. I do not object to the Ministers having the power and using it in such cases, but I feel that I have every right, as I will show later, to make the strongest protest against the way in which the Minister in many cases is using this power. The Minister is using the power in a way that was certainly not intended when the Act was originally adopted, and so far as I know, none of his predecessors as Minister of Lands have used the power as he is using it today. I want to mention a few cases here. In my constituency there were several cases, but I want to mention four because these are particularly characteristic of the circumstances that exist today on many of the settlements. Two of the cases are cases where parents were asked to see that their sons left the plots.

Where was that?

Mamagalieskraal and Rooikoppies.

All in your constituency?

Yes. In the other two cases the sons received notice that their parents must leave the plot. At first sight there appears to be nothing wrong with parents being asked to see that their sons leave the plot. As I have already indicated, the Minister must have the power to prevent over-population. But if we analyse the two cases, it immediately becomes clear that the Minister certainly did not act fairly. Let me in the first case mention the case of a father who received notice that his son must be removed from the plot. He did not obey, and then again received a letter from the Department which I want to read—

What does that mean? When the person in the first place received notice from the Department, he was in a difficult position. He could not do the work without the assistance of the son. It was an unmarried son. He was of age but unmarried. The owner of the plot i.e. the father, handed in a medical certificate to the Department in which the doctor—I believe there were two doctors—stated that he could not work the plot himself, he could not manage without the assistance of his son. Without that assistance the plot would be neglected. Then he decided to make another plan. He borrowed money and paid off the plot. To tell the truth, he sent more to the Department than was necessary and the Department later sent him a cheque for the balance. He was under the impression that when he paid off the plot, then no one would be able to forbid him to keep his son on the plot, but notwithstanding this, he received a letter that he was still subject to the lease, and it was demanded that he should see that his son left the plot within fourteen days. The Department wrote “failure to comply will render you liable to lapse of your lease without further reference to you.” I interviewed the Department about the matter and I assume that the matter was put right, but I mention the case merely to show the Minister what difficulties are sometimes caused if the merits of the case are not properly gone into. In the first place the man was not physically fit to work himself. That is apparent from the two certificates from doctors. For this reason he required his son to work the plot properly. Then the man went so far as to pay off the plot, and then he received notice that his son must leave within fourteen days. I think it is very unreasonable. Before I leave this case I should like to know why the man, if his plot is paid off, cannot be allowed to keep his son there. It is true that in his lease it is said that he is not the owner until the deed of purchase is issued, but why is there a delay in the issuing of the deed of purchase? There are other cases of this kind, other cases where there is also delay in the issuing of deeds of purchase. Is the delay in order to enable the Minister to remove the son first? Why otherwise this delay? The second case I want to mention is a typical case. In this case a father and mother, aged people, lived with the son. He was a young married man and I believe there was one child. The young couple had a house that previously belonged to a foreman. Before the land fell under the settlement, a foreman lived in the house, and it was a beautiful big dwelling-house. There was more than enough room, there was no danger of overpopulation. The father was not a burden to the son, but on the contrary, a great help. He was a diligent farmer and was still able to see to many things. He was of great assistance to his son on the plot. But still notice was given that the old people must leave the plot. I tried to get the Minister’s decision to be reconsidered, but it was refused, and the old man had to leave the plot. There was another case at Geluk. There a father received notice that his son must leave the plot. Let me also state another similar case at Mamagalieskraal. The father is notified that the son must leave the plot. In both cases the fathers were not able to work the plots themselves. They took the step of transferring their plots to their sons with the approval of the Department. And then afterwards they were notified that as their sons had taken over the plots, the parents must leave. They had no choice. The old people could not work the plots themselves, and they were obliged to leave, after they had transferred the plots to their sons. Those are identical cases and therefore I dealt with them at the same time. In the one case an extension for one year was obtained in order to enable the father in the mean time to go and live at another place. Let me point out one important fact. The Minister is aware of it, or ought to know that the labour problem on the platteland today is very critical. You cannot get labour, no matter what you want to pay. You simply cannot get it. The farmers struggle themselves to death and now people must still be removed. In this and other cases the sons were definitely the only assistance the fathers had. In the one case which I specially mentioned, the father, owing to his state of health was not able to carry on the farming without the assistance of his son. In the same way there are many other cases. I want to emphasise that I mention these cases, because in my opinion, the Minister is not using the discretion he has in a manner that meets the approval of the House. It is unfair to the sons and the old people who are driven from the plots, and I say that in the case of the old people it is definitely an un-Christian-like action to compel them to leave the plots. I mentioned two cases of sons who became legal owners of the plots. They were the legal heirs and would later in any case have inherited the plots, but now the parents had to transfer the plots to their sons earlier, because they could no longer look after them. Where the sons will eventually receive the plots, why can the Minister not in such cases allow the sons to assist the father to develop the land so that when they inherit it, it is well cultivated? The son is definitely the heir. Why can it not be allowed? I say that the action is un-Christian-like towards the old people. The Government has accepted the principle in legislation passed in this House that children are responsible for their parents when the parents are in need. It is recognised in the Pensions Act, that if a child of a parent or parents is able to support the parents, then the child must do so, and then no old age pension is granted. But here the Minister of Lands goes out of his way to prevent children who are anxious to assist their parents. It is un-Christian-like and unreasonable. I have mentioned a few outstanding cases. There will be other cases where the Minister has acted correctly, but in these cases he definitely acted wrongly. I want to ask the Minister whether he has ever asked himself what must become of the old people who are removed from plots. On a previous occasion the Minister said that the Department of Social Welfare must provide for them. Can the Minister say how many plots the Minister of Social Welfare has available for old people? Last year I asked the question and the Minister said that he had seven or eight plots available on the various settlements. In my constituency alone there are sufficient old people to fill the few plots that are available. What about the other settlements? If the Department of Social Welfare cannot provide a roof for the people, what happens to them? They must go to the towns and the large cities and rent houses or rooms. Most of them probably draw an old age pension of £2 or £3. It enables them to at least buy something if they have free lodging. But if they must rent a room, or a house in the town, then the whole pension is devoted to this. From what must they live? This is certainly not reasonable. The Government gives meagre pensions to people. In view of the tremendous rise in the cost of living, the pensions are very small. If the people are forced to rent a house, or to rent a room in the city, from persons who make a business of renting rooms to such people, then they must pay £1 10s. or £2 for a room. And can the Minister realise what a detrimental effect this has on the people who are accustomed to living on the platteland. They are at home on the platteland, they are not accustomed to the atmosphere of the city, but still they are compelled in their old age, because they are old, to go to the cities. If they have grown-up children in the city where they can live, it can still do, but what if they must rent a room and spend their old days in the city? It is an un-Christian-like and unreasonable policy. I do not know how many cases there are. Last year I asked the Minister whether he could tell me how many sons and parents respectively, were removed from plots on the settlements. He said that his Department kept no record of it and that he could not give the desired information. In my constituency there are several cases and I have mentioned four, but there are numerous other cases, according to my information. How many are there in the whole country. The Minister does not want to say how many there are. I cannot ascertain with certainty how many old people there are who have been placed in difficulty by the policy of the Minister. I want to give him the assurance however that the policy that is being applied by his Department in respect of old people has in many cases led to despair. They have no place of refuge. In the one case I mentioned a comparatively young man is concerned but he is ill and has certificates from doctors that he cannot work the plot, while the other three cases are of old people who are also no longer quite healthy. Two of them are suffering from wounds received in the Boer War. They are living in poor circumstances. The position in which they find themselves is probably due to the fact that in their youth they offered their all for their country. They did not serve their country at a double salary, but offered up everything on the battlefield, and today they are driven out. Is it fair? The Minister will perhaps say that I am exaggerating. I am definitely not exaggerating as far as these cases are concerned. They are cases of which I know the exact circumstances. How many other cases are there on the settlements throughout the length and breadth of the country? These people offered everything for their country. Today they get a meagre war pension, or an old-age pension, but it is too small for them to live on in their old age, and then they are not even allowed in their old age to spend their days restfully with their children. There must be hon. members on the other side who also represent settlements. I appeal to them and to the Minister also not to apply this policy in this manner. I must say honestly that I am not very optimistic about getting the support of the hon. members on the other side. My information is, and I want to put it pertinently to the Minister, that in my constituency—and it probably also applies to other constituencies—settlers are told that if they go to a certain person they will be left in peace. In my case it was the member of the Provincial Council who is a supporter of the Minister, and it is said that if they go to him, then they can remain there. I should like to know whether this is so. I received my information from absolutely reliable people on the settlement. They say that if a person goes to Mr. Jackson and he puts in a good word for them, then the Minister will probably allow them to remain. I do not know whether this is the case, but I have received it from the best source.

You know for a fact that that is not so.

I am glad that the Minister has given me that assurance, and I will accept it, but it is definitely being said on the settlements, probably without the knowledge of the Minister. I will be glad if the Minister will issue a warning and if he will contradict it in the House. On a certain settlement I was told that people were told: Go to a certain person, and if he puts in a good word for you, you will get exemption. I want to close by emphasising that this motion exposes a state of affairs that is definitely undesirable. I must hold the Minister responsible for all the bitterness and unpleasantness and unrest that has arisen on the settlements as a result of the policy. What is more, this motion of mine is a challenge to the Government. I say with the greatest emphasis that if the Minister refuses to accept it, then I will have every right to say in my constituency and elsewhere: I say this to the Minister in his face—that the Government was not prepared to accept my motion because it will expose the handiwork of the Minister. Therefore I hope that the Minister will consider it carefully. If there is nothing wrong, if nothing unreasonable is taking place, the Minister need not fear an investigation. Therefore I hope he will accept the motion, because what is going on on the settlements now, for some years, can no longer be tolerated.

I second. I am very sorry, however, that I have to second the motion. I thought that the Minister would long ago have been moved not to apply that policy of his any longer, not to make the policy one of the Medes and Persians. It is not only on the settlements that we find this policy, but on all lands which fall under the Department of Lands. Everywhere the Minister applies the policy. I also wish to say immediately that I have nothing against the legislation as such. We all admit that certain powers must be conceded to the Minister to exercise control over such lands, but I cannot imagine that at that time when the legislation was adopted and the power was placed in the hands of the Minister, the idea was that it would be applied in this drastic manner. It was expected that the Minister concerned would act with discretion and would only apply the law where there was abuse on certain settlements and other lands which fell under the Department. It was the idea that the measure would be applied with discretion to prevent that groups of persons should crowd together on the lands that there should be overpopulation on the plots. But the policy is not applied in that way today. As the Minister said on a previous occasion, his Department is no charitable institution. But the Minister is engaged in drawing a Roman Catholic wall, a cloister wall, about the settlements. He wants to keep away all who would otherwise be allowed and who were allowed in the past. It was not the intention that the Minister would use the power in this way. The power has for years been in the hands of the Minister of Lands, but it was never applied in this manner. I want only to name one instance on ordinary Government land. There was a parent who became old and sickly and who in the course of years fell in arrears with his instalments. He had two sons there. His other sons went to work elsewhere. They learned, and one is today a teacher in a high school, but two sons came to the farm to take over the farming and work the farm. Those two sons paid all the place’s instalments, on the express condition of the parent that they would later inherit the farm. It was laid down that way in the will. The old man was already very old, he could not work any more. Suddenly the Minister comes and gives notice to the old man that the sons must leave the farm. They made every attempt to convince the Minister. They had already paid a large amount in instalments and made many improvements on the farm. The people will simply be ruined by the policy of the Minister. They must leave the farm and on the day when the old man is dead, they will get the farm back in a deteriorated condition. They must surrender all that they have developed there. They came and discussed the matter with me. I recommended that the only thing left for them to do was to try to get a Crown title deed. I admit that there are instances where persons are in circumstances where they can get Crown title deed, but there are numerous other instances where they are not in position to get a Crown title deed. Those persons then went to the Minister to try to obtain a Crown title deed. The only way out was that they should immediately pay for the farm, pay it off in full. When they made attempts to obtain the loan to do that, the Minister still told them that he would refuse a sub-division of the farm. Nevertheless there was no alternative but to borrow the full amount from someone else. They then borrowed and paid it, to try to prevent that they should suffer the loss with which the Minister had threatened them. They then obtained the money from a private person to try to save what they would otherwise lose. I think the Minister is very unreasonable in the manner in which he applies his policy. We find it not only in this department, however, but also, for example, on the Railways in connection with salaried staff. I know of cases on the Railways where parents lived with their children. The son drew a salary from the Railways, and the parents lived with him. The Department acted in the same way as the Minister of Lands. Instead of helping people to get land, they are ruining people. They discourage people from living on Government land. If the Minister keeps on as he is doing today, a man will think ten times before he goes to the Department of Lands to obtain land under the Settlement Acts. The hon. member for Brits mentioned a few cases. We can mention numerous cases, not only on settlements. There are numerous old people, some with pensions, others perhaps without pensions, but sickly, who have no other way out than that they should live with their children who can properly supervise the place where they live. Under the former Minister of Lands we had cases where the Minister made particular provision for such persons, even on the Vaal Hartz settlement. I know of a case where the mother lived and the son received notice that his mother had to leave the settlement. The son very much wanted to keep the plot, but he was confronted with the choice of keeping the plot or driving his parent out. She had no other way out. She received a pension indeed, but there was nobody else who could provide for her, and she refused to accept other provision. If the son wanted to remain on the farm, his mother had to go away. You get many hard cases, but the Minister is building a cloister wall about the settlements. They must be closed off, no matter how hard the case may be. He does not care about how much it means for the family, he does not care how much of a solution it means for the people—he has nothing to do with that. I want to ask the Minister what is wrong in a son’s helping his father to develop the little piece of land which he will one day inherit. Sometimes it is even completely justified that there should be two sons on the land. There are lands which are small, but there are also large farms, and what does it matter if such a farm is sub-divided?

You plead now for sub-division?

No, but the Minister makes no difference between whether a farm is large enough to sub-divide or not. In the case of which I am thinking now, the farm is big enough, much bigger, twice as big at least as many other lands which have been given out under the Settlements Acts. Where parents are engaged in making over the land to their children and two sons are necessary to develop the land, and the plots do not become too small in sub-division, what objection can there be? I can understand that the Minister should refuse if the plots become too small, but the Minister does not take the circumstances into consideration at all. I mentioned a case of two large lands, enough for two plots, but the Minister refuses. What is the motive of the Minister? What is the purpose? Why does he refuse? We cannot see it. I assume that the Minister will not deal with his own son. If he has a son on his land and he wishes to farm, then he will not drive the son from the farm when he becomes 21 years old. But the sons must get out. Why is the Minister so unreasonable? What is the motive? Are there political reasons? I hope that the Minister will not sink to that level and that that is not at the back of his mind.

The motion was moved for political reasons, of course.

If the land is big enough and there is room for people, the Minister ought not to act in this way, he ought not to be so unsympathetic towards the old people. I can understand that the Minister wants to prevent that people will not be able to make a living on a plot because there are too many people, but the Minister does not take the circumstances into account. He refuses outright in all circumstances, whether it is small piece of land or a large farm. With that he has nothing to do. He has simply laid down a policy, and he refuses. I hope that the Minister will reconsider his policy and take the particular circumstances of the different cases into consideration, that he will not carry out the law as a law of the Medes and Persians.

I am glad to see that hon. members on the other side admit that the Minister has the right to act in such cases. I believe that the Minister must have such a discretion according to law, because in certain instances it is essential that he should exercise that power. The accusation against the Minister is that he makes no exception. That accusation is given the lie by the hon. member for Brits (Mr. Grobler) himself, because he made it plain that in certain essential cases the Minister exercised his discretion.

Provided that a certain member recommends it.

No, that is not so, and the hon. member for Brits knows that it is not so. If he goes to the Minister with a case which stands on all four legs, he will get it right. I have also had the experience. The hon. members are pleading generally now. I can quote a case of a man who had four sons with him on the farm, of whom two were married. It was a whole colony on a small farm, and that cannot be allowed.

Who recommended that it should be done?

There we have the answer indeed that members on the other side disapprove of those things. Then the question arises of where we must draw the line. The hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Wentzel) said here that the Minister is acting mercilessly, and he talked of a law of the Medes and Persians.

The Minister is a reasonable person with intelligence.

I know that the Minister has the necessary intelligence, and I also know that he uses it. The hon. member for Brits quoted cases which prove it, and I can also quote cases. But it is clear to me that we again have here a case where members on the other side want to make a weapon of this matter to use in the coming struggle. It is a stick with which they want to beat the Government. They are serious cases, and the Minister will deal with those cases on their merits. The fatal mistake of the past was that the law was not properly applied. That happened in the past, and for that reason we got instances where a man occupied the farm with his four big sons. Plots intended for one family had virtually to carry five families.

That is the exception.

It is not only the exception.

Where does it happen?

There are, unfortunately, more such cases. The hon. member for Brits quoted a very important point, and that is the question of the scarcity of labour. With a view to that—I did it last year, and I want to do it again now—I want to appeal to the Minister to use his discretion in such a way that the people are met in this respect. If a father is old, and he has a son over 21, then we must allow such a son to remain with him on the plot. It is very difficult to obtain labour. Especially in areas where tobacco farming is carried on, is it essential for the farmers to obtain proper assistance. I want to plead with the Minister to make a slight allowance on that point. But where small colonies appear on the farms, the Minister must put his foot down, and then we will not get such cases as I have mentioned, and neither will we get the Jeremiad which we get today from members on the other side. I hope the Minister will fairly consider this appeal of mine.

Let me say at once that I am going heartily to support the motion of the hon. member for Brits (Mr. Grobler) that a proper inquiry should be instituted into the new policy which is being followed by the Minister. I want to say at once—and I hope that the Minister will take the same point of view—that I am not going to deal with this matter as a political matter. In the nature of the case this matter ought not to be political. I believe that the Minister honestly believes that his policy is the right one in connection with the settlers. But then he must accept that other persons, who also have experience of these matters and who also want to help the settlers to make a success of their farming, have a different attitude from the Minister. For that reason I think that the Minister ought to Institute a proper inquiry into this policy, and I think that after the inquiry he will be convinced that the policy should not be as drastically carried out as it is now. There are cases where the people must be helped, where they must practically be saved from themselves by not allowing too many people on the plots. They have perhaps too many children on the plots, and those children must be helped to make a different living. But as the policy is now applied, it is not in the interest of land settlement. Before I go further, I wish to pay this tribute to our settlers, that I admire their courage. I had the opportunity a few years ago to go through the country investigating the settlements to find out what difficulties confronted the people. I can say that those people struggle with the greatest sacrifice to make their living out of their plots. We cannot help admiring them, and for that reason we ought to go out of our way to make their life as bearable as possible and not to cause them difficulties. It is usually the poor class Afrikaner who has to resort to the Department of Lands. Where there is a drift to our towns and cities, we must do all in our power to help those people to make a decent living on their plots. It is now proposed here that there should be an inquiry into the new policy of the Minister. There is one word in the motion with which I do not agree, namely, the word “unmarried.” I do not want to confine myself to unmarried sons. There are cases where we have big farms in the Northern Transvaal which have been granted to settlers. Many of these people have sons. Possibly the son is maried. He has obtained water for himself and built his own house. Why must that son now be removed from the farm? That would be wrong. I am convinced that the Minister is not acquainted with all the circumstances. It was usually the large farms which were originally granted to the settlers. They are people who did pioneer work. If they gave those farms to many people as a present, it would be a sacrifice to accept the farm. But they are making those parts habitable. I cannot imagine that the Minister can be acquainted with the circumstances on such farms, if he simply provides that all sons who are majors must be removed from such a farm. We admit that the Minister has the right to do it, I want to concede that in certain cases he has the right according to law. But I assert also that according to law he has not the right in all cases. I know personally of cases where application forms were filled in when the land was given out, and on the application forms the applicant had to explain how many sons he had, and it was used as an argument in his favour that he had people to help him. It was well known, and in the circumstances I do not know whether the Court would allow, where the Government knew what the position was and accepted it, and where later Ministers admitted it, that those people be now removed from the land.

Those were the minor children.

No, there were also the major sons.

But lands were not given out to them.

If the Minister goes into the matter, then he will find out that in some cases land was given out where there were also sons who were majors. And then we also have this consideration. The father perhaps had sons of eighteen and nineteen years old. They helped him to develop the farm; they got older and were married. The Department of Lands knew of the position; they knew that the sons married, that they had opened up water for themselves, and developed irrigation. Annually there is a report of the Inspector of Lands, and consequently the Department of Lands was kept informed. It did nothing, and therefore acquiesced, and I cannot see how the Court will now permit that a son be removed from the farm in such cases. I do not wish, however, to go into the legal question now. I only wished to point out that, where the Department agreed in the circumstances, it should not act unreasonably now in removing the people. Previous speakers have already pointed that out, and we all know what the position in the North is. There is almost a famine. Those people are too poor to hire natives; they are dependent on their children to help them to put themselves into a position to fulfil their obligations. What is going to happen now if we remove the sons from the farms? Some of these people are old. There was even a time when we gave preference to the people who took part in the second War of Independence. They were fairly aged, and their children are now all majors. There is no minor son, and in such cases the Minister ought to use his discretion and allow that sons who are majors remain on the plots. It is a tradition among our farmers that the father provide for improving the farm for his children. The tradition is that the farm goes to the children, and why must the farmer now be compelled to send the son away when he becomes twenty years old? The child has learned no other trade; he built up the farm together with his father, and he must now get out. He must go to the town, and he must seek a haven there. The father dies later, and what is the position then? Then the son has become accustomed to the life in the town; he has become a townsman, and we cannot expect that he will go back to the farm where he will perhaps have to provide for his widowed mother. It may happen that the farm may in that way come into the hands of a stranger. If ever there were a policy which one cannot approve, then it is this policy which is now being followed by the Minister to drive these people from the farms. We cannot approve of it. I feel that it is not the right policy, because I want to repeat again that it must be our task to encourage people to go to the farms, to live there and to make a living there, and not to drift to the towns. In those circumstances we cannot approve this policy, and I am convinced that if this policy becomes known in the country, we will find very few people who will want to take land from the Government in those circumstances. The people already have enough difficulties. If a person has to know in addition that his sons will be driven from the farm when they are 21 years old, what future does he see for himself and what encouragement will there be for him to occupy settlers’ land? I have already said, and I just want to repeat it again, that the people are on the farms, they have been there for a long time, the Department has received reports from its inspectors that the people have found water and that married children have perhaps built houses for themselves. If the Minister now stands definitely on this policy, and believes that it is the right thing—I assume he means it honestly—then he ought not to apply it to the lands which were granted in the past. Let those lands stay as they were in the past, not that we want that a whole lot of families should live on one farm—and let the people know in future when they apply for a Government farm, or when a farm is bought for them under Section 11, that this condition exists—that they may not keep sons who are majors on the farm. Then the man goes into it with his eyes open, and he knows what the conditions are. Where that was not the policy in the past, and where former Ministers permitted it, although there were reports from the Inspectors of Lands, we can regard it as a violation of contract on the part of the Minister, because they are agreements which were approved by his Department which received those reports and let matters go on in that way. With this boycott of the Minister the position is made difficult for the people, and he ought to agree that a proper inquiry should be instituted. If it is difficult to appoint a Select Committee for it, let the inquiry be instituted by a Departmental Committee or by a Commission which can go through the country and investigate the matter properly. On the Platteland we have as a rule good Inspectors of Lands who are acquainted with the circumstances, and if it is left to their discretion to present reports and make recommendations, then it will be of very great value. I think, therefore, that the Minister should agree to the inquiry, so that we will in any case permit the parents to stay with the children on the farms, and that sons who are majors will also be allowed.

It is very unfair of the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) to make the allegation here that colonies of schoolboys and schoolgirls are kept on the plots.

I said there were such cases.

Those are pure exceptions. Anyone who is right-thinking will not approve of it. We disapprove of it. But it was not necessary for the hon. member to take that standpoint and to try to break up the case in that way. Where I agree with him is this, that the Minister should be so broad as to realise that one single farmer or settler cannot possibly make a success of that work if he has no help. The Minister is practical. His success in life, and all that he is, is due to the fact that he is practical. Now I ask him: Can he think for a moment that a farmer who is alone on a plot can make a success of it? It is absolutely impossible. I want to advise the Minister to put a Government official absolutely alone on a farm of ten morgen, and let him make the test whether that official—he can select the best—will make a success of it, if he is alone. It is not a stock farm where the farmer drives his stock out in the morning, walks on after them and brings them back in the evening. The plots are subject to the taking of turns in obtaining water. The plot-owners have to rise in the morning and take their turn. The whole plot is converted into beds and has to be irrigated. The man is tied from the morning to that irrigation, and he cannot leave it. Then his turn goes on through the whole night, the next day and again the next night. And is that all that the man has to do on that plot? There is a crop that has to be reaped and which does not stand still; there are goods which have to be transported; there has to be threshing or pressing. There are a hundred-and-one things which have to be done on the plot, and the man is alone—there are no labourers. There are cows which have to be dealt with, there are perhaps slaughter animals in the pen. It is absolutely impossible for the man to manage it alone, and the Minister knows from practical experience that it is practically impossible. It is slave’s work for a single man to do that work. We have also the private farms of ten morgen and we know that the private owner needs four hands, European or coloured, to work that plot virtually day and night, and such a plotowner makes a success of it. Now the Minister wants those people who help the plot-owner to leave the plot. There is perhaps only one son, and he is a major. The other is perhaps at school. They have to be transported to and from school. The father is alone, and the son is not allowed to help him. Is that fair? It absolutely wipes those farmers out. I know that without his son his health is undermined, and then he cannot last long. He keeps it up for two, three or four years, and then he has to leave the plot and he has no haven. The son who is away is in another calling, and he is virtually grateful that he is away from the plot, because it is a slave’s work, and the widowed mother is alone there with her children, and he does not want to come and help. I mention these few things. We do not want a lot of people on the plots, but one major son can be allowed to help the father to make a success of the work. If the Minister wishes to be consistent, he will later apply the same law to farmers who have Land Bank loans. He will also do it, and where will the end be? He is going to apply a boycott law.

There is no comparison between a person who borrows money from the Land Bank and a man who receives everything from the State.

We do not know where the Minister is going to end. It is quite impracticable to apply this system that a plot-owner must be alone on the plot. Let the Minister make the test I mentioned. Let him put one of his officials on a plot, and see whether the man can make a success of it alone. He cannot do it. I have personal experience, and the Minister knows it too. It is absolutely impossible. The father must have help, and if he cannot get coloured persons, or if he cannot get other help, then he must take his son. That is, after all, best for him. He can trust the son best, and if he passes away, the son can go on, and teach the other children. I wish to point out to the Minister that most of the settlers are his own supporers, and he is making his own supporters dissatisfied. That is the truth. I can give the Minister the assurance that he may go on with this matter, but it will not be to his credit in the future. The country will disapprove of it. He will fail in it, and he knows it, because it is an impracticable thing. There is a war, and young people are needed. Well, let the Minister see the war through, but I want to point out to him that the boys on those plots are just as indispensable as on the battlefield. They are providing the country and people with necessities. The farmer also does his share by providing the country with food. I say that it is not fair to push these boys compulsorily out into the world. There is for those boys no other Government position to which they can go. They must wander about or they must join the Army. There is no other way out for them, and the Minister knows it. Forgive us for being suspicious that that is the intention of the plan, and the Minister wants to drive those boys to the war. I say it is very unfair. The time will come when the Minister will place returned soldiers on the same plots. I want to give the Minister the assurance that, if he applies this law to the returned soldiers, that they cannot get labour, then I give them just a year’s chance, and then not one of them will remain there. The Minister knows it himself as a practical farmer. He knows irrigation and all the difficult work of such a plot. He knows that it is slave’s work, and one would rather do anything else than be subject to that slavery. The returned soldier will leave that plot, if he does not get help. If they stay on them, they will not make a success of them. I want to appeal to the Minister. I do not want us to allow a little colony on a plot, but if we have father and son, allow him to keep the son there. If there is an old father; allow him to stay with the son. I know what such an old father means on a plot. There are many little jobs that he can do. He is a great help and asset to that piece of farming. I want the Minister to consider these two liitle points. Allow the old father there, because he helps the son. And allow the son who is a major there too. Labour is a difficult problem today on such a plot, and help the people to make a success of their undertaking.

Although I feel that it is essential that a Commission of Investigation be appointed in connection with this problem, I want in any case to be fair to the Minister of Lands. My experience of the Minister, since he took over the Portfolio of Lands, has been that he is practical, and that he is also sympathetic towards the settlers. In that respect I know the Minister very well, because in my constituency I probably have the most settlers in the Free State. I negotiated with the Minister, and I always found him sympathetic where there were deserving cases. I have had dealings with him in regard to the value of the settlement lands, and we are very grateful to him for what he has done in that connection. I do not therefore want to hold up the Minister as someone who is hardened and who acts harshly when there are deserving cases, or as someone who does not want to see justice done. In connection with deserving cases, we have had those cases where he adopted a sympathetic attitude. What is more, there were other deserving cases which we did not touch upon; for example, along the Orange River, where the Minister met the settlers and made it possible for them to make a living. In that sense, I want to be reasonable and fair towards the Minister. There he did a good thing. There are unfortunate cases which have been mentioned by the hon. member for Brits (Mr. Grobler) and others. There are unfortunate cases where perhaps the Minister should meet these people, but where he does not do so, perhaps on the advice of the Land Board. I have cases of the same nature in my constituency. The father reaches the age of sixty, and he is unable to obtain assistance. He has a married son who is of age, and that son is not allowed to stay with him. In cases such as these, the appointment of a Commission of Enquiry would afford an opportunity to investigate in order to see to what extent such land should be kept in the family, so that the work of that family will not fall into the hands of strangers, but so that eventually it will at least be given to one of the children. If that is not done, other people will reap the advantage of the family’s labour. I say that in such cases there should be investigation, an investigation which can advise the Minister, and which can support him. This will assist the Minister, because, as the Act reads, the Minister may not have two or three owners on one plot, but only one. We know that in 1934 and in other years we wrote off monies on plots. The complaint was repeatedly made that the plots were too small, and that the people could not make a living on them. Steps were taken to increase the size of the plots and to take care that there would not be too many people on the plot. That has always been the policy. This is the practical procedure which has been in force all these years. Since the position is that proper attention may not have been given to the matter, and since the settler has devoted all his energy to the development of his plot, I think provision should be made that the son may inherit and cultivate the plot, so that it will remain in the family. In those cases I feel that the Minister should agree to the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry, so that the necessary legislation in that connection may be passed.

I would like to say a few words in support of this motion. When this Act was introduced, it was done with a view to meeting the acute shortage of land which existed, with a view to meeting the people who were in need of land. We have always felt that we must keep the farmers on the platteland, and I take it that the Minister, as a practical farmer, has given his attention to this matter, and that in view of that he will lend an ear to the petition of this side. There are cases where there are aged fathers who sacrificed everything for the country and who have retrogressed to such an extent as a result of that, that this is the only way in which they can obtain a piece of land. I think the Minister should consider the question of allowing these old people to keep a major child on the farm in order to assist them in complying with the demands which are made on them, because otherwise the position will become untenable as far as they are concerned. I want to mention one case. A person from Senekal obtained land in Heilbron. He is an industrious Afrikaner who has already sacrificed everything for the country. One of his most able younger sons went along with him. That son became of age, and this man left Heilbron because he did not see his way clear to allow his son to leave him. Now he is again living on someone else’s farm as a “bywoner.” In view of these circumstances I support this motion, and I ask the hon. Minister to accede to the request of the hon. member for Brits (Mr. Grobler). We take it that the Minister is reasonable and that in this case he will accede to this request. We would like to see our people remaining on the platteland. Only recently we saw how the platteland is becoming depopulated. What is the cause of that? It is due to these strict and harsh measures. Those forces are required to maintain the population of the platteland. Today it is practically impossible for the people to obtain labour, if their children have to leave the farms. If the major son has to leave the farm, the father is left with his wife and his minor children who still attend school, and he is unable to cultivate the plot. The only future for the children of those people lies in educating and developing them. We must afford them an opportunity of going co school, because there is no other future for them. No, we expect that the Minister, in his capacity as Minister of Lands, will be more sympathetic to his fellow Afrikaners. We do not want too many people on a plot but we ask the Minister to devote his personal attention to this matter.

This motion concerns a question of policy. This is a very useful motion, and if we could get more motions of this type, we would be in a better position, in a calm and composed manner, to lay before the Minister concerned and before the House, the needs and interests of the platteland. I particularly want to refer to those settlers who entered into a clean contract with the Government. They entered into that contract before the Act was amended a few years ago, an Act which practically placed their whole future, their weal and woe, in the hands of the Minister. That Act practically gave the Minister an opportunity of stipulating who may and who may not live on a plot. I do not want to deny that it did become necessary for the Minister of Lands to have more power in connection with the settlements. It may well be that it is necessary in the interests of the occupiers of the plots as well as in the interests of the country, that the Minister should have these rights and powers. As the hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) said, there may be cases where a small colony is established on a plot, and we cannot allow that. But I also remember this, that some years ago the policy was this. I appeared before the Land Board to plead that a certain plot should be given to a settler, and then the main argument was that the man in question had two sons who could assist him in cultivating the plot. It was practically one of the principles that there were children, who could assist and maintain the mother and the father. At that time it was an argument in favour of the applicant. We then had a change of Government, however, and now we have a Minister who says that it is not the duty of the Minister of Lands to take care of those old people, but that it is the duty of the Department of Social Welfare. The hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Liebenberg) spoke about the practical qualities of the Minister of Lands. Well, I have never heard of anything more unpractical in our country than to expect the child to leave his father, or to send him away. We cannot divide the people like a flock of sheep and send one half to one side and another half to the other side. That is not something which we can do to our platteland people. For that reason I maintain that the hon. member for Brits rendered a service to the country by giving us an opportunity today of discussing this matter, and by giving the Minister of Lands an opportunity to take every aspect of the matter into consideration. I want to put the matter to him this way, that in many cases—I am not referring to the irrigation settlements now—these settlers obtained land in those portions of the country which were practically desert country or uninhabitated. For the greater part the settlers obtained land in the desert and the bushveld parts of South Africa. It is unthinkable that one family in those parts can live miles away from the nearest Europeans, and that they can survive when there are no Europeans in the vicinity to assist them in times of illness. Does the Minister really want such a family to stay there, separated from other people? Must it be impossible for him to pay an occasional visit, and must he be there alone in times of illness? Must there be no one within reach who can nurse such a family? Many of those parts are fever areas. No, the Minister must be very careful in carrying out this policy in the country as a whole. I can visualise that it may easily lead to a big catastrophe in the country, if the Minister does not carry out this policy in the right way. I want to come to the remark of another speaker. Generally speaking, the life on such a settlement is not pleasant. I am not referring so much now to the settlers under the irrigation scheme. There the people live close together. There are schools and churches in close proximity. At certain times they can come together as a community. I am referring to those people who farm as settlers in the bushveld portion and in the unhealthy parts of the country, in the desert areas. I refer to areas like Kuruman and Gordonia, where distances are great, and where it is difficult for these people to get on. I think the Minister will render a great service to those people if he adopts this suggestion of the hon. member for. Brits and causes this matter to be investigated with a view to seeing what can be done to meet those people as far as possible. A previous speaker stated that it was a matter of common sense. The Minister has his inspectors. He can consult them, and since that is the case, there can be no strong objection to the acceptance of this motion. If the Minister is not prepared to accept this motion, he could have the matter investigated by his inspectors. They can summon the settlers to appear before the Land Board in order to explain why it is necessary to have a “bywoner” or a son on the plot. There is one thing we must accept, and that is that we must not act recklessly in connection with this matter. We must not drive these people away from the settlements, because we have not established another place where these people can be taken care of reasonably.

I should like to put this to the hon. Minister, since he in his capacity as Minister of Lands, controls such a large portion of people, that many of them have not got into arrears because they are poor farmers; they have fallen prey to this country’s history. They have got into difficulties as a result of wars, droughts, etc. I therefore want to put it to him that today there is a state of anxiety amongst those people. They realise that here they have a Minister who is making their existence impossible for them. I should like—and this motion gives us the opportunity—the Minister to get up this afternoon and to make a reasuring statement to us, assuring us that he is not going to act in a way which will be harsh towards those people who fall under him. The Minister said that there was a big difference between the man who bought from the Land Bank and the man who bought from the Land Board. He said that the man who bought from the Land Board had to put a large sum into the purchase. But I cannot see that there is any difference. If I buy a farm and I have not got the money, I must buy it on credit. Whether I borrow the money from the Government and pay a portion in cash, or whether I go to a man who until a short while ago walked about with a little bundle on his back and I borrow the money from him and pay off 100 per cent., sure it amounts to the same. According to the Minister the individual who borrowed from the Land Bank must be the slave of the Land Bank. I want to put this question to the Minister: “Does the settler not repay every penny together with the full interest?”

No, certainly not. The settler is not paying more than 10 per cent.

The moment one talks of a settler, the Minister thinks of the settler on an irrigation scheme. We are talking about Crown land settlers.

These are the sons for whom you are now pleading.

No, it is not only for those sons. I am making a plea on behalf of the numerous sons who are scattered all over the country, who live in the distant areas of the country. I am making a plea for those sons in the dry parts of Vryburg, Kuruman and other parts, where these people are living on remotely situated farms. On those farms, the Minister’s policy prevents these people from keeping their sons on the farm, in those areas where they have to make their living in the midst of lions and wild animals.

The lions are in Parliament.

No, I would describe those I see here as tame pups. I do not think the Minister meant it in the sense it is applied here, or if he did intend it in this way, the settlers must know about it. I want to assure the Minister that there has been a feeling of unrest in the country since he assumed office. These people are disturbed and this afternoon, through this motion, the Minister can say that he is going to act in a reasonable, Christian and decent manner and that he is not going to drive away those old people from their children, nor is he going to drive away those children from their parents.” The hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) assures me in anticipation that the Minister is going to do it; for all the say they have, I want to predict that it is not going to happen.

Your word is just as good as his.

I want to make an appeal to the Minister to do the right thing towards these people. Do not tell the settler that he must be the slave of the Land Board because he borrowed money from the Land Board. No, give him the same chance which you give to a man who borrowed his money from a private money-lender. Whether the man borrows the money from the Land Bank or the Land Board, it is still a loan, and he repays it, and he should not therefore be treated in this way.

Unfortunately I was unavoidably absent this morning when the hon. member for Brits (Mr. Grobler) introduced his motion. I heard a large part of the motion, however. I now understand that he, in his wisdom, considered it necessary to make an attack on my brother. The man is not here. I do not know why the hon. member mentioned his name. He said that nothing could happen in Brits except through my brother. Now, I just want to tell the House what happened at a recent by-election at Brits. A question was put there, and the question was whether such a man as Jan Grobler still existed?

That has nothing to do with the debate; the hon. member must confine himself to the debate.

Of course I submit to your ruling, Mr. Speaker, but I just want to say this: If the hon. member would spend more time in his constituency he would be more informed about the circumstances there. The allegations which he has made are totally unworthy of him.

You do not know what I said; you are talking through your neck.

I have been infromed from a reliable source. The hon. member for Brits is a stranger in his own constituency. As regards the motion he has introduced here we know, of course, that there are instances where the people are of opinion that they should get alleviation. In similar cases that we have represented to the Minister, we have always received the necessary assistance. I am certain that if the hon. member would go into these cases personally, where he feels that a man is having a difficult time, and cannot come through without assistance, and he can convince the Minister of the reasonableness of those cases, then the Minister will meet that man. The Minister has always dealt with these cases strictly on their merits, and where alleviation was necessary he always granted that alleviation. I can well understand that under existing circumstances, where we have to deal with the labour scarcity, that many of the farmers need their sons to assist them in their farming, but we have never found the Department or the Minister unsympathetic, and I am sure that if we leave this matter to the able and sympathetic guidance of the Minister we shall have no reason to complain.

It seems to me that this regulation of the Minister’s in connection with the limitation of occupation, where he says who shall and who shall not be allowed on the plots, is not in accordance with law. Section 28 of Act No. 12 of 1912 deals with this question of residence on the plots and the conditions attaching to it. It provides, for example, that the person who gets the plot must make it his place of abode and reside there for eight months of the year, but this has been amended by Section 7 of Act 26 of 1925. This provides that the person concerned must occupy the plot usefully, but it is laid down what useful occupation means, and nothing appears in that Section which gives the Minister the right to stipulate that the children must leave. The Minister has now imposed a restriction on the occupation of the plots, by way of regulation. The only thing which the Minister can do is this: If he finds that there are people on those plots who do not contribute to the useful occupation of those plots, he may compel them to leave. He can then send his inspectors to investigate the matter, and then he can given notice to such a person to leave the plot. But the onus rests on the hon. Minister to prove that those people are not occupying the plots usefully, and I therefore maintain that up to the present, in using his discretion, the Minister has unlawfully made use of the regulation which he can enforce in regard to the occupation of those plots. If there is a man who has only one son and that son is a major and lives on the plot, and he helps to develop that plot in a profitable manner, the Minister has no right to say that the son must leave when he reaches his twenty-first birthday. The fact is that the Minister realises that up to the present he has acted unlawfully. Now we come to the motion of the hon. member for Brits (Mr. Grobler). I just want to tell the Minister that in this connection he must not only take into consideration the plots on the settlements. He must also take into consideration those big farms of 12,000 morgen and over, which are situated in the North West. Let me describe to the Minister the conditions which exist along the Kuruman and the Molopo Rivers. You have a man there, for example, who is alone on the farm. He has a few thousand sheep and two hundred cattle that have to be given water and grazing. There is only one windmill. As soon as the wind subsides and the windmill comes to a standstill, this man, without any assistance, must give water to two hundred cattle. The position is impossible. He cannot obtain the necessary labour; he has no coloureds or natives to assist him. He is all alone on the farm, and he must try to draw water for two hundred cattle. Now the Minister comes along and provides that every son who is twenty-one years of age must leave the plots. He is not going to investigate in order to see whether the son in question contributes to the useful occupation of the farm. According to the Act, the test is useful occupation, and if that farm of 12,000 morgen can be developed by allowing two or three sons to assist their father on the farm by giving water and grazing to the stock, then they should be allowed to remain there. The Minister’s whole attitude is wrong. It is essential especially in these circumstances in which these people find themselves in the dry areas, that this motion of the hon. member for Brits should be accepted. Difficult circumstances exist in those areas. A number of people have told me that if they have to let their sons go they cannot carry on their farming. We want to develop our hinterland; we want to develop to the full extent those plots which we have given to the settlers, but under the policy of the hon. Minister we cannot develop this land. Let us go further now. Here we have a son aged twenty-one; he assisted his father until he reached the age of twenty-one. He is familiar with all the difficulties connected with farming on that particular farm. He knows what problems arise in connection with the provision of water and grazing, especially in times of drought; and now this youth must leave the place because he is twenty-one years of age. When the father is too old to occupy the plot usefully and advantageously, who is going to succeed him if his son has to leave the place? The Minister has not provided a successor for him. He compelled the son to leave when he reached the age of twenty-one, when the father passes away someone else must come along to familiarise himself all over again with the circumstances. This policy on the part of the Minister is, to my mind, the most shortsighted policy which any Minister has ever followed. We want farmers’ sons on the platteland who are acquainted with the problems of the country. Now we are allowing the young men to go to the cities. We are forcing them to leave the plots. Once we have forced this young man to leave, it will be difficult to get him back again. I know that the hon. Minister would like to have a prosperous rural population. But if he wants to have a prosperous rural population, he must discontinue this policy of his. He must teach the children to love the land, to become hardy, so that they will be in a position to tackle and to solve those problems with which they will be faced. As the position is today, in my constituency—along those big, dry rivers—what is going to happen if these young men of twenty-one and over are compelled to leave? The previous Minister of Lands, Mr. Piet Grobler, did very good work in those parts. He used his influence so that today there is a big school at Askam, where more than a hundred children can receive education up to Standard Six. I get into touch with these children every year. They have learned to love the Kalahari. They are acquainted with the difficulties in that part. But if the Minister is now going to force those boys to go to the cities, who is he going to send to take their places? In this way those parts will again become depopulated. The thousands of pounds which the Department of Lands and Irrigation have spent to put people there who can develop these parts, will have been spent in vain. Then there is another important question, and that is in connection with the aged people. The Minister is meddling with our family life, and unfortunately he is meddling with the family life of the less privileged portion of the nation. He is forcing sons away from their parents at an early age and where there were children who could still have taken care of their parents, they are now prevented from doing so. The parents too, are being forced to go and live in the cities. Those people who love the wide open spaces, who struggled against the elements of nature, are now being forced to leave and to live in hovels in the cities. No, I think the Minister must realise that here he is engaged in interfering with the family life of the less privileged portion of the people. I cannot see why the elderly father and the elderly mother cannot be allowed to remain on the farm. I am convinced of the fact that when the war broke out the Minister saw a good opportunity here to get many young men for the army, and he then immediately cast his eyes in the direction of the major sons on those settlements.

That is a disgraceful conclusion.

I say that it is not a friend of the people who does this sort of thing, and—notwithstanding the fact that the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Blackwell) who knows nothing about the matter is now laughing—it has now appeared that those people are expected to produce. We need the farmers as much today as we need the soldiers. Here we have put a man on a farm of 12,000 morgen; we have given him a borehole and cattle to develop the place; he becomes old and cannot carry on his farming. Now we send away his only aid to the front. I say that the Minister realised that he has not acted according to the spirit of the Act. I say that he has not acted according to the spirit of the Act in so far as useful occupation of the plot is concerned, and that he, in any event, must prove where he sends the son away from the plot, that that son, together with his father, is not occupying the place usefully. But instead of doing that he has passed a law to the effect that everyone of those people must leave. I do not want to make political capital out of this matter.

What have you been doing now?

But it is our duty to draw the Minister’s attention to it when he does the wrong thing. The hon. member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie) is always concerned about politics being dragged into these matters. When this side comes forward with grievances, we are reproached with wanting to make political capital out of it. That is not our intention at all. I want to say here quite definitely that the settlers are not at all satisfied with this policy on the part of the Minister.

I ask myself, when we talk in this House, what we are aiming at? Are we aiming at service to the people, or are we aiming at self-advertisement? My reply to that is that we have a duty towards our voters, and especially to those people who are placed in difficult circumstances, people like the settlers and those people who fall under the Land Board scheme; and the correct way is to visit those people from time to time and to find out what is wrong and then to go to the Minister and submit the matter to him. We must constantly remember that frequently we do more harm than good to our people by adopting the wrong course. I am probably one of the Minister’s most troublesome clients. I had to bring dozens of cases to his notice. I recently attended a meeting where dozens of difficulties were raised. I took these cases and went to the Minister, and within twenty-four hours he sent a man there to make investigations. Here I now have a telegram which testifies to what they got. The telegram reads—

The difficulties of those people who made representations to us, have all been solved. I was not yet satisfied with that, and I then rang them up and asked whether they still had any difficulties. Their reply was “no”, but if at a later date there were further difficulties, they would let me know. If we work along those lines, then we render a service to those people. There is only one correct way to tackle a matter. There are many ways of doing it, but there is only one correct way, and one wrong method can do the people more harm than good. We must be careful. If we want to look after the interests of those people, we must do it in such a way that we do not harm them. If we set about it in the right way, then these things will always adjust themselves.

The whole thing is half right and half wrong.

Yes, we are right and you are wrong.

I would like to say a word or two to the Minister in connection with the people who bought land under Section 11 of the Act. Provision is made in Section 11 of the Act of 1912 that a man who is poor and who wants land, provided he can contribute a share of the purchase price, can go to the Government, and the Government then buys the farm for him, and he borrows the money at a reasonable rate of interest. As soon as he has paid the purchase price over a period of years, he can obtain transfer. In connection with this scheme the Land Board did not only inspect the land, but it ascertained what type of person it was, in order to ensure that only the right type of person would be considered. These were not people who had nothing and who would possibly never have anything. They were poor working people; perhaps people who were “bywoners” and who had saved a certain amount; the Government bought land for them, provided they could contribute one-fifth at first and later one-tenth of the purchase price, and if they paid off the interest and the purchase price within a period of fifty years they received transfer. This was a good effort to provide land to the poor people. I fully realise that it is a duty which rests on the Minister to see to it that the man who gets the land will retain the land, and that he will not be taken off the land. But the people falling under Section 11 represent quite a different type of person from those people who were placed on settlement lands. There we had poor people who were not in a position to contribute a portion of the purchase price. I refer now to the people under Section 11. At a later date the Act was amended and the regulations were also amended, and today these people are not given full transfer. They pay off the purchase price, but they are not allowed, for example, to sell a portion of their land.

We do not permit that.

Yes, I know. There are a number of these cases in my constituency and I know what I am talking about. Without having given notice to these people, the regulations were amended and the right was given to the Minister to impose restrictions on those people. They cannot sell their land without the permission of the Minister, even if they obtain transfer. If I pay £2,000 for a piece of land and I obtain transfer, then the land is mine. But without these people having got notice, the Act and the regulations were amended and they were not allowed to sell. If those regulations had existed, and if it was known to the settlers when they bought the land under Section 11, then we could not have objected. Then they would have gone into it with their eyes open. But now the position is this—they entered into a clean agreement, and now the Minister, or rather the Act, takes away those rights from the people. I object to it. It is not fair towards those settlers. We must differentiate between the two types of settlers. These people deposit a portion of the purchase price; they pay the purchase price in full and receive transfer, and it is not right to treat them on the same basis as the other settlers. As I have said they entered into a clean contract with the Department, and without having got notice or being able to do something in connection with the matter, they were deprived of their rights. If any hon. member in this House enters into a contract and the law deprives him of his rights, he will not be satisfied. I want to ask the Minister to differentiate in this legislation between the people who entered into these contracts, and those people who may buy land today. If they had know the conditions it would have been a different matter. What the Minister is doing here now is destroying the whole spirit and intention of the Act of 1912. The Minister will agree with me that it is wrong. Then I want to deal with the other case which was mentioned here. In my constituency there is a farmer who has six sons. Five of them have other positions, but one of the sons grew up on the farm; he wants to remain there and his father wants him on the farm.

Is that the case which you discussed with me?

This is one case of which I know. But there are many cases where people bought land under the Land Settlement Act, and where we find the same difficulties. The Minister suggested that in this case the son should buy the land from his father and that the father should retain the usufruct. But cases such as these occur every day. The people who buy under Section 11, are mostly “bywoners” who saved enough money to deposit their share. This was a good Act; it was just and fair, and we praised it. As soon as the man pays off the purchase price he receives transfer. We must see to it that that type of man retains the land, but by limiting the man’s rights, as is being done under the Act, we are lowering his self-respect. It is said that the Jews and other people are waiting to take his land as soon as he receives transfer. But, taking the people in my district, there is perhaps only one Case where the man will not fulfil his obligations. Those people are selected by the Land Board and the farms are approved, and I say that in those cases where the individual entered into a clean contract, and where he was given certain rights, we must not deprive him of his rights in this manner.

I had not intended taking part in this debate, but I cannot allow what the hon. member for Ermelo (Mr. Jackson) and the hon. member for Middelburg (Mr. Bosman) said here, to pass unchallenged. They stated here that these difficulties can very easily be removed. They intimated that we had a good Minister of Lands who was sympathetic, and who met the people. Well, those two hon. members may succeed in influencing the Minister to act fairly and reasonably, but I make bold to say that no one else on this side of the House can testify to that. I had three cases in my constsituency with which I went to the Minister. According to people in that neighbourhood who are qualified to judge, those farms were each big enough not only to ensure a means of livelihood to the father, but in addition to one of the sons. There are other cases, but these are the three outstanding cases which I personally brought to the notice of the Minister, asking him to meet these people and to allow the father to keen the eldest son on the farm. The Minister persisted in his refusal with a stubbornness which is not characteristic of a human being. The farms are those of Smith, Van der Merwe and Erasmus. All three farms are big farms. In all three cases there was not the slightest reason why the farmers should not have been allowed to keep their eldest son on the farm. All three of these people are elderly and one is sickly, and, assisted by their eldest sons, they had every chance of making a decent living. The Minister’s action is not only unreasonable and unfair, but also ill-mannered. I got up only for the purpose of mentioning these three cases, in order to remove the wrong impression which the two hon. members created.

I want to say right at the beginning of my speech that I cannot accept the motion and I say it in spite of the fact that I welcome the motion, I welcome the motion because it gives me the opportunity to refute all the wrong interpretations that are given of the Government’s policy, and to refute once and for all the propaganda that is made in connection with the policy we are following, and to explain the position. My intention is to explain to the House our policy whether it is in connection with settlers under Section 11 or under 16. The country and the House must understand that the responsibility for all the settlers, under whatever Section of the Act, rests with the Minister of Lands. I bear the responsibility for seeing that it goes well with these settlers, and to give them every opportunity to rehabitate themselves in the interest of themselves and for the benefit of the country. The hon. member for Brits (Mr. Grobler) who introduced the motion, said at the beginning of his speech that on nearly all of the settlements there was unrest because this policy was being applied. He added that I was carrying out this policy in an un-Christian-like manner. It is almost strange that this should come from a member of the New Order, of the Nazi Party. It is strange that he should use the word un-Christian-like, because we know that that party has put that word aside. They assured us that if Germany won the war then they would give plots to the settlers free of charge, but the hon. member comes here now and pleads for the settlers. He is apparently losing faith in a German victory. There is no one in this House who can accuse me here, or outside, of being unsympathetic towards these people who are on our settlements and whom we want to rehabilitate there. I understand the position that they are in, and there is no one in this House that is more anxious that things should go well with them, and who is more willing to exert all his powers to uplift those people and to rehabilitate them, than I. The Government is aware of the position which they are in and the Government has placed them on settlements with a desire to rehabilitate them and to make them independent citizens of the country.

If that is your aim, why do you not do it?

I regret that in this debate which was very interesting—and I am glad that members have aired their feelings and their grievances, and also for the manner in which they have done so—the accusation has been made against me that I dragged politics into the matter, and that those members on the other side in this way dragged politics into this debate. The accusation was made against me that I have for political reasons introduced this policy on the settlements, and that I for political reasons, have compelled these boys and old people to leave the plots. I regret that this has been said. While several members on the other side have said that this is a general policy that is being carried out, and that the people are being ordered indiscriminately to leave the plots, I want to say that this is absolutely untrue. There are not only many, but hundreds of cases where sons have been allowed to remain on the plots, where sufficient reasons can be given why they should be allowed to remain. There are hundreds of cases where old people are allowed to remain. Where we have to take a decision in connection with such a matter, the Land Board goes carefully into every aspect of the matter and then makes its recommendations.

But the decision rests with you.

I say the Land Board makes a recommendation. The hon. member for Namaqualand (Lt.-Col. Booysen) surprised me when he said that I compelled the sons to leave the plots just for one purpose, and that was to get them into the army. I do not know for what purpose the hon. member said that. He said, further, that I should remember that these people on the settlements were my people, that they were my political spiritual relations, and that I should not be so hard on them. If I wanted to act in a political spirit, would I not treat everyone of them alike? I must carry out the Settlements Acts. The aim of this law is to take the poorest of the poor, place them on Government land and rehabilitate them, so that they will again become independent citizens, and I am doing this to the best of my ability. The hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie) also in his enthusiasm said that I was carrying out this policy because I wanted to force the people into the war. I say that this is an insinuatoin that is unworthy of him. I will go further and tell him this: There is nobody, inside this House or outside this House, who for a moment will say that my object is to force people into the army. That is the very last thing that can be said. The hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) said here the other day that I removed the people from Pongola because they were Nationalists. I did not drive them away. I removed them from there and gave them all plots at Loskop, where they are now making very good progress. Where I told the hon. member for Brits here that I apply this policy to everyone in general, I want to tell him that this difficulty in connection with sons is a difficulty which arises almost exclusively at Brits, there where this political propaganda is made. At Vaal-Hartz, as far as I know, there is not a single case of this.

There parents were removed.

There was not a single case at Vaal-Hartz where there was a complaint that a son had to leave. We must remember that when the people are accepted, they must fill in forms, and on those forms they must state clearly that they have a wife and so many children. They must all be minor children that are allowed. A major child is not allowed. At Vaal-Hartz this difficulty did not arise, and I want to tell the hon. member that if he goes to Vaal-Hartz he will find settlers there, who have made not less than £2,000 from their harvest, and they did not have sons to help them. Why must the people at Brits necessarily have sons to help them? I will say just now why. At Brits there is the settlement of Mamagalieskraal, about which I recently received a report. I had many applications from Mamagalieskraal from people who wanted to keep their sons with them, and in some cases we granted the applications. I have the report of the inspector in connection with Mamagalieskraal. The report arrived a few months ago, and the report shows clearly that the farming on those plots, where we allowed this sort of thing, was on a lower standard then on some other settlements. The report says that some of the plots where the father and son do the work, are practically overgrown with grass. Let me now compare this with Vaal-Hartz where settlers make up to £2,000. Let me come now to the case raised by the hon. member for Gordonia. He mentioned only one case, namely of a farm of 12,000 morgen.

There are many farms of 12,000 morgen.

I know what farm the hon. member means. I know that part of the country better than he does. I am made of the dust of those parts, and I know the farming conditions there. I grew up there. That farm was given to that farmer last year on the recommendation of the Department at 1s. a morgen.

I was not speaking about that farm.

The hon. member himself made representations in connection with the matter. We could not get water on the farm. We allowed a certain person to live there, and he was fortunate and found water, and because he found water, the recommendation was, and I agreed to it, that the farm should be given to him for 1s. a morgen. The farm is 12,000 morgen, but there is only one waterhole on it, and everyone who is acquainted with that area, will know that this means that the man can only occupy 3,000 or 4,000 morgen. The other portion he cannot occupy, because he cannot reach it. People who talk like the hon. member spoke do not know farming in those areas. The greatest portion lies useless because there is only one waterhole. The farming is comparatively small and one man is sufficient to take care of it, especially if he has only one well and only one windmill. But I still say, as the hon. member for Middelburg (Mr. Bosman) has stated clearly, that if sufficient reason can be given why a son should be allowed to remain, I am prepared to consider the matter. We have always been prepared to give reasonable consideration to such cases.

What about Mr. Badenhorst of Krompan?

There are thousands of settlers, and how must I know about Badenhorst of Krompan? What I said here, is to show that I act with goodwill towards the settlers to make the position of our settlements as healthy as possible. Now I want to tell the House this. It is a question of policy. This motion that is proposed to-day affects a question of policy, and it gives me the opportunity to explain to the House and to the country the policy of the Government in connection with the Settlement Act and I hope that when I have done so our friends on the other side and the country will no longer listen to stories that I act in an un-Christian-like manner and such things, that are unworthy of the members that make such accusations. I have only one aim and that is to treat the people whose fate is in my hands, in the spirit and according to the objects of the Settlement Act, and it is my duty to see that justice is done to them and also that justice is done to the State. When I say that we must also see that justice is done to the State, then we must remember that the Settlements Acts have already cost this country millions and millions of pounds. It is not only that we have spent money on settlements, that we have put money into farms, and that under Section 16 we have provided farms with water, but we must also think of the irrigation works on which several millions of pounds have been spent, and which was all intended, or at any rate was intended to a great extent to give effect to the Settlement Act. The Settlement Act was brought into being in 1912 for the first time. At that time the country had to deal with a poor white problem that was almost indescribable. There was a problem that grew day after day, and as one of the means of solving that problem, the Government of the day decided on a settlement policy. That was the purpose of our Settlement Act. In the first place people were selected for settlements. Let me say here in passing that as far as Section 11 is concerned, of which the hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. S. E. Warren) spoke, there we do not select people. A man who wants to buy a farm under Section 11, selects the farm himself, and if he can pay the one-tenth, and we are satisfied with the farm, then we assist him. Any citizen is entitled to make an application, if he can put down his one-tenth.

Careful consideration is taken of the quality of the man.

The object of the Settlement Act was, in the first place, to rehabilitate the poorest of the poor of our people, to pick them up, and help them to again become independent citizens. Let me say this, that the poor people that we took at that time, and whom we still take, that a great portion of them, almost everyone of them who are today on irrigation settlements, are people who have never had a spade in their hands to water an acre. They were, for example, sheep farmers.

No, that was not the case at Robertson.

The settlement at Robertson is but a fraction of the settlements in the country. Take Karos-Buchuberg, take Oliphants River—all the people we placed there were sheep farmers, who before had never watered an acre. We had to begin with them, and we had to teach them to carry on. I say that the idea was to rehabilitate the people, and I contend that we went to work in an effective way. In the first place, the people had to fill in a form to make an application to get land. He had to fill in whether he had a wife and how many children, and I say that in no case was a major son in such a case accepted to go with his parents to the settlement. It was not allowed. After they had completed the forms, if they were approved, they went to the plots. Some went to irrigation plots and others went to farms like in the Zoutpansberg, of which the hon. members on the other side speaks. Where it is a case of such a farm and also of a plot, there we ask the Land Board what the minimum is on which the people can make a decent living. The plot or the farm is granted to one family, and the Land Board must satisfy itself that such a family can make a living on the plot or on the farm. The principle is that the plot or the farm must be suitable for one family to make a decent economic living on it. When we come to farms under Section 11, then the same consideration applies. We do not select the person, but the Land Board satisfies itself that one family can make a living on such a farm, and that not too much money is charged for the farm. Under Section 11 a person gets at the most £2,000, and now I ask any practical farmer—if a person pays £2,000 for a cattle farm, can more than one family make a living on it? The policy that is laid down is that the farm or the plot must be large enough for one man. What happens? Now we get farms on settlements and elsewhere, and, instead of one family, there are two, three or four minor sons on the farm. Well, as soon as the son attains majority, he can marry, and this means that later on there are a number of families on such a farm. They all want to remain there. If this happens, then the whole object of the Settlement Act is defeated, because, instead of a settler being rehabilitated, we create a poor white colony around him, and this no Government can allow. Our object is to rehabilitate the people, and if we allow this, then we are doing the opposite. Then we begin with one poor family whom we want to rehabilitate; if we allow one son to remain with the family, then we cut the economic income of the family in half. If we allow another, then we cut it in three, and so it will continue, and the result will be that we will have the greatest misery and poverty there, and no Government that is responsible for the administration of such an act, no Minister who is responsible, dares allow such a thing. If we allow this, then it means that we take the responsibility on us that all those millions of pounds that the State has spent to rehabilitate and uplift these people, is simply lost, that our work is defeated, and that all the money is practically thrown into the water, because we create worse conditions than we had before. Let me refer to another aspect of the matter. A father writes a letter to me saying that he wishes to keep his son on the plot. He says that I can allow it because the son is not getting anything out of the farm, and he is paying him the same wage that he pays the natives. Take note of this. We are engaged in upliftment work. We want to rehabilitate these families, and now the Government must allow the son to remain because the father can pay him the wage of a native. We must remember that this son lived with his father before he was 21 years old. The education of those children has cost the State a great deal of money. On one settlement we spend £4,000 a year to take children to and from school. Those children receive their education which costs the State a lot of money, to place them in a position where they will not fall into the circumstances in which their parents are, who are perhaps without any education. They are put into a position to face life, and now people want those sons to remain on the farm in conditions indicated in this letter. No, if we allow it, then the Government creates poor whiteism, then the Government promotes it. It will also result in bad settlements. And, what is still worse—it is going to create a generation of settlers. We cannot get away from the feeling that there is a danger that a generation of settlers can develop. It is better instead of allowing a son to remain on a farm on a native’s wage, to take him away from that farm, so that he will not become a settler, and to give him an opportunity to do something else in life. We must not create a generation of settlers. Recently I received a deputation from Natal, where there is also a settlement. That deputation came and told me that their plots were too small. And may I for a moment dwell on this point. One of the greatest questions with which we had to cope, and which cost me nights to make plans to remove that difficulty, was that the plots were too small to be economic. How many times has the hon. member for Brits not come to me and complained that the plots are too small. It is unfortunately true that in the past the plots on many settlements were made too small. The complaints come to me from morning till night that there should be an extension of plots, and how many have we not already granted in the last few years? Members would be amazed if they know it. Those farms in the Soutpansberg—behind the mountains—we transformed the world to give the people expansion.

People were even removed.

We did not remove a single man in all the years for whom we did not provide an opportunity at some other place. We removed the man and divided the land among his neighbours, but we removed him and placed him on an economic plot. At Kaffer River in the Free State there were originally 22 plots. Extensions were made two or three times, and the number of plots have now been reduced to six. That is a difficulty that I also had at other places. Where this is the case, we cannot be expected to allow the people to keep “bywoners” on their farms. If we allow this, how far will the Government get with its settlement policy? I say again with every conviction—we have not here a law of the Medes and Persians, and in hundreds of cases I made concessions—that unless we lay down the policy that a plot is intended for one family, we are going to make a failure of our settlement policy, because we are not going to give effect to the object of the Act. If we do not do it, then our settlement policy is doomed to failure. I said that a deputation from Natal came and told me that their farms were too small, and we granted an extension. We helped them to make the plots economic. But then they said to me: But look; there is still land belonging to the Department of Lands. And their request to me was that I should keep the land for them—that I should not allow “outsiders” to come in. I then asked them who the “outsiders” were. They then said they were people from outside. Then I asked them again who were the “insiders”, and their answer was their children and their descendants. That is the spirit that is taking root, the development of a generation of settlers, and I say we must guard against it, because it is going to be the destruction of our whole settlement policy. I know farming and I know irrigation. I grew up in it, and I know what is required to provide a family with a living. Let me say here that I acceded to requests where I saw that it was necessary. But if I were to change the policy and do what hon. members ask, then I completely defeat the whole settlement policy of the country.

What request?

To allow sons to remain on plots indiscriminately. We have had great expenses in connection with irrigation settlements, and I think I have made it clear to my hon. friend that we cannot allow the whole principle of our policy to be departed from. If we do that, then we do not do the country any service, and we also do not do any service to those people. Then we simply want the Government to create poor white families, although it is the whole policy of the Settlement Act to rehabilitate poor families. Let me give a few cases of over-population. In the first place, I mention the farm Spioenkop in the Wolmaransstad district. There a farm was given to a certain H. C. J. van Rensburg. He paid £595 for it. If £595 is paid for a farm in Wolmaransstad, then I do not think we can assume that that farm can support more than one family. In 1938 he had paid off his farm so far that he took out a Crown lands title deed.

That shows that he got the farm cheaply.

In 1940 the bond was cancelled. Then he died. The will left half to the wife and the other half to his 11 children.

What has that to do with the matter?

In Potgietersrust there is a farm Delgoa. It is 1,400 morgen and there are four families on it. On Oshoek in Carolina, 2,600 morgen, there are four families. Then there is Olievenshoutspruit in the Waterberg, 2,700 morgen; five families. Kareefontein in the Waterberg, 2,400 morgen; nine families. On Karos-Buchuberg it was granted to one person his wife and one child. He has also a widowed sister with four children. In addition he has his parents. His father is 75 years old, with seven children of whom the youngest is two years old. Here we have a settlement that was given to one person for his wife and one child, and it was calculated to be a plot on which he could make a living. A house was built for the people that was adequate for the man and his family, but what happens when this sort of thing takes place? You get nothing but a slum area. It develops into a slum area. And now I come back to the old people. This again is un-Christian-like; it is very hard. It is the tradition of the Afrikaner that he must provide for his parents. With this I agree. But the Afrikaner must provide for his parents if he can afford it, and if he can afford it out of his own pocket, but can this man do it? And what becomes of the money that the Government has put into the plot.

What happens to the money if he is in the arrears.

That has nothing to do with the matter. We say the Government dare not keep a man there if he must live on an uneconomic basis. If we allow people to live an on uneconomic basis, then we create poor white conditions. Now we come to the question of the parents and the old people. There are many cases, where on the merits of the case, we allow the parents to remain. What must my answer be in this case? The old father is 75 years old. What must my answer be in this case ?

You must give him a farm if he is so old and has so many children.

Do no be funny now; this is a serious matter. Here is a man who is 75 years old and he has seven children, the youngest of whom is two years old. Altogether they are eleven children. Now the owner also wants to keep his son there when he is 21 years old. What becomes of your idea of rehabilitation? Can you rehabilitate this man? At Lindleyspoort we built a dam; we have just completed it. I went to examine the conditions there, and to see what we should do with the water. I found this state of affairs on the lower side of the dam. There are 104 owners living there of whom 53 have less than five morgen. Thirteen own five to ten morgen and 12 own 10 to 20 morgen; but I want to mention two cases which came to my notice. On less than one morgen there live three families. One man had one morgen and the width of it was seven yards and it was more than 1,500 yards long. What must we do in such a case. How must we solve the matter? There is only one solution. The State will again have to take action, kick these people out, convert these uneconomic plots into economic plots, and put other people on them. But if we buy up that land and cut it up into economic plots for one family and these conditions start again, then within a few years you have again the same conditions, and the State will again have to take action. Now I come to my hon. friend, the member for Rustenburg (Mr. J. M. Conradie). I want to mention a case in his constituency. In Rustenburg there is a farm Waterval No. 68. On this farm there lived no less than 63 families. The farm is 3,000 morgen in extent. We had to expropiate that farm under the Unbenificial Occupation of Farms Act, and the State gave it out at a loss of £6,000. Is that what my hon. friends want? That is what they will get if they allow over-population to take place.

We have never advocated over-population.

[Time limit extended]: I have just a few more, words to say in connection with old people and parents. Where the old people have to go away, my answer is this,—and it was mentioned by hon. members on the other side to show that I want to deny all responsibility; this is not the case—my answer is this, that this Government has a Department of Social Welfare that costs millions of pounds. Millions and millions of pounds have been voted for housing for old people and I want to say this, that if there is an old person who has not got a roof over his head, then the Government will see that he gets it. The money is there and they will be provided for. The Government will see to it that they are not left without a roof. There is a separate department that provides for old people, and I cannot see how this Department must provide for that settler who is an old man. I think I have made the matter clear. I went personally to the settlements, and I heard their complaints because their sons had to go away. I explained the position to them and I told them that if they wanted to keep their children there, it would lead to poor whiteism. After I had explained the position to them I did not ever receive a complaint from the settlers. Do not tell me that the man behind the Soutpansberg must have assistance to milk a few cows. One man wrote and told me that his son must work for a native’s wage. Well, the Government is not going to allow a son to be kept on a plot to work for a native’s wage. Although I welcome this motion because it has given us an opportunity to discuss the matter, I am convinced that the only object we must keep in view is the upliftment of that section of our poor white class over which we have no control.

I listened attentively to the Minister’s reply on this motion, but I cannot find a single word in his speech relating to the motion. He confined himself principally to unprofitable occupation of land, which was not relevant at all. There has surely never been a Minister who is as sympathetic towards the settlers of this country as the present Minister, judging by the Minister’s speech. He has done so much for the settlers that everywhere in the country they are grateful; everywhere there are cheers of gratefulness. The Minister says that he has done so much for the settlers, but I now want to ask him how many plots he and his department have given to farmers within the past 3½ years? How many farms has he bought under Section 11 of the Act in these 3½ years? I want to ask the Minister whether it is not the policy of the Department not to grant any plots at all?

We have not refused a single case under Section 11.

And now we hear that it is this Minister of all people who has done so much for the settlers and who has such a deep affection for the settlers in this country. May I say as far as I know there has never been a Minister of Lands who did as little for the settlers as the present Minister of Lands. The things which he mentioned here were all things which were already in progress before he became Minister of Lands. He referred to small colonies, but there is not one member in this House who advocated overcrowding. There is not one member on this side who advocated sub-division. I think every one of us disapproves of it, and for that reason the Act was passed by me in this House in 1936, stipulating that smaller plots must not be allowed. What members on this side advocate today is this: Here we have an elderly father, an elderly mother, who draws an old age pension. They have no roof over their heads but they have a son on the settlement with whom they live. This old gentleman is too old to assist, but the Minister says that he has nothing to do with the old people, that they are in receipt of an old age pension, and for that reason they must now be driven away to the towns. In the towns, on that meagre pension which they receive, they have to hire a house, and there they perish of hunger. The Minister talks about a Government rehabilitation scheme. But I want to say this to the Minister, that as yet no rehabilitation scheme has been introduced by this Government. What hon. members on this side advocated was this: Here we have an elderly father; he has a farm but owing to ill-health and other reasons he is too weak to cultivate the farm, and all he asks now is that his major son be allowed to remain there in order to assist him to cultivate the plot, because otherwise it will go to someone else in the near future. Not one of us on this side made a plea for over-crowding this afternoon. We asked that these people should be assisted. Not one of us is in favour of over-crowding. We asked since those people cannot obtain the necessary labour today, that their sons be allowed to remain on the farm to assist them. The Minister has now received a letter in which someone writes to say that his son has to work for native wages. But that is not what this side of the House wants. No, I must say that this afternoon the Minister made a poor case of the Government’s policy. He said that the Land Settlement Act was brought into being in 1912 because at that time a poor state of affairs existed in our country, such as we have never had in this country. But he did not tell us what the cause of that was. Allow me to tell the Minister why we had that state of affairs. The reason was that our people in the Transvaal and the Free State were wiped out, that everything was taken away from them. These people are not lazy to work. I say that the Lands Settlement Act is a good Act, but the Minister must not pride himself on his sympathy for the farming community. What has this Government ever done for the farming community? The Nationalist Government appointed a Commission under the chairmanship of the hon. member for Pietersburg (Mr. Tom Naudé), and as a result of the recommendation of that Commission, the settlers received relief to the extent of £1,500,000. We have not received that relief from this Government.

Then you do not know what you are talking about.

The Minister is one of those people who also has his faults, but when one listens to him, one gets the impression that he is incapable of making a mistake. The Miniser came here and said that the debt on this, that and the other dam had been written off. But I want to remind the Minister that it was a fixed policy of the Nationalist Government that when a dam is built, the economic conditions of the people who live there must be taken into consideration, and if it appears necessary, the necessary writing off must be made.

We have not only written off debt on the dams, but also on the plots.

Very little has been done by this Government. The Minister now says that if this Government had to do what we propose, that is to allow the sons to remain on the plots, it would mean that we would increase poor whiteism, that it would mean that at a later date plots would have to be given to those sons and also the sons who follow them. I want to ask the Minister whether it is not a fact that today there is an influx to the town from the paltteland. Why? It is because the plattelland cannot obtain the assistance which it should have. In every sphere the activities of the farming community are obstructed by the State in such a way that the farmers are not able to make a living. The prices of farming products have been fixed and the farmers are unable to make a proper living. There is a keen demand for land on the part of the people today. For that reason we ask that the Government must in heaven’s name allow the father to remain with his children until such time the rehabilitation scheme of which the Government talks is put into effect. It will not happen under this Government. All sorts of attractive promises are made by the Government, but it will not go further than that. We ask that the father and mother should be allowed to remain on the plot, and to retain their pensions. The Minister is not prepared to allow that, and then he tells us that he is sympathetically disposed towards the farmers. I hope that we shall not have that type of sympathy for the farmer very long.

I suppose you want the type of sympathy which you offered them.

The hon. Minister boasts so much today, but he could not even win a seat in the country. The second point is to allow those children to remain with their parents. The Minister replies that if that is allowed we would be creating small colonies. We did not ask that small colonies should be established. We only asked that the children be allowed to remain there. The hon. Minister attacks the hon. member for Waterberg (Mr. J. G. Strydom), and he says that that area is so large that he does not know when the hon. member last paid a visit to that part. I want to assure the Minister that the hon. member for Waterberg was there last week. The Minister knows very little about the conditions in the Transvaal. He may be familiar with the conditions in the Karoo, where he farms with his sheep, but he knows very little about the conditions in the Transvaal. I think we must take off our hats to those people who are today farming in the Soutpansberg and in the North, and who are making that part of the world habitable. I think it is not fair on the part of the Minister to attack hon. members when they bring specific cases to his notice. The other day the Minister mentioned a case where enormous profits were made on ten morgen of land.

You cannot say that Vaal-Hartz is only ten morgen. It is thirty morgen.

The Minister told the House that he dealt with these cases on their merits. But what is happening now? The Minister is forcing the parents or children, as the case may be, to leave the plots, and he is breaking the family ties. The Minister is now out to see to it that the family ties are broken. I want to tell the Minister that where I found that there were too many people on the plots I also said that it could not be allowed; but the Minister is going too far here, in applying this provision generally. The Minister says that at Vaal-Hartz there was not a single occupier of those plots who applied for permission for his father or his son, as the case may be, to remain on those plots. Why? The reason is simply that they knew that it was hopeless to apply. It would only have wasted a 1½d. stamp to make representations to the Minister. They know that the Minister has applied a decree of Medes and Persians and that he will not grant the request. This afternoon the Minister made an attack upon the hon. member for Gordonia (Mr. J. H. Conradie). I want to tell the Minister that if there is one man who is entitled to talk about the settlers, then it is surely the hon. member for Gordonia, who lives amongst those people and who knows what goes on and what their grievances are.

The Minister is only creating mischief amongst the people at Kakamas.

I hope in the future the Minister will not make that type of attack on hon. members on this side of the House. I do not want to take up the time of the House unduly long. Hon. members will want to put this matter to the vote. I just want to conclude by saying this: I hope that the Minister will now do what he promised here this afternoon, namely to deal with each case on its merits and if there are elderly parents who are keen to live with their children, that he will allow them to remain there in view of the fact that there is no rehabilitation scheme at the moment. And when there is an old man on the plot who is sickly and who cannot work himself, we ask that the Minister should meet this man and allow his son to remain there. We do not want those plots to be overcrowded, but we want to enable the man to make a living. If a man has a son who is over twenty-one years of age, his son is not allowed to remain there. This poor man cannot hire labourers and his own son is not allowed to assist him. I hope that in that connection the Minister will adopt a different policy. I do not want to make any reproaches but I say that those sons and parents should be allowed to remain there, especially in these difficult and bad times when the people have no other recourse. I ask that the Minister should allow the parents to live with their children, until such time as that wonderful rehabilitation scheme of which the Minister talks, is put into effect. I repeat, however, that that rehabilitation scheme will not come about during the period of office of this Government, but in any event we ask the Minister to postpone this until such time as that rehabilitation scheme is introduced.

I just want to conclude by saying that this Minister is known for many foolish speeches which he has made from time to time, but I think that this step which he is now taking will be known as the most unwise step which he has ever taken. The Minister cannot tell us that it is in the interests of these plots that the sons should be prevented from staying there, or that the parents who are 70 or 80 years of age should not be allowed to remain with their relations. I just want to point out one aspect of the matter. One argument has been advanced here which I cannot understand, and it is this: In South Africa there is a strong sentiment attaching to a farm. I know the Minister, and I want to tell him this—I also know his children—when at some future date we experience bad times and droughts, and when they are in danger of being driven off their land, then there is only one thing which will make them put their shoulders to the wheel, and that is their desire to retain the land of their father.

I agree with that.

What is the Minister doing now? He now wants to put those children off the land. The parent may make sacrifices for fifty years in order to be able to say to the child: “This is the fruit of my own labour which I leave to you.” The farm is the farmer’s pride, and now you want to come along and take it away by removing the child from the farm for five or six years. I cannot understand the Minister. I just want to say this. Because I know how his children feel, because I know how he feels in regard to this matter, I can only ascribe his action to the fact that this war has deprived him of his senses to some extent. I say that with all respect. I do not want to insult the Minister. He is taken up with the war, and for that reason he wants to drive away these boys from the farms. That is the reason why he does not want to accept this motion. But I do hope that he will take this aspect of the matter into consideration. It is fatal to take those boys away from the farm, even though at a later date they may become the owner of it.

I do not intend taking up a great deal of the time of the House, because the speech of the hon. member for Wolmaransstad (Gen. Kemp) has already served as a reply to the speech of the Minister. Three-quarters of the Minister’s speech had nothing at all to do with this motion. With that three-quarters of the speech we can agree. He put up his own skittles only to knock them down. He asked what the effect would be on a farm if three or four families were allowed to live on it, and then he asked us whether we would like to see this happening. It is unnecessary for him to put this question to us. We did not ask for that. We asked that every case should be treated sympathetically. There are certain cases where the Minister did not act sympathetically, in cases where the sons were definitely of assistance on the farm. The Minister says that in Brits he allowed many such cases. I am glad to hear that, but there are numerous cases where the Minister was not at all fair. The time for the debate has expired, and for that reason I do not want to say anything else, because I would like the House to pass its verdict in this matter.

Motion put and the House divided:

Ayes—41:

Bekker, S.

Bezuidenhout, J. T.

Boltman, F. H.

Bosman, P. J.

Brits, G. P.

Conradie, J. H.

De Bruyn. D. A. S.

De Wet, J. C.

Dönges, T. E.

Erasmus, F. C.

Fullard, G. J.

Geldenhuys, C. H.

Grobler, J. H.

Haywood, J. J.

Hugo, P. J.

Kemp, J. C. G.

Labuschagne, J. S.

Le Roux P. M. K.

Louw, E. H.

Malan, D. F.

Pieterse, P. W. A.

Pirow, O.

Schoeman, N. J.

Serfontein, J. J.

Sonnenberg, M.

Steyn, G. P.

Strydom, J. G.

Swart, A. P.

Swart, C. R.

Van den Berg, C. J.

Van Nierop, P. J.

Viljoen, D. T. du P.

Viljoen, J. H.

Vosloo, L. J.

Warren, S. E.

Wentzel, J. J

Wilkens, Jacob

Wilkens, Jan.

Wolfaard, G. v. Z.

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

Noes—55:

Abbott, C. B. M.

Abrahamson, H.

Acutt, F. H.

Alexander, M.

Allen, F. B.

Blackwell, L.

Botha, H. N. W.

Bowen, R. W.

Bowker, T. B.

Christopher. R. M.

Clark, C. W.

Collins, W. R.

Conradie, J. M.

Davis, A.

Deane, W. A.

Dolley, G.

Du Toit, R. J.

Fourie, J. P.

Friedlander, A.

Gilson, L. D.

Goldberg, A.

Hemming, G. K.

Hirsch, J. G.

Hofmeyr, J. H

Hooper, E. C.

Jackson, D.

Johnson, H. A.

Kentridge, M.

Klopper, L. B.

Lindhorst, B. H.

Long, B. K.

Madeley, W. B.

Marwick, J. S.

Moll, A M.

Mushet, J. W.

Neate, C.

Pocock, P. V.

Quinlan, S. C.

Reitz, L. A. B.

Robertson, R. B.

Shearer, V. L.

Smuts, J. C.

Solomon, B.

Steyn, C. F.

Steytler, L. J.

Sturrock, F. C.

Tothill, H. A.

Van Coller, C. M.

Van den Berg, M. J.

Wallach, I.

Wares, A. P. J.

Warren, C. M.

Waterson, S. F.

Tellers: J. W. Higgerty and A. E. Trollip.

I move—

Mr. Speaker, a short while ago I submitted a question to the hon. Minister in connection with the land at the head of the bay at Durban. I gathered from the reply. …

Is that matter dealt with in the Additional Estimates?

Yes, Sir.

Where?

If the hon. member will just indicate what item in the Estimates he wants to deal with.

In the Second Schedule, Harbours £165,000.

What page is that?

Page 4. I think I am within the rules in referring to this subject. The Minister replied that of 395 acres at the head of the bay, the Railway Department had appropriated 300 acres, three-quarters of the available land, for the purpose of construcing railway workshops. This land is land which has been provided by nature for the industrial expansion of Durban. The Minister, in his reply, said that the appropriation was in accordance with the Committee’s recommendation. I am quite certain that no Committee, on which Durban was represented, could possibly have agreed to this.

Is the hon. member satisfied that the matter he is discussing falls under this item.

Yes, Sir.

I am informed by the hon. Minister that it does not. Perhaps the Minister will say whether any item in these additional estimates deals with the matter now being raised by the hon. member.

The hon. member is dealing with the purchase of land at the top of the bay; we are not dealing with the purchase of land at the top of the bay in any of these estimates.

The Minister informs me that these estimates do not deal in any way at all with the purchase of land at the top of the bay. The hon. member is only entitled to deal with matters dealt within these additional estimates, and then he is confined to reasons for the increase.

If I am ruled out of order, I shall have to bring this up on a subsequent occasion. I would like to mention another subject which I feel sure does come under these estimates, and that is the question of ship movements within the harbour of Durban. I want to pay a compliment….

Which item is the hon. member referring to now?

Well, Sir, I will just have a look at the Schedule. I do not want to keep the House waiting, but I might say that your deupty this morning, told me that I was within my rights in bringing up these subjects.

If the hon. member will point to the item in the estimates which he wants to discuss….

Take another chance.

Here it is, “harbours.” I wish to speak about the Durban harbour.

The hon. member is only entitled to speak on the reasons for the increase. He can raise this question fully on the budget. Perhaps it will be better if the hon. member will postpone his remarks until the budget comes before the House.

I am always willing to take your advice, Sir.

The Minister was good enough to give us a copy of his amendment which is now on the Order Paper. It seems that the Minister insists on retaining Clause 5 (1), in which it is laid down that the Minister may appoint a committee, with the Director of irrigation or his representative as chairman, and at least four other members appointed by the Minister. The hon. member for Oudtshoorn (Mr. S. P. le Roux) proposed that the Minister should go so far as to appoint one-half of the members, and that the other half should be selected by the taxpayers under the scheme. It seemed that at a certain stage the Minister was prepared to appoint more than four people, namely, six, and then the hon. member for Oudtshoorn said that if there were six members, one-half of them should be elected by the ratepayers. He said that the Minister had agreed to omit the words “at least”. They apparently misunderstood one another. I have now looked at the Hansard report, and it would seem that the Minister was prepared to omit the words “at least”. The hon. member for Oudtshoorn said this—

The Minister replied to this—

The Minister said nothing about the words “at least”. He went on to say—

It would therefore seem that the Minister was prepared to omit the words “at least”. I then moved the amendment which appeared in my name, namely, that the words “at least” be omitted, that there should be four members and the representative of the Director of Irrigation. Of the four members two were to have been elected by the taxpayers. The Minister was not prepared to allow that. I again want to make an appeal to him to omit the words “at least”. He will then still have a majority on the Irrigation Board. I feel that we are here encroaching upon the Irrigation Act, because under the Irrigation Act an irrigation scheme is controlled by an Irrigation Board. The Irrigation Act of 1912 provides that in respect of each of the areas which is proclaimed as an irrigation area, there shall be an Irrigation Board which is elected by the taxpayers under the scheme, and here we are introducing an altogether new principle. The Minister says that this is a State scheme. It then appeared that the State scheme consisted of a number of irrigators who have to be assisted by the Government. But there is also a large number of private irrigators. The Minister is encroaching upon the Irrigation Act, which up to the present has worked well and smoothly. Why must he do this now, since it is also said on his side that the irrigators must be represented? Why does he give them such poor representation by giving them only two members? If the Minister still wants a majority on the Board, let him then appoint a Board of seven. The chairman will be the representative of the Director of Irrigation, and of the remaining six, three can be elected by the irrigators. If he thinks that that is too many, let him then make provision for a Board of five. I am one of those people who thinks that the State is interfering too much with the private rights of individuals. We have always followed the principle that the people who fall under an irrigation scheme should have a certain amount of say in regard to the control of the scheme, in regard to the question of levying taxes, in regard to the distribution of water, etc. Now we are going to apply a new principle to this scheme only. I think that this is a wrong step. I know that the Minister is one of the people who believes in the individual having rights which he can exercise. Why does he now proceed to take away those rights, and why does he place these people in such an inferior position? It is all very well for the Minister to say that there are certain people who are large-scale private irrigators, and who are prepared to continue on this system, but he cannot only look to the immediate circumstances at Oliphants River where the people are prepared to relinquish their rights. We are dealing here with an important principle. When the Minister comes to Gordonia, or to another district where there is a large number of settlers under an irrigation scheme, and if as a result of economic circumstances they are compelled to ask for financial assistance, the Minister comes to them and points a pistol at their heads, telling them that he will grant the assistance, but that in that case he wants a greater say in regard to the control of the scheme, as is already the case at Oliphants River. That is what this step will lead to. I feel that the Minister is introducing a dangerous principle into our irrigation, and I think he should be satisfied with a majority of one on the Board. I finally make an appeal to the Minister to omit the words “at least” and to appoint three representatives, the taxpayers to appoint three persons, and the representatives of the Director of Irrigation to be the chairman.

I move the amendment standing in my name, which reads as follows—

1. 5.
   1. (1) The Minister may constitute a committee consisting of—
      1. (a) the director or his representative (who shall be the chairman) and not less than four other persons appointed by the Minister; and
      2. (b) two persons elected in the prescribed manner by owners of land within the area prescribed in paragraph (a) of the Second Schedule of this Act and included in the schedule of irrigable land, to advise him on such matters connected with the administration of the works described in paragraph (a) of the First Schedule to this Act, and the levying of rates upon or in respect of land within the area prescribed in paragraph (a) if the Second Schedule to this Act, as he may from time to time submit to such committee.
   2. (2) Any person appointed or elected under Sub-Section (1) shall hold office for such period (not exceeding three years) as the Minister may at the time of the appointment or prior to the election determine.
   3. (3) Four members of the committee shall form a quorum at any meeting thereof.
   4. (4) Any casual vacancy on the committee shall be filled by the appointment or election, as the case may be, under Sub-Section (1), of another member, who shall hold office for the unexpired portion of the period for which the member whose office has become vacant, had been appointed or elected.
   5. (5) If the owners referred to in paragraph (b) of Sub-Section (1) fail to elect one or both of the persons so referred to, the committee shall consist of the persons appointed under paragraph (a) of the said Sub-Section or of those persons and the person elected under the first-mentioned paragraph, as the case may be.

I am sorry my hon. friend got the impression that I agreed to omit the words “at least.” I personally moved that the number should be increased from four to six. I personally wrote out the amendment and handed it to the Chairman, and all I did was to delete the word “four” and to substitute the word “six,” of whom two would be elected by the taxpayers. I want to add that this is not a new principle we are proposing here. The hon. member must bear in mind that this is only an advisory body and not a controlling body. We also have it at Karos-Boegoeberg.

I second.

I move as an amendment to this amendment—

I second.

I move—

I second.

I wish to get a little information. We have an item here: “Rebates on landed costs of imported wheat, 1941—’42.” Dit we import so much wheat that we had to allow rebates to an amount of £11,689?

The amount was placed on the Estimates because it was expected that the last shipment of wheat would still come in, but that shipment never arrived, so the money will not be spent.

Can the Minister inform us how much wheat has been imported in the last twelve months?

260,000 bags.

I assume that this vote relates to the various agricultural schools, but the Minister has informed us that he is going to close quite a number of those schools.

That is not the reason for the increase. The hon. member cannot discuss that now.

Why is there an increase if the schools are not going to be used?

I want to ask whether this increase which is proposed here aims at preventing the bush fires which are occurring so often lately? Bush fires on a large scale have been breaking out lately at places like Grabouw and elsewhere. Has this anything to do with that, and what steps is the Minister taking to prevent those bush fires?

The vote has nothing to do with that. This vote deals with exploitation but I shall be pleased to make a statement on the point raised by the hon. member if he will raise it again afterwards.

There is an increase here on this Vote of £170,000. I want to ask the Minister what this increase means—it says here “Salaries, wages and allowances.” Some time ago I asked the Minister what extra work these people in the post offices were doing. I also asked him how many people were away. The Minister then told me that in one division of the department there was a reduction of staff, men away on war service, amounting to 514. I then asked him: “How many others are on active service?” The Minister said that 514 in the one specific division were away on active service. I understand that throughout the postal service there are very many more than 514 on active service. If 514 are away from one division only, then possibly there are more than 5,000 away from the whole of the postal service. I want to say at once that we have no objection whatever to the people staying behind getting an increase of salary, if that is what this increase in the Vote is meant for. But what we object to is that the work imposed on those people is increased to such an extent that it leads to a great many complaints. Some time ago I put a question to the Minister about the reduction of staff in several departments and the Minister replied that his staff had been reduced, but now we get this increase of salaries.

The Minister of Finance told us some time ago that the Post Office is becoming a taxation machine and that it has to engage more men. Will the Minister tell us what the increase of his staff has been during the last year, and whether this increase of £170,000 is due to an increase in staff?

The hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. van Nierop) rightly points out that the Post Office staff is working very hard. The time has arrived when we cannot put more work on to that staff. I have made that quite clear. But what he complained about, I spoke to these people about, and I asked them to let me know the result of this extra work, which they did not seem to think was very serious, and have not even taken the trouble to let me know. Now, about this £170,000 extra. This is due to the increased cost of living allowance. So as to let hon. members know what the position actually is I would ask them to look at the current estimates where they will find that the cost of living allowance for the current year was £75,000, and for the next year £270,000. Our overtime during the present year was £40,000, and we are expecting to spend £140,000 next year. This amount also includes overtime as well as work which the Post Office performs for other departments.

I want to ask the Minister how the special allowance in respect of increased cost of living is allocated? There appears to be complaints that the lower paid officials get so little that it makes practically no difference to them. Is it calculated on a percentage basis?

The Post Office does not fix the rates of these cost of living allowances. That is fixed between the Civil Service Commission and the Railways Commission.

You don’t know on what percentage it is based?

I shall supply the hon. member with that information.

Have you taken on more officials?

Yes, many pensioners are working. After their time has expired we keep them on.

I want to touch on two matters: The first is in regard to the censoring of letters.

That has nothing to do with this vote.

What I want to ask is in connection with the hard work those people have to do.

I, as Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, have no control over the Censorship Department, and the people who do the censoring are not paid under this vote.

The hon. member cannot discuss this matter on this vote.

The Minister complains of there being a reduction in staff, and I want to ask him to what extent his officials have anything to do with the censoring of letters? If he tells me that it has nothing to do with his officials, then I will leave it at that, but do not his officials assist the military authorities in the censoring of letters? And are those letters sent to the place where they are censored?

In reply to that question I want to say that the Censorship Department comes under the Defence Department. They have four or five hundred officials for that work.

The Postmaster-General is the chief censor?

Yes, he happens to be the chief censor, but he is not paid for that.

That is not fair to you. Has your staff nothing to do with that?

No, the Postmaster—General happens to be the chief censor, but the Department of the Censor consists of ex-officials of the Post Office. They come under the Military Authority.

The letters which are censored, do they first go to the Post Office to be stamped there, or do they first go to the censor and then to the Minister’s Department?

All letters that are posted first go to the Post Office and then to the Censor.

Are they stamped? Are they marked before they are sent to the Censor?

That I do not know.

I am sorry the Minister is unable to give us that information; it is a matter of importance. The other question I want to put is this. I am not allowed to go into the question, otherwise I would be able to tell the Minister why I am raising it. The Minister says that his staff has to work very hard. The point I want to deal with is the delay that takes place in the delivery of letters—now, is that delay attributable to the shortage of staff or is there another cause? The staff works hard, but it seems to me that there is delay in some instances. So far as the Nationalist Party office is concerned, it is a striking fact that some of their letters are ten days late; there is a lot of delay. I don’t know where that delay takes place. We have to pay high rates, and if the Minister hasn’t got enough staff, then he must get more. It is an inconvenience to the public. The Posts and Telegraphs Department is a business concern, and that concern has to provide the facilities which the people pay for. One sends a telegram because one wants it to be delivered quickly, but there often is a lot of delay, and the public have very serious cause for complaint. I want to complain on behalf of the Nationalist Party office. I am told that some people are very satisfied, but these letters sent to the Nationalist Party have to be opened.

The hon. member must not wander away from the point before the Committee.

The Minister said that there was a shortage of staff and he has told us that the members of his staff have to work very hard. Now, what I am asking now is that these people mustn’t muck up the letters in the way they are doing—they are marking them to such an extent that people are unable to read them. First of all, it is a disgrace to censor them at all, and it is even made worse by the letters being marked in the way they are. The Minister now as the head of the Department, has a man who is occupying a dual position. Of course, I am opposed to that. Then, there is the question of telephones, too. I want to ask the Minister to pay a little attention to these telephones for which the public are now going to be asked to pay so much more. We know, and we don’t worry our heads about the listening into telephone conversations that is going on. One takes note of the fact and waits until those people who are listening in have finished with their gramophone, and then one goes on talking. They even listen in here to the telephone conversations from this House. Well, if they want to do so let them. But when it becomes a nuisance, then the public who have to pay for the telephones have something to say about it. I don’t think that we are carrying on the war so strenuously in South Africa that there is any need for listening in.

I have allowed the hon. member to go pretty far afield, and I must now ask him to come back to the subject before the Committee.

There is a small matter which I wish to bring to the Minister’s notice. Where the Minister has told us that Post Office officials have to work especially hard in these times, I am quite certain that members of this House sympathise with them, just as much as the Minister does. Probably we sympathise with them considerably more, and where we sympathise with them for the large amount of extra work which they have to do, on the other hand I think we are justified in making the complaint—and this is not a complaint which comes from one part of the country or from another part, but it is a general complaint, and that is that as far as the telephone system is concerned,—it is a complaint of what I might call the lack of courtesy now-a-days among the telephone personnel, among the halloo-girls, and I suppose what one calls the halloo-men, but generally it applies to the halloo-girls. We all know that in time of war many people ignore good manners. There is a general tendency throughout the world for bad manners. It is the ordinary thing among shop-girls especially. I don’t say that because shop-girls ….

I don’t think shop-girls come under this Vote.

I just want to warn the Minister that his people should not follow the example of shop-girls. We know the position among the shop-girls at the present moment.

Your experience is wide and various.

It is not lack of courtesy merely, it boils down to downright bad manners, and it is not limited to one or two post offices, it is becoming general throughout the country, and I think it is high time the Minister should circularise these halloo-girls and point out to them that they are there for the public convenience—we are not there for their convenience, they are there to serve us, and we pay very highly for their service. The amount we have to pay is now increased by 12½ per cent. and I think we have the right to demand that we shall be treated at least in a courteous manner by these girls.

I see that this Vote provides for certain increases in salaries, wages and allowances. Does this include something for the Acting Postmen in Cape Town? These are men who were taken on originally from the messenger ranks to fill the vacancies caused by men on active service. They started at £10, then in October 1941 they got £11, and then the postal association made representations for a further increase of another £1 from October 1942, but although the Department was in favour of it it was turned down by the Public Service Commission. There was grave discontent and had not better counsel prevailed the men would have left the service. I want to ask the Minister whether this extra £1 cannot be granted now, and if there are obstacles whether these obstacles cannot be removed by bringing the matter before the Cabinet.

I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the great delay that takes place in the delivery of letters as a result of the censorship.

The Minister says that there is nothing in this Vote relating to the censoring of letters. The Minister has already told the Committee so.

The Minister stated the other day that the time had come when no further work could be imposed upon the postal officials. I want to ask the Minister whether there are no instances of officials having to work too hard. I have in mind the case of a post office where I am convinced that the official employed there has too much work to do. He is there on his own, he has to do the post office work, the telegraph work, and also the telephone work. He has to do everything that has to be done there. This man did not complain to me but I know it is so, and it is my opinion that this man works harder than anyone should work. In the long run he will not be able to keep on. I hope the Minister will make the necessary provision for such cases.

Most of the discussions that have taken place really have nothing to do with this particular matter. These are questions which should be raised on the general estimates.

The Chairman allows them.

In reply to the hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) I want to say that I quite agree with him. I pride myself, as Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, that service is the most important thing which the post office has to give. There is no question about it and I never miss an opportunity of saying it, and I shall certainly make enquiries. I cannot say more than that, but I want to say, and I say publicly, that the public must understand that the post office should give the best possible service it can. The post office is shorthanded at the moment and but for that these complains of delays and so on would not be there. With regard to the complaint of the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) it is not very often that I agree so fully with members of the Opposition. I have already taken steps in regard to the complaint raised. There is a certain amount of degeneracy so far as courtesy is concerned and I shall take further steps to see if we can remedy the position. The question of the single man’s post office raised by the hon. member for Paarl is certainly an important one. A single man’s post office has sufficient work for one man but not enough for two. But if this particular man is doing two men’s work then I shall see that he gets assistance.

Mr. Chairman, I should have preferred not to have brought up any matters at this stage, but there is a tendency on the part of the Telephone Department to lay down the law in regard to our use of farm telephones in a manner ….

I am afraid that does not fall under this vote. The hon. member cannot discuss that on this vote.

This vote has already been criticised during this debate. Now, I want to ask the Minister whether, since the criticism has been levelled, he has had the opportunity of enquiring into the number of motor-cars belonging to the Government which come under this vote. I assume that provision is being made here not for military purposes. I assume that the large number of Government motorcars coming under this vote are not used for military purposes on the battlefield, although possibly motor-cars being used by people on military service, people who are in the Government’s employ, do come under this vote. I should like to know whether the motor-cars under this vote are only used for Government purposes inside the Union. I assume, for the sake of argument, that that is the case. Day after day the Government urges the public to be economical in the use of their motor-cars, to use their tyres in such a way that they have not got to approach the Government for new tyres. Things are so bad that if one asks for tyres it is looked upon more or less as an action which is not in the interest of the war. And now the Government comes here, and on this vote asks for an additional amount of £12,000. For tyres and tubes an amount of £10,000 has already been voted, and now the Government asked for an additional £2,300. If one appeals to the public to be economical one should set a good example oneself. I don’t believe that these motorcars are being used on the battlefield.

Perhaps they are used on the home front.

The Minister will have to clear this up, and he will have to satisfy the public, seeing that the public is asked to be economical in the use of tyres. Then there is another matter I want to touch upon. People are told that they must not use their motor-cars for pleasure trips. If I look around and I see all the captains and majors, and if I cast my eyes at the other side of the House and I see all these people over there who are employed on some Government work or other, then I quite understand why so much money is being spent on motor-cars. I have noticed in Pretoria the way in which officers and others drive about, and an enormous quantity of petrol must be used in the process. Judging by the additional amount which the Government is asking for petrol for its motor-cars, there is no economy being practised. The Government is not setting an example so far as the consumption of petrol is concerned. On the contrary, the public are being encouraged; they are told: “We are using so much petrol, you can also use as much as you like.” First of all, there was £34,000 for petrol on the Estimates—for petrol, oil and grease, and now an additional £7,000 is asked for on the second additional estimates for petrol—because the amount for oil and grease is only small. This is untaxed petrol because there is no tax on the Government’s petrol. I think the Minister will have to satisfy the public by explaining why the amount is so much larger. If the Government is continually appealing to the public to use less petrol it should set an example. Weeks ago there was a real agitation going-on in the Press urging that we should give a lift to anyone along the road, that we should form ourselves into small groups, so that we could use one motor-car among a number of us. One man said to me, that when he went to the magistrate for a little extra petrol, the magistrate was annoyed, because he had driven half a mile to come and ask for the petrol. The magistrate asked him why he did not walk. One may assume that this was a loyal magistrate, and here the Government comes and spends £34,000 on petrol, and now it asks for an additional £7,000. Surely it is setting a very bad example.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member is entitled to a reply to his criticism, and I am very glad I have this opportunity of replying to him in order to remove some of the misconceptions that he and probably other members may have in connection with this matter. These particular items represent increased costs, for instance pertol has gone up 2d. a gallon, and tyres have gone up 15 per cent.

Do you pay that extra 2d.?

Yes, apart altogether from customs duty.

Oil has gone up 4d. a gallon, grease has gone up ½d. per lb. Mr. Chairman, the position is this, the Government garage has to provide motor-cars for all the Government Departments. The criticism the hon. member is raising should be raised against each individual department, because the Government garage has to execute the orders that come from those departments. The garage has taken all the precatuions it can, working in co-operation with the heads of the various departments to keep down mileage and the consumption of petrol and oil and the use of the cars. I would like also to inform hon. members that owing to a change in the method of transport, we have reduced about 100 private cars for which formerly we allowed mileage. That has ceased, and transport now is being done by the Government garage.

Tell me which is cheaper.

The Government garage, undoubtedly, there is no question about that. They went very thoroughly into this, and the Government garage is the cheapest.

Does it include extra military work?

No, this has nothing to do with the military, but it is due to a good deal of war work. Some of the officials, the Director of War Supplies and the Department of Commerce and Industries and Social Welfare have developed a great deal since the war started, and this is only the expansion that one might expect. As I say, the Controller of the Government garage, in consultation with the respective heads of departments is keeping down these costs to a minimum.

This increase is over less than 12 months.

Yes.

And the war has been on for three years.

This specific item of £7,000 for petrol is due to the increased cost plus the increased use of the garage. That has increased enormously in the last twelve months. This garage is run as a business concern, and although there is an amount of £250,000 shown here as expenditure, the debits to various departments reduce that practically to a minimum, and it will be shown that the Government garage, as a garage, is working at a profit.

I want to get a little information from the Minister. First of all I notice here that the uniform allowances for the Civilian Protection Services are increased from £1,000 to £13,700. In other words, an increase of 1,370 per cent. on our expenditure. Is not that a bit thick. I think the Minister owes the House an explanation, especially when we take into account the fact that the Civilian Protection Society is nothing new, but has been in existence for a long time. I understand that a large share of this expense—I am speaking subject to correction—is borne by local bodies, and I am also told that the local bodies are of opinion that they are wasting large sums of public money by spending so much on this matter. Why these enormous allowances in connection with unforms? I suppose it is for uniforms, or is this a uniform allowance? It can be one of the two. Then there is another point in connection with which I should like to have some information, and that is the assistance to indigent South Africans. This description is rather ambiguous. It reads here, “Assistance and repatriation of indigent South Africans.” Are we to understand that this is assistance to indigent South Africans who have to be repatriated, or is it assistance to indigent South Africans in the first place, and in the second place is it for the repatriation of Afrikaners? If it is only assistance to indigent South Africans then the amount of £18,000 is much too small, because the needs in the country are so large that an amount of £18,000 is much too small. On the other hand, if it means assistance to needy Afrikaners who are being repatriated then the amount is a very large one. We know that an amount of £500 is set aside every year to repatriate Afrikaners to the Union. There have been two or three cases where larger amounts of money have been made available. We first of all had the particular case where a number of South Africans were repatriated from Angola on a large scale, and then an amount of money was voted for the repatriation of South Africans from South America. Then, just after the war broke out there was a third instance when a number of Afrikaners in Europe had to be repatriated. Now, there is another large amount on these estimates again. So far as we know there are no large numbers of South Africans in foreign countries who have to be repatriated at this juncture. It is true that there are indigent Afrikaners in this country, or has the Government suddenly discovered a number of Afrikaners somewhere who are indigent and who have to be repatriated? Possibly the information service of the Minister of the Interior has suddenly discovered that somewhere in the world there are a number of Afrikaners who are in need and who have to be brought back. Perhaps they are somewhere on an island where they have got lost. And with the well-known short sightedness of this Government I can quite understand that it is only now beginning to find out that there are many Afrikaners who are badly in need of help, but what about this repatriation? Are those people outside South Africa? When Rommel got closer to Egypt we could quite understand that there might possibly have been repatriation on a large scale from Palestine, but so far as I am able to see the danger is not so great today. Perhaps the fear is just as great but the danger is less. We should therefore like to have the information.

I notice Vote M.4 here, showing an increase of 46,800, in connection with “Rations and Fuel, Internees.” This is a considerable increase of 50 per cent. on the original amount. Have the number of inmates of the Camps increased to such an extent of late? Under M.7 there is also an additional amount of £8,000 for wages for work and allowances payable to internees. What kind of work do they do, and what is their daily pay?

Under M.5 an additional amount of £6,300 is asked for for clothing for internees. I should like to know whether the internees get civilian clothes or special clothes, or uniforms? The Minister is very fond of uniforms. Some time ago he even showed us a uniform here. I only hope that he is not going to put the internees into uniform.

But surely you are an authority on that subject.

If the hon. the Minister would consult me he would not make the mistakes which he has made. And what is the meaning of this increase of £10,000 in regard to the allowances to families and dependants of internees? As the Minister knows, considerable contributions are made by private people for the purpose of assisting the internees. The Nationalist Party also have established a fund for that purpose, and they assist people as far as they possibly can. We should now like to know to what extent the State assists those people? On an amount of £28,000 there is an increase of £10,000. Have the allowances been raised?

Will you people also contribute?

We have already contributed. I wonder whether the hon. member has made any contributions.

He has sent a few oranges.

Well, they will be gratefully accepted. Then I notice under Vote A.6 that the expenditure in regard to registration on this vote has been increased by £12,000. I understand that the Government is going to introduce a Bill to cut out the biennial registration. If that is so, then I fail to understand why such a large additional amount is being asked for for the registration of voters?

For next year.

But surely the elections are this year.

Not before the 31st March.

We are grateful for that information; the sooner the elections take place the better for us. But the trouble is that the Government is so mysterious and keeps everything so dark. Why all these increases? If the Government is going to abolish this biennial registration, why then this increase of expenditure? The Minister of the Interior, in answering a question, said that the Voters’ Rolls for the election would only be ready in July or August. Will not the Minister consider the desirability of appointing additional staff so as to get the Voters’ Rolls completed sooner? Surely we cannot have an election immediately after the Voters’ Rolls have been published. We know that the Government is keen on surprising us, but that sort of thing would not be fair to the public as such. A considerable time has to pass from the day that the Voters’ Rolls are out, and they get into the hands of the public. If it is correct that the Government wants to have an election towards the end of the year, then the Minister should consider the appointment of additional staff, so as to get the Voters’ Rolls into the hands of the public as soon as possible.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) has asked for an explanation of this uniform allowances; he has asked what the uniform is, and what is the reason for the comparatively large increase from £1,000 tot £13,700. These uniforms are uniforms which are provided by the Government to members of what is known as the Civilian Guard. These members of the Civilian Guard perform street patrols, and they assist the police in a number of ways in maintain law and order. As hon. members know, the Civilian Guard is a separate section of the Civilian Protection Service Organisation. They were not concerned with fire fighting, first aid or demolition work and all that appertains to A.R.P. A supplementary force to assist the depelted police force was created. Hon. members know that thousands of police joined up and have left the country on active service. These civilian guards have rendered and are rendering very valuable service in an honorary capacity by assisting to maintain law and order, and also, Sir, they have been responsible for bringing in revenue to the Government, they have brought about arrests ….

They are town guards.

They kick up a row.

If the hon. member for Prieska (Mr. Geldenhuys) were here, he would be able to explain to hon. members, from his expert knowledge, the functions performed by that body! These civilian guards are more or less town guards. They do not receive any pay, they give us a great deal of their time in an honorary capacity to assist in maintaining law and order, and the Government provides them with uniforms at the rate of £2 per head.

Do the municipalities have to pay anything towards this?

Hitherto the system has been that the local authorities organise the C.P.S. services and in the larger towns, they have established a Civilian Guard Organisation. The administration of that organisation falls upon the municipalities, and they have been bearing the cost. But as hon. members know, my colleague, the Minister of Finance, has announced that the Government proposes to reimburse the local authorities with a proportion of the cost incurred in the past and 50 per cent. in the future of approved expenditure. The administrative side has fallen on the local authority generally, and in places such as Cape Town, the Witwatersrand, Durban and Pretoria, an officer commanding the Civilian Guard is appointed and he takes charge of the guard and arranges their duty. They are available at all times, and have assisted the police on many occasions. The reason for the large increase is that the enrolment of the Civilian Guard increased beyond what was anticipated, there was a large increase during the year as the result of appeals made to the public, and this has accounted for the extra amount. I can assure the hon. member for Humansdorp that there has been no missing millions.

No, no missing millions, missing South Africans.

Missing millions of South Africans! The hon. member rather suggested that we might have made some discoveries of these people on some lonely island. I can assure him that is not so, however interesting that would have been. The reason for this increase is simply this. This amount of £18,000 represents the total advances to distressed South Africans outstanding as at April 1st, 1942, and advances made during the current financial year. Up till now the practice has been to keep a suspense account in the Department of the Interior. Amounts have from time to time been advanced to South Africans overseas who found themselves in distress, on condition that the amount should be repaid when the persons in question returned to South Africa and were in a position to do so. The amount of the advances has been debited to the suspense account, but the Treasury has felt that that is not perhaps the best method of accounting and it has now ruled that all amounts outstanding have to be brought forward in an item on the Vote. The result is that this represents amounts which have been paid out in advances over a number of years. In order to regularise the position, from an accounting point of view, it is now brought up in a single item. The hon. member for Moorreesburg (Mr. Erasmus) has asked a number of points in regard to internees. Clothing is provided where necessary for internees, ordinary civilian clothing, not distinctive uniforms. The extra amount is due to the fact that there was an underestimate of the amount required—it is very difficult to estimate these matters—and it has been found necessary to have this additional amount. Then with regard to the allowance, those allowances have been paid since the institution of internment camps. The distribution of these payments falls under the Department of Social Welfare, but the Department of the Interior bears the cost. The Department of Social Welfare goes into each individual case, and where a need is made out, payment is made to the wives or the children of internees.

Can you give us about what is the maximum?

The maximum in the case of a wife is £3 10s. per month, and there is an allowance for each child, making the maximum paid to any family £9. This is in accordance with the scale paid out to necessitous Union nationals. It is felt, Mr. Chairman, the Government does not wish to penalise relatives and families of persons who are interned, and it was felt right and proper that where a needy case was made out, assistance should be given.

Are Union nationals similarly treated?

Yes, they are all treated in the same way. Then the additional amount for registration expenses is due to the fact that the supplementary registration of voters period which began in October 1942 and terminated at the end of January 1943 took on greater proportions than was originally anticipated and more staff was required than was expected. We are abandoning the biennial registration, and I shall deal with that more fully when introducing the relevant Bill, but I may inform the hon. member who put the question that the increase is due primarily to want of staff. A full registration requires a vast army of canvassers who have to go about the towns and the platteland distributing forms, something like 2,000,000 forms, I think, have to be dealt with. These forms have to be distributed, and a great deal of travelling has to take place, and in these days of petrol shortage, tyre difficulties and shortage of staff, it is quite impracticable to hold the biennial registration.

It may be necessary, in view of the Election.

We are considering the Vote for 1942—’43.

What about an Election this year?

I know that is agitating the minds of hon. members opposite.

We are begging you to have one.

We are straining at the leash.

No doubt you would like it as quickly as possible to get the operation over!

Will you have enough staff for an Election?

Well, that is a matter that will have to be gone into very carefully! So far as voters lists are concerned, I agree with my hon. friend that it is desirable in the interests of voters and the various political parties, that the lists should be prepared as soon as possible.

You are supposed to have that before July.

The date I gave was July or August. If it is at all possible to have it before that, I shall arrange for it, but we are entirely dependent on staff. Hon. members possibly have little conception of the difficulty of getting staff in these days, typists, temporary clerks and so on. There is tremendous difficulty, but I can give my friend the assurance that the printing of the lists will be expedited as far as possible.

The Minister raised a point on which I should like to have a little more information. He said that an allowance was paid to the wives or dependants of internees, and that those allowances were on a scale of £3 10s. per month for the wife of the internee or his dependants, and that further allowances were paid in respect of every child up to a maximum of £9 per month. It will be realised that many of those people who have been interned are not well to do—they are people who were entirely dependent on their salaries, and many of their wives and dependants today are not getting more than £3 10s. per month.

Whose fault is that?

I think it would be a very good thing if the rule were made laying it down that frivolousness should be one of the grounds disallowing a person from being elected to Parliament. The hon. the Minister will agree with me that it is quite impossible for many of the wives of the internees—many of whom were accustomed to a fairly high standard of living—to come out on £3 10s. per month. The Minister is familiar with cases which I myself have brought to his notice. There are cases of men who used to earn £30 per month. Those men are now in the internment camp and their wives are only getting £3 10s. per month. The large majority of those women are not able to take on any other work. They have not got the training or the skill to do other work. Many of them can get work as housekeepers—they are not able to do any other class of work. It is very difficult for them to do this type of work because they haven’t come from that class of people, but they are willing to undertake such employment, so as to make a living. But now the Department says that anything those people earn, if they take up employment, must, first of all, be deducted from the £3 10s., which means that should one of those women get employment where she earns £3 10s. per month, then she does not get this allowance of £3 10s. As I have said, many of those ladies have not been trained to do any class of professional work, and the only positions they are able to take up are to go into the homes of friends who are willing to take them in and to allow them to work there at a comparatively small salary, and this makes it impossible for those people to get work in order to improve their positions. It seems to me that we are animated by a spirit of persecution. These people are suffering great hardships. Why should not the Government pay them £3 10s. per month, and at the same time allow them to take employment with people who are willing to employ them, so as to enable them to improve their positions? It is quite impossible for a lady who has been accustomed to a decent standard of living to pay board and lodging out of £3 10s. per month. Give these women an opportunity to work. Let the Government fix a maximum if they like, but let these people be given the opportunity of leading a decent life.

The position is very much worse than represented by the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer). There are wives of men who have been interned who are getting £3 10s. per month. If they have let their husbands know that they were suffering severe hardships, that they had had to undergo medical treatment, or that they had had to undergo dental treatment, and that they had to pay a large account of £10 or £12, and the husband had saved 1s. per day for twelve months and sent that money to the wife, the police came along and stopped the payment to the wife for so many months. This is a persecution mania, from which the country is suffering today, and I only want to draw the Minister’s attention to one thing, namely, this, that thousands and thousands of our young men are prisoners of war in other countries today—probably there are more of them than the prisoners that we have here. I should like the Minister to find out from his colleagues who know more about it than he does what is going on in other countries, and how these people are being treated in other countries. What is the Red Cross report in regard to the treatment of those people? I want to ask the Minister in a time when feelings run high, when soldiers are being killed, but when in other countries a number of our people are under enemy rule and authority, we should treat the subjects of those other countries in such a way that there are no repercussions against our own people afterwards. We should have a feeling of decency here, so that these people who are in this country under very difficult conditions may be assisted by us. Some of our men are prisoners of war in Italy—probably more of our people are prisoners of war there than we have internees here. I wonder whether the Minister has ever seen any of the letters from men who were captured at Tobruk? Has the Minister ever seen those letters, and has he ever heard of the treatment the men are receiving in Italy? I have seen those letters.

Is their treatment good or bad? What do they write about?

They write about the treatment they get there.

The soldiers?

Yes, the soldiers. I say that we should not display a persecution mania against these people who are interned here. Those people who are outside, outside the camps, are perhaps suffering greater hardships than those who are interned. The Government thought it best not to intern women. Let us be a little more liberal towards those people. Surely it is cheaper to pay these allowances than to put those people into camps? Don’t let us pinch a little bit off these allowances. When a man has saved a few shillings to send to his wife—

The hon. member is going very far now. I want to ask the hon. member to return to the reasons for the increased expenditure.

Well, the Minister has answered this, and I shall leave it at that. I hope he will see to it that these people’s allowances are not interfered with again.

I should like to have some explanation from the Minister about item M (e) (4), Rations and Fuel, Internees. There is an increase on this vote of £46,800. Now, I should like to know what this improvement in rations and fuel is? I should like to have some explanation of this increase?

A short while ago I received a letter from a lady whose husband has been interned. I shall give the man’s name to the Minister afterwards. This letter comes from a lady who is apparently well bred, judging from the letter. She says that she gets £3 10s. per month for herself and £3 10s. for her children. She states that her one child is at the high school and the other child is with her. Consequently, she has to have a house. She points out that £7 per month is scarcely enough to pay the house rent. She tells me that her husband has been at the camp at Koffiefontein for the last seven months without ever having been tried.

Shame!

I shall give the Minister the name later, I don’t know these people at all.

What is the point?

The point is this, that this man is in the internment camp at Koffiefontein for seven months without ever having been tried.

That has nothing to do with this vote.

Does this allowance of £7 come under the Minister?

Yes.

This lady says that she is not even in a position to go to the camp to visit her husband because she has two children and she cannot afford it. I shall give the Minister the name later.

Under this item, Rations for Internees, I want to ask the Minister whether his attention has lately been drawn to the quality of meat which the internees are getting. I am now referring particularly to the position at Koffiefontein. The Minister himself went to investigate the position at Koffiefontein. There is a general complaint among the internees so far as the meat is concerned and they complain that the meat is very poor. I can assure the Minister that the internees at Koffiefontein greatly appreciated the meat which was sent them by the Organisation which waited on him. That meat was sent to them during the Christmas celebration, and they said that at least once a year they had decent meat. I want to ask the Minister why these people are not supplied with good meat? Why must we get these complaints about the meat being of such poor quality? I should like to know whether this is due to the fact that the Government is trying to reduce the expense by buying a poor quality of meat? It is generally known in the neighbourhood that a market has practically been established for that class of meat. I openly admit that I went to see a number of people at Koffiefontein, and that that is the complaint which they have. They complain that they get too few vegetables, but their main complaint is that the quality of the meat is very poor. They say that the bread they get is reasonably good, but they object to the quality of the meat. I should like to know whether the Minister will go into the question and whether he will enquire whether the position cannot be improved. Now, there is another matter. The Minister said that the internees were supplied with civilian clothes. I do not know whether the Minister has been correctly informed on that point. The internees are supplied with one type of clothing. They are supplied with trousers and shirts. The trousers, however, are all of the same type. They immediately create the impression that this is a prison camp—the fact of the trousers and the shirt being exactly the same immediately creates that impression. That does not accord with the Minister’s statement that the internees are supplied with civilian clothes. I think that what we regard as civilian clothes is that people do not all wear the same uniform type. It would be just as well if those people were supplied with civilian clothes. I do not believe it would cost any more and it would comply with the Minister’s statement that they were given civilian clothes and not clothes which can be described as a uniform.

There is evidently some misunderstanding on this question of allowances. May I just emphasise this point, that I think South Africa is the only belligerent country in the world today which pays an allowance to the dependants of civilian internees. The Union Government is making relief payments to Union Nationals in enemy occupied territory. We are looking after our own Nationals in such circumstances. I have seen reports in connection with other internment camps, I have seen reports in connection with prisoner of war camps, and I do not recollect on any occasion having heard of payments being made to dependants of internees. The Union Government makes these payments because it does not want to penalise innocent persons. It makes these payments on the same basis as the necessitous Union Nationals are paid. The Administration does not fall under the Department of the Interior, but under the Minister of Social Welfare, and I shall draw the notice of that department to the matters raised this afternoon by the hon. member for Humansdorp (Mr. Sauer) and Graaff-Reinet (Dr. Bremer). I have no knowledge of these means tests having been applied. It was suggested in one case that an internee had saved up 12s. and had sent it to his wife, and that this 12s. was deducted from the woman’s allowance afterwards. I can hardly credit it. No such complaints have certainly been made to me, and this is the first time I have heard of anything of the kind.

Will you refund the allowances to these people.

I have no knowledge of such deductions having been made, but I shall have the remarks made by hon. members passed on to the Department of Social Welfare for their consideration. Nor have I had any complaints made to me, and as far as I am aware they have not been made to the Director of Internment Camps in regard to the quality of meat at Koffiefontein or at other camps. I have inspected these camps from time to time, and have spoken to camp representatives, but I have never heard any complaint about the meat. It may be that individual internees have complained to the hon. member and if he will give me the details I shall look into the matter. Now, the hon. member has also complained that what these people wear are not civilian clothes but uniforms—because they are all of the same kind. Well, they are not uniforms, but the stuff is bought in bulk. It is not a uniform in the sense that we understand a uniform. It is not a prison or military uniform. It is uniform clothing, in the sense that all the clothing is alike. I am afraid that it is impossible to meet the susceptibilities of these people. It is impossible to set up various designs.

Is it so, that it is of very inferior quality?

I have no knowledge of that.

I should like to see you people on the other side in that uniform.

I should like to see you in it.

Some of my hon. friends over there have had their opportunity certainly of wearing it.

I asked the Minister what kind of work the internees did and what the allowance is which they got. I should like a reply?

They get an allowance of 1s. per day. They are not compelled to do any work; they play and read and work as they want to: But the work they do is light work.

We have a Vote here, “Pay for work and allowances payable to internees.” Now, this Vote is being increased by £8,000 and I should like to know what the work is and what the allowance is?

The only paid work I can recollect is work done by cooks or chefs. Every internee gets an allowance of 1s. per dag, for which he can buy goods at the dry canteen.

That is not generosity; that is under the International Agreement.

Does the hon. member suggest that 1s. per day does not amount to the total on the Estimate? The total number of internees is about 4,600. That 1s. per day, plus certain allowances for cooks and chefs, will give him that total.

I should like to have some explanation in regard to this vote. We notice an increase of £73,000 here, and I should like to know whether this is only attributable to the increased cost of production, or whether there are many more people in these various institutions?

There is no unusual increase. The number of inmates of mental institutes is more or less constant, but the increases are due to increased costs, rising cost of living, the rise in the cost of transport, etc.

I should like to know from the Minister whether provision has been made to deal with the overcrowding in these institutions and whether in this vote provision is made for more accommodation for the number of patients in our mental institutions.

One of the difficulties there also is the question of staff. We have the institution at Krugersdorp ready for opening, but we are having great difficulty in obtaining the necessary staff and nurses.

I wish to refer to Vote F.6 “Medicines for free issue, Clause 66 (c) of Act 36 of 1919.” I should like to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that in certain areas 80 per cent. to 90 per cent. of the labourers are suffering from venereal disease. Now, the Minister is supplying medicines free of charge, but on the platteland where people live long-distances away from the town it is a matter of absolute impossibility to instruct those coloured people to go to the towns to get their medicines. How are they to get there? And furthermore, the farmers are perhaps unable to get their work done without those people.

I am sorry but the hon. member is entirely out of order. This is merely an increase of amounts already voted and all the hon. member can discuss is the reason for those increases.

I shall like the Minister to use this increase not only to issue free medicines in the towns, but also in the far distant parts of the districts. I should like the Minister to supply medicines to various central points so that they can be distributed from there to the coloured people on the platteland. These free medicines which he supplies to these outlying areas which are far away from a town or a dorp are of no use whatever so far as the platteland is concerned. It is in those parts that 80 per cent. or 90 per cent. of the coloured people are suffering from venereal disease. In respect of “refunds to local boards and administrators and so on” there is an increase of £7,200. We recently saw a statement by the doctors of the Groote Schuur Hospital from which it appeared that the number who died from tuberculosis was 40 per cent. These people simply refused to use the medicines and the result is that those free medicines supplied to the outlying parts far away from the dorps are of no use whatsoever and one gets this terribly high percentage of people suffering from venereal disease—going even as high as 80 per cent. In regard to cases of tuberculosis, the Minister also asks for an additional amount of £7,000. We know that a statement was recently made in connection with Groote Schuur Hospital to the effect that the number of people who died from tuberculosis in that hospital was as high as 40 per cent. Tuberculosis has increased tremendously on the platteland. The Minister comes here and asks for more money for the prevention of tuberculosis, but the amount is quite inadequate. The Minister has all the information. What has become of the promise which he made to Kingwilliamstown that he was going to help the local bodies?

It has been done.

And what has become of the investigation by the Corbett Commission? The authorities on the platteland simply refused to accept responsibility for any case of tuberculosis.

I have allowed the hon. member to put the question but he cannot discuss the matter at length.

I only wanted to show that the money was being misspent, but I shall deal with the matter on some other occasion.

I also want to say a few words about this increase of £3,285. I hope that this money is going to be used in respect of services on the platteland which do not exist today.

The hon. member wants to cover the same ground again, but I stopped the hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. D. du P. Viljoen) from discussing that matter.

May I ask the Minister whether the amount is intended to supply medical services to parts of the country which did not have such services before.

The reason for this increase of £3,285 is that the cost of drugs has increased. These drugs are also issued to district surgeons, who are empowered to use them wherever they think it necessary, not merely in towns, but particularly in the platteland and the outlying districts. If the hon. member for Victoria West (Mr. D. T. du P. Viljoen) has any specific cases which he can bring to my notice where difficulties have arisen, I will enquire into them. But the whole purpose of this vote is to spread the distribution as widely as possible in order to combat venereal diseases. The hon. member also raised the question of tuberculosis. He referred to a Commission, but I am not quite sure whether he is referring to the Corbett Committee. That committee is a fact-finding committee appointed by the Minister of Finance to go into certain questions affecting the financial relations between the Provinces and the Central Government. That committee, I understand, is just about to complete its work, and will shortly be submitting its report. Quite apart from that committee, a small inter-departmental committee sat last year to consider the position of the smaller local authorities, who cannot bear even their 25 per cent. share of the contribution towards the treatment of tuberculosis patients. Consequently, on the recommendation of the committee, the Government has decided to accept liability for an additional amount, as a result of which certain needy local authorities will be relieved of 90 per cent. of their responsibility. It is now ascertained that it is necessary to amend the law to regularise the position, and that will be done during this Session; thereafter certain local authorities may obtain this additional assistance.

I should like to put a question to the Minister of Labour. We have a vote here, C.4, Unemployment, relief funds, where an additional amount of £29,490 is being asked. What is this additional amount wanted for? Is there more unemployment today, despite the fact that thousands of Europeans and nonEuropeans are in military service today? If that is so, then it is most disquieting.

I believe that the public will be astounded if they find that £216,000 has to be voted for unemployment relief.

This is for insurance funds; it is not for unemployment today.

I only want to say that the Minister has the opportunity today of completely eradicating unemployment. The farmers on the farms are very short of labour, and the Minister should give the people who are unemployed today the opportunity, by way of subsidy or otherwise, of filling the vacant posts. Unemployment will be reduced in that way.

The hon. member is entirely out of order; this is an amount for relief funds in connection with unemployment which may arise. The Minister of Finance has stated that the money is for the purpose of increasing the insurance funds against unemployment.

I hope hon. members will allow me to remove what is an entire misapprehension upon which some of their criticism is based. What the hon. member who has just spoken seems to deduce from this is that we are faced with a tremendous number of unemployed, and we have to pay for that unemployment, but that is not so; we are taking advantage of the good times to build up funds against the possible bad times of the future ….

Why don’t you estimate that next year?

We are not asking for the next year, we are going on building up unemployment funds in various industries all the time, and some of this money is due largely to the fact that new funds have been established since the last estimates were framed.

We passed an Act a year or two ago to stimulate that.

It would be well if, before I give the House the list of unemployment benefit funds, I should tell them how these funds have been built up. The workers and employers in the industries concerned have to contribute so much and the State itself contributes 50 per cent., 25 per cent. of which goes to the individual fund concerned and 25 per cent. into a reserve fund to asssist any fund that may be weak in relation to the number of unemployed in that particular industry. That reserve fund at the present time amounts to £1,000,000. We are still contributing to it and some of this money that we are asking the committee to vote will go to build up that fund still further. Let me tell the House what funds there are in existence. We have these operating at the present moment: The motor engineering which goes through the Witwatersrand, Pretoria, Kimberey, Bloemfontein and Durban; mechanical and electrical engineering covers the Witwatersrand, Pretoria, Klerksdorp, Potchefstroom, Middelburg and Vereeniging; coal and coal mining, the Witwatersrand, Heidelberg, Carolina, Ermelo, Middelburg, Witbank, Klerksdorp, Potchefstroom, Ventersdorp and Vereeniging, excluding the Springfield Colliery; the building industry, that is the whole building industry over the Witwatersrand, Pretoria, Witbank, Middelburg, Klerksdorp, Potchefstroom, and the Cape Peninsula; furniture making, the Witwatersrand, Pretoria, Witbank, East London, Kingwilliamstown, George, Knysna, the leather and footwear industry, the whole Union. It may interest hon. members to know that further funds are now being established, and that is why we have constantly to reinforce these funds. Funds for example are now being established in the chemical and allied products, in the clothing and textile manufacture and in the commercial distributive trade. What is want to impress upon hon. members is that we are taking time by the forelock, and this does not reflect a large unemployment state of affairs.

That is something new for you, taking time by the forelock.

I pity poor old Father Time if you pull his forelock!

If I pull my hon. friend’s forelock he will feel it. I hope hon. members will be prepared to support me and the Government generally, and help us to build up this reserve fund against the time when perhaps we may have to meet unemployment.

On this vote there is an item, Diamond Diggings Expenditure, where an additional amount of £700 is asked for. Unfortunately the Minister of Mines is not here. I only want to say that I know that the policy is to issue as few diggers’ licences as possible in order not to increase the number of diggings. Now, I have been dealing with the case of a certain man named Heyns, who was suffering from miners’ phthisis. He used to have a licence, and he applied for a fresh licence, which was refused.

This amount is only for health expenditure. It has nothing to do with the issue of licences.

There is an amount of £10,000 here, which is asked for for district mine development. Is this also in connection with base metals?

Both.

I should like to know then whether the Minister can tell us what progress has been made in the development of base metals, especially in the North-West, and whether money is also being made available here for development?

A great deal has been done in regard to preliminary work, also in the North-West, especially in regard to tungsten, but everything is still in a state of development.

I see here an additional amount of £78,000 for “Departmental Farming”. We already have over-production, and I am concerned at the fact that we are now again asked to vote another £78,000 for the Minister of Lands to produce more commodities, such as potatoes, for instance. We as practical farmers have to pay from 4 per cent. to 6 per cent. interest if we take up any money, but the Government pays very much less, and if this sort of thing goes on it means that we shall be frozen out by the Government. If we were able to obtain at the same rate of interest we would not object so much. Now, I should like to know how many potatoes or other products the Minister has already sold out of the total quantity he has produced. How many of those seed potatoes imported from Europe has he sold so far?

I also wish to say a few words about this large additional amount for farming. I recently put a few questions about the production of potatoes on two settlements, but it is desirable that the Minister should inform us now what is being produced on each of these various settlements. Take, for instance, Pongola. Originally £15,000 was voted for that scheme and now an additional £36,900 is asked for. A total of 43,000 bags of potatoes have been produced there. So far as farm huts are concerned, £26,700 is being asked for now, although nothing had originally been voted for that scheme. £400 is asked for for Oliphants River after no vote had been put down for it in the first instance. For the Orange River Settlement £10,000 is asked, while nothing was voted originally. I think it is desirable that the Minister should tell us what is being produced on the settlements. The Minister of Agriculture recently stated that he had warned us not to produce so many potatoes. I should like to know whether he also warned the Minister of Lands not to produce so much.

I know the Minister. He is fairly sympathetically disposed towards farming and he is very keen on farming himself, so I quite realise his anxiety to go in for farming on a large scale on behalf of the State, but I hope the Minister of Finance will keep him in check. I want to warn the Minister very seriously that the policy he is pursuing now is a dangerous one. At one time perhaps there might have been some justification for his producing commodities on these schemes, when there was a threat of a scarcity of food. But that threat has been pretty-well removed. In the last six months very few convoys have come here and the further the war is shifted up North the fewer convoys are likely to get here. And if the Mediterranean Sea should be opened, no more convoys will come here at all. And now the Minister is entering into competition with the farmers. No farmer can risk competing with the Government. The farmer will get the worst of it. This sort of thing is going to cause the greatest dissatisfaction among the farmers. I should like to know whether the money which the Minister now wants to spend is going to be spent only on the production of goods which can be processed. The Minister should rather produce wheat or mealies which can be stored. But he is producing potatoes and vegetables, and the farmers are unable to compete. The Government has all the facilities. If trucks are required, the Government will get preference. If the Minister has ever got himself into a jam he has done so now. He must not take it amiss if we draw the attention of the platteland to the Government’s action in competing with the farmers, to the detriment of the farmers. We cannot allow the Government to compete against the farmers of the country.

Mr. Chairman, I suppose I should have raised this question on Vote 34. I understand that most of the agricultural colleges have been closed for the duration of the war. I notice that under Vote 37 there is an increase of £78,000 to be voted, and I would like to ask the hon. Minister whether in this amount provision has been made for the training of discharged soldiers in agriculture.

Is there any provision for this in the vote?

No.

I am sorry, the hon. member cannot discuss that now.

The policy indulged in by the Minister of Lands is going a bit too far. Here he is asking for an additional £78,000 in order to enable the Government to compete against the farmers. I should like the Minister to tell us how much the Government has already lost on the Pongola Settlement so far as farming is concerned. We expect the Government to help the farmers and not to compete with them. We know from experience how much these Government enterprises have already cost the State and that being so we feel very uneasy about the position. It constitutes unfair competition.

Under A.4 I notice that the Minister is making provision for the payment of Land Boards and valuators. I should like to know where these people go to make their valuations. Three or four years ago certain valuations were made in connection with the purchase of land. Is the Minister now engaged on having new valuations made, and does he again want to negotiate with the people about the purchase of their land? I imagine that my question is a fair and perfectly clear one. The Minister probably knows what I have in mind.

The hon. member cannot discuss that matter now. He can only put a question to the Minister.

I should like the Minister to refer to it. Certain valuations were made three years ago. Negotiations are proceeding. The Minister eventually came along with certain threats in order to induce those people to give up their rights.

That has nothing to do with this amount.

Then the hon. member cannot discuss it.

I fail to see how the hon. the Minister can say that the work of the Land Board has nothing to do with the increase of this vote.

The hon. member must accept the Minister’s word that there is nothing in relation to this matter on this vote.

Will the Minister be kind enough to tell us then, what this amount of £14,500 is for, and also the amount of £14,700—an increase of £200? It relates to salaries and wages in connection with valuations by the Land Board. I am now discussing valuations by the Land Board.

That is the very thing which the hon. member cannot do. I put the question to the Minister, and he has told me that this increase has nothing to do with it. The hon. member can only put a question to the Minister.

As our money is depreciating in value, and as this sale did not go through after the land had been valued—

I cannot allow the hon. member to discuss this point any further on this vote.

I am trying to put my question clearly, so that the Minister may understand it. In view of the fact that the purchasing value of our money has depreciated, and these valuations were made three years ago, I want to know whether the Minister will now send his Land Board again to make valuations, seeing that our purchasing value has depreciated? The question is perfectly clear, and I should like to have an explicit answer from the Minister. I further notice that the Minister is making provision here for an additional amount of £36,900, and then again for £26,700 for departmental farming. Now, I want to ask the Minister, in view of what he has already started at Vaal-Hartz and Pongola, and with a view to making provision for the needs of the people, and as he himself has said, in view of the fact that his policy is justified—I want to ask him whether he is going to extend that system to other settlements, such as Loskop, for instance? Is he going to extend departmental farming to those settlements? There is another question I want to put. If he is of opinion that the needs of the country render it necessary for the Department to start farming itself in order to meet a real scarcity of food, then I want to ask him why he has cut off the water of those settlers who were producing on their own land, with the result that their products were destroyed on the land? That is my question to the Minister.

I shall deal with the hon. member’s question. I don’t want to go into his remarks about the valuation of land. This £200 has nothing to do with that. This is expenditure in connection with a Committee which was appointed to deal with certain sugar questions in Natal. The Department has made an arrangement under which we are going to enable the settlers to go in for sugar planting. With this object in view a Committee has been appointed to make the necessary arrangements. The Association of sugar producers has three representatives on this Committee; the sugar millers have three, and Mr. Warner, the Chairman of the Natal Land Board is the Chairman. Then there are three officials from my Department. The £200 is needed to cover the expenses of the non-official members when they have to travel to do certain work. It is peculiar that hon. members opposite should attack me so bitterly because of our producing on Government land, while last year they, and particularly the Press of my hon. friends opposite, attacked me on the ground that the Government had large tracts of land under irrigation, on which millions of pounds had been spent and nothing was being produced on that land and no money was being spent on it.

We did not say that the Government should go in for farming there, but that the land should be allocated.

Did we ask the Department to go and farm there?

No, my hon. friends wanted the people who had stopped at home to get that land, so that the soldiers when they return would not have any land available for them.

But then you shouldn’t attribute words to us which we had never used.

I was criticised because the land was lying idle, and now hon. members are jumping about like cats on hot bricks. They wanted me to have allocated the land to people who had stayed at home, to people who are undermining us here, people who are working against all our efforts, and when the soldiers return after the war and apply for land there will be nothing worth while left for them.

And we have been told that you would not discriminate.

I have been sitting here quietly listening to my friends opposite, and I should like to reply if they will give me the opportunity. I always said that while those soldiers were away on active service, and while the war was going on, we were not going to allot those lands. They are citizens of the country and they are entitled to get some of the available land. I decline to issue land in their absence. I am going to hold it until the war is over. Until they can get an equal chance, together with other applicants, for that land. The way in which the land is going to be allocated is this—it will be advertised.

And only the red tabs will get it.

And that hon. member and his Party say that if Germany wins the war, the people will get the land as a present. Let me revert to the question of the over-production of potatoes. There was no such thing as over-production. The trouble was this: that in these days of war there was a terrible shortage of food, shortage of wheat, of mealies, and vegetables, and that is why we used this land in order to produce food. There has been no competition with farmers. I myself am a farmer.

But you are a sheep farmer.

What competition has there been? I shall tell hon. members what quantities of wheat and mealies we have produced. The quantities have been large.